How to do active imagination (and how to tell if you're doing it right)
Last updated: October 2026
Active imagination is Jung's technique for continuing a dream while awake: you return to an image, let it move or speak on its own, and respond as yourself, recording the exchange in writing, drawing or movement. It differs from daydreaming because you take part as a conscious partner, and from guided visualisation because nobody scripts what the image does.
Jung developed active imagination during his own years of inner experiment, roughly 1913 to 1916, the period recorded in The Red Book. He came to regard it as one of the most important tools of analysis, and also one of the easiest to misuse. Most of what goes wrong comes from doing too much, too fast, alone. This guide sets out the method slowly.
What is active imagination?
Active imagination is a waking dialogue with an image from the unconscious, in which the image is allowed to act independently and the conscious self responds to it as a real counterpart. The image might come from a dream, a mood, a fantasy or a bodily sensation. The exchange is recorded, then reflected on, and finally its consequences are carried into ordinary life.
Jung first described the underlying process in "The Transcendent Function", written in 1916 (Collected Works, Volume 8), and used the term "active imagination" from the 1930s. The purpose is not to produce interesting images. It is to let the conscious and unconscious positions meet, so that something new can emerge from their tension.
Active imagination vs daydreaming and guided visualisation
In a daydream you are a spectator, and the fantasy drifts wherever wishes take it. In guided visualisation someone else, a teacher or a recording, decides what you will see. In active imagination you neither drift nor direct. You attend to an image, let it do what it does, and respond honestly as yourself, including with disagreement. The test is whether the image surprises you. If everything goes as you would have scripted it, you are probably writing a story.
How to do active imagination, step by step
Marie-Louise von Franz, one of Jung's closest colleagues, described the process in four parts. A practical version:
- Quiet the ego. Sit somewhere you will not be interrupted for twenty minutes. Let the day's chatter settle without forcing it.
- Choose an image. Take one image from a recent dream, ideally one with some feeling attached. Do not choose the most frightening image you have.
- Let it move. Hold the image in attention and wait. Note what it does, what it says, how it changes. Write it down as it happens, or immediately after.
- Respond as yourself. Speak to the figure in your own voice. Ask what it wants. Disagree if you disagree. Your conscious position is half the dialogue.
- Stop and record. End deliberately after ten or fifteen minutes. Write out the exchange in full.
- Carry it into life. Ask what the session asks of you in practice, and do one small thing about it. Jung considered this ethical step essential.
A worked session, from dream to practice
The dream, the dreamer and the session are invented for this guide.
The dreamer. Forty-six, caring for a parent through a long illness, and keeping going without pause.
The image and its amplification. A guarding animal at a threshold; a hospital; a door that cannot be passed. Personally, the dog recalls a family dog from childhood that would lie across the doorway when someone was ill. On the wider layer, dogs guard thresholds in many mythologies, often between the world of the living and what lies beyond. Read as compensation, the dream sets a calm refusal against a conscious attitude of pressing on at any cost.
The session. She sits with the image and waits. The dog lifts its head. She asks why it is blocking the door. In her written record, the dog answers: "You go in too fast. You come out empty." She replies that she has no choice. The dog does not move, but it shifts to make room for her to sit beside it. She sits. Nothing else happens, and she stops after twelve minutes.
Reflection. The surprise is the offer to sit rather than to pass. One reading: the guarding instinct is not against her task but against the way she is doing it. Another: the threshold she cannot cross yet is the one toward grief.
The ritual. Before each hospital visit this week, sit for two minutes outside the door before going in.
Am I doing it right?
This is the most common question people ask about active imagination. One person on a Jung forum put it exactly: "How can I tell if I am doing it right or wrong." Some signs that the process is genuine:
- The image does or says something you did not expect.
- You feel something real during the exchange, even if mild.
- You disagree with the figure at some point, and the disagreement goes somewhere.
- Afterwards, the session sits with you for a while, like a dream does.
Signs that it has turned into something else: every session is pleasant and confirms what you already believed; the figures speak in your usual voice about your usual concerns; or you feel you are performing for an imagined reader.
Common problems
Nothing happens
Common, especially at first. The image stays still. Stay with it a little longer, then stop without forcing. Describing the image in detail, in writing, often loosens it on the next attempt.
"I'm just making it up"
Everyone worries about this. The distinction is not between invented and real but between directed and allowed. If you notice yourself steering, step back and wait. Some invention at the start is normal; the work is to let the image take over.
Going in circles
Another person described their sessions as "walking in circles." Repetition usually means the conscious side is not responding honestly, only observing. Say what you actually feel to the figure, including frustration.
Is active imagination safe?
For most people, practised slowly, it is a quiet and grounding exercise. It is not for everyone. Jung himself warned that it can release unconscious material faster than consciousness can hold it. It is not advisable if you have a history of psychosis or dissociation, if you are in acute crisis, or if you are working with trauma that is still raw. Start with mild images, keep sessions short, and always return to ordinary activity afterwards.
When to stop
Stop a session if you feel overwhelmed, if the image becomes compulsive or keeps intruding into your day, if you lose the sense of which voice is yours, or if sleep and functioning are affected. Stop the practice for a while, and speak to a clinician, if any of this persists.
Why analysts recommend supervision
Jung taught active imagination mainly to people already in analysis, and most Jungian analysts still recommend learning it with a guide. An analyst can tell when a session is genuine and when it has become a defence, slow things down when material comes too fast, and help with the last step, carrying the result into life. If you are considering that, see what a Jungian analyst does with your dreams.
What book does Jung talk about active imagination in?
The core texts: "The Transcendent Function" (Collected Works, Volume 8); the closing parts of Mysterium Coniunctionis (Collected Works, Volume 14); and The Red Book, Jung's own record, published in 2009. Joan Chodorow's Jung on Active Imagination (1997) collects his writing on it in one volume. Barbara Hannah's Encounters with the Soul and Robert A. Johnson's Inner Work are practical introductions.
How Coniunctio reads it
Coniunctio does not conduct active imagination for you, and it should not. What it does is prepare the ground. You describe the dream in plain language (dreams up to 5,000 characters are read in full), and every symbol is amplified on the personal and archetypal layer, so you know the range of a figure before you sit with it. One synthesis offers interpretation options, and the reading ends in one ritual you choose from three and three questions to continue in the thread. What came out of a session can be brought back to the same dream's thread as a follow-up.
Every dream is kept, so the figure you meet in active imagination can be followed as it returns in later dreams. For the wider method, see Jungian dream analysis; for its use with disowned figures, see Jungian shadow work.
Before you sit with the image, know what it can carry.
A Jungian reading of the dream the image came from: every symbol amplified, one synthesis, a ritual and three questions, with room to bring back what the session showed you.
Begin my readingNo account required, and the first reading is free.
Common questions
What is active imagination?
Active imagination is Jung's technique for a waking dialogue with an image from the unconscious, often from a dream. The image is allowed to act independently, the conscious self responds as a real counterpart, the exchange is recorded, and its consequences are carried into ordinary life.
How do I know if I'm doing active imagination right?
Signs the process is genuine: the image does something you did not expect, you feel something real during the exchange, you disagree with the figure and the disagreement goes somewhere, and the session stays with you afterwards. If every session confirms what you already believed, you are probably directing it.
Is active imagination dangerous?
Practised slowly with mild images, it is usually quiet and grounding. Jung warned it can release unconscious material faster than consciousness can hold it. It is not advisable with a history of psychosis or dissociation, in acute crisis, or with raw trauma, and is best learned with an analyst.
What book does Jung talk about active imagination in?
Jung describes it in 'The Transcendent Function' (Collected Works, Volume 8) and in Mysterium Coniunctionis (Volume 14), and practises it in The Red Book. Joan Chodorow's Jung on Active Imagination collects his writing on the subject.