Active Imagination
- The Oracle Within
As an adjunct to dreamwork,
Jung developed a technique he called active imagination that
allows anyone to consult an oracle within themselves. Active
imagination is a process of consciously dialoguing with our
unconscious "for the production of those contents of
the unconscious which lie, as it were, immediately below the
threshold of consciousness and, when intensified, are the
most likely to erupt spontaneously into the conscious mind."
[C.J. Jung, The Transcendent Function] Someone who has learned
active imagination is thus able to take some degree of control
over his or her own growth process.
When the oracle was consulted
at Delphi, the priestess -- the Pythia -- became totally receptive
to whatever flowed through her. Her role was simply to be
a mouthpiece for Apollo. In contrast, in active imagination,
we have to alternate between total receptivity -- to allow
the unconscious to speak through us -- and a conscious engagement
with the unconscious. It is the alternation between the two
which is unique to Jung's method, and which makes it so useful
a tool.
As with all oracular systems,
start the process with reverence. Only use active imagination
when something significant needs to be discovered, and only
when you have already exhausted your conscious resources.
Find a time and a place where you can be alone, then take
a few moments to calm your mind. Once you feel relaxed, use
one of two basic ways to access the unconscious -- visual
or oral.
For the visual method, close
your eyes, then begin with some visual starting point, perhaps
a scene in a recent dream that has significance for the issue
at hand. Get this starting point as clearly in your mind as
you can make it, then let it unfold as it likes. If you are
strongly visual, you may find that the resulting fantasy is
virtually as vivid as a dream. The difference is that, because
you are awake, you can consciously engage with the figures
in the dream. As with any other encounter with the inner world,
you need to walk a narrow path so that you remain receptive
to whatever the unconscious produces, yet are able to react
with conscious intent.
In the oral technique, you
engage in a dialogue with a person or object who you feel
might help you with the issue at hand. You can actually talk
out loud, hold the dialogue in your head, or simply write
both sides of the dialogue. I normally sit at the computer,
slow my breathing and stop my monkey mind as much as I can.
I then type a question to, for example, an enigmatic dream
figure from a recent dream. Having begun the dialogue, I remain
receptive to whatever emerges from within and simply type
what comes out. After allowing the inner voice to speak as
long as it likes, I shift back to my own personality and react
to what has been said. The dialogue continues in that manner.
You may find that you actually
hear the words coming from the unconscious, or they may simply
come out in the writing, without any intermediate process
of hearing. When I use either the visual or oral techniques,
I normally "see" only vaguely, or "hear"
not at all, but somehow fill in what is missing through "feelings"
in my body. Jung experienced the same thing: "Sometimes
it was as if I were hearing it with my ears, sometimes feeling
it with my mouth, as if my tongue were formulating words;
now and then I heard myself whispering aloud. Below the threshold
of consciousness everything was seething with life."[C.G.
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections]
Jung only came to this method
after a great deal of struggle. At first, you may feel foolish
trying either of these methods, but if you do, you will probably
surprise yourself with how easy it is to allow this process
to occur. When using the visual technique, you will find that
the initial dream scene used as a starting point evolves in
directions you could never have predicted. Similarly, when
using the oral technique, you will find that the voice and
character of the dream figure is sharply distinct from your
own, and that you won't be able to predict the direction the
dialogue will take. This lack of control can make you as uncomfortable
as it did Jung: "One of the greatest difficulties for
me lay in dealing with my negative feelings. I was voluntarily
submitting myself to emotions of which I could not really
approve, and I was writing down fantasies which often struck
me as nonsense, and toward which I had strong resistances."
[C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections]
I've already said that one
has to walk a tightrope in using active imagination. One danger
is that we don't open ourselves sufficiently to the unconscious,
but instead edit what comes out before it has had a chance
to really emerge. Or we may start interpreting what this all
means instead of simply remaining open to what is emerging.
We need to just let what wants to come out, come out.
The opposite danger is perhaps
more prevalent. We can become so enamored with the fantasies
or dialogues that emerge from within that we don't really
take them seriously as something with which we have to struggle.
This can happen equally with dreamwork. We can simply become
fascinated at an aesthetic level and never realize that we
are being presented with a challenge to our values.
Finally, I would be remiss
if I didn't mention that active imagination is exactly the
wrong method to use if one is already unstable and having
a hard time separating reality from fantasy. Most active imagination
is with personified aspects of your own personality. When
you are encountering such figures, it is much like encountering
others in the normal course of life. However, as I've already
indicated, as you access deeper parts of the inner world,
the people and situations become collective and cease to have
anything to do with your individual personality.
It's not surprising that the
ancients regarded these messages from within as coming from
a god without. The unconscious often speaks like a god, which
may make you feel uncomfortable or doubt that you can trust
what is being said. As a modern man, Jung initially found
this irritating: "Archetypes speak the language of high
rhetoric, even of bombast. It is a style I find embarrassing;
it grates on my nerves, as when someone draws his nails down
a plaster wall, or scrapes his knife against a plate."
[C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections]. But it is exactly
that quality that indicates that you are indeed tapping truly
unconscious material.
For someone who is less stable,
instead of merely becoming uncomfortable, they may actually
be possessed by the more-than-human energy that emerges. Jung
says that sometimes "the subliminal contents already
possess such a high energy that, when afforded an outlet by
active imagination, they may overpower the conscious mind
and take possession of the personality." [C.G. Jung,
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche]. To the extent,
however, that "active imagination" is truly active
-- that is, that we engage consciously with the material,
possession is highly unlikely. More likely is that we fail
to remember that what is emerging is not us, but some collective
power. We get inflated, puffed-up with the godlike energy
that we feel. Or alternately, we may get depressed; in that
case, accessing the unconscious demands so much energy that
there is little left for consciousness. Cycles of inflation
and depression are a normal part of life for anyone who digs
into his or her inner world.
But over time, we learn both
to recognize when we are inflated or depressed, and to dampen
the extent of either. One excellent way to ground this process
is simply to take the time to write the active imagination
down in some sort of a journal so that you can refer back
to it, just as you would a dream. I keep a combined journal
of dreams and active imagination, with short biographical
journal entries as well for each date. Active imagination
is an incredibly powerful method for gaining access to information
unavailable to consciousness. Those who try it will discover
that each of us possesses an Oracle within who can be questioned
in times of transition or difficulty.
| Authors Details: Robin Robertson excerpted
from 'Mining the Soul' |
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