"Imagination is something that belongs to all of us."
— Dreamfinder, the original version of Journey into Imagination
The human imagination. Perhaps one of the most powerful forces on Earth. The power to think creatively. Every story ever told, every scientific breakthrough ever made, every word ever said, it all springs from the imagination. A personal theater through which you can view anything you can ever want to see, or listen to anything you can ever want to hear. In the imagination, all things are possible. The tricky part is finding out how to bring those possibilities to the physical world, for others to see.
This is an index of tropes about imagination and creativity.
Imaginative Indexes
and Supertropes
- Anti-Escapism Aesop: Living in the real world is better than living in the imagination.
- Apophenia Plot: Someone's imagining a series of unrelated events are all part of a greater conspiracy.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: There's a brawl happening in the brain! It's mind versus mind, and imagination versus imagination!
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Something only exists/has power because of someone's belief or imagination.
- Complexity Addiction: Someone's been using a bit too much creativity when making this plan, but practical simplicity is so boring!
- Cope by Pretending: The world is a cruel place, sometimes the best way to deal with it is to imagine the world is kinder. However, that can make it easy to get lost within your mind.
- Creative Sterility: The inability to create anything new, including thoughts.
- Crush Filter: A peek into a lovestruck character's imagination, seeing their crush as more attractive than they really are.
- Delusions of Beauty: An unattractive character imagines themselves as being much better looking than they really are.
- The Dreaded Pretend Tea-Party: Someone's been roped into playing with a young child in a way that requires use of the imagination.
- Escapism: Reality can be cold, cruel, or boring. Sometimes you need a temporary escape from it all, indulge in some fiction, or imagine some of your own.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: A parental figure stifles their ward's imagination, out of belief it's nothing more than a distraction.
- Gaslighting: Using someone's imagination against them, convincing them that truth is lies and lies are truth.
- Genre Savvy: Someone's imagination is fueled by fiction, and recognizes what tropes apply to their situation the most, allowing them to know all the right moves to make.
- Hallucinations: Seeing real-seeming yet fictitious things due to madness, hunger, psychoactive drugs etc.
- Happy Place: Life can be stressful, so just imagine you're somewhere else, somewhere calming.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: A superpower that seems pathetic at first, but when used creatively, it's a force to be reckoned with.
- Imaginary Enemy: A character's archnemesis only exists in their own mind.
- Imaginary Friend: Sometimes, you really need a friend by your side, especially if you're a lonely kid, so you pretend...
- Imaginary Love Triangle: A character imagines there's a love triangle where one doesn't really exist.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: An incredibly versatile superpower fueled by the imagination.
- Imagination Destroyer: Something/someone that can/wants to stop someone's/everyone's ability to think creatively.
- Imagined Innuendo: A dirty imagination sees a double-entendre where there really isn't one.
- Imagine Spot: A brief peek into a character's imagination.
- Imagine Spotting: Oops, looks like the audience wasn't the only one to see that.
- Imagine the Audience Naked: A nervous public speaker imagines their audience nude in order to alleviate the social pressure.
- Inkblot Test: A random patch of black ink. What do you imagine it looks like?
- Inner Monologue: A brief listen into a character's thoughts and/or imagination.
- I Reject Your Reality: A character refuses to see the world from any viewpoint aside from the one from their twisted imagination.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The imagination as a destination, or at least a step on the journey towards the deepest depths of the mind.
- Lack of Imagination: A character has a notably weak and sterile imagination, if even that.
- Love Makes You Uncreative: The imagination is disrupted by love.
- Memory Palace: Memories are represented as locations in a work.
- Mental Picture Projector: Thoughts, memories, dreams, and imagination, on display for all to see.
- Mental World: The imagination as a location.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: You do NOT want to peek at this character's imagination, but alas, somebody did.
- Mr. Imagination: A character has a notably strong and fertile imagination, and then some.
- The Muse: A figure that stokes the fires of someone else's imagination.
- Nothing Is Funnier: Leaving the details of a joke to the viewer's imagination.
- Nothing Is Scarier: Leaving the details of a scare to the viewer's imagination.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: You were led to believe a character's unseen friend is imaginary, but they turn out real.
- The Power of Creation: If you can imagine it, you can create it.
- Psychic Static: A distracted imagination on overdrive. A perfect distraction against a mind reader.
- Reality Warper: The power to enforce the limitless imagination onto the physical world, changing anything with but a thought...
- Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: ...but beware, this can include idle, obstructive thoughts.
- Semantic Superpower: A superpower with a rigid definition, but with some creative thinking and clever reinterpretations of words, it can be more than what it seems.
- Shapeshifter Showdown: A fight between two or more shapeshifters. If their shapeshifting abilities are equal, it all comes down to whose imagination is more versatile.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: When it comes to weaponry, the only limits are their shapeshifting ability and their imagination.
- Suspicion Aesop: An imagination gone awry leads to someone thinking the worst of someone new, when the truth is far from the case.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: A superpower has defined limitations and on paper might not seem too versatile, but with enough imagination, it can have a million and one different uses!
- That Cloud Looks Like...: Using one's imagination to describe the shape of clouds.
- "They're Not Real" Reveal: When you thought something or someone was real, but it turns out they weren't.
- Think Happy Thoughts: When you're feeling bad, all you need is a happy imagination and you'll be feeling better!
- Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Someone's imagination is fueled by the romance genre, and mistakenly believes everything will turn out as they imagined.
- Think Unsexy Thoughts: When trapped in a sexually charged scenario, someone imagines unsexy things in order to avoid arousal.
- Thought-Aversion Failure: Actively trying not to imagine something will inevitably result in that something being imagined, almost instantly.
- Too Upset to Create: The imagination is disrupted by negative emotions.
- Tulpa: A physical being made from pure imagination.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: If you can imagine it, you can be it.
- Windmill Crusader: A character is fighting against a threat that only exists in their imagination.
- Writer's Block: When a writer's imagination... um... uh... hmm... I'll get back to you on this one. Wait, I've got it!
- Writer's Block Montage: A montage of attempts to break through the writer's block.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Someone's imagination is fueled by fiction, and they think they know what tropes apply to their situation the most, but their imagination is leading them astray.
- Your Mime Makes It Real: Through a combination of silence, acting, monochrome makeup and imagination, one can make illusory objects that behave like the real thing.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The physical body reacts to the imagination out of believing some sensation is real.
- You Watch Too Much X: Someone's imagination is fueled by fiction, and they think they know what will happen next out of trope recognition, but someone else thinks their imagination is leading them astray.
