C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Thoughts on "Early Years"... The autobiography of C.G. Jung is not so much about the external events of his life, but rather is an exploration of his inner work. We all have memories and images of events in our life. Events that are pretty insignificant from the standpoint of life achievements or importance. I can dreg up childhood memories of embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, anger, and fear at the drop of a hat. Situations where I felt belittled or "less than." Situation that occur probably daily in the life of children, but for some reason these particular memories are significant and remain readily accessible to us. These are the memories that C.G. gives us. As he writes in the Prologue, "In the end the only events in my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world erupted into this transitory one. That is why I speak chiefly of inner experiences, amongst which I include my dreams and visions....All other memories of travels, people and my surroundings have paled beside these interior happenings." How contrary this thought is to the Western ideal, where people are judged by what they have achieved and how much money they make. What would we be like as individuals if we made the study of our inner life a priority? How would the world change?

Many of Jung's early memories focused on his mother. There was much disappointment there. She appeared to have had significant emotional or physical issues...being absent from the home - at a hospital or remaining in her room. The relationship between his parents was also not good. He discloses that "the feeling I associated with 'woman' was for a long time that of innate unreliability" (a feeling he says was later resolved). Yet, I wonder if this handicap influenced some of his later life decisions.

I found humorous C.G.'s description of several near death experiences as a very young child, which he describes as a "unconscious suicidal urge" or a "fatal resistance to life." To me this statement was a reflection of two things. First, if Jung was a mother, rather than a father, he would know for certain the absurdity of that explanation. Children have a present focused existence - filled with curiosity and the desire to explore new things. This was more likely the cause of his falls and dangerous climbing around bridges. And certainly we know today that the brain's frontal lobes are not available to preschoolers. When I was five I rode a tricycle off a front porch and broke my arm. Probably more the desire for a fun leap than a death wish (and the fall kept me from wanting to become Evil Knievel). My second thought was that we are all subject to the skewed perceptions of our profession. It's something we all have to look out for. If we are lawyers we see the world and all in it as contracts to be broken and bad actors. Jung as the ultimate psychologist saw life in such a way...as neurosis and pathology. Hence his attributing to a 2 year old a suicidal urge.

Jung was a lonely child, growing up as an only child. He had an active imagination and quite a vivid dream life at an early age, with images that haunted him throughout his life. Even if these images were modified in some fashion over time, as a hypnotherapist, I can say those images would be ripe for working with the subconscious - whether for behavioral change or in a more transpersonal way for personal and spiritual growth and development. Jung obviously understood the importance of these images at a very early age and this awareness lead to his study of them. He also saw an image of a headless apparition outside his mother's room at night. (I wonder what he would attribute that to...illusion? ghost? psychosis? And would any of us classify that differently today? Was Jung an intuitive? a mystic? energy reader?) He was certainly creative, very artistic (as we will see in the Red Book) and spent a good deal of his time drawing battle scenes (as do many boys), and interpreting his ink blots (alright, a bit less common). His parents had a painting he loved that he would sit gazing at for hours. He said it was "the only beautiful thing he knew." Now, that is the soul of the artist.

C.G. liked to play with fire (I hope that was cultural). And most interestingly he created a little manikin which he made clothes for and kept in a pencil box with a colored stone. This was hidden and kept a secret. The idea of it gave him great comfort throughout his childhood. At times he would bring the manikin messages written in a made up ancient language. As an adult he discovered the manikin and stone to be very similar to those in ancient Australia of which he had no conscious knowledge. He describes his rituals with the manikin as being the same as he saw the natives in Africa doing. "They act first and do not know what they are doing. Only long afterwords do they reflect on what they have done."