If you are listening to this book whilst driving, be wary of the tempation to drive off to the side of the road and hallucinate vividly. This book was started by Carl Jung, and completed by his close associates after his death. He actually only wrote the first of the five parts. In this book, the authors combine a knowledge of anthropology, psychology and psychoanalysis, dream interpretation, art, literature, alchemy and theology to break down and explain the most important and recurring themes and symbols in human history.
The initial part of the book begins by relating the relationship modern man has with the unconscious as opposed to primitive man, citing the behaviours and attitueds of native african tribes as examples. One of the distinct examples given was that an african tribesman might look at a frog and literally believe that it is his neighbour, or at least his neighbour’s ‘bush soul’, or that a shaman may put on a lion headdress and believe that he has actually transformed into a lion, such experiences for us are suppressed in the realm of the unconscious, and thus only come out when we are dreaming.
Jung gives helpful guidelines to follow when dreaming and discusses ways that dreams can yield for us useful information. In fact, that is the purpose of a dream: the unconscious is trying to communicate a thought to you in the best way that it knows how. One key thing he advises is to avoid dogma: a symbol in an individual’s dream is not necessarily it’s archetypal meaning; the circumstances of the dreamer herself must be taken into account. A dream cannot be interpreted outside of the context of the dreamer. What’s more, a dreamer has more knowledge of her own life than you do, so you can offer no more than a possible interpretation. Nevertheless, symbols like the anima, mandela, the shadow, special numbers and shapes of significance, and many others tend to have commonalities across cultures and modes of expression. They appear both in dreams and fairy tales, and it is quite amazing that such similarities appear across cultures and across the various domains.
It is important for the sake of individual transformation to be on good terms with the unconscious, as It can provide helpful messages regarding where you are or what you need to do. Jung also provided two examples of dreams serving as portents for disaster, one of which could have been avoided had the dreamer heeded them. Jung’s explanation of this is that magic isn’t necessary: if the unconscious observes you behaving dangerously, or gets some other hint that may slip under your nose, such a dream becomes plausible.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it. Like I hinted at in the beginning, I have had a few visions while I was going through the audiobook, and I do think that this book is/will help me to be better connected to my artistic/unconscious side. If you want to dream more vividly, and interpret art in a new way, check this book out!
Also, if you are highly interested in the book, you may want to check out the link below for a set of free lectures on a similar, but equally fascinating topic titled “Maps of Meaning: the Architecture of Belief” based on a book of the same name.
