The Imagination Matrix: How to Access the Greatest Power You Have for Creativity, Connection, and Purpose

(Hardback)

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Do the challenges of our world "defy imagination" If it feels impossible to visualize a way forward-for yourself, your community, or our species-Professor Stephen Aizenstat has a powerful message of hope. "There is a limitless source of creativity waiting to be tapped by anyone," he writes. "Its promise is nothing less than the next evolution of human consciousness. And there is a method by which you can access this generative wellspring to answer the challenges of today and tomorrow. I call this The Imagination Matrix System." In The Imagination Matrix, Aizenstat expands upon his world-renowned Dream Tending method to present a step-by-step process for unlocking your creative potential. Through guided exercises, meditative practices, dreamwork, and more, you'll discover how to dismantle the obstacles and mental habits that limit your ingenuity and problem-solving capacities-and reawaken your access to the "field of consciousness that exists below, betwixt, and between the surface of everyday experience" that Aizenstat calls "Deep Imagination." Aizenstat's method teaches us to align ourselves with the fundamental source of creativity-so even when we feel overwhelmed as individuals, we can allow a greater intelligence to animate and guide us. In doing so, we become more purposeful, resilient, and connected-and able to be the agents of change that our world needs.

Reviews

"The Imagination Matrix is an exceptional gift. Stephen Aizenstat provides the essential tools to live a life with richer meaning and awe. The reader will be immediately transported to a life of wonder and possibilities and be renewed in their dedication to a positive future. The timing of this book could not be more ideal and relevant." --Jennifer Freed, PhD, author of the bestseller A Map to Your Soul

"The Imagination Matrix offers portals of awareness through which each reader can find their inner code of life and their living core of creative imagination. This radical shift in consciousness transforms individuals and communities, and also supports the entire planet." --Michael Meade, author of Awakening the Soul

"Reading The Imagination Matrix gives us access to our capacities to cocreate the higher dream that is longing to come into existence. The practices and gifts of this extraordinary book offer training and participation to redeem the unread vision of the higher dream. The Imagination Matrix is the essential reading for those who want to bring profoundly new ways of being and doing into this world and time." --Jean Houston, PhD, principal founder of the Human Potential Movement, coauthor of the Future Humans Trilogy

"In The Imagination Matrix, Stephen Aizenstat assembles a wealth of sources, as well as his own reflections on stuckness versus creativity, and offers a multiphase plan for a renewed relationship to that generative source within each of us. The capacity for reimagining the materials of daily life is inherent but often blocked by the inner tyrants of complexes and routinized life. This book will ask the reader to break some of those restraints and open to the insurgent images that reframe our dilemmas and that wish expression through us in the world." --James Hollis, PhD, Jungian analyst and author of multiple books, most recently A Life of Meaning

"Imagination is different from knowledge; it is the knowledge of the heart. Through the Imagination Matrix, you can enter and feel the realms of deep imagination, live an imagination-centered life, and access Imaginal Healing. What a magnetic calling, as the Imagination Matrix is alive in each of us." --Professor Heyong Shen, Jungian analyst; dean of the Institute of Analytical Psychology, City University of Macau; author of Chinese Cultural Psychology and eleven other volumes

"Stephen Aizenstat is unquestionably one of the great leaders in the field of deep imagination and dreaming of our generation. His work as a Dream Tender and as the founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute has profoundly changed the lives of thousands of people. And now there is this book, which will give many more the opportunity to tap into the healing creativity of the involuntary imagination as it establishes itself around us constantly in the endless stories it spontaneously spins. Dive in with this experienced guide of souls and find your way into the creative genius that surrounds us day and night." --Robert Bosnak, PsyA, Jungian psychoanalyst, originator of Embodied Imagination(R), author of Red Sulphur

"The Imagination Matrix by Stephen Aizenstat is an imaginal companion that everyone should have. It is a true gift to the world that activates and calls upon our creative genius for taking on the greatest challenges of our time, infusing our lives, work, and relationships with meaning, story, and the powers of the imaginal realms of consciousness. Through it we learn to partner the essences of the Four Quadrants--Earth, Mind, Machine, and Universe--supported by cutting-edge research and breakthrough practices and applications from the fields of earth sciences, depth psychology, new technologies, and cosmology.

"This powerful guidebook will significantly up-level your life and work in ways seen and unseen. Aizenstat's brilliant storytelling evokes your Curious Mind and guides you home to your beloved Soul Companions, as you discover how to empower each other and answer our deeper calling for being.

"The Imagination Matrix prepares us for the massive transformations that are required from us at this time and in ways that rekindle our Imaginal Play, invite fun, increase joy and wonder, and deepen our love for life, Gaia, and each other." --Anneloes Smitsman, PhD, founder of EARTHwise Centre, coauthor of the Future Humans Trilogy

"A marvelous journey into the worlds of imagination! Through stories, practical examples, and supportive ideas, Stephen Aizenstat leads you to connect with the creative and healing powers of imagination. Become friends with your Soul Companions, and go on an adventure of a lifetime!" --Machiel Klerk, founder of Jung Platform, author of Dream Guidance, psychotherapist

"A long-awaited, new, wise, and soulful offering by the creator of Dream Tending, The Imagination Matrix offers a passionate vision for fulfilling our human potentials. Stephen Aizenstat brings a twenty-first century understanding of depth psychology into a rich and complex engagement with the world through a disciplined cultivation of the imagination. Using a contemporary re-visioning of the four elements, we are offered a set of salient tools for animating and enlivening our world, including its material, technological, ecological, and spiritual dimensions. Written with an utterly charming and enchanting narrative style, this book also conveys profound wisdom through stories that open our minds in a practical and immediately applicable manner. Engaging with this book will transform you." --Joe Cambray, PhD, IAAP past-president, Pacifica Graduate Institute

"Stephen Aizenstat's Imagination Matrix reawakens our Indigenous spiritual roots! This book is simply magic!" --Andr McCray, MFT, Black Dreams Matter Project

"A bountiful journey spiraling vertically down into the deep dig of curiosity, returning upward through imagination. The interconnective process that Stephen Aizenstat created prepares and illuminates a path to healing through entering the Story-Web. An easy and engaging read, this book offers a journey into depth psychology and forwards the reader, using portals, to their destiny via the Imagination Matrix. Don't miss the chance to find YOU!" --Thyonne Gordon, PhD, business profit strategist, The Thyonne Group

"If you want to learn how to creatively engage your imagination, there is no greater teacher than Stephen Aizenstat. He is a wizard of the wit, an emperor of the intuition, a magus of the imagination who can show you the way into the mystical, magical land that lies deep within your mind. Through inspiring personal stories; clear, thoughtful instruction; and powerful, effective exercises, you will learn to 'tap into and activate the Imagination Matrix to innovate new outcomes, evolve real-world solutions, and nurture your well-being.'" --Michael W. Taft, author of The Mindful Geek and Nondualism, coauthor of Ego

"The Imagination Matrix by Stephen Aizenstat invites the reader into a world of possibilities in our twenty-first century, bridging old consciousness with new. Through his writing, he has created a practical structure that joyfully provides us with support for the inner spirit. Experiential moments described in the book awaken the mind and engage the soul through a Curious Mind concept that leads to Innate Genius in practice. We are given everything that we require to truly live, fully embodied while engaged with the world. Loneliness is transformed, love is possible, and generosity becomes the gift of the individual to all that exists on our planet. Aizenstat offers us a rich path for inner reflection that helps light the way for others. This is truly a book that teaches wisdom and guidance for a most enticingly rich inner life. The Imagination Matrix offers heartfelt ways to deepen the consciousness of mind, body, and spirit." --Fanny Brewster, PhD, author of Race and the Unconscious

"The Imagination Matrix is a prescient and thought-provoking framework at the convergence point of technology and imagination. As our realities become blurred and boundaries are redefined, the Four Quadrants serve as a guide in maximizing creativity and human potential in ways we can only yet begin to imagine." --Rob Patrick, CTO and entrepreneur

"Stephen Aizenstat has a knack for accessing and connecting to the young person in all of us. Our youth have never been in greater need of connection, and the ideas, exercises, and lessons in The Imagination Matrix provide a unique, creative path for young people to develop and solidify the innate intelligence within us. It is a rarity to find a book equally accessible to young people and adults; Aizenstat has accomplished this and more." --Myka Hanson, PhD, founder of Teen Forward

"At the core, this book is a life raft for the twenty-first century. It is a manual for a brand-new, paradigm-shifting, and necessary way of seeing the world. Without minimizing the problems facing our culture, Stephen Aizenstat teaches his readers how to access a deeper level of imagination and how this opens us up to healing, inner support, and a sense of authentic interconnectedness. It will, without a doubt, help countless writers and storytellers connect to a deeper, mythic quality in their work and tell meaningful stories that point the way toward a hopeful future." --Louise Rosager, executive producer and writing coach, The Unlimited Writer & Wake Up and Dream

"What does it mean to be human in a digital world The research increasingly points toward a future that is less about what we know and more about the capacity we can build for imagination and inno

Author Bio

Stephen Aizenstat, PhD, is the founder of Pacifica Graduate Institute, Dream Tending, and the Academy of Imaginal Arts and Sciences. For more than 35 years, he has explored the power of dreams through depth psychology. He has collaborated with Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, Robert Johnson, James Hillman, as well as native elders worldwide. He conducts dreamwork and imagination seminars throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. For more, visit dreamtending.com.