Daydreaming, Imagination, & Visualization
April 13, 2021
This article from the New York Times explains in a somewhat superficial way how daydreaming has gotten a bad reputation. While imagination is mentioned, no clear distinction is made between it, visualization, and daydreaming. I bekieve that these three activities are similar enough to be considered synonyms with, perhaps, minor distinctions.
Although I am now retired, I have used a free-form imagery process, Interactive Guided Imagery, extensively in my art therapy/professional counseling practice to great effect to help clients to access deep self awareness, personal growth, and healing.
As expressed in this article, daydreaming can be a mere escape when used in an unstructured and unintentional way. But it can also enable one to allow information from the non-linear, arational mind to manifest which, along with the structure of the linear, rational mind, can synthesize new integrated awareness.
I have found in my own life that accessing imagination in a process that might look like daydreaming can help me to better awareness of possibilities for creativity, awareness of interconnectedness that wasn’t previously obvious to me, and have deeper and more profound spiritual experience.
Perhaps researchers using rational methods miss the arational potential of these processes. But from the therapists view and the personal process view I must support the positive regard for daydreaming/imagination/visualization
Here are some links to further explore this subject. this subject is addressed frequently in this blog so explore further here as well.
Internal Links: Role of Imagination, Imagination in Counseling and Psychotherapy, Visualization vs Imagination
External Links: Academy for Guided Imagery, Interactive Guided Imagerysm
Mind/Body, Placebo, Hypnosis, Guided Imagery, and More
August 20, 2019
Dr. Andrew Weil visited The Joe Rogan Podcast on December 12, 2018 and talked about mind/body, placebo, hypnosis, professional guided imagery, and several other interesting topics. Much of the discussion emphasized the role of mind and imagination in well-being and healing. Weil is an important figure in the awareness of the mind/body relationship and a leading practitioner of Integrative Medicine. This video is almost 2 hours long, and I listened to it in 2 sittings, but I found it worth my attention throughout. Enjoy.
A New Moment
July 2, 2017
I have finally reached that moment where when I awoke today I could think that I had no more clients. Not for today, tomorrow, or the foreseeable future. I had a feeling of relief and joy yesterday as my last appointment came to an end. It has been a bit sad and a bit sweet to experience the conclusion of the therapy relationship with client after client. As each was so different in their therapy- their needs, thought patterns, feelings, style of learning- so have they been different in closure which had begun some time ago and ended yesterday.
I will miss those people, each of whom was so different and with each of whom I shared a unique relationship. Some I had seen for years. They were the easiest with whom to say goodby- the most ready to go, although not necessarily wanting to let go. Some I had seen for only weeks. I was a little harder to say goodby to them. While they were appreciative for what they learned in our short time, we were both aware of the potential that will be lost.
Some I expect to hear from in the future, after some time passes, to sit over a coffee or tea more like old friends. No expectations, no demands. Some I will not hear from and they will eventually fade from my memory.
There are still many tasks to be done to close my 46 year career and 37 year independent practice. Offices to close, papers to organize or trash, furniture to redistribute, professional organizations to contact and modify my memberships, shifting in budgeting concerns, modifying tax obligations, etc.
But the biggest adjustment of all will be with regard to how I use my time. This is a mystery to be solved, or at least understood, only with experience. I need time to understand my new relationship to time. I expect to no longer have the constraints of the appointment day to day schedule. I imagine that, over time, I will settle into a rhythm of activity which will be more consistent with myself and less deferent to the demands of the professional world and the management of client contacts. I think there will be days when I forget about time and just attend to whatever I am doing. And I think there will be other days when I my attention is wide and spacious and not focused on any outcome.
Many years ago, a close friend and colleague once told me that I was ambivalent about money. I rejected the idea but, upon contemplation, i discovered that I was, indeed, ambivalent about time. While I wanted to build a prosperous career, I also did not want to give up my more personal time. This realization helped me to focus my imagination on the form and construction of my career with a minimization of conflict over loss of time.
So now I have arrived at a new moment. My calendar is cleared of repeating appointments and therapy sessions. I walk into my studio/workshop feeling such a wide breadth of opportunity and possibility that I stand there in awe with no specific form to my next move and many raw possibilities gathering to be brought to form. Stay tuned. This is what I hoped for. And so it begins.
With two weeks to go until my retirement from professional practice, I held the last of a long series of groups last night. We had been meeting together for four hours a session approximately monthly for about ten years. The group was started at the suggestion of one of its members, who asked me to pick the other members and to lead it. With only a few changes, the group had a consistent membership for its entire life. It was composed of four women and myself and was based on the use of interactive deep imagery and art as a way of knowing. Although it was focused on personal growth it was statedly not a therapy group.
The ending of the group was, one would expect, a little sad and a little sweet. Everyone recognized the growth they each had experienced and how it has manifested in their lives. There was also a clear recognition of the deep bonding that developed between the participants and how significant that was for them.
As for me, I, too, learned and grew. As the years went by I learned I could trust the process to carry the group with my role being as an organizer the hold the parameters of the schedule, the structure, and help the members to stay focused on how the inner dialog with the imagination can address problems and questions in an organic way, learning to trust one’s intuition and use the intellect as a support. I was often surprised by the members feeling the necessity to take notes when I reflected on what was happening, as it all seemed so obvious to me. This helped me to see and accept aspects of myself which are usually below my normal awareness.
I prepared no final talk or goodby but, following the process, I let the flow of the four hour/ten year group come to its natural conclusion. Near the end of our time, I silently asked for an image to come to me to help me to know whatever I needed to know about this moment. My inner advisor, trusted guide, and manifestation of my own unconscious mind came and filled the space with its blue/black energy which felt, undoubtedly, like love.
That is what we had been doing all along for those ten years- learning how to love ourselves and each other. How to be in the flow of being and accept and support others to do so as well. No one left last night feeling all their problems were solved but everyone felt they had a better understanding of how to cope with them and how to foster continuing learning and growth.
I am grateful to have had the opportunity to engage with others in this way that served us all.
Meditation Retreat
April 23, 2014
A few weeks ago I attended a three day meditation retreat at the Ligmincha Institute in Virginia. The retreat was awesome and I am sharing here a link to a video which was taken during this very retreat. It is an hour long so it does go into some depth and includes some guided meditation by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and an interesting question and answer session with questions from around the world via internet. Enjoy.
Click on a link above or find the video here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/46068128
12 Answers from Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Bon Buddhist Master
February 8, 2014
In a 2013 interview, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche explains his approach to teaching in the West and clarifies essential principles of Buddhism and Bon.
Book Review: The Flying Drum by Bradford P. Keeney
June 23, 2011
The Flying Drum by Bradford P. Keeney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Keeney is a therapist who used systems theory and cybernetics and had a national reputation with several publications in the 80’s. He was a student of Gregory Bateson and Heinz von Foerster. He has developed a radical approach to therapy which is deeply informed and shaped by shamanism.
If you are interested in this, there is an engaging podcast available that I would recommend with an interview with Keeney by Tami Simon of Sounds True. Here is a link to this podcast.
“The Flying Drum” book is a fast read. He tells his personal story of his own “professional” development and describes his way he met with shamans from all around the world, received initiations and instructions, and brings what he learned to the world. It is literally fantastic, operating in that domain of what seems unbelievable and yet here in direct experience.
While the book has similarities to New Age books like those of Lynn Andrews, etc., it feels to have more substance and is more grounded in ordinary reality while not shy of stories of the seeming impossible. It is also a bit like Carlos Casteneda’s books with many descriptions of encounters and personal experiences but without going into as much of the detail of the stories of his contact with the shamans.
I found this book to be validating and inspiring.
The Importance of Play
March 24, 2009
A pioneer in research on play, Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults — and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. From TED.com (Recorded at Serious Play in May 2008, in Pasadena, California. Duration: 26:42.)
Meditation and Self Realization Video with Deepak Chopra
February 21, 2008
Here’s a very good video from YouTube featuring Deepak Chopra discussing meditation and Self realization. It is part of a larger presentation that I did not see, but what is here is a good, basic overview from a theoretical standpoint. It’s less than ten minutes long. Your comments would be most welcome.
Imagination for Coping- An Example
March 22, 2007
I was telling someone recently about a way I have used my imagination to help me cope with a stressful situation and I thought it would be a good idea to share it here. Many years ago, I was to give one of my first presentations about using imagery as a way of knowing, learning, growing, and healing to a large group of professionals. I was aware of a great sense of fear and anticipation leading up to the event. I was very well prepared and knew my subject well but I was a still very nervous about the talk and I realized that I was expecting to be judged and criticized. I recognized this as having little to do with the external reality and more to do with my own issues so I decided to take a dose of my own medicine and address it using my imagery methods.
Entering into a state of active imagery, I spontaneously imagined a gremlin that was a representation for the inner state of fear and self-doubt that was causing me to distort the situation. I tried to greet the gremlin and have a dialogue with him to try to reason with him to change his behavior as I would usually do in the imagery process, but he would have no part of that- he only wanted to take me over and gain control to make me afraid. I also realized that if the gremlin were allowed to get close enough to me to take over, I had little resistance.
So I re-imagined the gremlin at a distance, headed towards me, with the intention of reaching me and taking me over to cause me to feel fear and self-doubt. I saw the gremlin off on the horizon on a path, slowly walking in my direction. Using the perception of distance perspective, I gave myself the ability to reach out and take the small version of the gremlin in my hand before he was so near that he was too big for me to handle. I then imagined that once the gremlin was in my hand it changed to a ceramic figurine that I could place on a shelf where it would have no effect on me. If I were to ignore it until it was too big for me to imagine holding in my hand, it could take over, so it was important to develop awareness of this as early as possible.
This method worked for me at the time of that presentation and has worked ever since- for me and for others to whom I have taught it. You could call this an adaptive strategy because it helped me cope but does not, in any immediate sense, eliminate the condition. Only in the long term of using this method does it begin to have a transformational effect to change me in ways deep enough to significantly modify or eliminate the problem. As I gained confidence in the exercise to be effective, so can I gain in the belief that it can be overcome. The exercise itself is adaptive and the long-term use can be transformative in regard to the problems it addresses.
For an even better example of the guided imagery in use for learning, growing, and healing see the article reprint from the January, 2006, issue of Oprah Magazine, Imagine That, by Marian Sandmaier, at my professional web site, http://www.theinwardeye.com.
Knowing Imagination 