Active imagination is a technique pioneered by Carl Jung in which the user intentionally enters a dreamlike state while awake and interactively engages with the hallucinated world and characters as if they were an autonomous, external realm. Active imagination is intended to facilitate integration between the conscious and unconscious mind, with the unconscious mind acting as the simulator.
According to Jungian theory, the simulacra that emerge in active imaginations are psychic archetypes such as the anima/animus and shadow.