Close your eyes for a moment. Can you remember the last time you were barefoot outdoors? Where were you? Who were you with? Take a few moments, with your eyes closed and your body relaxed, to let that whole scene surround you again; to let your awareness inhabit it.
Finished? There, it’s that simple. That’s image return. In this course, we’ll be doing it less with memories and more with recent dreams, but you’re welcome to practice with memories as well, for as long as that’s easier. Later on, we’ll practice with more subtle inner scenes, but let’s leave that aside until we’re further along.
The roots of image return go back for as long as humans have had shamans, healers, and bored kids; but the way we’ll be approaching it is rooted in the psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s practice of “Active Imagination.” Here’s his description of the process, from a letter to a patient:
The point is that you start with any image... Contemplate it and carefully observe how it begins to unfold or change. Don't try to make it into anything, just do nothing but observe what its spontaneous changes are.
Note all these changes and eventually step into the picture yourself. If it is a speaking figure at all then say what you have to say to that figure, and listen to what they have to say.
It’s as simple as that: call up an inner image and observe it. If it wants to unfold, let it unfold; if it stays how it is, don’t get frustrated about it. Once you’ve settled into the image as it is, allow yourself to act within it, in whatever ways feel appropriate.
Jung states the goals of the practice like this:
You not only analyze the unconscious, but also give the unconscious a chance to analyze yourself, and therewith you gradually create the unity of conscious and unconscious, without which there is no individuation at all.
That’s very important, that this relationship goes both ways; we look into the unconscious, and the unconscious looks into us. We communicate with one another, we bond and share. The process can be strange, uncomfortable, sometimes painful — but without this process, the Psyche remains fragmented; there will be no unity of conscious and unconscious.
We’ll add on more complexity and possibilities to the image return process later, but for now, it’s best to simply spend as much time as possible dropping into meditation and holding the image in your mind.
Before we do, it’s best to clarify what I mean (and don’t mean) by the word “image.” Follow that thread here: Beyond Visualization
Recall a vivid dream that has stuck with you. Close your eyes, and let the scene take form around you again. Allow all your senses to participate — not just sights and sounds, but also sensing the emotional atmosphere, the implicit knowing that’s available in dreams, any sense of the past, the future… everything about the dream, let yourself explore it, notice it, unfold it.