The unconscious laughs at the mind

Psychologies: Can we always behave rationally, rely only on reason?

Marie-Laure Column: No, because no one can control their unconscious. It manifests itself as our irrational side, which speaks to us through reservations, dreams, erroneous actions. And at the same time, as Jung believed, the unconscious strives to break into consciousness, and when we refuse to accept it, it, like a boomerang, returns to our life in the form of “blows of fate.” A woman who suppresses her aggression and cruelty will constantly and as if by chance meet cruel and aggressive men. The denial of the unconscious is a kind of naivete and also fear. For those who persist in this denial, it causes all sorts of disorders: bodily illnesses, sexual difficulties, nervous breakdowns …

How can we “hear” our unconscious?

Tatiana Rebeko: Each of us has some unconscious impulses, desires, which may be completely alien or contrary to our conscious attitudes. Because of this, internal conflicts arise. For example, a person is peaceful and benevolent, helps his neighbors, but at the same time he passionately loves bloody action movies. Why? Such a hobby may be due to the fact that there is a lot of aggression in his unconscious, it simply manifests itself in this case in a socially acceptable form. This “treacherous” inner part of ours is betrayed by dreams. Of course, they speak the language of parables, and it is difficult to understand these messages. But even when we do not know how to interpret or do not remember dreams, they change our mood, our conscious attitude. The focus of consciousness shifts – and we begin to see the world in a different light. As Jung explained, if we are not completely at odds with our unconscious, our dreams usually do not frighten us. In modern terms, this is a kind of tuning of our consciousness. But if we are very far from understanding ourselves, dreams can be nightmarish.

And what can you say about intuitive insights, insights? What mechanism is at work here?

T. R .: Intuition is an opportunity to get in touch with the unconscious, to hear its clues. We can “accidentally” take the first book that comes across from the shelf, open it at random – and suddenly find the answer to the question that torments us. Writers often say that they write the text as if from dictation. Examples of such “miracles” are countless. For Jung, it was in the order of things. He was very interested in the mystical. After all, who is a mystic? One who is open to intuition.

How does the unconscious get along with the conscious in us?

M.-L. TO.: From the moment of birth, the child is completely immersed in the unconscious. He thinks magically, sees himself as the master of everything around – in a sense, this is a “primitive man.” Education, training help the child get out of this state, and by about the age of seven he enters the so-called “age of reason.” However, it is important that the upbringing is not too rigid and the child maintains a connection with his irrational part, so that the “Divine child” (Jung’s definition) is alive in him, which allows us to create our own life. This positive side of the unconscious gives us the opportunity in the face of difficulties not to take a rigid position “all or nothing”, but to maintain a balance of opposites, trust our intuition, emotions, dreams …

During what periods of life is it especially important to hear the voice of the unconscious?

T. R .: We run the first half of life without looking back at the past and not really immersing ourselves in ourselves. But when we have fulfilled our social and biological tasks, raised children, it is time to look inside ourselves and start discovering something in ourselves, discovering that part of ourselves that we had little experience with before. Jung called this period the “mid-life crisis”. We must admit that we cannot become perfect no matter how hard we try. In what we consider our pluses, there is always a minus, a certain reverse side. Black has white and vice versa. This is a huge challenge for consciousness, which wants unambiguity, certainty: “either one or the other.” While the unconscious does not have this opposition, it has “both”. If we find the strength and courage to come to such a vision (Jung calls it the expansion of consciousness), wide horizons open up for us.

M.-L. TO.: Faith can help during a mid-life crisis. I emphasize: I’m not talking about religion. And about recognizing that not everything happens according to the will of the mind, not all our experiences can be explained rationally. About the idea that our appearance on earth is not meaningless and that there is something after death. Those who have this faith are much calmer than atheists, who are easily disappointed in everything. However, this turn to the irrational is the result of the whole previous life. It is made possible by what we have experienced. Our strong experiences – enjoying art, love, the death of loved ones – help to go beyond the real. And the deeper we comprehend these experiences, the more accessible faith will be for us in a crisis.

How does the collective unconscious affect us? Can it help us move forward?

T. R .: Jung imagined the psyche in the form of a layer cake, in which there is a personal unconscious, the unconscious of a family, clan, culture, nation, and, finally, universal. This last collective unconscious is the “storeroom” of all the experience accumulated by mankind, and it is infinite, like this experience. It contains various archetypal, universal plots of the development of our psyche. And we can, without knowing it, realize one of these plots in our lives. Take, for example, such a plot as “The Victim-Executioner”. A woman who was abused in childhood may behave in adulthood in such a way that she is constantly humiliated, offended, hurt. Why is she always the Victim? Perhaps she is afraid of being the Executioner because it goes against her values. But if she is aware of her role, she will be able to choose another plot, where she will be, for example, a Hero. A conscious person, unlike an unconscious person, is able to understand what is happening to him and change his life.

M.-L. TO.: Contact with the collective unconscious awakens a powerful energy in us. One of my clients once said that she was diagnosed with cancer and that she did not feel the strength to fight the disease. She had a dream: in a dream she found herself in the bowels of the earth, where, after a fierce fight, she was swallowed by a monster. In response, I was reminded of the biblical story about Jonah and the whale, which clearly demonstrates how important it was for Jonah to be swallowed by the whale, because then he came out of the whale’s belly completely changed. When I finished the story, the woman told me: “I will fight because I want to live!”