 Originally Posted by Sageous
Funny, I was just reading about something very similar that was presented originally by Carl Jung called Active Imagination.
With active imagination, you essentially establish a dialogue with the parts of your mind that are usually only available during dreams. In other words, you tap your dreaming mind during waking hours and are able to enjoy the imagery usually reserved for dreams while also being able to converse with your dream-character selves. Or something like that.
I'm not sure if that made any sense, and I personally have never exercised active imagination, but it seemed such a coincidence that I was reading about it at just the same time as when this thread started, I had to share.
Also, if any Jungian psychology-followers out there can better explain his concept, I'd appreciate it...
Concerning "Active Imagination":
I have spent a few weeks devouring Jung materials (thanks again) and think I have a pretty good idea what active imagination is, though it is difficult to nail down to one method. I believe it can refer to many different states, and spans a continuum quite like lucidity itself (lucid, non-lucid, semi-lucid).
What was originally discussed in this topic would be the first kind, and I think Sivason nailed the description already so I will leave that alone.
Active Imagination *seems* to be more of a middle ground though; which can include asking questions and the like such as in lucid dreams, but can also be a more deeply involved experience such as Jung's description of falling into the abyss at his desk; a description that is still very confusing. I have been playing around with this a bit and have had unsatisfactory results at first because of my controlling nature.
However just the other day while meditating I was excessively tired and began to fall asleep. Instead of rousing myself as I usually might, I found myself on the border between HI and a real dream; that is to say it was *very* real, but I was not truly in a WILD state or in another realm (I think), I merely interacted with it. I began to have an interesting dialogue with some strange creature, who had no trouble answering all of my questions in a matter of fact way. It was quite amusing, actually. All of his answers were completely unsurprising, which probably shows that I had too much control and technically did not reach the ideal state, though I was unaware of directing anything consciously.
I have read many accounts of "Jung followers" who relax themselves and imagine their previous dream and just sort of let things play out in their heads without controlling it all. They also call this Active Imagination. This is a way lower level than the first two I have just described, so it seems that the term can mean many things. It can be the process of actually performing a kind of WILD *while meditating*, interacting with very realistic HI, or merely allowing one's imagination to flow without interference; a sort of indirect daydreaming.
Jung was obviously a natural at it, if his descriptions of "being on the verge of madness" can tell us anything.
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