{"id":237319,"date":"2026-05-17T18:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-does-imagination-really-work-in-the-brain-new-theory-upends-what-we-knew"},"modified":"2026-05-17T18:12:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:12:26","slug":"how-does-imagination-really-work-in-the-brain-new-theory-upends-what-we-knew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-does-imagination-really-work-in-the-brain-new-theory-upends-what-we-knew","title":{"rendered":"How does imagination really work in the brain? New theory upends what we knew"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-does-imagination-really-work-in-the-brain-new-theory-upends-what-we-knew.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The other 99% is used on the activity <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.1134405\" target=\"_blank\">the brain generates on its own<\/a>: neurons (nerve cells) firing and signalling to each other regardless of whether you\u2019re thinking hard, watching television, dreaming, or simply closing your eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Even in the brain areas dedicated to vision, the visuals <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/nature02907\" target=\"_blank\">coming in through your eyes<\/a> shape the activity of your neurons less than this internal ongoing action.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1037\/rev0000621\" target=\"_blank\">just published in Psychological Review<\/a>, we argue that our imagination sculpts the images we see in our mind\u2019s eye by carving into this background brain activity. In fact, imagination may have more to do with the brain activity it silences than with the activity it creates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other 99% is used on the activity the brain generates on its own: neurons (nerve cells) firing and signalling to each other regardless of whether you\u2019re thinking hard, watching television, dreaming, or simply closing your eyes. Even in the brain areas dedicated to vision, the visuals coming in through your eyes shape the activity [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}