Visions During Reiki Energy Work

During the relaxing gentle touch of Reiki energy work, what does it mean if you see visions during Reiki? How can they be interpreted, and how can we best interact with them?

My name is Lillie, and I’ve been a Boston Reiki practitioner since 2018. In this article, I will explain the meaning of those images that pop to mind during chakra balancing energy work, illustrated by real-life examples from the hundreds of clients I’ve done hands-on work with over the years.

Visions During Reiki

When I begin a Reiki chakra balancing session with a new client, I always begin by explaining that images and memories may pop to mind during the hour we spend together. Some may seem utterly random — but I coach them to just let these pictures and scenes float across their mind’s eye, watching them unfold and inviting them to play out fully.

Why? Energy work is essentially an assisted Reiki meditation or dream state during which your body processes physical, mental, and emotional “unfinished business” in a restorative and reorganizing manner similar to sleep. This means that whatever comes to mind is something your core self needs to work through or address.

For this reason, I always urge clients to not resist the images, but rather invite them to run their course to understand their messages about paths forward — even if it leads to crying during meditation states that Reiki provides. Let’s examine an example.

A Real-Life Example

Here is a real-life example from a Reiki client (pronounce Reiki “RAY-key”) that demonstrates what I mean by “watching the images for messages.” It occurred the day a woman came in who had given birth to a baby just five weeks prior.

During our session, I noticed a brilliant smile on the woman’s face. After our Reiki session had concluded, we debriefed, and she revealed why she had been smiling: Throughout the hour, she alternated between seeing a purple aura, then having visions of floating or swimming in a wide body of water, feeling the power of her arms and the independence of paddling through waves.

Together, we concluded that the meaning of this water vision was she had been missing the independence of having her body to her herself, after five fulfilling but very intense weeks of caring for and nursing her baby. The woman longed to be back in a womb-like (water-like) environment, HERSELF, rather than always being the main one to be providing the care and womb. As for the chakra colors she’d seen, purple indicates a healing or integrating of unbalanced energy.

So what was the path forward from this vision? The client left with a new resolve to collaborate with her partner, family, and network to provide her with more support with the baby so that she could have time to both literally go swimming again (which she used to love to do) and figuratively be back in the nourishing embrace of others caring for her. Instead of feeling tired after Reiki, she felt energized with a new clarity.

As the second of the Reiki Principles goes, “Just for today, I will not anger.” In other words, she used this vision not to spur anger at how she’d been carrying the bulk of the work at home, but rather to move her towards effectively rallying support to shift things positively.

Visions During Reiki, in Sum

Like I explained in “How Many Reiki Sessions Are Needed?” sometimes all it takes is one single energy work session to truly change life for the better — especially if you are open to listening to any visions during Reiki that emerge. So what about you?

What has been your experience with seeing images behind closed eyes during energy work? Have you ever experienced seeing purple during meditation or Reiki? Do share!

For further reading, see my directory of Reiki symbols.