An imaginal practice is a guided way of engaging with an inner scene, figure or landscape and noticing what develops as you participate.
You aren’t only watching a picture. You may approach, speak, wait, move away or notice how it feels to be met.
The figure doesn’t have to become cooperative.
Perhaps an imagined guard refuses to let you pass. You can notice your response rather than force a triumphant ending.
Are you impatient? Relieved? Afraid of disappointing it? Curious about what it believes it is protecting?
The encounter becomes meaningful through its details, not through meeting an expectation of what healing should look like.
The Circle is an imaginal encounter included in every I AWAKE book. Each guided seven-day book of the Sensual Hero’s Journey includes one after its seven-day sequence. The Creative Hero’s Journey also uses the Circle practically, while the Hidden Hero’s Journey gives its context more extensive attention.
Your imagination may work through words or sensations as well as pictures. You can participate with what is available.
Active imagination introduces the related Jungian approach. Pacing keeps attention on how much of an encounter you want to take part in now.
Chiara Tozzi’s Active Imagination, published by the International Association for Analytical Psychology, explains active imagination in its original psychological context. It is a neighbouring tradition, not a substitute label for every authored I AWAKE practice.