Guided Imagery

When to use it
Use it when you are stuck and cannot find the way forward.
Use it to let your subconscious tell you something.
Use it as another method of exploring for ideas.

How to use it
This is usually done as an individual, but there is no reason why it cannot be done with a group of people, who all listen to the same script and then report on their findings afterwards.
Write script
Write a script to guide thinking. An example is given below.
Set up
You typically need at least two people: one to read the script and one or more to relax and listen (although you can do it alone by replacing the reader with a tape recording of your own voice). This must be done in a quiet and relaxing place, of course, and read in a calm and sympathetic way. It will not work if you read it quickly in the middle of a noisy office.
Read the script
The listener first must get comfortable, sitting or lying down. Closing their eyes avoids distractions of the room around them. The person who is reading should take care to pace their reading to the listener’s state of relaxation. The voice should be slow and gently expressive, helping the listener to visualise.
The listener then just goes with the story, noticing what they experience in terms of what they hear, see and feel.
Reflect on what happens
The subconscious moves in mysterious ways and is highly symbolic. What you experience thus needs a certain amount of translation.

How it works
First of all, it uses sensory language, encouraging the listener to concentrate on the imagined world rather than the real world. The story then leads them on a journey of discovery. The paper, the conversation and the gift, are all opportunities for the subconscious to slip through ideas to the conscious mind. The paper is visual and picture- or word-based. The conversation is aural and word-based, with the context of a wise advisor. The gift is physical and tactile. These different media increase the opportunity for subconscious-conscious connection.
What appears in these connections may well not appear to be of much relevance as the problem with the subconscious is that it is rather fickle and often appears to communicate in metaphors (hence using the story form to communicate with it). Thus a gift of a glass hedgehog might be about a prickly problem that can become beautiful. A drawing of a map might be about the need to plan your future. Often the easiest to interpret is the conversation.
This method can give you significant ‘aha’s on deep problems. The trouble is that it is highly unpredictable. It can work one day and not the next. It can be difficult to work out what the communications are about. You might just draw a complete blank. But if you persist and give your subconscious space and permission to come through, this method can lead to insights and ideas that cannot be found through any other approach.

gooooooooooooood; sir