Just as the stars cannot be seen during the day because they are obscured by the stronger light of the sun, so too can the unconscious mind: it is ever-present, but the light of consciousness obscures its activity. Penetrating the unconscious involves learning to be attentive in a defocused way. You must allow that arises to be, without rushing to hasty conclusions, and accept that there is a source of knowledge within, for belief in the workings of the unconscious is the key that turns the lock.
Food For Thought
The role of food in our lives goes far beyond simple nourishment, and our attitudes towards it are deeply significant. This is not surprising since food does, after all, enter our insides – our inner being. According to Freud, the oral stage of infancy could determine features of our later life. Eating disorders can be especially problematic around adolescence, the time when a person’s orientation to the world beyond their family is being established.
Free Association
Freud believed that free association was a useful way to tap into the unconscious mind. If you have (or can borrow} a tape recorder with a microphone, you can try this for yourself. Begin by choosing a fragment of material – a word, an idea, a feeling, or a picture in your mind. The origin of the fragment is not important: it may have surfaced during a dream or emerged spontaneously from your imagination. When you have chosen a fragment, hold it in mind and talk out loud, recording what you say. Say whatever comes into your head in response to the fragment. Remember, there is no right or wrong, only that which flows. If a picture arises in your mind, let visualization take over as the focus for your associations. If the flow dries up, try to find ways around it: it may feel like a door that won’t open – if so, look for an exit to the side.
When you have finished, play back the tape and think about the associations you have made. Try to interpret the words and images in relation to your own life – your parents, your childhood, significant people and events in your life, and your hopes and fears.
Dreaming And Knowing
Freud said that dreams are the ‘royal road to the unconscious. Using dreams to access the unconscious needs long-term commitment but can be rewarding. If you want to give it a try, you will need to record your dream life systematically, so keep a diary and a pen next to your bed. When going to sleep, hold the intention in mind that you will write down your dreams; sometimes, it helps to visualize yourself sitting up and writing in the diary. Whenever you awake with a dream fragment in mind – even in the middle of the night – resist the temptation to go back to sleep: sit up and write it down. Examine your diary daily and at Annual intervals, perhaps monthly. In your daily review, identify any content that relates to events that happened in the last few days. Spotting this ‘day residue’ is not normally too hard, but sometimes the material may be disguised, so you may need to associate around the images to determine their relevance. Mark the day residue passages in your diary, and then when you look at them monthly, you will be able to see more clearly the patterns that go beyond daily processing. Sometimes, these will be recurring themes, sometimes developing patterns or unfolding stories. Don’t seek obvious interpretations. The objective is more to develop a close relationship with your unconscious, and trite answers (such as ‘the woman with the dark coat is my mother’) can block that relationship. Instead, look for ways to amplify the images. For example, if there is a character in your dream diary that you do not immediately recognize, try to visualize them and have imaginary conversations with them. What do they tell you? You may eventually reach a stage where you can consciously engage with the dream content while you are dreaming. Again, setting the intention prior to falling asleep is important. You will be surprised at what you can achieve.
The Word At The Centre
This exercise uses cues from words in the conscious mind as a way to access material in the unconscious mind. Write eight words across the top of a sheet of paper – they can be any eight words, but they should not make a sentence. Then, write another eight words at the bottom. Return to the top and think of a word that somehow connects the first two words on the sheet. For example, if these words were ‘tree’ and ‘mud,’ you might choose ‘ root ‘ as the connecting word. Go on to the next two words and continue making these connections, working row by row alternately from the top and the bottom of the page. Eventually, you will end up with one final word in the center (see the diagram below as a guide). What does that central word mean to you? Spend some time contemplating that word – it will be significant!
Truthful Slips
Freud believed that any slip of the tongue had meaning and unmasked a hidden motive. Few psychologists today would go so far, but it is true that slips of the tongue can sometimes reveal unconscious thoughts and may be worth examining. When you make a verbal slip, consider how and when it happened. If a word is mispronounced, it may not be significant. But if the slip was accompanied by an emotional response – perhaps a rush of energy or a shiver – no matter how slight, then it could be worth exploring. What significance does the word hold for you? Free associating around this word may help uncover the is and help reveal what your unconscious is trying to tell you. If you reflect on your verbal slips, you’ll also become aware of how ideas that concern you sometimes break out in speech despite your conscious intentions. This can often be enlightening but also uncomfortable. Take this case. Daniel meets a friend who has just separated from her husband. He knows about her situation but decides not to mention it directly. She asks Daniel to light her cigarette, so he tries to strike a match but presses too hard and snaps it. Without thinking, he exclaims, ‘It’s a pain when your match breaks, isn’t it?’ His choice of words likely comes as much from awareness of his friend’s problematic private life as from the broken matchstick.
Active Imagination
Jung used the term ‘active imagination for the process we need to cultivate to understand the unconscious. It involves letting ideas unfold without interference. This sounds easy, but it is probably one of the hardest things for us to achieve because consciousness usually cannot help but interfere. One way to try to engage active imagination is to take some clay or plasticine and mold it in your hands. Let shapes arise spontaneously rather than deliberately trying to make a particular object. When it feels as if a satisfactory shape has emerged, leave it. Don’t even think about it for a day or more. Then, return to your shape and consider what it represents. Think especially of creatures or scenes you may have encountered in stories, myths, or films. What does it tell you about yourself?
A Turn in Your Head
Whenever you notice that a song is playing in your mind, ask yourself why. If you have just heard the tune on the radio, then it probably has no deep significance. But there are many times when you find yourself humming a tune or holding a song in your head without any obvious, conscious reason. In these cases, examine your associations to the tune. What is its title? Where did you hear it? Who were you with? What message does it hold for you now? For example, if you find the song ‘Strawberry Fields’ stuck in your head, you could be remembering a time when you were told off for spilling a bowl of strawberries – and a current criticism may have triggered this memory.
Psychological Types
Jung believed that human behavior is not random but follows identifiable patterns that develop from the structure of the human mind. He argued that personality could be classified according to the style of thinking we employ when we perceive and when we judge. Jung argued that there are basic functions underlying personality – thinking, feeling, perceiving, and intuiting – any one of which can be dominant in any individual. He combined these basic functions with his concepts of introvert and extrovert, giving eight basic different types of personality. To find out which you are, consider how you go about redecorating, for example. Do you think it through, perhaps considering what’s in vogue at present (thinking)? Are you mainly influenced by the aesthetics of color and pattern combinations (perceiving )? Does it have to feel pleasant (feeling)? Or, perhaps you can’t really explain it, but it just ‘clicks’ when it’s right (intuiting). The polar opposite (thinking opposite to feeling; perceiving opposite to intuition) to your dominant function represents an underdeveloped potential and can help to explain tendencies in behavior. You may find it irritating, for example, if your partner operates mainly from the opposite function. You may gain insight into your interactions if, instead of merely reacting, you examine the cause of the irritation and think about the dominant and opposite functions in your and your partner’s personalities.
True Life Drama
Jung believed that the unconscious mind of all human beings contains templates of behavior called archetypes. According to Jung, these archetypes also appear in the myths and legends of all cultures. Reflecting on mythology can help you to discover which archetypes are most prominent in your unconscious and thus reveal something of your unconscious motives. When you read a myth, story, or fairytale, ask yourself which ones have the most resonance with you. Which characters and situations do you respond to most strongly? The neglected stepchild, the embattled hero, the imprisoned princess? Another way to find your links to mythology is to try to create a drama from your own life. Write down the details of your childhood, your youth, and your working life. What seems to be the principal direction of your life’s journey? You will find that there are crucial moments when major directions were established – it may have been a house move in childhood, the decision of what to study at university, a chance encounter on a holiday, or choosing to change jobs. In retrospect, you will see that these are important moments that shaped the course of your life. Focus on those moments and see which mythic, or perhaps biblical, characters could be related to them. It might be that, like Atlas, you feel you weigh the world on your shoulders, or perhaps the occasion when the biblical Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers has some meaning for you. A myth is an exploration of just these kinds of ‘big’ human moments. Just as the mythic character is engaged on some form of the challenging path, so too are you.
