There are many dreams that can be looked at from the personal level, and some that can be seen as dealing with what Jung called archetypes. What is an archetype? It is a symbolic representation of something that affects all humanity.
The Dream: A superpower, like Superman, has been thrown in prison. This power has an atavistic quality, something of the ape: a very strong man with short black hair and apelike features. I see him holding on to the bars of his cell, breathing his freezing breath, his last remaining strength, into a vent to his right.
Interpretation: On the personal level, this dream might be telling me I feel imprisoned; I need to vent; I’m feeling powerless. But if I look at the dream as expressing an archetype of the human condition, it’s about the human tragedy: a spirit imprisoned in a body. By freezing his breath the apelike superpower turns this symbol of the spirit into something concrete that can be seen. Although in the prison of the transient earthly body he still finds a vent through which he can express his spirit.
As I read your dream journal entries, I can't help but think you are making the collective unconscious, the collective conscious. For that is what the Web is: the collective consciousness. Supra-Jung
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteJung says the more material we can move from the unconscious to consciousness the more we will experience the totality of our being. He calls this process "individuation." But there is a difference between our individual consciousness and collective consciousness. (There will be more about that in future posts.) But for now, understand that the collective conscious lives in institutions like church and state.
Hi Carla,
ReplyDeleteI see a very positive progression of consciousness in this dream. The breath, or spirit, becoming more visable, and leaving a more primative way of thinking (the ape). I am putting my primitive way of thinking behind bars. Maybe I want to "vent" about something, and there is an evolved way to do it. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Beth,
ReplyDeleteThanks for pointing out the connection of the ape with a primitive part of myself: maybe putting him in the clunker was a good thing after all!