The dream as a key to otherness – When dreaming we acquire a temporary self with limited point of way. The process by a different process of dissociation than the one present in the wake state. The dreaming experience is full with emotional tone and associated memories.
This remembered bundle of interconnected experiences forms what psychologists call a complex—in the case of life, a life complex.
Dreaming states do not have a narrow, individual perspective tied to our physical body. Memories, feelings, perspectives—remains accessible within mind at large.
Dreaming states can contain transpersonal elements, sometimes materializing as archetypes in our dreams, we get associated with them through emotion. The list on the right tries to overlap the personal and transpersonal elements, showing different realms : the personal dissociated scale (ego ?) and the collective non human process in nature (?). Dreams are more of symbolic expressions of innate psychological patterns rather than literal people. Dream figures can act like independent agents with their own intentions, which is why they can feel “other” even though they’re part of your mind.
- The Self – Wholeness / Integration
• Nature process: The cyclical balance of ecosystems, self-regulation of homeostasis in living systems, Earth’s climate cycles.
• The Self is the archetype of totality — nature’s tendency to move toward equilibrium mirrors the psyche’s drive toward integration. - The Shadow – Destruction / Renewal
• Nature process: Predation, decay, forest fires, volcanic eruptions.
• The Shadow represents the dangerous, repressed, and unacknowledged forces — in nature, these processes destroy but also clear the way for regeneration. - The Anima / Animus – Fecundity / Fertilization
• Nature process: Pollination, mating rituals, cross-pollination of species, symbiosis.
• This archetype mediates between conscious ego and the deeper unconscious — just as reproduction and exchange in nature connect separate organisms to create new life. - The Hero – Growth / Overcoming Resistance
• Nature process: A seed sprouting through soil, salmon swimming upstream, migration against harsh conditions.
• The Hero archetype mirrors nature’s relentless push to overcome obstacles for survival and transformation. - The Wise Old Man / Wise Old Woman – Preservation of Knowledge
• Nature process: Genetic memory, seasonal adaptation, survival instincts passed down through generations.
• This archetype is akin to nature’s long-term “memory” encoded in DNA and instinct, ensuring species’ survival. - The Great Mother – Nurturing and Devouring
• Nature process: Fertile soil nurturing plants; also storms, floods, or diseases that reclaim life.
• This archetype is double-edged: giver of life and taker of life, just as Earth is both womb and tomb. - The Trickster – Disruption / Evolutionary Innovation
• Nature process: Genetic mutations, disruptive weather patterns, invasive species.
• Trickster energy brings chaos, but this chaos can force adaptation, leading to evolutionary leaps. - The Child – Potential / New Beginnings
• Nature process: Germination, springtime renewal, emergence of juvenile animals.
• Represents hope, potential, and the birth of new cycles in both psyche and nature.
The mind can take to itself in its native symbolic language, which existed before verbal language evolved. Therefore sometimes dreams do not make sense through language, but only through their symbolic / emotional value. Dreams are symbols for experiential complexes—bundles of memories, feelings, and associations.
We experience the pre symbolic experiences as an outer domain to the personal and symbolic this can be called mind-at-large, a shared consciousness, a fully integrated mind, re-associated with the rest of consciousness — no inner partitions, no “alter.” The oceanic consciousness.
[for jung the opposite of the ego was The Self, aware of the whole field of psyche (personal + collective unconscious)]
Some theories propose that the structures of language echo the structures of nature itself, as if meaning were not merely imposed upon the world but patterned after it. In this view, mythic language and scientific language are not opposites but parallel attempts to articulate the same underlying reality: myth renders it through symbolic, narrative, and archetypal forms, while science renders it through formal, quantitative, and operational terms. Both are semantic mirrors of nature, differing in vocabulary and method yet converging in their aim to translate the patterns of the world into humanly intelligible systems.