Inspect Your Imagination

A mindfulness practice to increase creativity

Nothing Serious

Nov 09, 2025

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How often do you analyse your imagination?

Let’s begin with a brief exercise. Close your eyes and picture a chair. Do this for a few moments, and then return.

Now, think about what chair came to mind. What was its colour? Its shape? Its texture? Some chair-like object just popped into your mind, seeming fully formed. But you didn’t build it piece by piece, or labor over the details, if any. You just summoned it, instantly. But how? And from where? Who made these intricate decisions? Were they even there before you thought to look?

Now go further. Think about the location of this chair. Was it floating in blank space or situated in a room? And how did it arrive? Did it suddenly appear, or was it there already when you closed your eyes?

These kinds of questions force us to pay close attention to the nature of our mind. When we search for the designer of these imaginations, we struggle to find anything. It is us, but it’s also not. We’re observing what our own mind is serving us. We’re separate from those impulses, whether they be creative or destructive.

This week, practice this exercise again, but this time with a thought. Close your eyes and analyse the thought just like the chair. View it as an object. Be indifferent toward it. Simply observe its details. Then open your eyes and watch it vanish.

Notice what shifts.