Imagination offers us the opportunity to recreate and remodel our world. It plays an important part in our mental and emotional health. It offers endless opportunities for connection to ourselves, others and our communities. Imaginative play helps relieve stress and improve relationships. Imagination supports knowledge and experience of the world around us. It enables exploration of the unknown. The Imagination Toolkit blends stories of real-life events with the mythical and through this offers a pathway into exploring emotions through narrative and story. ​

​

Imagination is a powerful tool and when active it can help generate ideas that lead to action that can ultimately bring about powerful change. Research has shown that imagination sits in the same part of the brain as memory but the processes operate in different ways. Imagining something can be as vivid as remembering something. Imagination is the ability to form a mental image independently of the senses. However, when imagining something independently we draw on memory of smells, sights, sounds, touch to form our imaginary world. When experiencing nature, the sights, sounds, smells of the seasons all impact on my imaginary thought. We need personal experience to fuel our imagination. Think about a world with no books, or creative activities, like film, drama, dance, art etc. All these everyday things in life would not exist without imagination and what a very different world it would be without them. You just have to watch young children play to see how quickly they learn about the world around them through their imagination. It is imagination that creates hope and change in this world. Without imagination we would lead very different lives.

 

Imagination, however, can also create emotions of helplessness, fear, anger, anxiety and worry which can lead to sadness, overwhelm and depression. Like little seeds in a garden these worries can grow and if unattended these powerful feelings can emerge, become overgrown and take over. This is where story and narrative can support an exploration of these emotions. ​

​

The Imagination Toolkit is our gift to you, to help people with profound and multiple learning disabilities and those that support them to explore their emotions during times they feel challenged by helping them ignite their imagination. This toolkit has been designed to help open the door to a creative exploration of the power of imagination and help everyone to imagine a better life for all.