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The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination
Imagination is about far more than whether people think of themselves as creative or not. We use our imagination all the time in planning, anticipating, daydreaming, reminiscing and being able to enjoy other people's stories. In fact, we don't live in the here and now as much as we might think. Imagination isn't the exception to our daily lives; it's our default setting.
From hallucinations to sleepwalking, from REM sleep to delusions, neurologist Adam Zeman brilliantly guides us through the latest scientific discoveries in the world of the imagination. Imagine looking at a cube and your eye will trace the contours of the cube as if you were actually seeing it. Imagine inhaling and the airflow through your nose will increase. In grief, you might imagine that you saw your loved one again – and be consoled by the experience. And yet some people have no visual imagination at all – they would even be unable to picture their family if asked to – but still lead fulfilling, even highly creative, lives.
From how infants perceive the world to how we can anticipate the thoughts of other people, from the benefits of play to mental disorders, The Shape of Things Unseen dazzles and delights in its insights into the workings of the human mind.
From hallucinations to sleepwalking, from REM sleep to delusions, neurologist Adam Zeman brilliantly guides us through the latest scientific discoveries in the world of the imagination. Imagine looking at a cube and your eye will trace the contours of the cube as if you were actually seeing it. Imagine inhaling and the airflow through your nose will increase. In grief, you might imagine that you saw your loved one again – and be consoled by the experience. And yet some people have no visual imagination at all – they would even be unable to picture their family if asked to – but still lead fulfilling, even highly creative, lives.
From how infants perceive the world to how we can anticipate the thoughts of other people, from the benefits of play to mental disorders, The Shape of Things Unseen dazzles and delights in its insights into the workings of the human mind.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 16, 2025
35 people are currently reading
445 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 29, 2025
3.5⭐
This is a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed learning more about it.
This book just felt a bit disjointed to me, jumping from one topic to the next without any pretext. Obviously, they were all relevant, but the changes felt jarring at times.
I definitely enjoyed certain parts of this book more than others. Zeman doesn't just explore imagination in and of itself, but explores surrounding areas (such as brain function and evolution) as well.
This is a fascinating topic, and I enjoyed learning more about it.
This book just felt a bit disjointed to me, jumping from one topic to the next without any pretext. Obviously, they were all relevant, but the changes felt jarring at times.
I definitely enjoyed certain parts of this book more than others. Zeman doesn't just explore imagination in and of itself, but explores surrounding areas (such as brain function and evolution) as well.
October 30, 2024
The Shape of Things Unseen arrived at a time that creativity boosts in some aspects and fields of life, and utterly collapses in others.
This is a wonderful addition to the literatures of neurology, neurosciences and several other interdisciplinary fields.
The book exceeded my expectations. One comes across many books trying to claim the position of science, those which give cherrypicked examples from fraudulent so-called scientific studies, which makes it hard for the general public/reader to assess their credibility, if they are not scientists, academics, or with some knowledge of what peer-reviewed studies must have. We all know that a lot of people bar the science-enthusiasts struggle with this. It is one of our duties as academics and evidence-based information enthusiasts to read, talk and write about these topics.
Zeman’s a credible neurologist, academic and a wonderful communicator. He does not posit himself as a preacher. Instead, we have hundreds of pages of great discussions, information and examples about why and how imagination and play play an important role in our lives.
It was evident from the blurb and the start that Zeman offers invaluable insights into being human.
I read an eARC that did not contain the figures and I am looking forward to the finalised book to have a full experience.
Thank you #netgalley for the ARC, the publisher for publishing this book and the author for his interest and work in imagination.
This is a wonderful addition to the literatures of neurology, neurosciences and several other interdisciplinary fields.
The book exceeded my expectations. One comes across many books trying to claim the position of science, those which give cherrypicked examples from fraudulent so-called scientific studies, which makes it hard for the general public/reader to assess their credibility, if they are not scientists, academics, or with some knowledge of what peer-reviewed studies must have. We all know that a lot of people bar the science-enthusiasts struggle with this. It is one of our duties as academics and evidence-based information enthusiasts to read, talk and write about these topics.
Zeman’s a credible neurologist, academic and a wonderful communicator. He does not posit himself as a preacher. Instead, we have hundreds of pages of great discussions, information and examples about why and how imagination and play play an important role in our lives.
It was evident from the blurb and the start that Zeman offers invaluable insights into being human.
I read an eARC that did not contain the figures and I am looking forward to the finalised book to have a full experience.
Thank you #netgalley for the ARC, the publisher for publishing this book and the author for his interest and work in imagination.
September 1, 2025
This is a good book if you want to get acquainted with neurologic explanations behind various phenomena related to imagination and creativity.
Don't expect the author to go in depth into any of these explanations, as each concept gets just one or two chapters.
While I personally didn't find the author jumping from topic to topic annoying or obtrusive, I can see why the lack of a strong overarching point to the book can make some people give up on reading it.
All in all, I found the concepts discussed very intriguing and the author's attitude towards them very humanizing.
Don't expect the author to go in depth into any of these explanations, as each concept gets just one or two chapters.
While I personally didn't find the author jumping from topic to topic annoying or obtrusive, I can see why the lack of a strong overarching point to the book can make some people give up on reading it.
All in all, I found the concepts discussed very intriguing and the author's attitude towards them very humanizing.
June 20, 2025
dnf- disjointed and to much just sequence of facts, no overarching argument
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June 3, 2025Adam Zeman's "The Shape of Things Unseen: A New Science of Imagination" explores the many facets of imagination, aiming to uncover how this fundamental human faculty operates, from its neurobiological roots to its influence on creativity, empathy, and mental health. Zeman presents imagination not just as a curious mental diversion, but as a central element of consciousness, one that influences how we experience reality and navigate the world.
Imagination allows us to move beyond the immediate present, offering mental excursions into memory, prediction, possibility, and abstraction. From conjuring the feeling of velvet to picturing the Earth's core, it is imagination that lets us experience what isn't directly present. With new insights from neuroscience and psychology, this book examines how imagination actually works, what it does for us, and how we might cultivate it.
Zeman outlines three core functions of imagination. The first is everyday imagination – the kind that makes up almost half of our waking thoughts. Our minds frequently wander, drifting away from the task at hand into memories, worries, or random scenes. This continuous mental activity, while often dismissed as distraction, is actually an essential aspect of our cognitive process. It allows us to reflect, plan, and emotionally process our lives.
The second function is creative imagination, which helps us derive meaning and emotional resonance from the world. Whether it’s crying in front of a Rothko painting or mentally constructing the world of a novel, our creative imagination doesn’t just receive information – it helps shape and interpret it. We fill in gaps, add nuance, and contribute subjectively to what we see and feel.
The third function is social imagination, the ability to understand others’ perspectives. It allows us to imagine the lives of strangers, feel empathy, and make sense of people’s behaviors. It’s what lets us guess that a grumpy barista might be having a bad day or picture what it was like to live centuries ago. Social imagination connects us across time and space.
One of the most vivid ways we experience imagination is visually. Mental imagery, whether summoned deliberately or arriving unbidden in dreams or just before sleep, plays a dominant role. When you imagine a puppy, you might also hear its sounds or recall how its fur feels – imagination is deeply multisensory. Though rooted in visual thinking, it draws on all senses. The brain doesn’t just light up in one place when we imagine; it activates networks that span across areas responsible for memory, sensation, and emotion.
Studies show that imagining a bright object can make our pupils constrict, mimicking real perception. This suggests that the boundary between imagination and perception isn’t as distinct as we might think. We often treat imagination as less 'real' than perception, but neurologically, the two are deeply intertwined. Our minds often blur the line between inner and outer experiences.
Zeman also explores imagination as the seat of productive insight and discovery. Innovation frequently springs not from straightforward logic but from unexpected mental leaps – what psychologist Arthur Koestler called 'bisociation,' or the joining of unrelated ideas. Think of Kekulé’s dream of a snake biting its own tail, which led to the discovery of benzene’s ring structure. Or Archimedes realizing a principle of physics in the bathtub. These moments combine logical structure with imaginative spark, and typically follow a pattern: preparation, incubation, sudden illumination, and finally, verification.
Yet imagination isn’t solely the domain of sudden breakthroughs or childlike wonder. It also has developmental roots. Zeman outlines how imagination begins forming before birth. Even in the womb, the nervous system starts laying the groundwork. After birth, children rapidly develop imaginative capacities. At first, it’s about categorizing sensations and building memory. Then, through shared attention and imitation, children begin symbolic play – serving invisible food or using bananas as pretend phones.
By preschool age, imagination becomes social. Children begin to understand that others have different thoughts and feelings – what psychologists call theory of mind. They start creating imaginary friends and building collaborative fantasy worlds with peers. This phase marks a transformation: imagination evolves from a perceptual tool to a vehicle for empathy, narrative thinking, and complex social navigation.
But imagination can also go awry. The book examines how its dysfunction underlies delusions – fixed false beliefs resistant to reason. Capgras delusion, for instance, involves thinking that a loved one has been replaced by an identical impostor. Such cases highlight imagination’s double-edged nature. When perception and emotion no longer align – as in Capgras – the brain may produce irrational but vivid explanations to resolve the mismatch.
This leads to a broader theory about delusions: they stem from a combination of abnormal experiences and faulty belief evaluation. The brain either misreads cues (like not feeling recognition for a familiar face) or fails to update incorrect beliefs. Predictive coding models suggest that the brain constantly creates predictions, and errors in that system – either through excess or undercorrection – can produce bizarre or fixed beliefs. Delusions, then, can be seen as the brain’s misguided attempt to make sense of confusing internal signals.
Yet imagination is not just vulnerable to dysfunction – it is also a source of healing. The placebo effect shows how beliefs and mental images can influence the body. Similarly, visualizing physical movement can improve athletic performance, even strengthening muscles without real exertion. Mental rehearsal has tangible effects, especially when combined with physical practice.
In mental health, imagination is a therapeutic tool. PTSD treatments use techniques like image rescripting, where traumatic memories are revisited and revised, allowing the brain to reprocess and diminish their impact. Some new approaches even seek to prevent PTSD by interrupting the formation of traumatic imagery soon after a distressing event. For instance, playing a visual-spatial game like Tetris shortly after a trauma can reduce the likelihood of intrusive mental images forming. These interventions recognize that trauma takes root through the imagination – and thus, it can also be addressed through it.
By the end of the book, Zeman emphasizes the deep and varied role imagination plays in our lives. It enables everything from daydreams and memory to art, empathy, discovery, and healing. It begins to shape us before we are conscious of it and continues to influence every aspect of our cognition, often invisibly. While it can create beauty and connection, it can also mislead us or plunge us into mental illness. Still, its overall potential is immense.
Imagination is not a luxury or a bonus feature of the human mind – it is essential to how we understand, experience, and change the world. It allows us to test futures, solve problems, and explore realities beyond the one we inhabit. Zeman’s exploration shows that the shape of imagination may be unseen, but its effects are everywhere – shaping our thoughts, emotions, and relationships in ways more fundamental than we often recognize.
Imagination allows us to move beyond the immediate present, offering mental excursions into memory, prediction, possibility, and abstraction. From conjuring the feeling of velvet to picturing the Earth's core, it is imagination that lets us experience what isn't directly present. With new insights from neuroscience and psychology, this book examines how imagination actually works, what it does for us, and how we might cultivate it.
Zeman outlines three core functions of imagination. The first is everyday imagination – the kind that makes up almost half of our waking thoughts. Our minds frequently wander, drifting away from the task at hand into memories, worries, or random scenes. This continuous mental activity, while often dismissed as distraction, is actually an essential aspect of our cognitive process. It allows us to reflect, plan, and emotionally process our lives.
The second function is creative imagination, which helps us derive meaning and emotional resonance from the world. Whether it’s crying in front of a Rothko painting or mentally constructing the world of a novel, our creative imagination doesn’t just receive information – it helps shape and interpret it. We fill in gaps, add nuance, and contribute subjectively to what we see and feel.
The third function is social imagination, the ability to understand others’ perspectives. It allows us to imagine the lives of strangers, feel empathy, and make sense of people’s behaviors. It’s what lets us guess that a grumpy barista might be having a bad day or picture what it was like to live centuries ago. Social imagination connects us across time and space.
One of the most vivid ways we experience imagination is visually. Mental imagery, whether summoned deliberately or arriving unbidden in dreams or just before sleep, plays a dominant role. When you imagine a puppy, you might also hear its sounds or recall how its fur feels – imagination is deeply multisensory. Though rooted in visual thinking, it draws on all senses. The brain doesn’t just light up in one place when we imagine; it activates networks that span across areas responsible for memory, sensation, and emotion.
Studies show that imagining a bright object can make our pupils constrict, mimicking real perception. This suggests that the boundary between imagination and perception isn’t as distinct as we might think. We often treat imagination as less 'real' than perception, but neurologically, the two are deeply intertwined. Our minds often blur the line between inner and outer experiences.
Zeman also explores imagination as the seat of productive insight and discovery. Innovation frequently springs not from straightforward logic but from unexpected mental leaps – what psychologist Arthur Koestler called 'bisociation,' or the joining of unrelated ideas. Think of Kekulé’s dream of a snake biting its own tail, which led to the discovery of benzene’s ring structure. Or Archimedes realizing a principle of physics in the bathtub. These moments combine logical structure with imaginative spark, and typically follow a pattern: preparation, incubation, sudden illumination, and finally, verification.
Yet imagination isn’t solely the domain of sudden breakthroughs or childlike wonder. It also has developmental roots. Zeman outlines how imagination begins forming before birth. Even in the womb, the nervous system starts laying the groundwork. After birth, children rapidly develop imaginative capacities. At first, it’s about categorizing sensations and building memory. Then, through shared attention and imitation, children begin symbolic play – serving invisible food or using bananas as pretend phones.
By preschool age, imagination becomes social. Children begin to understand that others have different thoughts and feelings – what psychologists call theory of mind. They start creating imaginary friends and building collaborative fantasy worlds with peers. This phase marks a transformation: imagination evolves from a perceptual tool to a vehicle for empathy, narrative thinking, and complex social navigation.
But imagination can also go awry. The book examines how its dysfunction underlies delusions – fixed false beliefs resistant to reason. Capgras delusion, for instance, involves thinking that a loved one has been replaced by an identical impostor. Such cases highlight imagination’s double-edged nature. When perception and emotion no longer align – as in Capgras – the brain may produce irrational but vivid explanations to resolve the mismatch.
This leads to a broader theory about delusions: they stem from a combination of abnormal experiences and faulty belief evaluation. The brain either misreads cues (like not feeling recognition for a familiar face) or fails to update incorrect beliefs. Predictive coding models suggest that the brain constantly creates predictions, and errors in that system – either through excess or undercorrection – can produce bizarre or fixed beliefs. Delusions, then, can be seen as the brain’s misguided attempt to make sense of confusing internal signals.
Yet imagination is not just vulnerable to dysfunction – it is also a source of healing. The placebo effect shows how beliefs and mental images can influence the body. Similarly, visualizing physical movement can improve athletic performance, even strengthening muscles without real exertion. Mental rehearsal has tangible effects, especially when combined with physical practice.
In mental health, imagination is a therapeutic tool. PTSD treatments use techniques like image rescripting, where traumatic memories are revisited and revised, allowing the brain to reprocess and diminish their impact. Some new approaches even seek to prevent PTSD by interrupting the formation of traumatic imagery soon after a distressing event. For instance, playing a visual-spatial game like Tetris shortly after a trauma can reduce the likelihood of intrusive mental images forming. These interventions recognize that trauma takes root through the imagination – and thus, it can also be addressed through it.
By the end of the book, Zeman emphasizes the deep and varied role imagination plays in our lives. It enables everything from daydreams and memory to art, empathy, discovery, and healing. It begins to shape us before we are conscious of it and continues to influence every aspect of our cognition, often invisibly. While it can create beauty and connection, it can also mislead us or plunge us into mental illness. Still, its overall potential is immense.
Imagination is not a luxury or a bonus feature of the human mind – it is essential to how we understand, experience, and change the world. It allows us to test futures, solve problems, and explore realities beyond the one we inhabit. Zeman’s exploration shows that the shape of imagination may be unseen, but its effects are everywhere – shaping our thoughts, emotions, and relationships in ways more fundamental than we often recognize.
May 8, 2025
I find this book to be unsettling. It does not fit clearly into any specific discipline such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, or neuroscience. Instead, the author draws selectively from each of these fields without fully committing to any one of them. While the book introduces a variety of ideas, it lacks a focused or coherent central theme. Even by the end, I remained uncertain about the main topic or objective of the text. Overall, I found the book unengaging.
April 6, 2025
What a fantastic book. It's written with so much curiosity, care, and love towards the subject and people in general. I'm on my own journey of reclaiming and understanding how CPTSD has affected my brain and as an artist take a huge interest in imagination, sensory images, and their history in society. Prof. Zeman was a fantastic guide and a very companionable narrator thanks to his profound love for the arts and appreciation for sociocultural context in general.
All in all, this is a one of a kind book and we're all the richer for it.
Predictably, my only reservations come from my linguistics background: the discussions of what language is, how it's unique to humans, and what animals are supposedly capable or incapable of weren't up to par with the depth of the rest of the book. In terms of language, there's lots missing on the subject of symbolism that I wish was at least mentioned/acknowledged as outside of the book's scope. Similarly, the general philosophical problem of discussing the communication capacities of animals considering the vast divide of experience and motivation between us definitely deserved recognition and pointing out. Certain set-in-stone statements about what animals can't do were inaccurate (e.g. the argument that humans are unique in our ability to observe and imitate; off the top of my head, sharks that are being hunted by orcas have recently been observed mimicking evasion patterns seen in the seals that the same shark species typically hunt). Both topics, language and animal intelligence, are infinitely complex and rich fields of research that suffer for their simplification and summary from the point of view of just accessible neuroscience.
Other than that, my edition had a bunch of typos and minor formatting errors that I don't usually expect from this publisher. Nothing major, but I hope they're resolved by the next printing.
All in all, this is a one of a kind book and we're all the richer for it.
Predictably, my only reservations come from my linguistics background: the discussions of what language is, how it's unique to humans, and what animals are supposedly capable or incapable of weren't up to par with the depth of the rest of the book. In terms of language, there's lots missing on the subject of symbolism that I wish was at least mentioned/acknowledged as outside of the book's scope. Similarly, the general philosophical problem of discussing the communication capacities of animals considering the vast divide of experience and motivation between us definitely deserved recognition and pointing out. Certain set-in-stone statements about what animals can't do were inaccurate (e.g. the argument that humans are unique in our ability to observe and imitate; off the top of my head, sharks that are being hunted by orcas have recently been observed mimicking evasion patterns seen in the seals that the same shark species typically hunt). Both topics, language and animal intelligence, are infinitely complex and rich fields of research that suffer for their simplification and summary from the point of view of just accessible neuroscience.
Other than that, my edition had a bunch of typos and minor formatting errors that I don't usually expect from this publisher. Nothing major, but I hope they're resolved by the next printing.
May 26, 2025
An in-depth, easy to grasp history of the imagination - brilliantly well written and an absolute pleasure to read. Anyone with an interest in psychology, neurology, creativity and the imagination will surely love this book!
April 6, 2025
rtc later
May 5, 2025
Happy to read a book that offers a new perspective. Imagination is underrated and mostly taken for granted. However once you zoom in on that you discover new look on everything.
June 13, 2025
Imagination is undervalued. This book inspires a renewed appreciation for our mind’s creative potential.
August 7, 2025
We predict the world into being. Our brains are prediction, modeling machines. Kind of a breezy overview of the science to date. Left me wanting more details.
September 16, 2025
I felt like the new stuff wasn't really until the very end of the book. Not my favorite science book.
September 16, 2025
Despite the title (and hugely fascinating topic) this audiobook was surprisingly uninteresting. The lack of interesting discussions and the overall boring delivery (from a written and narrative standpoint) of the information in this book made it entirely forgettable for me.
I don't recall any key takeaways after listening to this.
(Note: And the whole time I was listening to this I was excitedly hopeful that the more interesting parts were right around the corner.)
I don't recall any key takeaways after listening to this.
(Note: And the whole time I was listening to this I was excitedly hopeful that the more interesting parts were right around the corner.)
September 13, 2025
I picked this up from the "New Hardback Non-Fiction" table in John Sandoe in Chelsea (London). Being an individual pretty much devoid of imagination and creativity, books on the topic always intrigue me. I should know better really. These "high concept" popular accounts of "big ideas", especially in psychology, are just too easy to market and so difficult to pull off persuasively.
There were a couple of interesting things here. Individual reports that there is a spectrum of internal visualisation and imagination, ranging from those who, claim to have, no internal Cartesian theatre to those claiming all but eidetic imagery. But it doesn't go anywhere. And there's no way, at least none given here, of characterising this spectrum objectively. Are we really so different? What of it?
Then there was the bit about common circuits of the brain being activated during observation of a task and during performance of a task. That was interesting.
Otherwise, this was just the usual parade of isolated cognitive-science vignettes, each based on a severely limited sampling frame and generally lacking cross-validation. Not much new here at all.
Scraped three stars.
There were a couple of interesting things here. Individual reports that there is a spectrum of internal visualisation and imagination, ranging from those who, claim to have, no internal Cartesian theatre to those claiming all but eidetic imagery. But it doesn't go anywhere. And there's no way, at least none given here, of characterising this spectrum objectively. Are we really so different? What of it?
Then there was the bit about common circuits of the brain being activated during observation of a task and during performance of a task. That was interesting.
Otherwise, this was just the usual parade of isolated cognitive-science vignettes, each based on a severely limited sampling frame and generally lacking cross-validation. Not much new here at all.
Scraped three stars.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews