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Unlike intelligence, memory, and creativity, there is an alarming lack of coherent theory and a thin empirical literature on imagination. Why alarming? Imagination may be one of the most important keys to human flourishing and human progress, with spiritual and evolutionary adaptive benefit. The science of human imagination needs a guide for the future. The Atlas of Imagination is this guide, focusing coherent theoretical models of imagination to drive further investigation and the tools needed for the empirical study of the neurodiversity of imagination. These include novel instruments beyond self-reported experience, including 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person approaches that take advantage of the latest technological tools. The publication of The Atlas of Imagination itself will also bring together practices that foster diverse forms of imagination for improving individual flourishing and accelerating collective progress and address barriers to flourishing associated with negative imagination, or “imagining the worst.” This breakthrough project will serve as a resource for decades to come and catalyze the study of imagination in profound ways.
What is it that we feel when we look at a piece of art? Are aesthetic preferences universal or culturally influenced? How does artistic engagement contribute to individual and community health? These are the questions at the heart of the Art + Empathy research project, led by Ying Wu, Ph.D., research scientist at the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, and Robert Twomey, Ph.D., artist and engineer. While many studies of art engagement have produced fragmented insights, the Clarke Center’s Art + Empathy research project will provide a comprehensive perspective of attention, arousal, empathic response, and emotional regulation in real-world encounters with art through a series of in-gallery studies with our partners at the San Diego Museum of Art. Initial support for this project comes from the California Arts Council’s “Research in the Arts” program.
The Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative (PHRI) conducts novel basic and clinical research on the use of psychedelics for the treatment of pain and other health conditions. Significant evidence has emerged in the last fifteen years that shows how classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin (the major psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms”), can be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and other psychological disorders. Pain has both physical and affective/cognitive components. Our promising preliminary findings indicate that psychedelics, alone or as part of multi-pronged treatment, can produce significant, meaningful, and lasting reductions of chronic pain conditions like cluster headache, complex regional pain disorder, phantom-limb pain, tinnitus, and others. The interdisciplinary PHRI team of leading researchers conducts pilot studies, clinical trials, and brain imaging research to better understand how psychedelics can be used to treat pain, the mechanisms of action by which they produce their effects, how this illuminates new aspects of the healthy functioning of the brain and mind, and how the healthcare system can adapt to best deliver these radically different modes of intervention, all in the context of UC San Diego’s world-class health and neuroscience research communities.
Practitioners of the emergent field of Speculative Futures Studies use speculative forms – including, but not limited to, art, literature, and theory- to confront the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and racism in order to imagine and enact more sustainable and just futures.
Science explains it, but
art may be the key to finding it.
The Speculative Futures Collective seeks to cultivate research with faculty, graduate students, and community members using speculative cultural forms and theories to collaborate on the future of education, ecology, gender, sexuality, and race.
Practitioners of the emergent field of Speculative Futures Studies use speculative forms – including, but not limited to, art, literature, and theory- to confront the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and racism in order to imagine and enact more sustainable and just futures.
Science explains it, but
art may be the key to finding it.
The Speculative Futures Collective seeks to cultivate research with faculty, graduate students, and community members using speculative cultural forms and theories to collaborate on the future of education, ecology, gender, sexuality, and race.
Unlike intelligence, memory, and creativity, there is an alarming lack of coherent theory and a thin empirical literature on imagination. Why alarming? Imagination may be one of the most important keys to human flourishing and human progress, with spiritual and evolutionary adaptive benefit.
The science of imagination needs a guide for the future.
The Atlas of Imagination is the guide, focusing coherent theoretical models of imagination to drive further investigation and the tools needed for the empirical study of the neurodiversity of imagination.
Unlike intelligence, memory, and creativity, there is an alarming lack of coherent theory and a thin empirical literature on imagination. Why alarming? Imagination may be one of the most important keys to human flourishing and human progress, with spiritual and evolutionary adaptive benefit.
The science of imagination needs
a guide for the future.
The Atlas of Imagination is the guide, focusing coherent theoretical models of imagination to drive further investigation and the tools needed for the empirical study of the neurodiversity of imagination.
The Clarke Center is a research-and-practice hub, where the best insights from the neuroscience of imagination are connected with the latest in technology and put to use to unlock the transformative power of imagination across age groups, and communities to tackle the most pressing issues facing the planet.
Imagination discovers
new possibilities within the impossible.
Imagination is at the root of empathy and compassion. Imagination gives rise to hope. We aim to unleash the power of imagination to tackle the most pressing issues facing life on Earth – to envision and build a more equitable an sustainable world.
