Some Dreams of Dr. Jung’s in The Black Books
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Half a year or so before I had that dream about the white bird I dreamed the following:
I was in a southern town, on a rising street with narrow half-landings.
It was twelve o’clock midday-bright sunshine.
An old Austrian customs guard or someone similar passes by me, lost in thought.
Someone says:
That is one who cannot die. He died already 30-40 years ago, but has not yet managed to decompose.
I was very surprised. Here a striking figure came, a knight of powerful build, clad in yellowish armor.
He looks solid and inscrutable and nothing impresses him. On his back he carried a red Maltese cross.
He has continued to exist from the 12th century and daily between 12 and 1 o’clock midday he takes the same route.
No one marvels at these two apparitions, but I was extremely surprised.
I hold back my interpretive skills. As regards the old Austrian, Freud occurred to me; as regards the knight, I myself.
In 1925 he gave the following interpretation of this dream:
“The meaning of the dream lies in the principle of the ancestral figure: not the Austrian officer- obviously he stood for the Freudian theory-but the other, the Crusader, is an archetypal figure, a Christian symbol living from the twelfth century, a #symbol that does not really live today, but on the other hand is not wholly dead either.
It comes out of the times of Meister Eckhart, the time of the culture of the Knights, when many ideas blossomed, only to be killed again, but they are coming again to life now.
However, when I had this dream, I did not know this interpretation” (Introduction to] Jungian Psychology, p. 42).
In Memories, Jung commented on this dream in the context of his relation to Freud (pp. 186ff.) .
He added:
“The stories of the Grail had been of the greatest importance to me ever since I read them, at the age of fifteen, for the first time.
I had an inkling that a great secret lay hidden behind those stories.
Therefore it seemed quite natural to me that the dream should conjure up the world of the Knights of the Grail and their quest-for that was, in the deepest sense, my own world, which had scarcely anything to do with Freud’s.
My whole being was seeking for something still unknown which might confer meaning upon the banality of life” (p. 189). ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 160, fn 53
After that I had this dream around l 1/2 years ago:
I am lying on a bed with my wife in a chamber with an open ceiling (similar to the roofless houses of Pompeii.)
All at once my wife startles and climbs the wall rapidly and disappears upward.
She wears a long white dress with mystical figures, such as witches or heretics, who are burnt at the stake.
At that moment I was woken in reality by a strong noise from the window shutter, as if pebbles are thrown against it.
In the room something strange trips on the floor, something like a larger bird. I rush to make light.
Outside the moon shines bright, everything is still. Inside nothing. I look at my watch: 3 o’clock.
The next morning at 7am a telegram that Hedwig Sturzenegger has died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Retrospective investigations revealed that she had died at 3 o’clock at night. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 161
On 3rd Aug. 1913 on my journey to England, I had a dream:
I am sitting opposite to an elderly lady and admire how quickly she has grasped the analysis; suddenly there appears a little child’s hand, it turns my head around and I see the little blond girl with ineffable delight, she kisses me and I wake up with tears of emotion.
This dream provided me with great assurance for the time in London (congress).
Middle Ages: I am together with peasants who want to plunder a monastery.
At nightfall the monastery ought to be captured. We hide ourselves in the shadow of the wall.
But the leader, a bad fellow, gets frightened and retreats with his gang. I stay. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 161-162
Hedwig Sturzenegger, nee Bendel (1876- 1912), was a first cousin of Emma Jung’s. She died of leukemia.
In Memories, Jung wrote:
“I dreamed that my wife’s bed was a deep pit with stone walls.
It was a grave, and somehow had a suggestion of antiquity about it.
Then I heard a deep sigh, as if someone were giving up the ghost.
A figure that resembled my wife sat up in the pit and floated upward.
She wore a white gown into which curious black symbols were woven.
I awoke, roused my wife, and checked the time. It was three o’clock in the morning.
The dream was so curious that I thought at once that it might signify a death.
At seven o’clock came the news that a cousin of my wife had died at three o’clock in the morning!” (p. 332). ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 161. Fn 55
fragmentary intermezzo:
My mother-in-law has brought home with her an interesting book from
Munich entitled: The Spread of Buddhism in England.
There it is shown that Buddhist monasteries spread all over England in a dangerous way.
It comes with depictions of monasteries in medieval form, circumvallated twice, with big cannons.
The book contains texts translated from the Sanskrit. Uncle and Aunt Bendel (the biggest philistines!) have read it.
She has not understood an expression, “masturbationis causa,” uncle explains it to her. I am very interested in the book. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 162.
The monastery was destroyed a long time ago. Grass grows on the ruins. I am sitting at a derelict well in a courtyard.
From the well grows a tripartite tree, with a delightful green shade.
I look down and remember the monks, and it seems to me as if they had sat on this place the same way.
In the depths of the well I can see delicate wire meshes, each of them representing an underground floor, where the monks used to walk.
On the uppermost mesh lie small, pea-sized red pellets.
These are falling into the depths and get caught in certain meshes.
This way the upper meditating monk can indicate to the observers below what thoughts he has.
The monastery is in existence again, I am in the past. A mighty corridor.
I see lay brothers, strong men in different costumes (furs, white pleated clothes, mediaeval to ancient).
Then ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Book 2, Page 162-163
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog