If the tension between the opposites can be held long enough without succumbing to the urge to identify with one side or the other, the third, completely unexpected image, one that unites the two in a creative new way, comes into view. Betsy Perluss, The Transcendent Function
Carl Jung, in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, described how therapeutic it was to translate his emotions into images (a process now referred to as active imagination).
In Jung's Red Book, his paintings and personal journal of active imagination, he wrote that the years when he pursued those inner images "were the most important time . . . My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream . . . Everything later was merely the outer classification, scientific elaboration, and the integration into life."
Active imagination is a highly effective way to access hidden parts of yourself that might be driving unwanted reactions. Here you communicate symbolically with your unconscious, without any need to control the outcome, and let yourself play with the images that occur to you. As in the Perluss quote above, when you stay with this process and hold the opposites long enough, a third, uniting image, will often come into view.
An example from The Jung Society of Washington:
Mel's dream
A woman was sitting in a diner, in a booth smoking. “Excuse me, I wonder if you could put your cigarette out?” I asked. She ignored me. A few minutes later she lit up again. I stood up, walked around to her booth, grabbed her pack of smokes and the ashtray and walked out the front door. I dumped the ashtray and stepped on her lit smoke; then, I dropped her pack and stomped them as well. I walked back inside, slammed the empty ashtray down on the coffee counter and sat down. A petite pony-tailed brunette walked up with the iced tea pitcher to refill my glass. “Can I have some more ice please?” “Sure,” she answered, “I’m sure (Flo) the boss-lady will be out in a minute,” the brunette said, as she turned around with my ice. “What does she want?” “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”
Dialogue with the boss-lady
Here is his active imagination with Flo, his dream boss-lady:
Flo: Howdy
Mel: Hi
Flo: Purdy hot day, huh?
Mel: I can stand the heat. It’s the stray cigarette smoke that sets me off.
Flo: So that gives you the right to run off one of my regulars.
Mel: I asked her to put it out.
Flo: Did you ask her or did you beat around the bush with some rude indirect comment?
Mel: Lady, I don’t know who you are or what’s on your mind, but I really don’t need any more crap today.
Flo: Well kid right now you’re in my diner and you’re runnin’ off my patrons.
Mel: Oh great.
Flo: I’ve dealt with your kind for years so let’s just cut to the quick.
Mel: Look, lady, I’m sorry if I offended anybody here, but I’ve got some problems. My MG is broken down across the street.
Flo: So what?
Mel: Things just aren’t falling into place today.
Flo: Would you like some chocolate milk little boy, or how about your ass wiped? In this café, the world doesn’t revolve around you.
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