A concise definition for the active imagination process is dreaming out loud. You allow images to arise, and then in your imagination you begin to talk to these images and interact with them — that is the active part. They often answer back, and you may be startled to find that they express radically different viewpoints from those of your conscious mind. Often this dialogue will tell you things you never consciously knew and will express thoughts that you never consciously thought.

Robert A. Johnson, Balancing Heaven and Earth