The psyche consists essentially of images. It is a series of images in the truest sense, not an accidental juxtaposition or sequence, but a structure that is throughout full of meaning and purpose; it is a ‘picturing’ of vital activities.  

CG Jung

Last year, towards the end of a 10 day meditation retreat with a well known teacher, I sat the Yaza.  The Yaza is an all night sit – from 10pm to 6am the next morning.  The intrepid leader leads the small group through a sequence of traditional sitting and walking meditation, maybe a break for snacks, and the always entertaining yaza march – in which all the yogis line up and march military style around the neighborhood.

Somewhere around 4am, after the march, I was sitting and was visited by an Angel.

It was a very classic Angel – glowing halo, white wings, all of it.  I never had much internal visual activity happen to me up until then, and it was so amazing to me how autonomous it was.  Even though it was in my imagination, I did not feel as if I were controlling it.  It had a mind of it’s own.

I attributed this to the hypnogogia of the Yaza, and dismissed it.

Two days later, on the final day of the retreat – well after I had recovered from the Yaza – a Demon visited me.  At the time I didn’t identify it as a demon, I recognized it as an “ancient unnamed god”.  Likewise completely autonomous – and the image was so detailed and elaborate, and his sly emotion so clear, that it’s seared into my imagination like a vivid memory.  I couldn’t close my eyes and imagine something with that level of detail – it was completely unforced – a bubbling up from the subconscious realm.

This time, as I was wide awake – I had a much different relationship to the image.  I wasn’t afraid of it, just super curious.  When I spoke to the teacher about the image, he recognized that this phenomena was real, but made no claims on what it was, and dismissed it as a distraction to enlightenment (our ultimate goal!).  For him, the practice is to just note this as sensing phenomena, and ignore it.

I get where he’s coming from, and I understand the purpose behind dismissing the image, but unfortunately my experience with image wasn’t limited to this one retreat – and it has now (like it or not) become a fairly regular occurrence in my practice.

My regular teacher has encouraged me instead of approach these images with curiosity, and to perhaps use them as an outlet for my visual art.  So much of my work has to do with creativity, that this feels like an obvious and welcome path to go down.

In the past year or two I’ve been doing a deep dive down the rabbit hole of the place of image and imagination in meditation and contemplative practice – and I find it to be a deeply rich and profound exploration

Didn’t you just make that up tho?

One thing is learned through this practice of using Imagination – is that the subconscious is VAST.

I mean, worlds upon worlds upon worlds vast.

Think about it – everything that’s ever been created, every painting, movie, television show, work of fiction, poem, song, building, even ideas – all of it – has come from the subconscious of an individual.  Everything created in our world is the subconscious made conscious and then made physical.

Up until I really started exploring it, I sort of counted out imaginal work as “made up” – as in “I just made this up, so it can’t be real”

But then I realized how ridiculous that is – even if I intentionally made it up – it’s still a product of my subconscious.

I worked as an art teacher for years – and it was evident there more than anywhere.  All the students would have the same assignment, and yet every final piece of artwork would be completely unique to the individual student.  Their unique subconscious formulations each produced distinct pieces of artwork given the same parameters.

Each individual piece of artwork reflected something about them.  The colors they chose, the subjects they chose, the stories they chose to tell – each of those choices reflected something deeply profound about what was going on for them under the surface.

Even though they just “made it up”

So I’d like to propose that the products of imagination and the subconcious should not be dismissed as merely “made up” – that even the most contrived popcorn superhero movie that gets told the same way a million times – even that says something about it’s creators, and it’s viewers.

But it’s more than that – image can be interacted with and channeled as a deep tool of personal growth

Imagination as Tool

In the Tibetan tradition there are several ancient practices that work with images of Archetypes and various deities, as a way to further personal growth.  They have been doing this stuff for forever, but recently more research has come out into the actual uses of intentional imagination techniques to affect deeply ingrained psychological conditioning.

Dan Brown, a psychology professor and researcher at Harvard University, has developed a technique derived from the Tibetan practices as a means to achieve this shift in conditioning.  Called the Idealized Parent Figure Protocol (IPF for short), a facilitator leads the patient on an inner journey to meet their idealized parents, providing an experience of a healthy parental attachment to imagined people.

There’s much to say about the IPF practice and parental attachment theory, but for our purposes the mechanics of this is the most intriguing.  Essentially – our early childhood experiences deeply affect our conditioning.  How we learn to be be in relationship with the world and with ourselves is based on a series of formative early childhood experiences that we likely don’t even remember anymore.  If we had unreliable parents, this system can be disrupted, leading to a variety of unfavorable psychological outcomes.

Each time we encounter a situation in life, we compare it to our library of similar situations, many of which come from early childhood memories.  If that catalog is only filled with experiences of unreliable attachment figures, the best we’re only ever able to do in those situations is not that great.

However, as research into IPF has found, it doesn’t matter if that catalog is full of things that actually happened or not.  In fact, you can reprogram your inner catalog of attachment interactions, so that when you are in a situation in which you pull from the library of past experiences, you’re pulling from experiences you had in your imagination in an interaction with your idealized parents.

The fact is, you can’t act on things in the world that you can’t imagine as possibilities.  The more you use your imagination to activate possibilities, the more possible options you have to act on.

AMAZING.

Like, really friggin amazing actually.

Game changing even.

Dan Brown is an endlessly fascinating individual, who is both a Tibetan teacher and Psychology professor – and all of his work related to attachment theory and Tibetan practice is worth checking out.

The grandpapa of modern imaginal practice

There are so many teachers tapping into the powers of the imaginal currently, but no preliminary conversation on the subject can be complete without a nod to my favorite mystic CG Jung.

Say what you want about Jung, he can be a little controversial, but for me no other framework has spoken more deeply to my own personal experiences than his exploration of the subconscious in Liber Novus – The Red Book.

In the Red Book, Jung explores a technique he pioneered called Active Imagination – in which he uses his imagination to explore the places and people and creatures that dwell in his subconscious.  He encounters archetypes, learns deep lessons about himself, and taps into what would in another context be called his own deep spiritual existence.

Dropping into the subconscious is not a simple feat, one has to be physically relaxed, and mentally uncluttered.  Writers might relate well to this state of being – its that space where things just flow.  However, as Jung explained, it can also be an intentional movement towards dropping in, with a sudden involuntary letting go…

“I was sitting at my desk once more, thinking over my fears. Then I let myself drop. Suddenly it was as though the ground literally gave way beneath my feet, and I plunged down into dark depths. I could not fend off a feeling of panic. “

– ~Carl Jung, “Jung” by Gerhard Wehr, Page 179

Sometimes all we need to access these depths is the permission to do so, despite whatever fear we might have around what we could find there.

Jung’s work with Active Imagination is deeply moving, and was a very rich part of his personal life and practice – and yet even among Jungian analysts it’s fallen into the background a bit.

Which is unfortunate from my perspective – because while it feels at times like mere entertainment – imaginal practice when used with intention can be a fantastic tool to dialogue with the stuck parts of ourselves.

There are many ways to access the powers of Active Imagination and the Imaginal for yourself.

How to work with the Imagination

There are a multitude of ways to go about this, but here are two ways that work for me. They both do require a familiarity of concentration or emptiness meditation techniques – though you can always experiment with them and see if they work for you.  Everyone is different!

Word of Note:  Robert Johnson suggests not approaching Active Imagination work without the support of a qualified therapist.  From a personal framework, I (and several others I know) have been doing this for quite a while personally and have not had any issues or felt unbalanced out of the practice in any way.  Like anything, if you feel uncomfortable, then it’s totally fine to just stop and come back later.  If you feel trepidation, I would approach imaginal work with the first option for a while before advancing to the second.

Like many things in practice, please don’t just jump to the biggest most traumatic issue you carry.  It’s best when learning these practices to spend a lot of time working just with the daily anxieties and stressors as you learn the tools and how they work.

Being with the Image

The simplest way to being working with the image in meditative practice is to simply practice BEING with it.

In this practice, we sit for a while in meditation – allowing ourselves to chose a meditative object and really sink into concentration.  This can be breath counting, or noting senses, or just focusing on a point of emptiness in the body.

After about 10 minutes, once concentration has solidified, notice what types of emotions are arising and falling in the body.

Where is the energy moving in the body?

Where is it blocked?

When an emotion is pinpointed that you’re interested in working with – ZOOM IN to it.  Allow it to fill your conscious awareness.

Once you’re “swimming in” that emotion or feeling state – as Jung suggested – DROP DOWN and give yourself permission to activate your inner visual experience.

Allow that emotion to take shape into an image.

It might be anything – a figure, an animal, a place – there are a multitude options.

The thing that is important is that you just ALLOW an image to appear.  It’s not about forcing and creating or inventing, it’s about allowing whatever is there to bubble up.  When the image arrives it might be nothing that you thought it would be, and that’s ok.  Whatever arrives is exactly what it’s meant to be.

At this point the instruction is to do nothing but feel into that image – it’s important in this way of working that we aren’t interacting with the image or allowing it to carry us off.  We’re just sitting with the image and observing it, as a way to sit with our emotional space.

Just like an emotion – the feeling might shift or change or disappear all together – your goal for this practice is to simply observe it and see what it does, and how the image affects your emotion and vice versa.

You could have an entire imaginal experience just staying in this space if you want.

Otherwise, you can move on to –

Interacting with the Image

If you have a stuckness hanging out around you – a place where your psyche is kind of constricting around, which is bringing you anxiety – Active Imagination can be a useful tool to help with this.

As in the previous method – drop into concentrated meditation space however works best for you (counting breaths one to ten back down to one is a common method)

Again, tap into your stuckness – whatever it might be.  Really ZOOM IN to that feeling and allow it to fill your awareness.  Swim in it.

Give yourself permission to activate your inner visual space.  Allow the emotional experience to take shape into an image.

In the previous example we were just sitting with the image, but in this practice we take the next step to INTERACT with it

At this point you can interact with the image in whatever way becomes apparent.  If it’s a figure or animal, perhaps your having a dialogue, if its an environment, perhaps you’re exploring it.

Whatever it is, the important part is not to FORCE anything into what you think it’s supposed to be.

For spiritually minded people it’s so easy to get stuck on “This symbol or metaphor or god or plant is meaningful to me, so I hope to see that (symbol or metaphor or god or plant)”.  This is so easy to slip into, but the key to all of this working is that you’re accessing this deeper parts of yourself that don’t care what things are “supposed” to be.  They only care about what is deeply meaningful to you on a subconscious level, these parts of you could care less what your conscious mind wants to happen.

So just ALLOW whatever happens to happen.  If you find yourself feeling a slight constriction, as if you’re forcing things even a little bit – it’s ok to just pause, reconnect with the emotion you’re working with – and then continue.

If anything happens that is FRIGHTENING in any way, remember that this is just an image, representing a deep difficult emotion that might not have been dealt with.  I find these moments some of the most powerfully useful in this practice.  When a fear is projected out into an image, we can work with it in very effective ways.  If this happens to you, see it as an opportunity to sit in curiosity with this fear – really get curious about it.  You don’t have to interact with anything that frightens you, and it might be helpful to just sit with it and be present with it as a way to witness a part of yourself that is dark and mysterious.  Remember that you are in total control, and if you want to pop out of the meditation all together you can whenever you need to.

Wrap it up with some Metta

To wrap out this practice I like to do at least 5 minutes of Metta / loving kindness practice for myself.  If I have time I’ll do up to 10 or 15 minutes – when it comes to Metta its definitely a more the merrier situation.

Any time I’m digging into the subconscious in practice I fine that the loving kindness practice at the end is crucial for grounding me back in the world around me.  This also helps to balance out any intense emotions that might have come up, so I can go about my day without bringing any of that with me.

During the day if you end up getting stuck anywhere emotionally, I would also just do some quick on-the-spot metta practice for yourself or for others to diffuse the averse emotion.

A quick way to access metta

1. Imagine someone who you feel fond of, that you love, feel supported by – where those feelings automatically arise when you think of them
2. Move your concentration to that emotion and notice that it exists both in your body and in your head as a mind-state
3. Drop the image and the body emotion, and focus solely on the location of metta in the head (the mindstate).  It manifests as a very identifiable energy (to use a wooy term)
4. Continue to observe the Metta in the head, and direct that sense of love and kindness towards yourself.
5. If the mindstate fades, bring back up the person you feel metta for, wait until the mindstate returns, drop the image and refocus on the mindstate, and sending the metta to yourself.
6. Keep at this for the full 10 minutes, and notice how the mind state of love and kindness affects all the other mindstates that might be present.

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Working with the imagination can be so deeply useful and therapeutic, I would love to hear about your own explorations with the imagination, and how you might work with it in your own spiritual practice!