Hello Bob, Carmine here,

Imagine that! A thread on imagination, it makes me think of post life progression, why go backwards when you only get more of the same? It's kinda like the stuff I hear about deep rooted problems, I guess I could imagine they are really there. Or are they just the figment of one's imagination. But they seem real enough!!! Yeah, and so did some of my past sexual fantasies, I say past because I have, well, er, I'll save that for another discussion.

This subject brings to mind an experience I once had the good fortune to be a part of, or so it seemed. I was in good old Miami, Florida, showing up for a presentation before a mixed group that consisted of MD's, nurses and psychotherapists. The content was around the notion of hypnosis in general, with the specific parts being centered around the idea of rapid change.

I was there by invitation, and when I showed up I was informed, by the head honcho, that what I did really didn't work. Now, there was an over-active imagination if I had ever saw one! This man had no clue of what I did or did not do. How could he, we had never met before? What he did have was a very powerful imagination. So my question to you, is not whether or not we use our imaginations, but how are we choosing to use them?

Last week, or was it the week before? No matter. I was visiting another local NLP trainer who was offering a free "what is NLP" evening. I will leave her nameless to protect the innocent. Well anyway, she was at a point in her presentation that went into the notion of timelines. She went about a process of eliciting everybody's timeline, but what she more closely did was to install her own representation of time in most everybody there. She went around the room, from person to person, seeing if the participants had learned how to elicit their (her) own timeline. When she got to me, she asked, "Where is your timeline?" My reply was, "Which one?"

I went on explaining to her that I had many different timelines. Some I made up as I went along. I had one that I often used when I wanted to motivate myself to complete a mundane task. This time line extended out directly in front of me, and had a magnet that pulled me forward. And behind the magnet is an enjoyable reward. I had one that I used when contemplating things of the spiritual nature, this one I projected in one big circular never ending loop. Then there was the one I projected when I was teaching a class, or working with a client. This one wasn't a line, it was more akin to the inside of a soccer ball. This one was a holographic four dimensional representation that was all around me. And when using it I had immediate access to every experience I had ever had, all laid out 360 degrees around me. Talk about experiencing choices! Then I added, none of them are real, they are just useful imaginary ways of contextually organizing my internal world.

You should have seen the look on her face. What I was saying didn't fit the "rule" book. But then again, the rule book is just a figment of the process of imagination that belonged to the person who wrote it. Subjective experience is that which we imagine, even though we base some of what we imagine on what we perceived, or continue percieving going on around us. But, perhaps at times, we take the process a bit too far. As we often mistake that which is of the imagination as something that resembles reality. I will be bold here and say to you, if we didn't have an imagination, well -- we simply wouldn't be.

Be well my friend,

Carmine