How Imagination and Play Move Us Forward

A glance at the research on the power of imagination and play, plus some quotations.

Craig Chalquist
 Chalquist.com
 2026

One of the hardest things to convince the working West of, and increasingly other parts of the world as well, is that some activities are inherently worth doing: fun, enjoyable, pleasing, enriching. If an action produces no tangible result, we tend to write it off as impractical. Were we to think otherwise, how long would we keep shouldering the jobs we hate?

Instead of pushing back on this “bottom line” rejection of the happy ease that is our birthright, what follows makes a pragmatic case for the adult uses of both imagination and play. Although we usually think of those as either distraction or entertainment, they can found our efforts toward resilience, repair, and renewal during turbulent times. They also make life worth living.

The first section below will offer examples of research studies on the reach, power, and efficacy of imagination. The second section does the same for adult play. The third comments on what all this means for making change in the world and in ourselves. The fourth pulls together some quotations on imagination and the need for play.

Studies on Imagination

What is imagination? According to Merriam-Webster, it is “the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality” (Definition 1). And what is an image? M-W says: A visual representation or mental picture.

These definitions are faulty for a number of reasons, one obvious one being that they fail to address blindness. Clearly, even if you’ve never perceived anything visually you still possess imagination. Everyone does. Definition 2 of “image” allows for “mental conception” and “impression.” Another definition includes “ideas.” We might be better served to consider imagination an internally rich storying of something not physically present, even when elements of it are. We imagine when we take our consciousness beyond the given.

It’s not easy to study a wide-ranging capacity that refuses to be pinned down or confined to laboratories. That we could in any complete way is itself a product of imagination: namely, a fantasy. Most studies focus on creativity rather than imagination, although the first requires the presence of the second.

Even so, some researchers have tried, with interesting results. For example:

Learned articles of interest include:

To finish this section I will refer to other relevant findings and skip the citations:

Research on Adult Play

What is play? Going to Merriam-Webster again, we scroll down past the sports definitions to find “recreational activity, especially the spontaneous activity of children.” Evidently, the compiler of this definition didn’t get out enough. Who says play is mainly for children?

Play is something we do for fun. Imagination is often a form of play. Most, if not all, play involves imaginative activity. The fun part is essential. Play is intrinsically enjoyable. Every child knows how, whether born into privilege or poverty. All primates play; it’s just more obvious in the younger ones.

According to the According to the National Institute for Play , “A huge amount of existing scientific research — from neurophysiology, developmental and cognitive psychology, to animal play behavior, and evolutionary and molecular biology – contains rich data on play. The existing research describes patterns and states of play and explains how play shapes our brains, creates our competencies, and ballasts our emotions.”

Turning now to some of the science:

Articles of interest include:

“Play Doesn’t End With Childhood: Why Adults Need Recess Too” by Sami Yenigun.

“Playing as Adults Is Beneficial for Our Mental Health and Well-being” by Onah Caleb.

The TED talk by Stuart Brown on “Play is More Than Fun”is worth watching.

Adult play can also:

Implications for Playfully Imagining Our Way Forward

Imagination is no mental whim. Tied to remembrance, embodied and agentic, it actively draws forth the neural and situational resources it needs to create, sort, and integrate visions of possible futures. It also enables empathy, creativity, originality, planning, stress management, coping with threats, and motivation, pulling us forward in anticipation and linking to learning and carrying out tasks. Even goalless daydreaming helps us prepare for whatever awaits. And all these imaginative activities change the brain and exercise and develop its systems and complex interconnections.

Play is not just for kids. It reshapes our brains throughout life. Play builds community, enhances humor, brings cheer, loosens tight self-restraint, feeds creativity, and brings us performatively to voice. It increases life satisfaction, decreases stress, promotes mental and physical health, makes us more productive at work, holds families together, helps us heal psychologically and physically (and culturally!), invites experimentation to break out of routines, and tests new possibilities.

Imagine what playful imagination could do.

So far we have stuck to research conforming to the physical science model of inquiry. But that is only one form of inquiry, and it suffers from a severe limitation: it was designed to remove subjectivity from the equation instead of including and even amplifying it. Looking at sparking neural nets and taking behavioral inventories can tell us how things look from the outside, but for the inside story we must turn to the humanities, where methods have evolved for understanding the human story in depth: psychology, experience, consciousness, history, art…

Psychology informed by the humanities verifies the everyday reality that everything we can conceive, plan, or implement begins with a fantasy: a fantasy of what we want, what is at hand, how to build it, what it will be worth, what it means to us. Fantasy precedes thought, logic, idea, prediction, or calculation. Budget numbers, master plans, grand campaigns, and scientific experiments are rooted in the productive soil of fantasy. Whatever “objective” move we make, whatever facts we marshal, look deep enough and you will find fantasies lurking in the vicinity awaiting our recognition.

Fantasizing, of course, is an expression of imagination. And if we can’t fantasize a goal—say, the kind of Earth-honoring, just, and delightful world we’d like to live in—via imagination, what real hope is there of reaching it? Through more appeals to fear, division, and difference? Financial clout? Bullying? The expertise that got us all into global trouble to begin with?

Highly experience diplomats and organizational consultants often say that if you want to get anything new rolled out, avoid official meetings and bureaucratic procedures. They serve the status quo. Real change percolates when people bring a variety of perspectives to informal places and create a project together. Only after this should they try to iron out the familiar entrenched wrinkles.

Although we will never achieve a utopia, why could we not collaborate to build the inclusive civilization of our desire? A civilization governed by mature adults and safe for everyone without exception?

We lose nothing by unleashing imaginative play in service to this goal. If we can play with it, perhaps we may see it flourish one day. That’s how gardening works. Art too. Unusual forms of architecture. Innovative education. Inclusive grassroots politics. Justice combined with humor. Healing through storytelling. Good governance…

 

Thoughts on Imagination and Play

Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world.

― Albert Einstein, Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms

Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations. If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist because you’ll have already shut it out…You can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.”
 ― Mae Jemison, Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (2009

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
 ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court 

Play is an activity enjoyed for its own sake. It is our brain’s favorite way of learning and maneuvering… It gives us the opportunity to perfect ourselves. It’s organic to who and what we are, a process as instinctive as breathing. Much of human life unfolds as play.
 ―Diane Ackerman, Deep Play

Our world is full of amazing phenomena: a stunningly rapturous sunrise, a night sky spangled with stardust, the fiery beauty of a volcanic lava flow. They all merit a “Oh my!” Humankind’s imagination and innovation is truly breathtaking.
 ― George Takei, Oh Myyy!

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of the imagination.
 —John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty

Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming after all is a form of planning.
 ― Gloria Steinem, from Gloriasteinem.com/news

<divWhen we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity. So play with your intuition.
 — Linda Naiman, Creativity and the Meaning of Work

Imagination should be the center of your life.
 ― Ray Bradbury, “Telling the Truth” presentation

One resists the invasion of armies; one cannot withstand the invasion of ideas.
 ― Victor Hugo, History of a Crime

To the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well.
 ― George Santayana, Little Essays

Sometimes you have to make things up, to tell truths that alter outcomes. Without the power of the imagination we lack the power the power to alter outcomes, so if we can’t imagine better outcomes in a better world, we cannot act to achieve these.
 ― Ruth Ozeki, My Year of Meats Reader’s Guide