At a seminar years ago, a speaker asked us to close our eyes and imagine a fresh lemon in our hands. “Smell the light fragrance of lemon as you bring it to your nose,” he began.
We sat still, eyes closed, hands in front of us. To help us capture the moment, he spoke slowly. “Feel the cool, dimpled texture as you hold it. Turn it with your fingers. Now imagine placing it on a wooden cutting board.”
He paused again. “Pick up a knife, and cut into the center. Cut it in half. Listen as you cut. Smell the rush of fragrance as juice sprays in the air.”
He paused another time, letting it sink in. “Now bring half the lemon to your lips,” he said. “Bite into it, deeply. Taste the juice filling your mouth.”
My face puckered. My mouth watered. From the sound in the room, everyone else’s did too.
Why?
The lemon wasn’t real. But we puckered anyway. Or why do our hearts leap when watching a scary movie? It isn’t real. They’re all actors. That blood is fake. We know, but still leap in our seats.
The lemon seminar shows how we respond to vivid imagination as if it were actually happening. Things we vividly imagine feel real.
Brain anatomy helps explain. Researchers have discovered that reality and imagination both feed signals to the same piece of brain. “The region of your brain that is normally activated when you see objects with your eyes,” writes Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, “is also activated when you inspect mental images with your mind’s eye.”1 Research shows that the mind doesn’t distinguish much between what is real and what is vividly imagined.
What’s the point? The way we think impacts the way we feel and act. The first step in getting control of our lives is getting control of our imaginings.
1Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), p. 130; S. M. Kosslyn et al., “The Role of Area 17 in Visual Imagery: Convergent Evidence from PET and rTMS,” Science 284: 167-170 (1999).
