# Man and His Symbols  ## Metadata - Author: [[Carl Gustav Jung]] - Full Title: Man and His Symbols - Category: #symbology ## Highlights - Freud made the simple but penetrating observation that if a dreamer is encouraged to go on talking about his dream images and the thoughts that these prompt in his mind, he will give himself away and reveal the unconscious background of his ailments, in both what he says and what he deliberately omits saying. ([Location 266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=266)) - things he had wished to forget and had forgotten consciously. He had in fact arrived at what psychologists would call his “complexes”—that is, repressed emotional themes that can cause constant psychological disturbances or even, in many cases, the symptoms of a neurosis. ([Location 283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=283)) - was said that “every man carries a woman within himself.” It is this female element in every male that I have called the “anima.” ([Location 335](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=335)) - In other words, though an individual’s visible personality may seem quite normal, he may well be concealing from others—or even from himself—the deplorable condition of “the woman within.” ([Location 338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=338)) - It is easy to understand why dreamers tend to ignore and even deny the message of their dreams. Consciousness naturally resists anything unconscious and unknown. ([Location 350](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=350)) - It was far more difficult for this educated man to make an admission of this kind than it would have been for a primitive to say that he was plagued by a ghost. The malign influence of evil spirits is at least an admissible hypothesis in a primitive culture, but it is a shattering experience for a civilized person to admit that his troubles are nothing more than a foolish prank of the imagination. The primitive phenomenon of obsession has not vanished; it is the same as ever. It is only interpreted in a different and more obnoxious way. ([Location 570](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=570)) - The more that consciousness is influenced by prejudices, errors, fantasies, and infantile wishes, the more the already existing gap will widen into a neurotic dissociation and lead to a more or less artificial life far removed from healthy instincts, nature, and truth. ([Location 601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=601)) - For the sake of mental stability and even physiological health, the unconscious and the conscious must be integrally connected and thus move on parallel lines. If they are split apart or “dissociated,” psychological disturbance follows. In this respect, dream symbols are the essential message carriers from the instinctive to the rational parts of the human mind, and their interpretation enriches the poverty of consciousness so that it learns to understand again the forgotten language of the instincts. ([Location 644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=644)) - They thought that the only dreams that mattered were those of chiefs and medicine men; these, which concerned the welfare of the tribe, were highly appreciated. The only drawback was that the chief and the medicine man both claimed that they had ceased having meaningful dreams. They dated this change from the time that the British came to their country. The district commissioner—the British official in charge of them—had taken over the function of the “great dreams” that had hitherto guided the tribe’s behavior. ([Location 651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=651)) - The recurring dream is a noteworthy phenomenon. There are cases in which people have dreamed the same dream from childhood into the later years of adult life. A dream of this kind is usually an attempt to compensate for a particular defect in the dreamer’s attitude to life; or it may date from a traumatic moment that has left behind some specific prejudice. It may also sometimes anticipate a future event of importance. ([Location 675](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006V3E2MC&location=675))