A Guide to Active Imagination

Active Imagination is a technique that was developed by Carl Jung to access the unconscious in waking life. When we consider engaging the unconscious, most of us think exclusively of dream analysis - the process of taking our dreams and uncovering what they’re trying to teach us, ideally with the assistance of a trained analyst. Jung believed our dreams consisted of the stuff of our unconscious.

You can think of it like this. Your unconscious is like a separate autonomous person who resides within you, who is always listening and observing everything you do and say. Understandably on occasion this silent witness may recognise problems or opportunities that you (which is to say your ego) have missed. This silent witness then, seeks every night to communicate with you through your dreams, the language of dreams being one of associations, symbols, emotional charge, etc.

Although dream interpretation is the main way of engaging with the unconscious, Jung also believed the unconscious could be engaged with directly through what he called active imagination.

This technique begins with getting ourselves into a relaxed state of mind. Jung doesn’t give specific instruction on how to do this. Personally, I have found the time before falling asleep the most conducive: we’re comfortable, relaxed, and we can allow any distractions from our day to fall away. We’re beginning then, with something akin to meditation, we’re seeking to settle the mind. It can be helpful to focus on our breath, focus on the sensations we feel as the body inhales and exhales. In this meditative state we’re not seeking to supress our thoughts, rather we’re simply allowing them to arise; but we’re not engaging them, rather as we notice them, we bring our attention gently back to the breath.

Once we have reached this relaxed state, we can begin our active imagination.

Before I go further down this rabbit hole, and explore what this means in practice, I should give a quick disclaimer. Jung often spoke of their being two halves to life, the first half being where we establish ourselves in the world, build our careers, our families, and focus on the world out there. The second half of life is where we can attend to these interior dimensions of the self, which is to say, do that deep work of engaging the unconscious. Jung believed that doing this deeper work too early, before reaching that second half of life, becoming grounded in the world and having appreciation of who we are in the world, could be dangerous. I leave this up to your own discretion, but just be aware that this exercise is not appropriate for everyone.

Active Imagination begins with an image. Perhaps an image which has arisen for us intuitively, or an image from a dream, something that stands out to us as being significant. All we’re going to do is sit with this image and observe what happens. We’re waiting for spontaneous change. As I said previously, it can be helpful to think of the unconscious as a separate autonomous person, so we’re waiting for this change to take place not from us, not from what we may want to impose on the image, our own thoughts or will, but rather we’re allowing our silent witness to bring forth the change. This is the beginning of active imagination.

Instead of just an image, this can be expanded out to encompass the entire scene from a dream. This is what is called, ‘dreaming the dream forward’. Again, we’re waiting for the images, the dialogue, the narrative of the dream to unfold on its own. As we do this, we’re taking note of the emotional effect of this content. In the same way that it can be useful to keep a record of your dreams in a dream journal (or record yourself speaking), likewise, keep a record of this content as it is generated. As we do this, we’re developing a stronger sense of the different aspects of ourselves, with our ego (that part of us in the driver’s seat), and our unconscious being understood as distinct. This entire process, the delineating of the different aspects of ourselves, the being open to what the unconscious is communicating, all facilitate what Jung called ‘individuation’. The process of becoming aware of our whole Self. The process of allowing the unconscious to come into conscious awareness.

Carl Jung himself began using this technique around 1913, when he was about thirty-eight. He called this period his ‘confrontation with the unconscious’, a period in which he delved deep into his own rich fantasy life. This involved childlike play, it involved painting abstract works, and writing fantasy narratives. This period of inner work ultimately culminated in his what Jung called Liber Novus, or as it is more commonly known, the Red Book. The Red Book was only just published in 2009, its publication has made plain that it is the technique of active imagination that sits at the very centre of Jung’s psychology.

Active Imagination manifests differently for different people depending on their personality (i.e. their typology). It may find expression in mediums such as ideas, or stories, for some the focus is on images, it could be paintings, drawings, it could be movement, dance, theatre, yoga, it could be primal play in dirt or sand, it could be music, it could be prayer, it could be sculpting or carving. It could take many different forms, but however it manifests for you, it’s again about allowing the unconscious to direct the process, not your own ego. In this way then there is a generative portion of active imagination, where content arises, and a creative portion in which we give that content final artistic expression, this signalling to the unconscious that we are taking this work seriously, which will act as an invitation to the unconscious, prompting this process to continue.

Once you have a concrete expression of this creative outpouring, in the same way as with dream content, you are still left with the task of interpreting the work. This is done by amplifying the work, trying to find parallels in myth, religion, fairy tales, etc… These parallels allow us to unfold the meaning, what the unconscious is trying to communicate - ultimately what the unconscious is trying to teach us.