THE IMAGINARIUM,OF, DOCTOR GILLIAM.

IV.— THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO ... 191 

The cause of introversion — The forward and backward 
flow of the libido — The abnormal third — The conflict rooted 
in the incest problem — The " terrible mother " — Miss Miller's 
introversion — An internal conflict — Its product of hypna- 
gogic vision and poem — The uniformity of the unconscious in 
all men — The unconscious the object of a true psychology — 
The individual tendency with its production of the hero 
cult — The love for the hero or god a love for the uncon- 
scious — A turning back to the mother of humanity — Such 
regressions act favorably within limits — Miss Miller's men- 
tion of the Sphinx — Theriomorphic representations of the 
libido — Their tendency to represent father and mother — 
The Sphinx represents the fear of the mother — Miss 
Miller's mention of the Aztec — Analysis of this figure — The 
significance of the hand symbolically — The Aztec a substi- 
tute for the Sphinx — The name Chi-wan-to-pel — The con- 
nection of the anal region with veneration — Chiwantopel and 
Ahasver, the Wandering Jew — The parallel with Chidher — 
Heroes generating themselves through their own mothers — 
Analogy with the Sun — Setting and rising sun: Mithra and 
Helios, Christ and Peter, Dhulqarnein and Chidher — The 
fish symbol — The two Dadophores: the two thieves — The 
mortal and immortal parts of man — The Trinity taken from 
phallic symbolism — Comparison of libido with phallus — 
Analysis of libido symbolism always leads back to the 
mother incest — The hero myth the myth of our own suffer- 
ing unconscious — Faust. 

https://archive.org/stream/MemoriesDreamsReflectionsCarlJung/Psychology%20of%20the%20Unconscious_djvu.txt

More abstractly,  it's a method of consciously entering into a dialogue with the unconscious, which triggers the transcendent function, a vital shift in consciousness, brought about through the union of the conscious and unconscious minds. Unexpected insights and self-renewal are some of the results of the transcendent function. It achieves what I call that elusive ‘Goldilocks' condition, the ‘just right' of having the conscious and unconscious minds work together, rather than being at odds. In the process it produces a third state more vivid and ‘real' than either; in it we recognize what consciousness should be like and see our ‘normal' state as at best a muddling-through. Previously, the transcendent function had helped Jung when faced with the dilemma of having to choose between science or the humanities. Then it operated through a dream, producing the mandala-like symbol of the giant radiolarian. [jellyfish]In the simplest sense, the transcendent function is our in-built means of growth, psychological and spiritual — it's ‘transcendent' only in the sense that it ‘transcends' the frequent deadlock between the conscious and unconscious minds — and is a development of what Jung earlier recognized as the "prospective tendencies in man."

http://realitysandwich.com/56857/jungs_active_imagination/