2.2.2: The Unconscious

Careful to differentiate between the individual’s personal unconsciousness–the experiences exclusive to the individual–and the collective unconsciousness–the memories shared by everyone, Jung also noted that dreams might be personally influenced, or collectively influenced. How many of us have had a dream of flying, or of being terribly late to a final exam for which we were unprepared? While the latter is clearly a culturally influenced dream, a simple survey of classmates may yield shared dream templates.

Greek myths commonly use dream motifs either for divination or for direct intervention from the gods, as in The Iliad, Book Two, when Zeus commands a dream sent to Agamémnon in the voice of Nestor:

"Sleeping, son of Atreus, tamer of horses?

You should not sleep all night, not as a captain

responsible for his men, with many duties,

a great voice in the conferences of war.

Follow me closely: I am a messenger

from Zeus, who is far away but holds you dear.

'Prepare the troops,' he said, 'to take the field

without delay: now may you take by storm

the spacious town of Troy. The Olympian gods

are of two minds no longer: Hêra's pleading

swayed them all, and bitter days from Zeus

await the Trojans.' Hold on to this message

against forgetfulness in tides of day

when blissful sleep is gone." (Homer 2. 27-40)

Framing this message is further intelligence known to the gods, and therefore also to the audience, that Zeus seeks to honor a promise to the mother of Achilles by sending the Greek armies into a ruinous fight, one that will prove that they cannot win without the aid of Prince Achilles and his army. In listening to and repeating the dream, Agamémnon again reveals his weakness: his inability to critically assess a situation or properly interpret a dream. Instead, he leverages the situation to test his men's resolve by adding his own evaluation of the dream, that Zeus seeks to send the armies back to their homelands in defeat. The speech does not have the intended effect and further highlights his failure to lead well.

In Oedipus Rex, Queen Iocasta, desperate to stop the relentless inquiry of Oedipus, says:

Be not afraid of marriage with your mother;

Already many mortals in their dreams

Have shared their mother’s bed. But he who counts

This dream as nothing, easiest bears his life. (Sophocles 938-941 qtd. in Harris and Platzner 696).

The weight of the Unconscious offers readers a chance to not only see the inner struggle of characters as they negotiate impulses which they often don't understand, but to also participate with the very human experience of unearthing buried rationale that spur our actions. For characters in myths, these dreams often come directly from the gods. Greek myths personified this with the god Morpheus, the god of dreams. Morpheus commonly appears when the gods need an agent to influence the actions of heroes, spurring them into action for the sake of the plot.

The heroic archetype so carefully detailed by Joseph Campbell, was first recognized by Jung. Central to the adventures of Perseus, Theseus, Jason, and Herakles are patterns that distinguish “heroic” qualities and social lessons that teach members of the society how to behave, though some of those lessons and social morés are drastically different from modern tastes and ethics.