Imagination And Why Reading Makes You More Creative

We keep reading because the writer has managed to engage our imagination. In short, reading has stimulated our imagination to create a new world in our mind.

Reading Improves Your Creativity

If you were an explorer you would learn about the world and its diversity through direct experience. You would walk narrow alleys in foreign countries, sail the great seas, scale great desert sand dunes or sip mint tea in a Middle Eastern courtyard.

This exploration would broaden your mind, develop your imagination and boost creativity and change your worldview forever.  If you could ‘see’ these places or imagine what it would feel like, that is your imagination working.

But (unfortunately) we can’t all take to the high road and disappear into the sunset for these experiences.

But we can discover new worlds through reading books. Reading a book uses the imagination and this in turn develops our creativity.

Of course, the key to developing your imagination when reading a book, is the level of interest you have in the content. The more you are totally absorbed in a book, the more it will stimulate your imagination and help your creativity.

Reading Improves Brain Function

In order to write a book, especially fiction, the writer must use their imagination. They give their creativity and imagination free rein to conjure up magical stories for readers to enjoy.

And we get the best possible creative benefits from their writing when we use our own imagination to interpret what we read.

In fact, research has shown that reading is key to boosting our own mental capacity and creativity.

Neuroscientists at Emory University found that reading a novel improves brain function. They detected what may be biological traces, actual changes in the brain that linger, at least for a few days, after reading a novel.  The study titled, “Short- and Long-Term Effects of a Novel on Connectivity in the Brain” was published in the journal Brain Connectivity.

The researchers found that regular reading enhances brain connectivity and improves brain function. In fact brain activity varied with the peaks and troughs of the story, giving credence to the saying “reading exercises the brain”.

Reading Improves Emphathy

The study also found that reading fiction improves one’s ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. Which is an act of imagination called empathy. When you put yourself mentally in a character’s shoes and imagine what life must be like for them, suddenly your world has become bigger. And so your brain biology and your empathy skills benefit from reading.

Imagination has got mankind where it is today. Our technological progress is a direct result of people who have imagined bigger and better solutions to common problems. People have imagined and created novel inventions and discoveries.

From rockets that can pierce the skies to the Velcro that you use to fasten your sneakers, each invention was born from someones imagination.

Just imagine, without human imagination, we would probably still be living in caves.  We would have no internet, no trains or cars, no kettles to boil water, no taps to turn on for water. Can you imagine that?

Thing is, imagination is the key to human progress and imagination is a function of our brain.  When a creative person writes down their ideas for us to read, that reading improves our imagination and makes us more creative too.

If you want more proof that reading helps creativity, look no further than the world famous entrepreneur Elon Musk. Musk is a modern-day example of an avid reader who has come up with creative solutions to a number of problems facing modern society.

Elon Musk has admitted to reading up to 10 hours of science fiction per day. His reading covered such diverse subjects such as fiction, philosophy, religion, programming, biographies of scientists as well as physics, engineering, product design, business, technology and energy.

You can be sure that reading all those books and employing his imagination is how reading helped develop his creativity and sowed the seeds for the four diverse tech companies that Musk heads today.

So reading uses your imagination.  Through using your imagination, reading makes you more creative and innovative.  Try some reading today.