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Experiences (awareness of internal and external sensory information) reflects reality in some way, and can potentially help to stabilise the mind and the body. Whereas thinking and imagination tend more towards fantasy, are more likely to be de-stabilising, and are not a path that leads to greater embodiment.
It is important to learn the skill of discriminating between imaginary and imaginal. The nuances eventually become so small that at some point there is no way to differentiate, but at this level of nuance the two are in effect equivalent.
Another common confusion is between imagination (fantasy) and the Imaginal (images, senses, hunches, gut feelings that come to us. It is absolutely vital that (if you don’t already do so) you start to learn how to discriminate between these two.
Imagination is what we "make up" by thinking creatively. It has no relationship to the real world except if it is imposed on it. Birthday cards and stuffed teddy bears arose from the imagination, as did the atomic bomb.
The imaginal is linked to gut feelings and instinct, being a message from some place deep inside that "knows" something, and can only communicate with the conscious mind through symbolic hints. It is so far removed from the centres of language and arises from so far below the levels of perceptual meaning-making that – whilst it may manage to convert into an easily interpreted form (such as unasked-for internal "self-talk"), it may just as easily bypass them entirely and so be ignored because of its inscrutability. So rather than being made-up the imaginal is a pathway for information to arise from the sensory system up into the conscious mind. Synaesthesia is a case in which a particular imaginal pathway is more hard-wired. Having talked with people about sensory experiences for over 20 years I can confidently state that most people experience mild versions of synaesthesia all the time, with multiple senses contributing to an "impression".
To make it a little confusing, the imaginary almost always contains elements of the imaginal. But imagination is an act of will – a decision to make ideas flow into the mind. Discriminating consistently and accurately between imagination and imaginal is therefore a subtle thing that requires practice. If the imaginal rises of its own accord (like any of the senses) then its nature is more obvious. If you are deliberately tapping the imaginal and synaesthetic depths to know more about something in particular (as I might do in my bodywork practice) then the boundary between will, imagination and expectation vs. sense/imagination becomes more tenuous and requires greater skill to navigate, almost like walking through a sauna without creating eddies in the mist[1]. I have found that unexpected things are easier to identify as imaginal because they are unexpected – so it is easier to know I did not deliberately imagine them and conjure them up through expectation.
The English language is unhelpful, because one grammatical construct for feeling the body (to be aware of it through interoception or internal sensation) is "to think of the body". I hear this a lot in my clinic. I say something like "what can youfeelin your body?" and the reply is "do you want me tothink ofmy body?" The problem is that "thinking about the body" includes the option to think anything about the body – leading to the imaginary – making things up because you would like them to be a certain way instead of being curious about what is actually there. So I urge you to practice a simple un-forced awareness of your body’s presence from the inside – to whatever (honest) degree you are able to sense its presence. Awareness is not the same as thought. Thoughts can be anything. Awareness is a logging of what is actually happening. This is the basis for embodiment in general, as well as Mindfulness, Focussing and a plethora of other meditation techniques. However, simply being aware of your body with no discrimination can lead to big problems if it happens to be full to overflowing with physical pain or emotional pain or difficult memories. The exercises (Part 4) are therefore designed to guide you more usefully and elegantly (and less painfully) through that particular labyrinth.
All that being said, there is absolutely no doubt that imagination may be useful. So, for instance, it is possible to imagine a safe or healing space or imagining travelling through the body or that the body is a particular shape or has certain characteristics (etc.) These are helpful, but they are only helpful [2] in so far as you have used your imagination to tap into the Imaginal. So when practising these imaginative meditations, certain aspects will feel particularly good, or certain images will present themselves in a particular way – for instance, if I suggest a secret garden that you can enter through a doorway, then you will have a sense of what that doorway looks like. Most people would "know" that the doorway has to look a certain way and have certain features, and be approached by a particular route – and that "knowing" indicates the doorway is Imaginal. The sense of "rightness" arises more from the deeper subconscious and less from a more superficial mental fantasy. But ultimately the imaginary will still have to contain some elements of the imaginal. It is impossible to escape the upwellings from the depths – nor should we, because the body is an aerial to an infinitely vast storehouse of potential.
Let thy imagination be guided wholly by nature" advises the Rosarium. "And observe according to nature, through whom the substances regenerate themselves in the bowels of the earth. And imagine this with true and not fantastic imagination."
So, first of all let it be clear that our Philosophy disdains what commonly passes for imagination: mere fantasy which is no more than the fleeting passage of dim involuntary images through the mind. True imagination belongs to the Spirit. That small portion of our totality which we have ignorantly come to think of as ourselves can only passively look on as the Spirit creates its images for our delectation or terror.[3]
References & Notes
1 The opening scene in the film "Ghost Dog" where Forest Whitaker walks home is a beautiful, if Hollywood (and so imaginary!), analogy of the application of humility and non-force.
2 There have been at least two major re-frames of NLP. The initial assumption was that anything and everything was possible and there were no rules except the ones that allowed manipulation and re-moulding of the psyche. Then it was realised that some of these intentional changes had bad unintended consequences, and the idea of an "ecological" change that arose from inside (and was not imposed wilfully because it seemed like a good idea) became good practice. It’s really the contrast between stage hypnosis (in which people are manipulated into acts they would never otherwise have performed) vs Ericksonian hypnosis – in which a potential for change is opened up allowed to run its course in its own way.
3 FromPatrick Harpur (2008) Mercurius: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth. Publ. The Squeeze Press ISBN-13 : 978-1906069056 | Congelation, p.349
