Image schemas are formed in the mind from lived experience, becoming abstract interpretive templates of experience generally, real or imagined. They are not autonomous mechanisms, operating separately from other cognitive processes within the mind. Image schemas occur in tandem with several related processes. These include mapping, in which they perform the role of activating the projection of a source domain onto a target domain to produce conceptual metaphors; framing, in which they induce the ideation and use of specific conceptual metaphorical ideas in the conduct of mathematical activities; layering, whereby they allow for the build-up of complex mathematical concepts through a kind of scaffolding of conceptual metaphors; blending, whereby they are amalgamated within the mind to produce increasingly abstract structures of mathematical thought; clustering and radial processing, in which they form aggregate networks of mathematical thought; and looping, a process underlying how certain mathematical ideas double back on themselves.