Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Carl Jung on "Sleep" - Anthology




At the same time it is an event that was repeated many times in history, for instance in the case of Caesar and Brutus. Through the myth is extremely old it is still a subject for repetition, as it expresses the simple fact that envy does not let mankind sleep in peace ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 42

to the realm of the Mothers. His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. This death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away. Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest. If, like Peirithous, he tarries too long in this abode of rest and peace, he is overcome by apathy, and the poison of the serpent paralyses him for all time. If he is to live, he must fight and sacrifice his longing for the past in order to rise to his own heights. And having reached the noonday heights, he must sacrifice his love for his own achievement, for he may not loiter. The sun, too, sacrifices its greatest strength in order to hasten onward to the fruits of autumn, which are the seeds of rebirth. ~Carl Jung, CW 5, Para 553

Nothing is so apt to challenge our self-awareness and alertness as being at war with oneself. One can hardly think of any other or more effective means of waking humanity out of the irresponsible and innocent half-sleep of the primitive mentality and bringing it to a state of conscious responsibility. ~Carl Jung; CW 6; Page 964.

The unconscious is the unknown at any given moment, so it is not surprising that dreams add to the conscious psychological situation of the moment all those aspects which are essential for a totally different point of view. It is evident that this function of dreams amounts to a psychological adjustment, a compensation absolutely necessary for properly balanced action. In a conscious process of reflection it is essential that, so far as possible, we should realize all the aspects and consequences of a problem in order to find the right solution. This process is continued automatically in the more or less unconscious state of sleep, where, as experience seems to show, all those aspects occur to the dreamer (at least by way of allusion) that during the day were insufficiently appreciated or even totally ignored in other words, were comparatively unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 469

It would all be so much simpler if only we could deny the existence of the psyche. But here we are with our immediate experiences of something that is—something that has taken root in the midst of our measurable, ponderable, three dimensional reality, that differs mysteriously from this in every respect and in all its parts, and yet reflects it. The psyche could be regarded as a mathematical point and at the same time as a universe of fixed stars. It is small wonder, then, if, to the unsophisticated mind, such a paradoxical being borders on the divine. If it occupies no space, it has no body. Bodies die, but can something invisible and incorporeal disappear? What is more, life and psyche existed for me before I could say "I," and when this "I" disappears, as in sleep or unconsciousness, life and psyche still go on, as our observation of other people and our own dreams inform us. Why should the simple mind deny, in the face of such experiences, that the "soul" lives in a realm beyond the body? ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 671

Indeed, it seems a very natural state of affairs for men to have irrational moods and women irrational opinions. Presumably this situation is grounded on instinct and must remain as it is to ensure that the Empedoclean game of the hate and love of the elements shall continue for all eternity. Nature is conservative and does not easily allow her courses to be altered; she defends in the most stubborn way the inviolability of the preserves where anima and animus roam. . . . And on top of this there arises a profound doubt as to whether one is not meddling too much with nature's business by prodding into consciousness things which it would have been better to leave asleep. ~Carl Jung, CW 9ii, Para 35

For indeed our consciousness does not create itself it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious." ~Carl Jung, CW 11, pp. 569 f.

Consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, par. 935.

For the alchemist, the one primarily in need of redemption is not man, but the deity who is lost and sleeping in matter. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Page 312.

The analogy with the extraction of the pneuma from the stone in the saying of Ostanes forces itself upon us. We are already familiar with the idea of pneuma as fire, and with Christ as fire and fire as the earth's inner counter-element; but the stone from which the spark is struck is also analogous to the rocky sepulchre, or the stone before it. Here Christ lay as one asleep or in the fetters of death during the three days of his descent into hell, when he went down to the ignis gehennalis, from which he rises again as the New Fire. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 451

Since alchemy is concerned with a mystery both physical and spiritual, it need come as no surprise that the “composition of the waters” was revealed to Zosimos in a dream. His sleep was the sleep of incubation, his dream “a dream sent by God.” The divine water was the alpha and omega of the process, desperately sought for by the alchemists as the goal of their desire. The dream therefore came as a dramatic explanation of the nature of this water. The dramatization sets forth in powerful imagery the violent and agonizing process of transformation which is itself both the producer and the product of the water, and indeed constitutes its very essence ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 139

What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity, and it wells up wherever the inhibitive action of the conscious mind abates or, as in sleep, ceases altogether. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 125

In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influence of repressed or other unconscious complexes. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 125

What we call fantasy is simply spontaneous psychic activity, and it wells up wherever the inhibitive action of the conscious mind abates or, as in sleep, ceases altogether. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 125

In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influence of repressed or other unconscious complexes. ~Carl Jung; CW 16, Page 125.

He who sleeps in the grave of the millennia dreams a wonderful dream. He dreams a primordially ancient dream. He dreams of the rising sun. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 272

Through comprehending the dark, the nocturnal, the abyssal in you, you become utterly simple. And you prepare to sleep through the millennia like everyone else, and you sleep down into the womb of the millennia, and your walls resound with ancient temple chants. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 267.

I should not worry about all this localization talk. It's practically all foolishness, and a remnant of the old brain mythology like the explanation of sleep through the contraction of the ganglia, which is by no means more intelligent than the localization of the psyche in the pituitary gland. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 161.

Now the weather is beastlier than ever, so that one can only huddle behind the stove. I busy myself chiefly with cooking, eating and sleeping. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 163.

An interesting conversation never disturbs my sleep. Only an arduous talk to no purpose disturbs it. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 197.

The apostles and the early Fathers of the Church had no easy life and moreover no Christian is meant to go to sleep in a safe pew. ~Carl Jung, Letters, Vol. II, Page 239.

A light sleep is certainly a favourable condition for the remembrance of dreams. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 514

The same is the case in the West, where one makes futile attempts to give life to our Christian tenets; but they have gone to sleep. Yet in Buddhism as well as in Christianity there is at the basis of both a valid truth, but its modern application has not been understood yet. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 385-386.

No Christian is meant to sleep in a safe pew. . . . I have discovered in my private life that a true Christian is not bedded upon roses and he is not meant for peace and tranquility of mind but for war. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 242.

But the detective stories were a rest, chiefly because they had no bearing on his [Jung’s]professional work; and he could sleep after reading them because they were not true. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 187

In Sahasrara there is no difference. The next conclusion could be that there is no object, no God, there is nothing but Brahman. There is no experience because it is One, without a second. It is asleep, it is not, and that is why it is nirvana. ~Carl Jung, Kundalini Seminars, Page 59.



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