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A distinction is made between creative imagination and regressive imagination. Creative imagination is viewed as a growth process. Energy is expended. Ego boundaries alternatingly constrict and expand before an expansion is achieved. Contact with the ego 'core' is retained. Ego 'core' refers to the continuum of ego forces between body ego (biological dimension) and ego identity (social dimension) which make for an inner cohesiveness and which stand opposite to the outer ego boundaries with the world of time and space, and the inner ego boundaries with the id and superego.
Aesthetic, religious, and empathic experience may all be conceptualized as creative expansions of ego boundaries. Their accompanying affects may overlap. Temporary fusion and loss of differentiation may occur during all of them. The energy expended in ego boundary expansion may be experienced as a sense of dilution of the self. This depends on the integrity of the ego 'core' and the size of the sector of experience between ego 'core' and boundaries that is being worked with. Ego boundary expansion may be followed by a compensatory constriction. This re-establishes a more conservative and stable balance of cathexis and counter-cathexis and a heightened sense of self.