Thread: Accessing the subconscious through imaginary dialogues?

I used to do something I called Imaginal Dialogues... didn't want to just call them imaginary because that word carries negative connotations (it's not 'real', it's just fantasy, daydreaming etc). Basically I'd just start thinking about some issue that was somehow important to me and I'd imagine a conversation involving a few people I think of as intelligent or who might have a meaningful impact on my thinking about the subject. I think it grew originally from very frustrating inner dialogues I used to have hearing my mom's voice and my friend's voice constantly arguing with my every idea, only later I learned to bring in more positive people who might have a higher opinion of the subjects I wanted to think about.

It works best if they're either people you know IRL and respect their opinion, or even with characters you know well from TV or movies or something. It seems to be easier if you know their personality and how they'd tend to react to things... ie I haven't had as much luck doing this with literary characters or people I've only read about such as Sherlock Holmes or Freud or Jung. Though I suspect it might work well with characters like that if you've read enough about them that you really feel like you know them, and probably even better if you've seen movies about them and can sort of "hear their voice" clearly in your head.

I think this is a good way to actually access different parts of your mind than what you would when thinking only inside your own customary persona. You sort of let yourself 'play the parts' of the other people and improv what they would say, and so you can come up with things very unlike your own normal reactions.

I haven't actually thought about this for a few years, but last night I was reading CG Jung's Memories Dreams Reflections (basically his life told through his own memories dreams and fantasies), and discovered he used to fantasize about meetings with characters and just let the fantasy take shape almost randomly. He did this primarily I think when pondering the importance of a dream of his or thinking about what direction his life or work needs to take next. It sounds a lot like he was almost trying to incubate lucid dreams, but without falling asleep.. he seems to have let his mind drop into a state near hypnagogic imagery and then maintained wakefulness right at the level. Then he'd suddenly see characters form before him... sometimes archetypal characters similar to mythological characters. In repeated 'fantasies' as he called them, the same character or group of characters would appear and speak to him, telling him cryptic things much like dream characters would, and he'd then write about it and ponder the meaning of what they said to him - essentially analyzing these episodes as if they were dreams. He could also talk to them and ask questions. He would also do drawings and paintings and sculptures based on them afterwards as a way of pondering the events visually (non-verbally - using yet a different part of the mind).

This is how he met the female character that he realized served as a sort of bridge to his inner subconscious world... his anima.


Anyway, I just thought this was a very interesting idea and most likely a very good way to draw forth contents from your subconscious. And I just realized that if I do this now, I have a much larger stable of personalities to access - people on this message board.

***EDIT***

Thought of some things I'd like to add -


When I started doing this was mostly when I'd mow the lawn as a kid/teenager. There was no music or TV, nothing to do but think. And the lawn was big... it took 45 minutes to cut! So, a lot of time to think. And at first I didn't realize who's 'voices' I was hearing... I would just simply think about something (subvocalizing) and then I'd hear vague voiceless responses. The responses were of only 2 types at first... 2 different 'voices', though at this point I didn't understand who's voices they were. One I came to call The Critic - this one was intelligent and articulate, but always negative and sort of passive/aggressively hostile - seeking to sabotage my thoughts through tricks and subterfuge. Later I came to recognize it as my mom's voice. The other I called The Idiot - it mostly just asked "What do you mean?" or some derivative - obfuscating the progress of the thinking through a different type of passive/aggressive resistance - making me constantly explain simple ideas over and over in different ways. This one soon resolved itself into the voice of my friend. And yes, their voices in my head pretty much paralleled the way they treated my ideas IRL.

After my first semester of college I had a new and much more positive voice to add... that of one of my art instructors. He began to turn the tide, and soon I began adding in other positive voices.


Also, I believe it's a possibility that Jung was actually incubating lucid dreams - because it certainly sounds form his descriptions like the figures would begin vague and indistinct and then rapidly become much more real and vivid.