What does it mean to have an active imagination?

Answer 1

to visualize multiple possibilities or answers.

Clearly the author of this answer above ^ has no imagination at all. An active imagination means not only can you see things you imagine very vividly and in great detail, but that sometimes you can manage to convince yourself that they're real in order to escape into a world of your own making for a time. While an active imagination can certainly be used to problem solve in unique problematic scenarios, that is only the beginning of it's power, not it's extent. An active imagination can do many things from helping you come up with fictional and entertaining stories, to helping you figure out how to seat the huge guest list for a wedding in a very small room comfortably. An imagination helps a platoon sergeant form effective tactics against retractable enemies, by imagining different scenarios in his head and playing them out in his head to see if they are viable. An imagination helps a mom figure out new meal ideas for her family that will still fit within the food budget. An active imagination is always stretching the limits of what is considered acceptable, by playing out what would happen in their minds, to see if it is really an acceptable limit, or if it's just never been done before. Some people don't like things to change, they like routine, they prefer the known to the unkown, but it is those with active imaginations that challenge the status quo all the time and bring innovation and new advancements and developments into our lives.