Day 303: Reality is a Construct of the Imagination

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill writes has this to say:

The imagination is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man. The impulse, the desire, is given shape, form, and action through the aid of the imaginative faculty of the mind.

It has been said that man can create anything which he can imagine.

Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, p 70

Abraham-Hicks says this:

If you have the ability to imagine it, or even to think about it, this Universe has the ability and the resources to deliver it fully unto you, for this Universe is like a well-stocked kitchen with every ingredient imaginable at your disposal.

Ask and It is Given, by Esther and Jerry Hicks, p 81

Of course, both of these quotes pertain to the Imagination (yes, I think it deserves to be capitalized). Sure, we probably all know, generally, that Imagination is a powerful force, as the quotes both suggest. But do you know just how extraordinary the power of your Imagination is?

This morning, I was writing to release some negative thinking. I had held onto certain negative beliefs for years (recently I have spent many an hour and copious pages digging for such things). Suddenly it hit me: I had literally made this stuff up. It was all in my Imagination!

And I realize, our Imaginations literally think up things, entire belief systems, and realities, which we then treat as real. They are fantasies of the mind, and they create this very real-seeming thing we call reality!

Indeed, Chris, it could be said that your entire life is a product of your Imagination. Are you joyful? Are you at ease? Do you love your life? If you aren’t these things, then where does that begin? Does it begin outside of you? After all, if the Law of Attraction is real, then it starts with your thoughts. And don’t your thoughts lie in the Imagination?

Um, I don’t really know. Do they? I thought that thoughts were “real” and that the Imagination is “imaginary.” Lol. But it does seem to be a fine line between the two at a certain point.

Indeed it is! Yet where does what is real begin, and where does what is imaginary end? Is electricity real? Would it be real to a 17th century sailor? Maybe not. Then again, is a 17th Century Sailor real to you, as you read this? Or is it just a thought, an idea? An imaginary idea perhaps?

Well, the 17th century existed a long time ago, and there were sailors then. So that was real. And now, I guess it is not “real” in the real-flesh-and-blood sense, but it exists as a written down memory of sorts, as a historical fact. That makes it real, and not imaginary!

Okay, so it does. But then what defines something that only exists in the minds of people, in this case in written histories and stories of the 17th Century, as being any different, vibrationally speaking, from something that is imaginary? If both a dragon and a 17th Century Sailor exist but in thought alone, and not in present-day “reality,” how is one more real than the other?

Hmm. I think the difference is that people collectively believe that one is real while the other is imaginary. Yet ’tis an interesting conundrum. I like it! Maybe in a sense the imaginary and the “real” aren’t so different. But what about the real things that we can see and feel and touch in this here and now reality? Aren’t those things more real than, say, someone who existed hundreds of years ago, or a fantastical dragon? I mean, you can walk out on the street and see real concrete. That’s real!

But how is it any more real than the fantastical dragon? Because you can feel it? Because you can walk on it? If that is the case, was it always real, even when it was just an idea, when there was no concrete on any streets anywhere? Was it real then? If it is demonstrably real now, what is it that made it real? Where did it start?

I think you are trying to say, it started in the imagination of someone who wanted to pave our streets with concrete 😉

Exactly! Because the imagination is where it all starts! In fact, it all continues to be in the imagination! For the idea of concrete is but an idea because you think it is! And because many people think it is. Yet if a living being did not know of such a thing as concrete, did not believe in it, it wouldn’t exist.

But wouldn’t it still be hard to that being? Wouldn’t it still be solid?

Not if that being didn’t think it was solid.

Hmm. Okay, I will take your word for it I guess. That does sound a little bit um, like magical thinking or what people might call far-fetched.

People once thought the world was round. People thought that woman weren’t smart enough to be lawyers or to vote. People thought that people would never fly. People thought that cars wouldn’t overtake the horse and buggy. Many things that people never believed have come true. And why is that? Because of the Imaginations of those who believed and then made it “so.” They made it reality. And eventually, the world came along with it, and adjusted its view of reality.

That is why you are able to type into a computer and instantly send this blog post out to the rest of the world, theoretically, to read. This was not possible a few short decades ago because not enough people believed it was “real.”

Reality is a construct of the Imagination. When enough people agree that something is real, it is. Yet what other than that opinion makes it so? Is it possible that the things you believe are real or not any more real than the things you think are imaginary?

Holy moly. You’re blowing my mind here! But still, I wonder, I mean, if a deer runs across the pavement, that deer doesn’t know what concrete is, that deer doesn’t have the idea of concrete in its head. And yet, the concrete is still hard, still solid for the deer. I don’t understand what you are saying exactly.

Well, the deer experiences the concrete as solid, because the deer already follows the agreement reality of this Earth, with its solids and liquids and gases, and it flows easily along with the various states that matter possesses.

Okay, I get that. So the deer isn’t capable (?) of having a belief that the concrete is not solid, so it always is solid for the deer?

Sort of. The concrete is always solid for the deer because it obeys normal laws of physics and heat that make the concrete solid, as long as it doesn’t reach a certain temperature. Yet even the deer, were it to operate with a strong enough intention and faith, it could suddenly interact with that concrete as if it were liquid, or gas, or some other state of matter.

Hmm. Okay, what you are saying does sound a little bit, um, nutso, I guess. Here I am talking as if I understand metaphysical quantum physics or something.

You do. If you allow yourself to receive the knowledge. It is available to you.

Okay, I generally agree with that. Yet still, this conversation seems a little bit nuts. I’m not really sure anybody is going to find this credible or interesting. It’s a little bit “out there.”

As every truly great conversation is.

Ha! Okay, good point. Yet I am just typing some things up on a computer. I’m not going so far as to say this is a “truly great conversation,” although I am certainly enjoying it 🙂

And that certainly is enough! Enjoyment and greatness are not far off.

Ha. Again, good point!