The Gift

Mental imagery can be advantageous, unnecessary and even clinically disruptive, and plays a pivotal role in the nature of what makes us human. From learning to read through visualising letters, to being driven to fear by vivid hallucinations, our imaginations cross multiple key neurobiological and cognitive domains from birth to death.

More recently researchers from the disciplines of neurology, psychiatry, paediatrics and neuroscience have all observed significant correlations between an individual's ability to mentally visualise, be creative and demonstrate a higher than average aptitude for memory recall and elevated intelligence.

However, there is reason to suspect that not all people with vivid imagery see it as a plus. Over the past decade, researchers have found that mental imagery has a powerful influence on our emotions and mental health. Time and again, experimental findings have shown that when healthy volunteers with vivid imaginations are asked to conceive negative scenarios, they report much more intensive feelings of anxiety than those asked to think about the meaning of words in descriptions of the same scenarios.

Investigators looking to understand the neurobiological basis of post traumatic stress have also often cast unfavourable light upon the human ability to imagine, implying that through fictional escape our brains turn to imagination in the face of the unresolvable. Yet at the same time it is our imagination, ideas and creativity that enables us to confront our fears and transform the once bad to good, augmenting our perception.

Children just like adults have big emotions and big ideas, so perhaps the creatures that once lurked under the bed can also drive us forward.