§ 20. The Vivification of Symbolic Representation Through the Action of the Imagination

§ 20. The Vivification of Symbolic Representation Through the Action of the Imagination.

The action of the imagination is an integrating moment of symbolic language itself; it is the moment of movement that carries out and develops that language, or, that is, the forward-moving language of the imagination itself. It is impossible for the image-forming imagination to speak otherwise than through living vision, and, again, it is impossible for it to represent the principle speaking within it otherwise than as visible and living; hence, too, the stream of speech proceeding from it can express itself in no other way than through visible, that is, living action. More precisely, however, the action of the imagination forms itself in the following manner:

To every vital utterance of the imagination there belongs an impulse approaching it, which lends it, at once, the determinate matter for its activity and the excitation for that activity's emergence. Hence, in every movement of the imagination, the outer stimulus stands opposed, as the exciting agent, to the imagination itself, as the excited or to-be-excited party, and every action of the imagination that forms itself out of this necessarily involves both these moments. The imagination, however, at once grasps the stimulus knocking upon it under a symbolic image, that is, it sets it before and opposite itself in the form of a visible, living, or, in general, a real object. But since the stimulus striking it appeared to it as a living object, it itself, as the party living struck and aroused by that stimulus, must likewise appear as something visible and living, and it realizes this at once, in that it gathers its own spontaneous power together, as one, with the ego-receptivity still present, and expresses both together in the visibly and livingly emerging person of the dreamer himself. Accordingly, there now stand opposed to one another a living (real) object and the living person of the dreamer. But the animating stimulus originally stood outside the imagination, and approached it from without; therefore the imagination, in symbolizing it, must at the same time symbolize its being-outside-it, and it does this by setting it apart from itself, that is, by placing it freely before itself; and because, between the stimulus proceeding outside it and itself, an ideal breadth, a distance, was present, it forms, together with the outer object, at the same time a free space, a theater of vision, in which the object itself stands, and appears, as it were, encompassed and borne up by a wider atmosphere belonging to it. But through the fact that the outer stimulus had resounded upon and into the imagination, that is, had passed through it, whereby it received its symbolic expression, the imagination itself was set into living connection with it, and was, so to speak, embraced by it; hence, if the visualized object now appears within a free atmosphere, that is, upon the theater of vision of the dream, then the imagination-I entwined with it, that is, the living person of the dreamer, must likewise become present at the same time upon that scene, and the person of the dreamer now stands, near, before, or beside the real object, upon that self-same scene. But the imagination, in being struck by the stimulus, had itself been aroused into life, and the movement of life thereby called forth within it clings to the stimulus and moves upon it, and into it, as the integrating, concrete matter of that movement; hence the imagination-I thus brought to life, or the person of the dreamer, in stepping forth upon the theater of vision together with the object of vision, must now likewise be directed, in living activity, upon that object, that is, must exert itself in or upon that self-same object. This occurs, first and most immediately, in that the person of the dreamer livingly looks toward, and contemplates, his object; and this attentive looking and contemplating was, in fact, already an activity, though an activity realizing itself only in a receiving-in, and hence a kind of mute or passive acting. But mere looking, even as such, raises itself to a real activity, one stepping forth outwardly, when the imagination, as in dreams of visual stimulus, paints birds in the air, say, so high and so small that one strives, in the dream, with all exertion, to catch sight of them and to hold them fast with the gaze, whereby the action of the dream-person proceeds through the outward-stepping energy of the gaze. Further, however, the action forms itself, through the apparent movement of the actual limbs, in the following manner: the object stands, although beside, yet still outside, the dream-person; in that this person beholds it, it enters into reciprocal effect with the psychical feeling, and appears to this feeling either pleasant and attractive, or unpleasant and repellent; the pleasant feeling awakens the desire for the object, and, since the desiring being is the living dream-person itself, the imagination at once stages this desire of hers through her own self, and now lets her proceed toward the object itself, that is, move her feet and body, seize and grasp at the object, and so forth, whereby the voluntary action is already set in place within the imagining. But if the object lies upon the ground, as, for instance, when we find money, then the dream-person bends down toward it, gathers up the coins, pockets them, rejoices over them, and hastens off to secure them at home, and so forth, so that out of the primary action a whole succession of others develops; and if the object of the imagination was first set as something to be sought, then, prior to all these actions, there precedes the strained movement of looking and attending, together with the forward movement of the body, for the purpose of finding it. If, on the other hand, the object of vision worked repellently upon the inner feeling of the soul, then, correspondingly, backward movements of the dream-person ensue, movements withdrawing from the object, or the dream-person seeks to remove the object from herself, or, that is, to render it harmless. The dreaming woman flees before her pursuer; she does not merely run, but cries out for help, or, if she already knows herself to be at a sufficient distance, seeks to hide herself, suddenly emerging upon a wholly different street, and so forth; or the boy, threatened by the farmer, in whose pea-pods he had been caught, leaps over fence and hedge, through water and every obstacle, with all the exaltation of waking action. If the repugnant object is a serpent about to bite, one seeks to save oneself by a sudden leap onto a high stone or the like; if it is a disgusting insect that has settled upon one's foot or hand, one shakes it off in fright; but if the object and the impression were of too terrible a kind, one becomes rigid and paralyzed even as one wishes to flee or to defend oneself, or one sinks down together, and the action realizes itself through a convulsive shuddering within oneself. If the imagination paints other persons, especially loved ones, as its objects, and danger or terror now befalls them, then the acting person of the dreamer sets herself into motion toward them and for their sake: she helps the one who has fallen into the deep pit to climb out again, pulling with all her strength as she does so; she runs back and forth along the bank in desperate haste when the child has sunk into the water, or looses the boat, or leaps into the water herself, and so on.