[Carl Jung and “Sleep” while writing The Red Book]
Jung noted that the new attitude gained from analysis became obsolete. Unconscious materials were needed to supplement the conscious attitude, and to correct its one-sidedness. But because energy tension was low in sleep, dreams were inferior expressions of unconscious contents. Thus other sources had to be turned to, namely; spontaneous fantasies. A recently recovered dream book contains a series of dreams from 1917 to 1925. A close comparison of this book with the Black Books indicates that his active imaginations did not derive directly from his dreams, and that these two streams were generally independent. ~The Red Book Introduction
On January 5,1922, he had a conversation with his soul concerning both his vocation and Liber Novus:
[I:] I feel that I must speak to you. Why do you not let me sleep, as I am tired? I feel that the disturbance comes from you. What induces you to keep me awake?
[Soul:] Now is no time to sleep, but you should be awake and prepare important matters in nocturnal work The great work begins.
[I:] What great work?
[Soul:] The work that should now be undertaken. It is a great and difficult work There is no time to sleep, if you find no time during the day to remain in the work.
[I:] But I had no idea that something of this kind was taking place.
[Soul:] But you could have told by the fact that I have been disturbing your sleep for a long time: You have been too unconscious for a long time. Now you must go to a
higher level of consciousness.
[I:] I am ready: What is it? Speak.
[Soul:] You should listen: to no longer be a Christian is easy: But what next? For more is yet to come. Everything is waiting for you. And you? You remain silent and have
nothing to say: But you should speak. Why have you received the revelation? You should not hide it. You concern yourself with the form? Is the form important, when it is a matter of revelation?
[I:] But you are not thinking that I should publish what I have written? That would be a misfortune. And who would understand it?
[Soul:] No, listen! You should not break up a marriage, namely the marriage with me, no person should supplant me … I want to rule alone.
[I:] So you want to rule? From whence do you take the right for such a presumption?
[Soul:] This right comes to me because I serve you and your calling. I could just as well say, you came first, but above all your calling comes first.
[I:] But what is my calling?
[Soul:] The new religion and its proclamation.
[I:J Oh God, how should I do this?
[Soul:] Do not be of such little faith. No one knows it as you do. There is no one who could say it as well as you could.
[I:] But who knows, if you are not lying?
[Soul:] Ask yourself if I am lying. I speak the truth. ~The Red Book Introduction
December 12 I9I3. The Black Book 2 continues: “The battle of late was the battle with scorn. A vision that caused me three sleepless nights and three days of torment has likened me to G. Keller’s druggist of Chamounix (from start to finish). I know and acknowledge this style. I have learned that one must give one’s heart to men, but one’s intellect to the spirit of humanity; God. Then His work can be beyond vanity; since there is no more hypocritical whore than the intellect when it replaces the heart” (p. 4I). ~The Red Book; Introduction; Footnote 81.
