LIFE AS MYTH

Index

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JOURNAL

Index

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JOURNAL 2012

The seeds of wisdom

Leaning into the answer

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WINTER 2012

Mapping the mystery

Index 2012

Mapping the mystery

Dreams, symbolism & the unconscious

Jan Van Eyck

The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait

The rebirth of Venus

109 beads

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LIFEWORKS

About

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ATLAS

Index

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WINTER 2012
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DREAMS, SYMBOLISM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS

Mystery. Odilon Redon. nd. Phillipps Collection, Washington, DC.

The work of both Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) was particularly influential to the development of Symbolism. During this period, they provided ground-breaking insights into the interpretation of imaginative, symbolic and dream material. Freud believed that repressed aggression and sexuality are at the root of human behavior. In his therapeutic practice, he explored dream material for insights into these unconscious drives and their effect on human behavior. He noted that some patients repeatedly relived past traumas in their dreams. According to Freud, over the course of repetitive dreaming, the dreamer often added details about the nature of the original injury. The function of this process was to help the patient obtain mastery over the traumatic event.

Jung, a protege of Freud, disputed his mentor's premise of aggression and sexuality as the sole motivating forces behind human behavior. His areas of research broadened to include not only dream material, but art, mythology, religion and philosophy. His major contributions to the field of psychoanalysis are the Jungian archetypes and the concepts of synchronicity and the collective unconscious.

 

 

 

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