An active imagination?
I was always under the impression that having an active imagination was a waste of time, my mother certainly thought so, you need to get your head out of the clouds, it does not pay the rent and it was a matter of concern when a boy had an active imagination. Not that it stopped me, it was good for entertainment purposes but it just did not occur to me that it could have a practical use, so it was a surprise to find out recently on a sunny Sunday in the park, that it was a technique Jung used to understand his subconscious. Drop the book, what? How had this information never come to my attention before, it is not like I am shy about trying to read about everything, yet it had completely eluded me, never even heard a reference to it, how could all those Jungians never have put this front and centre, a whole new way of understanding yourself and they had never mention it, so annoying.
The only reason I can think of is that most Jungians are not very good at having an active imagination, otherwise I would not be writing about it, whilst I learn by reading and writing, I usually like to be sure(ish) about something when I publish it, whereas today I am going to examine my beginners mind on this subject and how you start to turn a useless talent into something of value (who knows maybe next I will find out you can solve quantum mechanic with juggling). As such please note I know even less than normal on this subject but that has never stopped me from writing before, so here goes.
Active imagination is like meditation in the act of removing conscious control over the mind and observing what it is doing, instead of following the breath you are following the events that the mind is playing out. Unlike meditation you need to give it a push in the right direction, there is no point thinking about the shopping or repeating an argument you had with a friend, you need a subject that frees the mind to be creative, that you can freely associate from, open ended questions, fantasy or best of all, remembering an image from a dream and letting it play out. The dream image is very useful for bringing you into contact with your subconscious as it came from there in the first place, and when you then use it in your active imagination it is a key to get you back into a conversation with it. You are not passive rather you are observing the meaning, you set the intention and let the subconscious speak through images, feeling and it can even talk through a suitable prop, if you encounter a squirrel ask it a question, there is a good chance it is one of those talking ones (do not look at me, it's your mind).
This might sound strange but if you have ever thought about what you would do if you won ten millions pounds and then got lost in the details of where the kitchen would be in your mansion, that is active imagination at work. Whilst it never feels real, if someone asked you to describe the kitchen, you would be able to give them a hundred details, what kind of table there was, where the light was coming from, whether the kettle was boiling, the sounds of the garden, the subconscious would have filled in the details of everything that you turned you attention towards, that is what active imagination is, it provides our broad awareness with depth. When we turn our attention to those details, we are examining the subconscious, and it tells us about itself in the details that it chooses in the absence of our conscious choice. In a strange way it almost like army intelligence gathering, you infer what enemy is doing from the information that you have, so if there are lots of supplies and men going to the African front, there is probably going to be an attack in that area. In the same way, if your father turns up in the kitchen and starts telling you how it is too good for you, that probably means that there are daddy issues to resolve in your subconscious.
You can never be sure, the subconscious has the obscure references of a French film director without the taste, and what is meaningful for it, might take some working out, however in active imagination you get to ask questions and the subconscious might even answer, though with painful metaphors that not even I could justify. Often it will even say the opposite, an image of strength might well be about your fear of your own weakness or reliance on others, packing a bag might mean you fear disorder and chaos, there is really only two roots causes of everything love and fear, though the journey from image to this root is what is meaningful, that is why we question what do these images mean all the way down to the bottom. There are no right answers just the path that your mind follows, one image at a time and we are questioning the subconscious because it is so powerful in our routines of behaviour, habits and actions, if we can resolve, let go and let be old pain and tension, we are able to relax into who we are now and what we are doing with a clear mind.
Though the power of active imagination does not stop there as it can also be used to solve problems, in a similar way as sleeping on a problem or having a showers allows the subconscious mind to come to solutions that the active mind never would by just repeatedly defining the problem (though this helps our understanding of what the problem is). We need the power of free-association to do it's thing to find unique solutions, and the mind can only do so when it is relaxed, not actively thinking and producing binding moments of consciousness, it needs to allow the different parts of subconscious to communicate sideways with each other. When we set the intention to talk to the subconscious it knows to speak, but equally we can set the intention to think about a maths problem, personal issues or even world problems, whilst good ideas can come from nowhere, the friendly the ground the better, knowledge, both specialised and general, practice, techniques, experience, all give you a richer soil from which ideas can grow.
However it is an active imagination that is the sun that causes unique ideas to rise up, and it is available to everyone with the habit of practise and the knowledge that it is possible. For me, that habit has found a home in-between listening to the news and reading a book before bedtime, it is starting small, ten minutes (like all habits, start with a little and daily) and I am focusing on an image from my dreams the night before with the intention to listen to where it goes. This is almost certainly not what the habit will look like in a year's time, there will be experiments, changes, insights, but those are for the future, for now it is just about establishing the habit, having fun to increase the motivations and faith in the process. My five year meditation routine started with five minutes a day, that is how you start everything that lasts, slowly and enjoying it (just realised that this could be dating advice), then see how you feel, especially whilst doing it. You never know where an active imagination could take you, no promises but you might even find out why you do what you do, and who you are in the first place?
