Keep It Real: Feelings of “Realness” of Event Imaginings are Associated with Ease of Imagining and Absorption for Episodic and Fantastical Imagination

Imagination allows us to imagine a wide variety of scenarios, but some mental simulations may have a particular feeling of (re)experiencing or (re)living; they feel ‘real’. Yet little is known about perceived realness. We adapted imagination paradigms to examine realness for a range of imaginings and associations with personality traits. In Study 1, participants (n = 71) simulated two types of realistic episodic future event imaginings, manipulated to differ in plausibility, using the social sphere paradigm. In Study 2 and 3, psychology students (n = 181) and acting students (n = 41) imagined events from a first-person, third-person, and fictional person perspective. Feelings of realness were closely related to, and often predicted by, ease of the imagining and one's absorption into the imagining, with a differential supportive role of vividness and emotion, providing partial evidence for the fluency theory of reality monitoring. Trait absorption and fantasy proneness were both associated with greater felt realness of imaginings, but the more fictional the imagining, the more fantasy proneness supported feelings of realness.