Collective unconscious
The collective unconscious is, in the thought of Carl Gustav Jung, the deepest layer of the psyche, shared by all of humanity and distinct from the personal unconscious belonging to each individual. It houses the archetypes, those great inherited images found in myths, religions and dreams the world over. Jung made it the shared ground from which universal symbols rise. This hypothesis, central to his psychology, remains debated and particular to his school.
Two floors of the unconscious
Jung pictured the unconscious as a house with floors. At the top, your personal unconscious: your forgotten memories, your unspoken wishes, what belongs to you alone. Beneath it, vaster, the collective unconscious, which you would share with all of humanity. There, he believed, the archetypes sleep, those common forms that give the dreams of humankind a family resemblance across languages.
Why the same images everywhere
What struck Jung was finding the same great motifs in every corner of the world: the flood, the hero descending into the underworld, the tree of life, the universal mother. Peoples with no contact told strangely similar myths. He read in this the trace of that shared inheritance. Whether or not you take to the idea, it offers a fine key for reading the images that move through you.
What it changes for your dreams
If this hypothesis speaks to you, your dreams take on a different color: behind your wholly personal night, an older pattern, wider than you, sometimes shows through. The serpent, the crossing of water, the house with unknown rooms speak not only of your story, they tie you to a vast human imagination. A way to feel, as you dream, accompanied by a whole lineage.
Sources
- , Man and His Symbols (1964)
- , The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959)