Active Imagination (Guided Meditation or Guided Dream)
Active imagination is a method of analytical psychology, a theory developed by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. The method consists in giving a sensitive form to the images of the unconscious, thus expanding the consciousness. It is thus a matter of focusing attention on the moods and, more generally, on the unconscious fantasies that are called into consciousness, and then allowing them to unfold freely, without the conscious mind determining them, but interacting with them nonetheless. It is therefore a matter of “connecting the conscious and the unconscious levels” or bringing spontaneous images to life.
What is Active Imagination ?
Active imagination, enables a conscious dialogue with the unconscious. “Active” because I guide you through a symbolic and pictorial story (situation, landscape, decor, people) to reach inaccessible areas when you are conscious. It is a therapeutic technique between sophrology and hypnosis that I learned and experienced during my three years of training at IPHT. I guide you and bring you into an altered state of consciousness, but you remain awake. You can interact in the dream, so you are responsible for the scenario of your life, you are the actor and the director of it.
In which cases should the RED technique be used?
It is a technique used to free speech, to put complaints into words, to heal wounds, to free oneself from family engrams, it is very useful for:
- personal development personal problems (school, family, marriage, job, etc.)
- fears,
- phobias,
- behavioral and relationship problems
I use it every time I accompany a person to therapy.
How does an Active Imagination meditation takes place?
Preparation for Active Imagination with a relaxation time (duration 20 to 45min)
Lying down with your eyes closed, I invite you to relax and guide you through. Since the unconscious lies within, you have to internalize yourself to meet it. This means entering a state of deep relaxation at the beginning of the exercise.
Deep relaxation is characterized by a significant drop in the waves generated in the brain. One must pass from the beta level (30 to 13 hertz) to an alpha level (between 13 and 8 hertz) and even theta (8 and 4 hertz), which are characteristic of deep meditative states. This meditative state is reached after 10 to 20 minutes of meditation and relaxation.
The active imagination session (duration 20 to 45 minutes)
The guided meditation works with archetypes. I integrate them into the dream and suggest them to you, leaving it up to you to enact them as you wish. The same archetype or character is animated differently in every meditation. This is the proof that we are unique and special.
Active imagination follows the 3-V logic:
- Seeing: visualizing a situation, a landscape, a scene, people, etc…
- Experiencing: Feel emotions and sensations, sadness, joy, fear, envy, anger, heat, cold, etc…
- Verbalize: Describe everything you see and experience in the meditation.
A time for sharing, analysis and decoding:
After the meditation session, I invite you to write down all the images that shaped you, the feelings you experienced. The point is to bring up everything that came up during the meditation. This will serve as a basis for your inner work.
You will be surprised at the benefits you will get from this exercise: Highlighting the elements that create blocks in your life. Allows you to draw a parallel between the mental history and your childhood and/or daily life
You can gradually work on the resolution of fears and blockages, especially by correcting the visualization.
Correcting the meditation:
This final stage of correction is the crucial stage of development and healing. In fact, it is like realizing in life that the faucet in the kitchen is turned on, but you do nothing (lack of correction) and let the water flow (inevitable disaster and flooding). Here it is the same: you see something that bothers you, you feel an unpleasant sensation, you are confronted with someone who is unpleasant or dangerous. In this last phase you need to return to the meditation to bring it to a pleasant, favorable situation, Correction and Alchemy.
The task is to Re-educate the subconscious psychological structures that led to the images.
To consciously and intentionally embed or change certain images
Acting on negative conditioning to eliminate it = cognitive restructuring
It is a self-therapy (or psychotherapy) by returning to personal experience and repeating the dream in the alpha state. It undoubtedly has an impact on your subconscious. It will change your life and relationships to sublimate and pacify them.
These visualization exercises train the soul to adopt new attitudes and establish new behaviors more appropriate to life situations.
The technique of Active meditation is a central technique of my programs.
