I developed this guided imaginary at the Metropolitan State College in Denver when I was teaching Creativity in Business. It was a first freely improvising on the piano to hearing the script in the headphones. Subsequently I used the guided imagery for a presentation I did at the Design Management Conference in Martha’s Vineyard when our daughter was about a year old and we had just learned she was deaf and might never hear our voice. I got laryngitis so I could hardly speak and had to whisper at the 3 hour presentation so the guided imaginary part gave my voice a break. I wonder now about the audience who could hardly hear my voice then.
Active imagination is a concept from Carl Jung.
As developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916, active imagination is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one’s unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious ‘ego’ and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy.
Key to the process of active imagination is the goal of exerting as little influence as possible on mental images as they unfold. For example, if a person were recording a spoken visualization of a scene or object from a dream, Jung’s approach would ask the practitioner to observe the scene, watch for changes, and report them, rather than to consciously fill the scene with one’s desired changes. One would then respond genuinely to these changes, and report any further changes in the scene. This approach is meant to ensure that the unconscious contents express themselves without overbearing influence from the conscious mind. At the same time, however, Jung was insistent that some form of participation in active imagination was essential: ‘You yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions…as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real’. *
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
When I used the process I was showing how participants could relax deeply and then imagine actively the creative solution to what was on there minds by mentally speaking to archival guides.
P.S. Amy now 27, has minimal hearing but lip reads well and is married and doing great working in Denver.