Avoid distractions like computer/video games, the internet, a movie, etc. Your brain won’t be taking its much needed time-out if you’re constantly plugged into distractions. Good times to daydream are in the morning right before you have to get up, or at bedtime before you fall asleep. Taking a walk, without any distractions like your phone or music, also fosters daydreaming.
Additionally, you can improve your episodic memory by memorising clips of films, then attempting to replay the film in your head as you close your eyes: walking around your local neighbourhood, you can apply the same techniques as you attempt to memorise what you see.
You don’t have to go halfway across the world to try out a new experience. Instead, look around your community. You could take a free class, or go to a lecture. You could try learning something like scrapbooking, or gardening, or simply checking out a part of town you haven’t yet explored.
You could do any kind of art from writing poetry, to doing pottery, to building. Remember, you don’t have to be amazing at the art. This is about fostering your imagination, not making you a world-class painter.
People, especially children growing up now, are being turned into consumers, not creators. They’re being fed pictures and images and vision that someone else has created and presented for them. This means, limit your consumption of media: don’t immediately turn on the t. v. or computer when you’re feeling bored. Take a moment of quiet time for yourself and practice letting your imagination loose.
One problem that most people have is “functional fixity” or the way your brain can only come up with the function of an object as the one for which it was designed (for instance a pair of pliers). In an experiment, people were told to get a rope that was hanging from the ceiling to touch two opposite walls. The only other item in the room was a pair of pliers. Most people did not come up with the solution: tie the pliers to the rope and use that as a weight to swing the rope between the walls. Practice coming up with alternate uses for objects around your home. When confronted with obstacles, let your imagination try out some of the wackier possibilities to see what might actually work. Remember, just because something is intended for one purpose, does not mean that it can’t be used for others.
Ask yourself how you would approach the problem if it were impossible to fail. Consider if you might try a riskier solution if there were no consequences. Ask yourself what you would do first if you had access to any resources you needed to approach the problem. Ask yourself who would you approach to help you solve your problem if you could ask anyone in the world. Answering these questions will free your mind from the possibility of failure, which in turn will open up the potential solutions from your imagination. Not every solution you come up with in this manner is going to be feasible, but you will improve your imagination capabilities and you’ll be surprised by the solutions that you do come up with.
The more specific and detailed your visualization, the more successful you’ll be at achieving it and not getting stopped by the possibility of failure.
