Imagery is a flow of thoughts that one can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste in one's imagination. As an inner representation of experience, as well as fantasy, imagery is a rich, symbolic, and highly personal language. Dr. Rossman says that an image represents internal reality. He calls it "the language of the emotions and the interface between mind and body."

  Worrying is the most common human experience of imagery. Most people worry sometimes and some people worry constantly, even to the point where they experience butterflies in the stomach, or tightening in the shoulders. Whatever the case, the body is not reacting to external events, but to thoughts or /images about these events, even though the worrier may not be consciously aware of them. Other thoughts may be verbal, but what all thoughts have in common is that they exist in the mind, and the body reacts to them.

  Dr. Rossman, says, if you are a good worrier, and especially if you ever worry yourself sick, you may be an especially good candidate for learning how to positively affect your health with imagery, as the internal process involved in worrying yourself sick and imagining yourself well are quite similar.

  David Bresler, Ph.D., L.Ac., Co-director of the Academy for Guided Imagery, and former Director of the UCLA Pain Center, defines imagery as one of the two "higher order" languages of the human nervous system-the other one being the more familiar, more educated faculty of thinking in words. Imagery is a natural way the nervous system stores, accesses, and processes information. This makes it especially effective for keeping up the dialogue between mind and body, which is the source of its power in the curing process.