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November 11 - November 23, 2025
He felt that his anger came from somewhere outside him. He felt that he was “not himself” for a few moments. But in fact this surge of ungovernable emotion did come from a part of him, a place deep within that he couldn’t see with his conscious mind. It is because of this invisibility that this place within is called the “unconscious.”
The unconscious is a marvelous universe of unseen energies, forces, forms of intelligence—even distinct personalities—that live within us.
The unconscious manifests itself through a language of symbols. It is not only in our involuntary or compulsive behavior that we can see the unconscious. It has two natural pathways for bridging the gap and speaking to the conscious mind: One is by dreams; the other is through the imagination.
Or a man may find that he has terrible conflicts between the life he lives outwardly and the unconscious ideals he holds deep inside himself where he never looks.
We act as though there were no unconscious, no realm of the soul, as though we could live full lives by fixating ourselves completely on the external, material world. We try to deal with all the issues of life by external means—making more money, getting more power, starting a love affair, or “accomplishing something” in the material world. But we discover to our surprise that the inner world is a reality that we ultimately have to face.
You need to be particularly careful with Active Imagination. It should not be practiced unless you have someone available who is familiar with this art, someone who knows how to get you back to the ordinary earth if you should be overwhelmed by the inner world. Active Imagination is safe if we obey the rules and use common sense, but it is possible to get in too deep and feel as though we are sinking too far into the unconscious. Your helper can be either an analyst or a layperson who has some experience with Active Imagination. The main point is to have a friend you can call on if you lose
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Thus Jung writes: “An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors.” (Neumann, Great Mother, Inner Work: Seeking the Unconscious)
Dreaming and imagination have one special quality in common: their power to convert the invisible forms of the unconscious into images that are perceptible to the conscious mind.
Active Imagination is one way of using the imagination constructively to approach the unconscious; there are many other ways, including profound forms of meditation.
At first glance, Active Imagination may seem too simple or naive to be taken seriously as a psychological technique: It consists in going to the images that rise up in one’s imagination and making a dialogue with them. It involves an encounter with the images. The conscious ego-mind actually enters into the imagination and takes part in it. This often means a spoken conversation with the figures who present themselves, but it also involves entering into the action, the adventure or conflict that is spinning its story out in one’s imagination. It is this awareness, this conscious participation
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In Active Imagination I am not so much “talking to myself” as talking to one of my selves.
The idea of archetypes is an ancient one. It is related to Plato’s concept of ideal forms—patterns already existing in the divine mind that determine in what form the material world will come into being.
we know that no matter what conflicts we encounter, no matter what tangles and collisions we find within ourselves, they are all branches from one trunk.
Thus we arrive at self-consciousness, a sense of ourselves as individuals who stand apart from the herd, egos who stand apart from the collective unconscious.
It is our lot, if we are honest, to live in duality and paradox. The dialogue of those paradoxical elements is the stuff of life. Surprisingly it is also the surest path toward unity. Our dreams are its stage, its workshop and battleground. And Active Imagination is its superb language.
Often when we think that we are trying to make a decision based on facts or logic, we are actually caught in a battle between terrible forces inside us. Since it is mostly unconscious, and we don’t know who fights for what, we can’t make peace. We don’t know which side to take. We feel ourselves hopelessly split between opposing forces.
What of the man whose inner hero wants to storm castles and quest for the Holy Grail while his inner monk wants to stay quiet in his cell and contemplate the divine mystery?
Men have been traditionally conditioned in our culture to identify with the thinking and organizing side of life, to be heroes and doers. The unconscious often chooses a feminine figure, therefore, to represent a man’s emotional nature, his capacity for feeling, appreciating beauty, developing values, and relating through love. These are the capacities that in many men live mostly in the unconscious. Their appearance in a man’s dream in feminine imagery signals his need to make them conscious, expand the narrow focus of his “masculine” ego-life.
The whole basis of the romantic fantasy that so often sabotages ordinary human love is the projection of a man’s anima onto a woman or a woman’s animus onto an external man. In this way people try to complete themselves through another human being, try to live out the unconscious, unrealized parts of themselves through the external person on whom they put the romantic projection.
First, go through your dream and write out every association that you have with each dream image. A dream may contain persons, objects, situations, colors, sounds, or speech. Each of these, for our purposes, is a distinct image and needs to be looked at in its own right. The basic technique is this: Write down the first image that appears in the dream. Then ask yourself, “What feeling do I have about this image? What words or ideas come to mind when I look at it?” Your association is any word, idea, mental picture, feeling, or memory that pops into your mind when you look at the image in the
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Write down each association that comes directly from the image. Then go back to the image and see what other associations come to mind. Keep returning to the dream image and writing down each association that is produced in your mind. Only after you have written all the associations that you find in that one image should you go on to the next image and begin the same process.
At this point you should not try to decide which association is the so-called right one. Often the first connection that comes up, the one that seems so obvious, is not the one that will work best for you later on in the process.
An association that feels silly, off-the-wall, irrational, may turn out to be the one that makes the most sense after you work awhile.
You are, in effect, asking the unconscious, “What are the meanings that you associate with your own symbol?”
Chain associations are when we make connections with the associations rather than with the original dream image. (This is also called “free association.”) You make your first association, then you make another association to that one, and then another association, to that one, until you have a whole chain. If we do this we never get back to the original dream image. An example of chain associating would be this: BLUE Sad Hospital Aunt Jennie Apple pie Warm kitchen
The correct method can be pictured as a wheel, with the dream image at the hub, and the associations radiating out like spokes from the center. All associations proceed from the original image. We always return to the center of the wheel before we go to the next association.
Which one is going to lead me to a correct interpretation? Jung had an answer that sounds deceptively simple: He said that one of the associations will “click”! As you go through your associations, one of them will generate a lot of energy in you. You will see how it fits together with other symbols in the dream. Or you may feel a spot touched in you where you are wounded and confused. You may find that this association makes you see something in yourself that you had never looked at before. In that moment, you will get a rush of conviction from somewhere deep inside: It fits. It clicks.
When you make a connection that is very close to the energy source, sparks fly. It is as though you had touched a live wire. You feel intuitively that you have tapped into the energy behind your dream: The association clicks.
There is a common quality that runs through the symbols of the Wise Man—a feeling of wisdom that transcends generations, agelessness in the sense of being outside the flow of time.
Archetypal amplification begins with recognizing that an archetypal presence has entered into one’s dream. The dream that contains an archetype often has a mythical quality. Instead of scenes that seem like the everyday world, the dream takes you to a place that feels ancient, from another time, or like a fairy tale.
Find the associations that are yours, that come from your own unconscious. Don’t accept standardized interpretations as a substitute.
If I don’t find my personal connection to the archetype, then all this is pointless. The archetype is present in me, acting through me, living its life through mine. When it appears in my dream, it means that something is going on between my ego and that archetype; something is trying to evolve. I have to pin it down, see how it relates to my life, now, today.
We have to push further. We have to ask: “What is this archetype doing today in my personal life? What does this have to do with me, individually?”
if you pursue your personal associations to the dream image, the unconscious will, sooner or later, produce the archetypal connections that apply.
To perform this step, we go back to the beginning and deal with each image, one at a time. For each image ask: “What part of me is that? Where have I seen it functioning in my life lately? Where do I see that same trait in my personality? Who is it, inside me, who feels like that or behaves like that?” Then, write down each example you can think of in which that inner part of you has been expressing itself in your life.
Always begin by applying your dream inwardly. Start by assuming that your dream represents an inner dynamic, and work with it on that basis. Later, if it turns out that the dream does refer to an external situation, adjust your interpretation accordingly.
You will never find anything in the unconscious that will not be useful and good when it is made conscious and brought to the right level.
“What set of beliefs, what opinions, does this character function out of? Do I unconsciously hold that same opinion without realizing it?”
I’ve given up my native masculinity, I’m afraid to venture out into the world and make my own way, I feel like I’m enveloped in the feminine side of myself, but in a negative way that makes me feel childlike and dependent.
The point is that I have to start looking for the way of life that belongs to me, decide what values I want to serve, decide what is important to me, and start making my own decisions.
I see that I have a feeling inside of me of wanting to connect up with people, wanting to find a friend I could be very close to. I don’t want to be lonely.
I came here, and started to learn how to look at my dreams, because I sense that there is an empty spot in me. I feel the need for an inner life, I feel an inner void, I want religious meaning, religious experience, or something that will give me a sense of the underlying meaning of my life.
Where do I find this going on inside me? As esoteric as it sounds, I think I am trying to find my soul, I am trying to set up a relationship to my own soul.
How can I apply this information? First, I think that I have to give up, for a while, trying to be “somebody,” trying to succeed in the academic world or the competitive world of success and power and social approval. Instead I need to do in my daily life what I do in the dream: Go off with my own soul for a while, and make it a journey of discovery into my own self.
Opt for the interpretation that teaches you something new, rather than one that seems to confirm your ingrained opinions and prejudices.
Assume that your dream has come to challenge you, help you grow, wake you up to what you need to learn and where you need to change. And adjust your interpretation accordingly.
Dreams are aimed at the unfinished business of your life, showing what you need to face next, what you need to learn next.
Your dreams are concerned with you: what is going on inside you, the invisible energies that are shaping your inner path, the areas of your life where you need to become conscious or make changes.
Sometimes, however, you have a “big dream” that is showing you a panoramic view of your inner development over a long period of time. It may interpret for you what has happened in the past, show you what will take place in the future, and give you an idea of how your present experiences fit into that long-range flow.
It is also not a good idea to try to make a ritual out of talking about your dream or trying to explain yourself to people. Talking tends to put the whole experience back on an abstract level. It gets contaminated with your desire to present yourself in the best light. Instead of a vivid, private experience, you wind up with an amorphous, collective chat. The best rituals are physical, solitary, and silent: These are the ones that register most deeply with the unconscious.
