What does Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s work say on the unconscious?

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Dreams as the land of the unconscious

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• Freud interprets dreams through the concept of free association of ideas, the fact that the events in dreams follow a logic that we may be unaware of. For example, we may go from a golf ball being hit to a KKK rally chasing us (the link being the whiteness).

 

Both Freud and Jung state that the meaning behind these events is the unconscious. We could trigger a free association by day dreaming. After reading numbers that identify the carriage of a metro, we take our thoughts to the last time we were returning home on the bus after a night out. The numbers triggered a memory from the bus trip (maybe the bus number or idk).

 

In this illustration, it could be that you are a golf fanatic or practice that activity, possibly you were worried about your swings recently, and the KKK chase could be representing not only your fear of death, your fear of organised cults and not wanting to come accross any person associated with this ‘narrow-minded’ mentality.

The unconscious meanings may be far fetched, as these examples portray, because the unconscious is really unique to each individual.

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• In addition, Jung claims that there is more to the personal unconscious, he talks about a collective unconscious. This comprises archetypes and instincts, these explain human behaviour but not the particular experiences that provoked this human behahiour in the individuals ( the personal experience ).

 

Let’s continue to Carl Jung’s work on the unconscious:

 

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Archetypes

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The archetypes are the unconscious structure of our psyche dictated by society’s history and possibly biology - collective unconscious. The archetypes are revealed through symbolic imagery (images with a subjective meaning, that do not exist in the physical world).

We see these archetypes in mythology and religions around the world: for example the Greek myth of Narcissus & Echo, a recurring topic today, highlighted by Dr Craig Malkin’s work The Narcissist Test, stating that everyone is to a degree narcissistic. Initially, this was put forward by Freud). Jung believes deities are the root symbols of the Self: the religious faith is driven by the unconscious.

Equally, our dreams are the main source that manifest symbols expressing facets of archetypes, or repressed collective unconscious. The collective unconscious influences our thoughts, behaviour and way we look at the world. The personal unconscious is formed of events of personal life deemed insignificant, forgotten or repressed due to its distressing nature. The unconscious affects our conscious state, that is the memories/emotions, thoughts and experience we are aware of. For example, the personal unconscious may possess the cause of our anxieties, the archetype triggers our anxious behaviour and thoughts in the given situation.

 

One of Jung’s student, Erich Neumann, ccompared the archetypes to our biological organs. Our organs are the structure of our body, work unconsciously and require a healthy functioning. Similarly, we necessitate healthy archetypes for a healthy mind, and to otherwise avoid disastrous effects.

The collective unconscious can be regarded as the biological unconscious, as it is driven by our instincts. The archetypes are the systems of our instinctual behaviour, but for instance sexual instincts will be driven by hormones like testosterone or neurotransmitters like serotonin (‘well-being’ contributor), the biological factors of some instinctive archetypes/behaviour.

Archetypes resulting from endless repetition become engraved in our behaviour, emptied from its images or content that give meaning to these forms (Plato), or abstraction (Aristotle) or concepts, now part of our daily life.

 

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A step into psychoanalysis

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To come back to the question, dreams will reveal several angles to repressed archetypes. The symbols and unconscious fantasies that manifest in dreams help unravel the repressed archetypes of the individual. We should ask them what they already understand from their dreams, what archetypes. Understanding this requires a lot of individual and historical/mythological research to be able to associate accordingly the archetypes that are behind.

We must first understand the images manifested and the context it is situated in, and then find similar contexts in mythological archetypes, in order to evade associating a dream of a snake to a myth of a snake, when the personal context is completely different to the religious one. It may also be the case that this individual has repressed many archetypes, making this process even more difficult.

Also, asking the individual to consciously imagine the fantasies dearest to them will add a fragment to the repressed archetype. Unconscious fantasies increase in frequency in dreams, but once they are brought to consciousness, these dreams become weaker.

The unconscious is also reflected in our behaviour.

 

Repressed archetypes activated in their given situation usually result in a burst of repressed dangerous aggressiveness or force, with unpredictable consequences. Our behaviour is suddenly driven instinctively. It is important to note that Jung underlines that there are as many archetypes as situations in life.

Alternatively, the lack of union amidst the archetypes can create a conflict between the Shadow (repressed emotions) and the consciousness instead of the burst of repressed force. An accumulation of repressed emotions may form a cluster, called a complex. Individuals with complexes are constantly preoccupied by a complex, usually very noticeable by others, but oblivious to the individual. They are also known as neurotics.

 

Neurosis is a mild mental illness involving chronic distress. It is the repression of emotions about ourselves, elements of our personality, affecting considerably our behaviour, creating a shadow personality (neurosis). In this case, we tend to project an element personality onto others (positive or negative, though the latter is more frequent as it derives from repressed negative emotions). Someone who feels insecure with their body’s form, would be likely to incite a conversation about the ‘fatness’ of others. Remarking our projections is a gateway to our unconscious. In other words, to disassociate what we expressed or thought from the external world, bring it into our awareness, and accepting this flaw of ours.

Symptoms of neurosis , such as depression, anxiety, phobias and obsessive thoughts, as well as regressing to immature/infantile reactions to conflicts, are just a signal that a change in our daily habits is essential.

 

(Vincent Van Gogh was a highly depressed painter, who suffered from psychosis (auditory and visual hallucinations, seizures) affecting his “inadequate nutrition, abuse of alcoholic beverage, chronic smoking”, consciously and unconsciously destroying his body.) 

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The consequence of large scale neurosis. The insecure individual in a mass society.

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The ignorance of ourself, due to a lack of understanding of our Shadow self, terminates in nasty consequences. Indeed, a society composed of a large number of neurotics underlines the presence of a cluster of repressed archetypes. Under those circumstances, individuals look for scapegoats for their problems, joining collectivist/populist mass movements, scapegoating on a different ethnic or ideological group to them. They detect a small flaw of this group as the bullseye of heavy projection.

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Freud states that projecting our flaws onto others is a defence mechanism to avoid the anxiety that comes with affronting our faults. Jung points out that everything that is unconscious in us, we discover in our neighbour.

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The more the Shadow is ignored, the more likely a society like the above mentioned will go to war. Easily manipulated, individuals go to unleash the beast within.

Neurotic individuals like so, feel insignificant in society, amused and distracted in accordance with the pleasures and satisfactions at the standard of the masses. Clutching to excuses, procrastination and self-medication (taking drugs and drinking alcohol to forget the experiences we live, or comfort food) in order to alleviate our symptoms of mental distress, stress and anxiety . An unconscious desire for power surges from the distracted individuals, sought at any given opportunity, for instance through mass movements and institutions they view as having the power they lack as individuals.

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But in reality it turns out that life is a battleground where we are the allies and the enemy in the same time. Ignoring the evil in our unconscious, only feeds our shadow self. Neurotics are those who are unwilling to accept their flaws and face the challenges of confronting them.

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Our immune system enhances with some vaccines. We inject the antigens of the disease into our body so our immune system is able to produce antibodies to eliminate it, confronting the problem so we become stronger. Doing alike with our anxieties pushes us forward as well.

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Understanding our or other’s archetypes, helps us understand our perception: our psychic structure.

 

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We fear what threatens to harm us, which is good for survival, but sadly, we also fear what will bring personal improvement. “What you fear is what you seek” says Thomas Merton, Trappist catholic monk, pioneer of dialogue between Asian spiritual figures, Dalai Lama, Thai Buddhist monk Buddhadasa and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

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Sun Tzu, Chinese millitary figure who influenced Western and East Asian millitary philosophy affirms:

• Know the enemy and yourself: in one hundred battles, no danger

• Know yourself but not the enemy: one victor for one loss

• Don’t know either: every battle is a defeat

 

Take these sayings for the battle between your Shadow self and your conscious self. Be aware of your behaviour, and fight your anxieties.

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“The purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being”

-Carl Jung

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Main sources:

Introduction to Carl Jung: Introduction to Carl Jung - YouTube