Practice 9
Stretching the Boundaries of Imagination
Cultivating Connected Identity
The expanse of our imagination can be limited by how we sense, orient and perceive our shared reality. While we convince ourselves that everyone sees and experiences life in consistent ways, neuroscience has proven that there is a much wider spectrum of human perception. And as we learn more and more about other living beings, we are realizing even how limited human perception is in comparison.
By exploring the limits of our perception, we can proactively stretch the boundaries of our individual and collective imaginations. The practice of stretching imagination is playful, interactive and iterative. It is guided by three sequential and expansive sets of questions:
What if we…? How might we…?
Where is the boundary of our collective imagination?
What is constraining us, limiting our imagination or holding us back? Why?
Instructions
Identify a question or challenge
Choose a challenge that all members of the group can understand and engage with
Gather stimulus on the question
While not always necessary, it can be helpful for the group to have recent information about the subject of the question. Ideally this is done in advance, but can also be accessed in an agile way in the moment using AI tools.
What is causing this challenge? Who is affected by this topic? How do they express their situation? What have others been doing already?
Start with individual reflection & ideation
A spark of imagination can come from anywhere and can easily be snuffed out by group discussions, so it is best to give each individual time to reflect and gather their inspiration on their own before being exposed to a group conversation. If you are together in a room, each member uses a separate space to capture their ideas.
What if? What if this could happen…? What if we could…? How might we…?
Allow each member to suspend ideas to the group
Each member of the group shares (or ‘suspends’ like hanging it on a string and slowly spinning it around so all can look at it from all angles) without discussion. Each idea is captured and organized with the other ideas.
Map the common themes and identify the possibilities & boundaries
The group discusses and makes sense of the set of ideas. Through the discussion a collective understanding emerges of the boundaries of imagination.
What are the common ideas? Why? What are the themes telling us about the possibilities as well as the boundaries of our imagination?
Consider what’s holding back the imagination of the group
The group considers the underlying causes of the identified constraints — perceptions, assumptions, preconceived ideas?
What is constraining us, limiting our imagination, holding us back? Why?
What if… we free our selves from the boundaries?
The final step is for the group to play with the possibilities of releasing those constraints. What if we free our selves from the boundaries?
What if we let go of our perceptions, assumptions, pre-conceived ideas of the situation?