COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS; GAY GODS

What's in your mind?

Race, sex, gender, guns ...?

Carl Jung's idea was that "when the darkness of the unconscious begins to stir, if these forces are not understood, they will magnetically draw people together...

"These people will become unwitting instruments for what Jung calls 'the powers of darkness' to act themselves out in the world."

What Would CG Jung Say


Golden Dawn, Greece.

"The collective unconscious makes people ripe for political manipulation, especially in the era of mass politics." [63]

It's best if we understand our minds.



Ancient myths give us some clues about what's in people's minds.

The Egyptian god Seth, while married to his sister Nephthys, had sex with other male gods such as Horus.

The 'Greek Myths' tell us something about the collective unconscious - the memories and impulses of which we are not aware, but which are common to mankind as a whole.


Eros (Cupid)

The 'shadow' is said to be one's dark side.

Eros, the Greek God of Love, could be a positive or negative force, leading to virtue or misery.

...

The Greek Myths feature bisexual gods and heroes, and transgender folks, and cruel killers.

Athena, goddess of wisdom, loved the maiden called Myrmex.

Zeus loved Ganymede.

Apollo loved Prince Hyakinthos.

Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, loved Adonis.

Adonis by Henry Oliver Walker - Library of Congress

Hermes, the wing-heeled messenger of the gods, had many male lovers.

Iphis was born female but raised male by his mother.

Callisto was the daughter of Zeus and the follower of the lesbian goddess Artemis.

When Zeus disguised himself as the goddess Artemis, Callisto had sex with him.


Ganymede by Henry Oliver Walker - Library of Congress

Teiresias was transformed from a man into a woman for seven years. 

During his female years, Teiresias became a priestess of Hera, married, and even had children, according to Hesiod.

Antinous was the male companion of the Roman emperor Hadrian. 

Hadrian encouraged the deification of Antinous.

Adonis by Henry Oliver Walker - Library of Congress

In the creation story for the Egyptian gods, the first deity, Atum, was both male and female.

The Egyptian sun god Ra is said to be the mother and father of the gods.

The Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut was female but wore men's clothing.

Hapi, the god of the Nile, is depicted in hieroglyphics as an intersex (both male and female) person.

The Hindu god Shiva has been depicted as being androgynous.

The Hindu god Vishnu was gender-fluid and was sometimes male and sometimes female. 

Vishnu had sex with Shiva.

...

The male Hindu god Krishna took on female form in order to marry a bloke called Aravan.

The Hindu hero Shikhandi was born female but became a man.

The Hindu god Agni married both a man and a woman.

The Hindu god Ila changed genders every month.

Bhagavati-devi is the Hindu goddess of cross-dressing, and more than 5,000 male worshippers dress as women each year for the ritual Chamayavilakku festival in Kollam. 

What's in people's minds?

Both the Republicans and Democrats in the USA appeal to 'the Dark Side'.

"A leader, such as Donald Trump, will invariably appear - in my language, get “dreamed up” - who will express, reflect and, like a lightning rod, amplify these darker forces. 

"This leader is typically someone who, in Jung's words, has “the least resistance, the least sense of responsibility and … the greatest will to power.”[6] 

"Jung comments that this leader “will let loose everything that is ready to burst forth.”[7] 

"As if offering a prophetic warning, Jung says with complete certainty, “a mass always produces a ‘Leader,’ who infallibly becomes the victim of his own inflated ego-consciousness, as numerous examples in history show.”[8] 

"I think many of us intuit that Trump's reign is not going to end well – the question becomes: how can we mitigate the damage?"

What Would CG Jung Say

BAD DREAMS ARE USEFUL

Bad dreams show us our dark side.

And this can be useful.

British cabinet ministers may dream of beating young boys dressed in girls underwear.

White fascists in South Carolina may dream of shooting dead their annoying neighbours.

Sam Wolfe has written about bad dreams being related to the unconscious mind.

Sam Wolfe points out that, according to Carl Jung, the unconscious mind consists of both the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.

A Jungian Perspective on Nightmares and Bad Dreams

Hitler apparently used symbols and instincts from the collective unconscious to win over the masses.

Advertisers reportedly do the same thing.

Sam Wolfe reminds us that Jung claimed that humans want 'wholeness'.

In other words, humans don't want their minds to be full of conflicts.

The Sunni Moslem does not want to be one minute seeing Islam as the religion of peace and the next moment wanting to kill a lot of Shias.

Individuation is the name Jung gives to the process of achieving wholeness.

Individuation involves dealing with 'the dark side'.

Jung said that "the individuation process…forms one of the main interests of Taoism and Zen Buddhism."

Jung also believed that this idea of becoming 'whole' is referred to by Jesus.

Jesus said: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Some supporters of Jung believe that the faults that Hitler saw in the Jews were faults that Hitler himself also possessed.

..

Sam Wolfe points out that "Individuation is difficult because it involves giving up ... the mask we put on..." 

According to Sam Wolfe: "One way that the personal shadow manifests itself is throughpsychological projection."

A Jungian Perspective on Nightmares and Bad Dreams

For example, the gay homophobe will be constantly accusing other people of being gay.

The bad driver will blame other motorists of getting it all wrong.

The American general will blame the dead Iraqi children of deliberately getting in the way of his bombs.

Sam Wolfe writes: "If we despise someone for being lazy, cowardly, mean or deceitful or if we are constantly annoyed at someone for being arrogant, greedy or sluttish, this perception reflects a despised part of ourselves."

Herman Hesse, in his novel Demian, wrote: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

Sam Wolfe writes: "In order to integrate your shadow into your personality, you first must recognise and accept that these despised traits are a part of your self ..."

A Jungian Perspective on Nightmares and Bad Dreams

You must DETACH yourself from the bad traits.

Both Jesus and Buddha pointed out that we should see our own faults and then detach ourselves from these faults.

In our bad dreams there are symbols that represent the bad stuff.

We might dream about threatening creatures whom we are having to shoot at.

When we waken up we may realise that the dream is about our own faults and failings.

The psychologist Paul Tholey suggests that the dreamer should try to engage in dialogue with the hostile dream figure, with the goal of achieving some kind of reconciliation. 

A Jungian Perspective on Nightmares and Bad Dreams

Sam Wolfe writes: "Ugly and terrifying characters in our dreams can be transformed into beautiful and friendly characters. 

"The shadow, therefore, is really hidden treasure...

"As the German psychologist Kuenkel said, 'The true way to healing' is to seek out the 'barking dogs of the unconscious' and reconcile with them." 

As Jesus said, love your enemies.

Sam Wolfe writes: Greet your demons and monsters like a long-lost friend and so too will your enemies in real life cease to be enemies. 

Continued here: A Jungian Perspective on Nightmares and Bad Dreams

Not all dreams are bad.

I once had an employee who believed that while she was asleep she could leave her body and go off to visit her relatives some hundreds of miles away in Sumatra.

Australian Aborigines believe that people leave their bodies during sleep, and temporarily enter the Dreamtime.

Australian Aborigines believe that in dreams dead relatives communicate their presence. At times the departed relatives may bring healing.

Australian Aborigine Dream Beliefs

Some Indigenous American tribes believe that dreams are a way of visiting one's ancestors.

Alice in Wonderland.

Today, about one-third of hospital patients over the age of 70 have 'hallucinations' which they think are real.

Hallucinations in the Hospital.

One patient I know sees her departed father.

The Sumerians in Mesopotamia (Iraq, Syria, Kuwait) believed that the soul, or part of it, actually visits the places and persons experienced in dreams. 

The Babylonians and Assyrians in Mesopotamia divided dreams into "good," which were sent by the gods, and "bad," sent by demons.

Ancient Egyptians believed that dreams brought messages from the gods.

In Chinese history, some people wrote of part of the soul leaving the body during sleep to travel in a dream realm.

The Indian text Upanishads, says that dreams can be expressions of inner desires, and, can involve the soul leaving the body and being guided until awakened.

The ancient Greeks believed that the Greek god Morpheus sent warnings and prophecies in dreams.

The Greeks borrowed the idea that souls leave the body during sleep.

The Roman philosopher Cicero believed that all dreams are produced by thoughts and conversations a dreamer had during the preceding days.

Jacob's dream of a ladder of angels, 1690, by Michael Willmann. Jacob's dream of a ladder

Most of the dreams in the Bible are in the Book of Genesis.

The ancient Hebrews believed that dreams can be the voice of God.

The Hebrews differentiated between good dreams (from God) and bad dreams (from evil spirits).

St. Augustine and St. Jerome claimed that that they gained useful insights from their dreams.

Martin Luther, however, believed dreams were the work of the Devil.

...

Some philosophers and scientists believe that the "physical world" may be an illusion.

In the Taoist book Zhuangzi, by Zhuang Zhou, we read:

"Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. 

"He did not know that he was Zhou. 

"Suddenly he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. 

"He did not know whether he was Zhou, who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. 

For the Hindus, Brahman (God) is everything, and is both in the world and not in the world, at the same time.

Hinduism

In the 17th century, Descartes wrote that a mind can exist without a body.

Meditations on First Philosophy.


Goya

Freud taught that the content of dreams is the result of unconscious wish fulfillment.

Freud saw dreams as a "road to the unconscious."

Freud argued that important unconscious desires often relate to early childhood memories and experiences.

Freud thought there was a possibility that dreams can be linked to telepathy.



Carl Jung wrote that dreams are messages to the dreamer and that the messages can help the dreamer to solve emotional or religious problems.

Jung wrote that recurring dreams mean that the dreamer is neglecting an issue related to the dream.

Jung believed that memories formed throughout the day also play a role in dreaming.

The unconscious deals with these when the ego is at rest.

Jung wrote that while dreaming we may tune in to the collective unconscious.

Jung also wrote about symbols in dreams.

For example, in your dream your wife might be represented by Britney Spears, or your boss might be represented by Adolf Hitler, or your workplace might be represented by Disneyworld.

...

Jie Zhang proposes that the function of sleep is to process, encode, and transfer the data from the temporary memory store to the long-term memory store.

Deirdre Barrett describes dreaming as simply "thinking in a different biochemical state" and believes people continue to work on all the usual problems in that state.[71]

From the 1940s to 1985, Calvin S. Hall collected more than 50,000 dream reports at Western Reserve University.

Hall's studies indicated that participants from varying parts of the world demonstrated similarity in their dream content.

Hall found that in dreams different locations and objects continuously blend into each other.

In the Hall study, the most common emotion experienced in dreams was anxiety.

[85]

...

Hall found that sexual dreams occur no more than 10% of the time and are more prevalent in young to mid-teens.

Daydreaming can be useful.

There are numerous examples of composers, novelists and filmmakers, developing new ideas through daydreaming. Similarly, research scientists, mathematicians and physicists have developed new ideas by daydreaming about their subject areas.