Active Imagination
Practice · Dialogue with autonomous unconscious figures
- First attested
- 1916C.G. Jung, The Transcendent Function (1916, published 1957).
Engaging inner images with conscious courage transforms unconscious conflict into creative partnership.
C.G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus (2009); Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemical Active Imagination (1979).
A disciplined contemplative method for engaging in conscious dialogue with unconscious images and figures.
Developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916 and documented in The Red Book (Liber Novus), Active Imagination is a psychological technique wherein an individual intentionally suspends conscious criticism and allows autonomous unconscious imagery to emerge into waking awareness. Unlike passive daydreaming or artistic fantasy, the conscious ego participates as an active, ethically responsible interlocutor, dialoguing directly with inner figures (such as Philemon or the Shadow) to bridge the conscious and unconscious realms.
Light
Direct communication with deeper psychic layers, creative insight, and profound symptom resolution.
Shadow
Risk of inflation, psychotic flooding, or dissociative absorption without adequate grounding.