How many times have you told yourself, "It's just your imagination"? How many times, particularly when you were young, were you told, "It was just your imagination"? Have you ever told anyone, when they confided an experience to you, "It was just your imagination"?
Firstly, "imagination," is probably the most underrated of our phenomenal human abilities, secondly, the label "imagination," is applied when something that is not understood has been experienced. Through the application of this statement, along with, "it was just a coincidence," we have been convinced to ignore and dismiss a tremendous amount of information and awareness' coming our way by way of our senses.
Young people, who are still sensitive to finer vibrational energies, are conditioned to sensor much that they experience, and generally stop having them. If they continue to experience unacceptable awareness', they quickly learn to stop talking about them. How many children have "invisible" playmates? How many mothers have set an extra place at the table to accommodate such playmates? As children grow older, these playmates are left in the past/forgotten.
In the '60s "brain waves" were discovered; the first was labeled, "Alpha Brain Waves." They were discovered through the investigation of what happens when people meditate, as well as the study of Eastern Yogis. Until the '60s, the tales brought back about the Eastern Yogis' abilities were brushed off by the Western World as "mere trickery." What some brave Western Scientists discovered through that research was that, when doing meditation, the individuals' and the Yogis' brains were giving off a previously-unknown type of "brain wave."
(While some of you may be going, "ho-hum" about now, hang in with me here, because I am building up to a major point. This information, while a major discovery when first discovered, over fifty-years ago, over the last half-century has been accepted by the mainstream scientific world. So why am I going over it again? Please read on to find out.)
The scientists' curiosity was peaked; further research revealed that the human brain gave off different waves when the individual was in different states of consciousness: when wide-awake and functioning in a normal manner, the second to be discovered, was named, "Beta"; further research revealed that the human brain also gave off different waves when asleep, which they then named, "Theta" for light sleep, and, "Delta" for deep, dreaming sleep states.
Something that is not well-known is that later research found that young children's' brains, when they are newborn to approximately two-years old, give off Delta brain waves; from two- to approximately four-years old, their brains give off Theta brain waves; from age four- to six-years old they give off Alpha brain waves; it is not until approximately six- to seven-years old that a child's brain is giving off what is considered "normal" waking state brain waves.
This means that your infant child is in the-equivalent-of a deep meditative state, which even the most accomplished meditators and Yogis do not achieve, because they fall asleep. (The human brain can be entrained to remain awake at those deep levels, however, it is not believed to occur during normal meditation.) Even as a child grows older, he/she is in a state equivalent to very deep meditation.
Research into the so-called, "paranormal" has found that the kinds of experiences children and adults, when in an altered state, frequently experience are the kinds of things which, when experienced unexpectedly, are brushed off as, "just your imagination." (Also, as an aside, when in a hypnotized state of consciousness, individuals are able to demonstrate superhuman, as well as psychic, abilities)
We adult humans have become a strange lot; because of intended conditioning/Indoctrination, we believe that everyone else in the world experiences our world in exactly the same way as we do. Young children, about the time they begin to talk, discover that not everyone experiences what they are experiencing, by the shock they elicit by talking about those experiences, or memories. Depending upon the reactions of the adults in their world, the child will either continue to share his/her experiences, or he/she will stop talking about them, and, because of the above-indicated changes in their brain waves as they grow older, will stop having them altogether.
As indicated previously, our imaginations are actually one of what I now call the, "human superpowers." However, we have been convinced that an imagination may be useful, if we are creative or inventive, but, nothing more than helpful in coming up with new ideas. Otherwise, we have been Programmed from our earliest years, by the adults in our world, and later, through the Educational System, Indoctrinated to ignore anything not accepted as, "Scientific." If one does have fleeting experiences which do not fit in to that System, they are passed off as, if not a product of one's imagination, the result of either coincidence or trickery/illusion, and forgotten.
My self-educational background has been in learning, and writing about, why people do what they do. My educational background includes the study of established Belief Systems in the field of Psychology, ranging from Freudian theory through Abraham Maslow's work on fully-functioning individuals, as well as Art. My BA is in Human Services, and my Masters is in Art Therapy--MA-AT.
In the 1970's I wrote a manuscript, (unpublished) called: You in the Process of Becoming; A Guide to the Self. In it I outlined a systems approach to understanding human behavioral dis-functioning. My current writing and thinking is an outgrowth of the understanding that, if an individual wishes to be able to think, "critically," i.e., originally, clearly and without contamination from Consensus Belief Systems, it is essential for that individual to thoroughly understand their own underlying Belief System.
This approach can be used in understanding an individual's problems in dealing with everyday situations and problems in relationships. In discovering how one's underlying beliefs shape personal behavior, and examining where those beliefs came from, can do much to change the resultant behavior.
You can access my blog at http://www.ruminationsonresponsibilities.blogspot.com/