How can we be moved by a narrative which we know to be fictitious? (Paradox of Redford). Taking into consideration the symbolic game of children, I reject the solutions connected with metabelief and turn to the evolutionary path of imitation. The ability to latently imitate (to learn) motor sequences that are new for the subject requires two registrations to be kept apart, each one for a different proprioception and environment. In this way, as well as finding a solution to the paradox, we propose that imagining oneself but in different circumstances would form the basis of another, much more fundamental capacity, the ability to imitate, not only different circumstances, but also another person, another way of seeing the same world.