Download PDF Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, by Robert A. Johnson
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Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, by Robert A. Johnson
Download PDF Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth, by Robert A. Johnson
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About the Author
Robert A. Johnson, a noted lecturer and Jungian analyst, is also the author of He, She, We, Inner Work, Ecstasy, Transformation, and Owning Your Own Shadow.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter OneAlternative Realities: The World of Dreaming, the Realm of ImaginationOur verbal patterns betray many of our automatic assumptions: If one discusses a dream with a friend, the friend is likely to ask something like, "Did that detail really happen, or only in the dream?" The implication is that what happens in a dream is not .'real." In fact, it would be more accurate to ask, "Did it happen in dream reality, or in physical reality? In the world of dreaming, or in the ordinary world?"Both are genuine worlds, both are realities that truly exist. But the world of dreaming, if we only realized it, has more practical and concrete effect on our lives than outer events do. For it is in the world of dreaming that the unconscious is working out its powerful dynamics. It is there that the great forces do battle or combine to produce the attitudes, ideals, beliefs, and compulsions that motivate most of our behavior.Once we become sensitive to dreams, we discover that every dynamic in a dream is manifesting itself in some way in our practical lives-in our actions, relationships, decisions, automatic routines, urges, and feelings. We believe ourselves to be in conscious control of these elements of life. But this belief is the great illusion of ego-control. These aspects of our lives are actually determined from a far deeper place. It is in the world of dreaming that their root sources are revealed in a form that we can see and understand.Dreams express the unconscious. Dreams are dynamic mosaics, composed of symbols, that express the movements, conflicts, interactions, and developments of the great energy systems within the unconscious.The unconscious has a particular capacity to create images and to use those images as symbols. It is these symbols that form our dreams, creating a language by which the unconscious communicates its contents to the conscious mind.just as a burning fire inherently exudes heat, the unconscious inherently generates symbols. It is simply the nature of the unconscious to do so. As we learn to read those symbols we gain the ability to perceive the workings of the unconscious within us. This ability to produce symbols affects more than just our dreams: All of human life is nourished by the flow of symbolic imagery from the wellsprings in the unconscious:The symbolic imagery of the unconscious is the creative source of the human spirit in all its realizations. Not only have consciousness and the concepts of its philosophical understanding of the world arisen from the symbol but also religion, rite and cult, art and customs. And because the symbol-forming process of the unconscious is the source of the human spirit, language, whose history is almost identical with the genesis and development of human consciousness, always starts out as a symbolic language. Thus Jung writes: "An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors." (Neumann, Great Mother, p. 17)The image-symbols of the unconscious find their way to the level of consciousness mainly by two routes: dreams and imagination. It is easier to grasp the symbolic quality with dreams, for dreams often present mythical creatures and unearthly situations that would be impossible in everyday physical life. People are usually confused by the dream images until they learn that the images are symbolic and are not to be taken literally.Since dream images make no sense in ordinary terms, people dismiss them as "weird" or meaningless, but actually, dreams are completely coherent. If we take the time to learn their language, we discover that every dream is a masterpiece of symbolic communication. The unconscious speaks in symbols, not to confuse us, but simply because that is its native idiom.I was never able to agree ... that the dream is a "facade" behind which its meaning lies hidden -- a meaning already known but maliciously, so to speak, withheld from consciousness. To me, dreams are a part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive, but expresses something as best it can, just as a plant grows or an animal seeks its food as best it can. These forms of life, too, have no wish to deceive our eyes, but we may deceive ourselves because our eyes are shortsighted. Long before I met Freud I regarded the Unconscious, and dreams, which are its direct exponents, as natural processes to which no arbitrariness can be attributed, and above all, no legerdemain. (lung, MDR, p. 161)We may compare a dream to a screen on which the unconscious projects its inner drama. We see there the various inner personalities that make up much of our total character, the dynamics among the forces that make up the unconscious. These invisible forces and their activities set off charges, so to speak, that are transmitted onto the screen. They take the form of images, and the interplay of the dream images gives us an exact representation of those inner dynamics that go on inside us.In learning how to understand these images, our conceptual starting point is our realization that they are not to be taken liter-, ally: We learn to look for an attitude, an inner personality, an inner development or conflict that clothes itself in the form and color of this image so that it may be visible to us in the Land of Dreaming.
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Product details
Paperback: 221 pages
Publisher: Harper & Row; Reprint, 2001 edition (1989)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0062504312
ISBN-13: 978-0062504319
Product Dimensions:
5.1 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.6 out of 5 stars
116 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#31,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
In addition to dreams this book also covers Jung's Active Imagination. A bit more than 1/3 of the book is devoted to Active Imagination. Instructions, examples, and practices are covered in a fair (but certainly not exhaustive) amount of detail (I personally wish there was more in depth instruction - but it's a pretty good introduction).If you're looking for more information and instruction on Active Imagination I would suggest a lesser known book entitled, "Imagination As Space of Freedom" by Verena Kast.
I have read a lot Jung, Joseph Campbell, various other experts on mythology and symbolism, but this book put all of that knowledge and information into practical and applicable form. The application of those theories and ideas is better explained and articulated here than in any other book I've read.
In my efforts to understand and deal with my child's nightmares, I have found respite in Robert Johnson's Inner Work. I have trusted his books for some time because he has a gift for using Jungian principles and keeping things simple. By using archetypal comparisons rather than personal anecdotes, his approach to teaching you how to explore dreams is direct and unbiased. He offers an overview of necessary terms and reminds us (quoting from Carl Jung) that "God speaks in dream."This book does not claim to be the ultimate book on dream analysis but it gives you the tools to explore your unconscious in his 4-step to Active Imagination. His approach to understanding symbols empowers you to make your own definitions and associations, rather than telling you what they mean universally, because everyone is different - and that is so the case with my daughter.If you are looking to develop the understanding your mind at sleep, this is a great introduction. I would also suggest The Nightmare Solution for other approaches on working out your dreams and We, He, and She by Robert Johnson.
This is honestly one of the best books I've read in a long time. I recently received a bachelor degree in psychology and I just started grad school for master's degree in professional mental health counseling. Dream work has always interested me, but boy was I in for a surprise after reading this book. Of course, the actual dream analysis steps are quite amazing. But there's TONS of other information in this book about inner growth. The pages literally drip with the stuff. As far as the 4 steps of dream analysis, I got a change to use them for the first time a few days ago with a fellow college cohort. She had an extremely powerful dream over 4 years ago that she was never able to fully understand. After a half hour going through the steps she knew exactly what the dream was about. Both she and I were speechless. It was an awesome experience. As someone who eventually wants to become a licensed professional counselor, with dream work being one of my modalities, this book is ESSENTIAL. I cannot recommend it enough. Really.
While I have been unimpressed by several of Johnson's other works, I found this to be excellent: terse, cogent, and practical. If you are considering "inner" work, this is an excellent place to start.
It seems that after this book this author has written much on the subject of Jungian work but the majority appears to be a survey of ideas, unlike this book which is the heart of actually doing Jungian work. Since I'm becoming a clinical social worker I tend to read many books such as this one to know how the actually meat of many forms of therapy and inner work are carried out. Much out there is pure junk that loses my interest very quickly. This book is a joy to read through and the examples are very relevant. The author does not go off on tangents about personal anecdotes, something that tends to bore me with many authors.I have had an interest in Jungian work but have found it very abstract and not as down to earth as many other forms of therapy or psychological work. This book takes you directly to the core of the two most important ways of Jungian work: dream work and active imagination. There are several other methods used in analytic work but these are the most fundamental. The four steps are accessible and simple to carry out.As I have an interest in having at least a foot in Jungian ideas as a therapist this book will be invaluable for both my inner work and those of my future clients.The only problem I find is that the Jungian school needs more of a place for body and emotive work to ground the abstract in direct present experience using methods such as: Gestalt methods, Gendlin's Focusing Technique, meditation and so on. Otherwise this is by far the most practical work by a Jungian that I have come across.
I've read a few books and listened to some CDs on dream interpretation, but Johnson's Inner Work is the first one to give me real confidence that I can do this myself. The process he outlines does take time -- it isn't a "go with your gut" quick fix -- but it leads to some intense, evocative results. The 4-step process is deceptively simple: Step 1 - Identify key images and your associations to those images; Step 2 - Ask yourself where these images/associations show up in your life; Step 3 - Interpret the dream, and; Step 4 - Complete a ritual around the dream that makes it more concrete in your life. I was amazed at the many associations that came to me with each image as I completed step 1, some of them were relevant and some not, but ALL of them made me think. Step 2, I admit is the most difficult for me, and step 4 probably the most meaningful. Again, this is not for the lazy or faint of heart. You don't just dive into interpretation, and it takes some effort to make the associations Johnson asks us to make in order to arrive at a reasonable interpretation. But it sure is worth it! I've made some interpretations that have just astonished me and moved me. Beyond the mechanics of dream interpretation, the book is incredibly well written. Johnson is a thoughtful, engaging writer who puts words together in a way that we not only understand but enjoy reading.
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