The Collective Unconscious
The conscious mind, subconscious mind, and unconscious mind are the three elements that make up the human brain. While the conscious mind is always active, helping you perform day-to-day tasks, the subconscious mind is dominant at night as you sleep, generating all your crazy and unique dreams. Where does the unconscious mind come in, then? That is a rather complex question many psychologists have sought after for a long time. However, some answers to it do exist in the present day.
Many people are already aware of some of those answers; it aids in helping you do things you’re not consciously aware of, including writing, walking, and other types of movements. However, what most aren’t aware of is that it also plays a role in dreaming!
The collective unconscious was theorized by Sigmund Freud, a famous Australian psycho-analyst, whose work is still related by many. It was referred to as “a part of the deepest unconscious” of a being which is not altered by personal experience, but genetically inherited. The idea was rather complex and arduous, but nevertheless a product of a great many experiments performed by Freud himself, and the findings received appraisal by many future psychologists. This part of the unconscious is the product of accumulation of the experiences that our ancestors have had, that usually manifests itself in the form of art, or even shapes into the dreams that we see.
An example of this would be “The Great Flood” that occurred in the time of Noah. A few centuries after the flood had occurred, many tribes that were completely unrelated to the event – and in separate corners of the world – related the event through their skits and songs. They were completely unaware of the fact that the event had actually conspired, but the writers had usually seen the event happen in their dream.
Have you ever had that dream in which you fell off a cliff, or some height, and suddenly woke up? That dream is theorized to relate to the fall of Adam from the Heavens toward Earth.
The collective unconscious is often reflected in art, myths, and even symbols that we see nowadays. If we look at it another way, it also takes the form of unified beliefs; including how we all fear death, and how we all look for God – at least once in our lives – even if some of us come to the conclusion that He doesn’t exist.
