“Well, everything has begun!” The thought flashes that it is necessary in a bomb shelter and that it is better not on the elevator, but on the stairs. But immediately I understand that I can’t do it anymore, because the walls begin to shake. I woke up in a sweat, terrified, and could not believe that everything was quiet, calm. And then such happiness rolled over that it was only a dream. A Jungian analyst deciphers a picture that many of us have seen in our dreams.
Alexander, 18 years old
“The dream is very realistic. I am in my room, and my parents are behind the wall, and I am at the table, looking at the screen, and suddenly the picture changes on it, a map appears and red circles flash one after another on it, and I immediately understand that these are nuclear strikes on different cities.
And I think: maybe this is still not true, just a virus, but then the air thickens and presses on the ears, then flashes and roar begin outside the window, and I think: “Well, everything has begun!” The thought flashes that it is necessary in a bomb shelter and that it is better not on the elevator, but on the stairs. But immediately I understand that I can’t do it anymore, because the walls begin to shake.
I woke up in a sweat, terrified, and could not believe that everything was quiet, calm. And then such happiness rolled over that it was only a dream. But I noticed that since then in the evenings I’ve been stalling for time, I don’t go to bed, I don’t want to see this again. Don’t think, I don’t watch TV from morning to night, and in general I’m not particularly interested in politics.”
Interpretation of psychoanalyst Stanislav Raevsky
It’s good that you shared this dream. Such dreams Carl Gustav Jung called “big” – important not only for the dreamer, but for the whole society. Previously, big dreams were dreamed by shamans and influenced the fate of the entire tribe. Jung himself, on the eve of World War II, saw rivers of blood flooding Europe.
Even if you are not interested in politics and do not watch TV, you can feel the tension in the world and the threat of nuclear war. In my childhood, at school they talked about the threat of nuclear war, which could start at any moment. Therefore, many then had dreams similar to yours.
The huge mushroom cloud of Hiroshima caused many to wake up in a nightmare – to wake up from the illusion of safety. A broad peace movement, diplomacy and peace initiatives have reduced the number of nuclear weapons in the world, but there are still enough of them to destroy all of humanity.
Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz believed that the evolution of consciousness was not keeping pace with the arms race. We really need social and intrapersonal mechanisms that block direct aggression. Moreover, at all levels, from relations between heads of government to relations in the family.
Each of us can ask ourselves a question that is important for our survival: “What have I done to reduce confrontation in the family, at work, in society?” Every day we have a choice: to vent our aggression, often destroying relationships, or to contain it, directing it to work with ourselves.
Jung believed that we cannot understand and accept others while there is a war going on within ourselves.
It is this war that then spills out into the world. Therefore, it is important to understand your dream not only as a warning to all of us, but also as a reflection of internal mental processes. It is clear that a huge amount of energy has accumulated inside you and it needs to be released. Like nuclear energy, which can benefit people or destroy the whole world, so your energy can be directed to creation or destruction.
After the horrors of World War II, Jung, trying to understand the collective unconscious, recalled a parable from the spirit of Mercury imprisoned in a bottle. The woodcutter’s son found her at the roots of an oak tree, and the escaped Mercury wanted to destroy his liberator. But the clever young man cunningly drove the spirit back into the bottle and took from him a promise not to harm anyone.
Mercury turned the woodcutter’s ax into silver, the young man sold it and learned to be a doctor with the proceeds. In each of us lives the spirit of Mercury. Whether we can forge it with the help of the mind and use it is the main question, both in our development and in the survival of mankind. We can direct our energy to destroy not external, but internal walls.
Perhaps you are ripe for an independent life and unconsciously want to destroy the walls of your parental home. But independence is always scary, because these walls have long protected you from the outside world. You can’t hide in a bomb shelter from this strong energy.
At the age of 18, it is important to go beyond the parental walls, to see the world without getting involved in a war, and later to build your own house. And if this dream were dreamed by a person in the middle of life, then he would speak more about the ripened need to go beyond his own “I”, destroying the walls that block other people.
At this age, the walls of our “I”, created over many years, become an obstacle to our feelings, our love and our deep need to find meaning through contact and help to all living beings.