Active imagination, Jung’s interesting method

Active imagination is a method created by Carl Gustav Jung to explore unconscious contents.. It was not the only technique developed by this great psychoanalyst, but it is considered the most sophisticated of them. The bases of this appear in the famous Red Book of Jung.

Some define active imagination as a powerful mix between deep psychology and the magic of inspiration. What this method seeks is to establish an active dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious, with the purpose of better understanding the internal world.

As is known, there are a series of unconscious contents that remain hidden and, therefore, often interfere with a person’s conscious desires and purposes. Active imagination is a way for such content to come to light. and become a source of profit.

Carl Gustav Jung

active imagination

Broadly speaking, active imagination is a technique in which a person induces a conscious relaxation process. Once achieved, focuses on an image that comes to mind or that you recover from a dream that you have had. Then interrogate such an image as much as possible.

Active imagination should not be confused with passive imagination. The latter is that semi-conscious state in which one fantasizes or dreams spontaneously and without direction. In Jung’s technique there is a directed process and a defined purpose.

In this regard, one of the followers of this method, Marie Louise Von Franz, makes a list of what active imagination is NOT:

It is not that kind of “inner cinema” that a person sees when they close their eyes.It’s not an internal dialogue or dialogue with oneself. It is not a passive contemplation of mental images. It is not a dialogue with something unreal. It is not the adoption of a fictitious identity or one different from one’s own.It is not a “directed” fantasy. or prosecuted voluntarily. It is not a self-assessment of the subjective contents.

The active imagination technique

What Carl Jung intended with this method was to make a person confront or come face to face with the archetypal elements that are in their unconscious. Such an encounter had to be receptive, but not passive.. The bet points to the evolution of personality and greater personal balance.

In general terms, it is recommended that this practice takes place for a period of between 10 and 15 minutes. The steps to follow are these:

Empty the consciousness of the self. This means trying to leave your mind blank, without thinking about specific life events.Allow an image to emerge. As the mind empties, mental images begin to appear that, at first, may seem absurd. The idea is to focus attention on one of those images.Capture the image. What follows is to materialize the image in some way. It can be describing it with words, reproducing it in a drawing, representing it with the body or in any way that gives it a concrete form.Apply what you have learned. During this entire process, ideas or revelations usually emerge that can be applied to daily life. So the appropriate thing is to put these new contents into practice for day-to-day understanding.

The benefits of the method

What is expected from the application of this method is offer a voice to the contents hidden in the unconscious. Most of the time, those deep messages that are silenced by thought and reason are not heard. However, it is in the field of unconsciousness where the keys to each of us lie.

The application of the technique alone generates a life-giving and inspiring feeling.. Jung recommends taking note of all alterations that impede the development of the technique. These also reflect psychic processes that must be addressed and with which one must “dialogue.”

It must be clarified that for Carl Jung it was not convenient for just anyone to apply this method nor for him to do it at any time. He pointed out that It is much more useful when done at the end of a psychoanalytic process. and in moments when the desire to do the practice is very strong.

You might be interested…