Active imagination was born out of a term called the mythopoetic function. Mythopoetic function was an idea first used by Fredrick Myers as an interface between waking and dreaming consciousness. Myers believed the unconscious was “continually creating mythic fantasies which manifested themselves in dreams, somnambulism, hypnosis, possession and the trance states of mediums” (Kalsched, 2001, p. 216). Myers used the term, having found that some people weave fantasies while in trance or reverie states (Price-Williams, 1992). Every image or imagining, believed Jung has a psychic process, as well, image is synonymous with psyche (Jung, 1947). Through the therapeutic process of active imagination those images can access emotions. Jung (1947) believed that instinct carries within itself a pattern of its situation. Always it fulfills an image, and the image has fixed qualities. The instinct of the leaf-cutting ant fulfills the image of ant, tree, leaf, cutting, transport, and the little ant-garden of fungi. If any one of these conditions is lacking, the instinct does not function, because it cannot exist with its total pattern, without its image. Active imagination is a technique utilizing various forms of self-expression to access and assimilate unconscious contents Creative self-expression such as acting, pantomiming, singing, dancing, writing, painting, drawing, tattooing, gardening, landscaping, collaging, speaking or singing in tongues (glossolalia), dream tending, praying, creating and honoring rituals, meditating, exercising, even cleaning and organizing—most any action that is done creatively and imaginatively—enable a person to utilize his or her imagination. Experiences in life can resonate deep within; imaginal images can pervade waking and sleeping time for those who call upon psyche consciously or unconsciously.
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