ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on symbolic imagery – how the brain constructs it, interacts with it, and imbues it with numinous significance. Studying the direct processes that form mental images should provide still more evidence to consider with respect to the symbols, as the images that emerge in dreams, psychosis, myths and art are all derived from internally generated images, albeit under varying amounts of conscious control. The Jungian analyst Jean Knox has, using a large body of developmental psychology data, observed the fundamental importance of image schemata in shaping archetypal images. Dream imagery appears to be driven more by emotional concerns than conscious ratiocinations. Some dream researchers feel that dream imagery is meaningless and random. Autonomously generated imagery is a hallmark of dreams and fantasy, and can be pathological, as in the intrusive images of posttraumatic stress disorder.
