All fiction is but a dream, all dreams are but a reality. No other stream has contributed towards enrichment of Literature as compared to Psychology. They are inseparable in a way, and one was always confused for another. Sigmund Freud was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature for his psychoanalysis.
Jung is lesser known than Freud. The magnitude of his work is still unexplored. Due to Eastern influence on his work of Collective Unconscious, he was not well appreciated by his contemporaries. West had a tendency to evaluate anything related to East as inferior. Only Arthur Schopenhauer could draw the attention of West towards rich philosophy of Buddhism. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse also contributed in exploring rich Buddhist Philosophy. Romain Rolland a Nobel Laureate in Literature was inspired by Sigmund Freud. Rolland studied Eastern Philosophy which is labeled as Eastern Mysticism since it is not easily comprehensible. He had an “oceanic feeling” which prompted Freud to raise this issue in his further work. Mysticism does not aim at ‘human transformation’ but its object is selfactualisation. It is the transformation of human concepts from the Unreal to Real.
It requires a great deal of courage to admit that ‘primitiveness’ of eastern tribes is a sort of ‘advancement’ since it uses collective unconsciousness which is deeper, stronger and unique. Modern man has become so isolated that he finds it impossible to connect his personal unconsciousness with any other individual, so the wonders of collective unconsciousness are a distant dream for him.
Haggard in “She” and “King Solomon’s Mines” and Mary Shelley in “Frankenstein” have made use of Jung’s wonderful concept of three layered selfhood of personality -present consciousness, past and prehistoric or racial. All mythology is also work of collective unconsciousness. Recently, some authors temper with mythology in order to create sensation. They are playing with negative energies of the cosmos which always try to conquer positive energy. Proceeding in one direction would create equal and opposite force and both would survive together.
The archetypes discovered by Jung have opened a treasure box for historians, anthropologist, scientist and authors to discover and base their work on different models of archetypes and their social and Psychological significance.
If human civilization is endless and there is no imminent catastrophe, after a few centuries, today’s man will be called primitive and would be despised for its greed by future generations. The word desire for Fire in the poem by Robert Frost is a soft version of greed.
The fuss of Dream Analysis would never be over. Work of Freud and Jung would always be a landmark, but many new theories and interpretations are needed to understand the symbolism and enrich the theme. A combined group of Social Scientist, Psychiatrist, Psychologist and Philosopher tuned with collective unconsciousness can do miracle.
There is no Tabula rasa in the realm of collective unconsciousness.
