Robert A. Johnson

Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth

Inner Work

Laura Mei

The unconscious is a marvelous universe of unseen energies, forces, forms of intelligence that live within us. It is a much larger realm than most of us realize, one that has a complete life of its own running parallel to the ordinary life we live day to day. The unconscious is the secret source of much of our thought, feeling, and behavior. It influences us in ways that are all the more powerful because unsuspected.

As we become more sensitive to the surges of energy from the unconscious we learn instead to ask, “What part of me believes that? Why does this subject set off such an intense reaction in that unseen part of myself?”

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. Both of these are highly refined channels of communication that the psyche has developed so that the unconscious and conscious levels may speak to one another and work together. The unconscious has developed a special language to use in dreams and imagination: It is the language of symbolism.

Jung developed a magnificent vision of this human capacity for consciousness, of its role and meaning. He saw a creative force at work in nature—a cosmos laboring through timeless aeons to give birth to this rare quality that we call consciousness. Through the human race, the huge unconscious psyche of Nature has slowly made a part of itself conscious.

Human consciousness develops out of the primal matter of the unconscious. Its growth is nourished by a continuing stream of contents from the unconscious that rises gradually to the level of consciousness, seeking to form a more complete, conscious person. The incorporation of unconscious materials must continue until, finally, the conscious mind reflects the wholeness of the total self. Each of us is a microcosm in which the universal process actualizes itself.

Within the unconscious of each person is the primal pattern, the “blueprint,” if you will, according to which the conscious mind and the total functional personality are formed—from birth through all the slow years of psychological growth toward genuine inner maturity. This pattern, this invisible latticework of energy, contains all the traits, all the strengths, the faults, the basic structure and parts that will make up a total psychological being.

The true depth and grandeur of an individual human being is never totally manifested until the main elements of the personality are moved from the level of potential in the unconscious and actualized at the level of conscious functioning.

When human life is in balance, the conscious mind and the unconscious live in relationship. There is a constant flow of energy and information between the two levels as they meet in the dimension of dream, vision, ritual, and imagination. The disaster that has overtaken the modern world is the complete splitting off of the conscious mind from its roots in the unconscious.

In modern Western society we have reached a point at which we try to get by without acknowledging the inner life at all. 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. Jung observed that most of the neurosis, the feeling of fragmentation, the vacuum of meaning, in modern lives, results from this isolation of the ego-mind from the unconscious. As conscious beings we all go about with a vague sense that we have lost a part of ourselves, that something that once belonged to us is missing.

A great sense of security develops from the process of individuation. One begins to understand that it isn’t necessary to struggle to be like someone else, for by being one’s own self one stands on the surest ground. We realize that to know ourselves completely and to develop all the strengths that are built into us is a lifetime task. We don’t need to make an imitation of someone else’s life. There is no further need for pretensions, for what is already ours is riches enough, and far more than we ever expected.

Once we become sensitive to dreams, we discover that every dynamic in a dream is manifesting itself in some way in our practical lives—in our actions, relationships, decisions, automatic routines, urges, and feelings. We believe ourselves to be in conscious control of these elements of life. But this belief is the great illusion of ego-control. These aspects of our lives are actually determined from a far deeper place. It is in the world of dreaming that their root sources are revealed in a form that we can see and understand. Dreams express the unconscious. Dreams are dynamic mosaics, composed of symbols, that express the movements, conflicts, interactions, and developments of the great energy systems within the unconscious.

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