Embodied Imagination South Africa

Dreams are generally experienced as embodied events. Robert Bosnak uses this most basic experience to formulate his theory of what a dream is. Bosnak accordingly defines dreams as, “something that happens to us, somewhere”. Therefore a dream occurs in time and space as a ‘real event’ in a ‘real environment’. This environment, although not consisting of physical time and matter, may however be seen as a quasi-physical experience.

It is the task of the Embodied Imagination dream worker to facilitate the dreamer’s re-experiencing of the dream, not in a sleep state, but in the dual-conscious state which lies between sleep and wakefulness. This mode of consciousness, know as the hypnogogic state takes the dreamer as close to sleeping reality as possible. In this state the quasi-physical nature of the dream world presents itself as real and physical. Janet Sonenberg points out that dreams have a sculptural 3D quality as opposed to the narrative 2D quality of a film.

Because of this comprehensive and immersive characteristic the dreamer can re-enter the landscape of the dream or a memory and allow the images to re-infuse the experience with their holistic qualities. This immersive experience is the foundation of Embodied Imagination, which encourages the physical body to ‘feel into’ the images, ie to embody them.  Embodiment can be seen as giving matter to the image. To embody the image, Bosnak writes is to be possessed by it, to be absorbed into its medium.

As the matter of our physical body is enlivened by the image we enter a mutual state of consciousness. A state comprised of our habitual consciousness or ego conjoined with “the other”. The phenomenological experience of this embodied state takes precedence over traditional dream interpretation and analysis. This non-epistemological operation keeps the numinous and mysterious quality of the symbol alive with possibility.

Working images in this way also acknowledges the complexity of the psyche, stimulating non-habitual ego states of consciousness through a softening of concretised states of identification.  In alchemical terms, it is to dissolve and to coagulate. For when we are able to dance between the self and the other, we are involved in the process of soul-making.