Suddenly he approaches a group of students from his old high school and finds he is no longer able to leap into the air. Unable to move, he looks up and the light of the moon reveals his parents and four brothers looking down at him from atop a mountain. Let's look at the example of the teenager who dreamt of the black panther endeavoring to escape. The boy is frightened by the possibility of its escaping and he awakes. When the symbol is treated in a phenomenological manner, it enters the world of becoming.
Symbolic qualities become possibilities for concrete fulfillment in waking life.
In the course of psychotherapy within imagination, this young man learned to accept his black panther qualities as continuing assets that are within his control. A young woman told me of recurring images she had both in dreams and in imagination of self-flagellation. The scene took place always in the lobby of an elegant hotel, but the means of self-punishment differed. One time she would be whipping herself with a black whip and at other times she would be cutting herself with knives or razor blades. This young woman was being treated with anti depressant medication prior to entering psychotherapy within imagination, but the medication did not prevent her from becoming more and more withdrawn.