Kim McGahan, age 16, of Marion, Ohio, for her question:

JUST WHAT IS IMAGINATION?

Imagination is the capacity to form mental pictures of past experiences, or to create mental pictures of situations of conditions that we have not actually experienced. Imagination is an important ability. It enables us to span the past and the future and is useful to both the enjoyment and the creation of art.

In daydreams, and sometimes in night dreams, persons imagine themselves as heroes, martyrs, successful businessmen or even cowboys or cowgirls. Such dreams are universal. They often precede creative writing or invention.

People endowed with creative imagination take bits of experience and put them together into new forms that lead to inventions or artistic creations. Creative imagination has been responsible for scientific discoveries, marvels of engineering and masterpieces of literature, music, painting, sculpture and other arts.

Imagination plays a part in a child's early life. He puts bits of experience together and weaves a world of fancy that he seems to enjoy.