Spiritual Portal

What I like about free association is it is an interesting tool for creativity and for finding out about yourself. One of the disadvantages about it though is that it's hard to use while with other people. This is  because you often have to b somewhat on guard about their feelings and their attitudes and if you just let completely open up and let everything open out sometimes they're not receptive. But it does seem that the closer we have a friendship with somebody the more free association we can use

I obtained this from free dictionary off the internetfree association
n.
1. A spontaneous, logically unconstrained and undirected association of ideas, emotions, and feelings.
2. A psychoanalytic technique in which a patient's articulation of free associations is encouraged in order to reveal unconscious thoughts and emotions, such as traumatic experiences that have been repressed.

I have found that often as we do what is so called meditation we are actually practicing free association which is just letting our mind expand or wander on too different topics and whatever spontaneously comes up. However this can sometimes be an obstacle to actually having a meditative experience. It is somewhat different than meditation. Free association is quite a different experience than what we actually experience during meditation. I just think it's important to recognize this because often we find ourselves wondering in our thoughts and  maybe a psychoanalyst or an artistic person might find this a creative tool for expression however it's not a good focus for meditation. And may be confused with meditation.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-free-association-definition-lesson-test.html

Inner conflicts are brought out that can bring a synthesis in emotions and thoughts. Somewhat like meditation i the sense that a larger perspective is gained.