Up: [[Active Imagination]] Created: 2025-05-06 Updated: 2025-05-08 Conscious cramp is the evocative name Jung gave to what the [[Ego]] does when it’s attempting to control an inner process to force it to achieve a desired result or, failing that, questions and dismisses the process as nonsense. Every one of us experiences conscious cramp. Relaxing conscious cramp is essential for [[Active Imagination]] to work. How to do that? > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] in introduction to *The Secret of the Golden Flower* > …if there is a high degree of conscious cramp, often only the hands are capable of fantasy. They model or draw figures that are sometimes quite foreign to the conscious mind. These exercises must be continued until the cramp in the conscious mind is relaxed. In other words, until one can let things happen which is the next goal of the exercise. In this way, a new attitude is created. An attitude that accepts the irrational and the incomprehensible simply because it is happening. See also [[Expressive Art]]