Lucid Dreaming and Active Imagination: Implications for Jungian Therapy

Abstract

ompares lucid dreaming with Jung's conception of active imagination. Interest in lucid dreaming focuses on the control that awareness confers on the dreamer over the dream images. For Jung, active imagination involves 2 components of the transcendent function: creation of a symbol and the conscious attempt to relate to the symbol. In active imagination the usual form of critical consciousness is eliminated, allowing the emergence of fantasies that have a high libido charge. In lucid dreaming, a symbolic statement is first produced, and then, when the dream ego takes a respectful attitude to the symbol, a transformation occurs. Both lucid dreaming and active imagination may be used to bypass persona resistances or defenses of rationalization. As a technique in psychotherapy, lucid dreaming may be particularly useful with borderline and with obsessive-compulsive patients.