Images
Image is at the root of the word imagination. Images are key for maintaining, stimulating, and, when necessary, healing the psyche.
The imagination facilitates growth, learning, and love. Connection to imagination enables creativity and spirit through which inner doors are opened. However, when a person is steeped in distress or trauma, those doors seem tightly sealed.
Images come to us in our waking lives, but also during sleep. Paying attention to these images can enliven the imagination, and thus, open the doors through which a person can step out of despair and automatic trauma reactions.
If you notice an unconscious fantasy coming up within you, you would be wise not interpret it at once. Do not say that you know what it is and force it into consciousness. Just let it live with you, leaving it in the half-dark, carrying it with you and watch where it is going or what it is driving at.
Marie-Louise von Franze