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EXPLORING — A soul's calling and an honor
Vision is the guiding impulse of Jung's art-based process which was described as a vision-making function and a new psychology of vision. Jung studied different traditions to induce hypnogogic visions between sleeping and waking--without drugs. This was a transformative process of individuation akin to what Jung saw as a mescalin trip and it is a psychoactive journey that follows a Shamanic path similar to the induction of drugs.
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The Red Book editor Sonu Shamdasani (2009) described Jung's visionary process as "dramatized thinking in pictorial form" (p. 23). Jung likewise taught his patients to induce visions and paint them in painted books like his Red Book. This visionary art, as Jung coined the term, focused on visions as a form of insight and symbols which could hold the content of the unconscious and the images of the soul. All of the art of The Red Book was visionary art and all of the art created in accordance with this process is visionary.
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"They [visions] are more than dreams because they represent the mixing and fusing of the conscious with the unconscious. This is the solution of the opposites, the middle way that all great philosophers have known. Through this you can find direction. You can find the way." C. G. Jung
"Of course it [visioning and visionary art] tires you because you are doing a terrific piece of creative work. You are creating yourself by this. You are creating the moral solution for yourself. Go on ... follow along with them and soon they will bring you to the fitting form of your unconscious." C. G. Jung
