Ready to begin or deepen your meditation practice? Join Dan Harris and world-class meditation teachers on the 10% with Dan Harris app here: https://app.danharris.com/membership If you hear the word "imagination" and picture a fifth-grader with a crayon, or a Silicon Valley marketing deck, you're going to want to reconsider. It turns out we're all imagining all day, whether we know it or not — often in paranoid, catastrophic ways — and there's a serious, evidence-backed body of research on how to shift that capacity from working against you to working for you. Dr. Cassi Vieten is a clinical psychologist, the director of research at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, and the director of the Center for Mindfulness there. Her new book is Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination. In this episode: – Why imagination is actually the oldest human technology (and how you're using it right now without realizing) – The two flavors: simulation imagination (fretful default-mode prognostication) vs. generative imagination – Where mindfulness plugs into all this — mostly, knowing when you're imagining vs. sensing – The VISTA framework — a five-step protocol for training your imagination – The muscle-strengthening study: 30% more strength gains for people who visualized during PT – Where Cassi (and Dan, with feeling) part ways with "manifestation" and The Secret – Positive vs. negative isn't the right frame — adaptive vs. maladaptive is – Why our productivity culture is quietly strangling your capacity for imagination – Cassi's own recovery-from-alcoholism story as a case study in how imagination collapses in addiction – Full-body "sensing" imagination — including the wild VR airship project during COVID – Meeting your past self, meeting your future self – How to use imagination to interrupt catastrophizing (with a very specific method) – "Geek therapy" — using kids' fandoms as a way into their emotional world – The soccer-uniform mental trick Cassi used to beat public-speaking fear – Using imagination for interpersonal conflict (the "who didn't take out the trash" case) – The "inevitability loop" — and how a good view of the sky helps – Reducing physical pain with imagination — including the burn-ward VR snow-cave study – "Glimmers" — small daily inputs that tell your nervous system it's safe Subscribe to watch more 10% Happier videos: https://www.youtube.com/tenpercenthappier Follow Dan Harris on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/danharris/ https://www.tiktok.com/@danbharris https://www.facebook.com/DanHarrisABC https://twitter.com/danbharris https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-harris-91ba5716b/ #10PercentHappier #Imagination #ImagineThat This episode is brought to you by Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone Sapphire combines Rosetta Stone's trusted immersion method with the latest in language learning — including a new feature called Chat Missions that turns conversation practice into a game. Get 20% off your Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription, plus unlimited access to all 25 languages, at https://www.rosettastone.com/happier.