Carl Jung’s Childhood Dreams/Visions and the Path to The Red Book

Hildegard von Bingen had her first vision at the tender age of 3 years old which was entitled “The Shade of the Living Light.”

At the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions.

She described one as “Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame.”

“Hildegard von Bingen transcended the animus; that is one woman’s service to the spirit.” ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 30.

It ought not be surprising that children experience great dreams and visions as being recently born from the realm of the Bardo/Pleroma and the source of Archetypal experiences such early visions of wholeness, completion and individuation ought to be expected and is the reason the Dreams of Children ought to be monitored early in their lives.

Often the dreams and visions of early childhood remain for the entirety of a person’s life and are felt profoundly deeply as possessing an important meaning and eternal truth.

For example:

“This possession of a secret had a very powerful formative influence on my character; I consider it the essential factor of my boyhood. Similarly, I never told anyone about the dream of the phallus; and the Jesuit, too, belonged to that mysterious realm which I knew I must not talk about. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams Reflections, Page 22

Dr. Jung’s dreams/visions as a child placed him on a path that would lead to the creation of The Red Book:

“The memoir [Memories Dreams Reflections], with its focus on significant childhood dreams, visions, and fantasies, can be viewed as an introduction to Liber Novus.” ~Sonu Shamdasani, The Red Book, Introduction, Page 194.

“In the first dream, he found himself in a meadow with a stone-lined hole in the ground. Finding some stairs, he descended into it, and found himself in a chamber. Here there was a golden throne with what appeared to be a tree trunk of skin and flesh, with an eye on the top. He then heard his mother’s voice exclaim that this was the “man-eater.” He was unsure whether she meant that this figure actually devoured children or was identical with Christ. This profoundly affected his image of Christ. Years later, he realized that this figure was a penis and, later still, that it was in fact a ritual phallus, and that the setting was an underground temple. He came to see this dream as an initiation “in the secrets of the earth.” ~Sonu Shamdasani, The Red Book, Introduction, Page 194.

“In his childhood, Jung experienced a number of visual hallucinations. He also appears to have had the capacity to evoke images voluntarily In a seminar in 1935, he recalled a portrait of his maternal grandmother which he would look at as a boy until he “saw” his grandfather descending the stairs.” ~Sonu Shamdasani, The Red Book, Introduction, Page 194.

These dreams led him to analyze his childhood memories, but this did not resolve anything. He realized that he needed to recover the emotional tone of childhood. He recalled that as a child, he used to like to build houses and other structures, and he took this up again. ~The Red Book, Introduction, Page 198.

Children even in their earliest years often have a sense of both a temporal and eternal identity which can linger with them throughout their lives:

“When No. 2 [personality] predominated, No.1 was contained and obliterated in him, just as, conversely, No. 1 regarded No. 2 as a region of inner darkness.” ~Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Page 87

“It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.” ~Carl Jung; Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Page 233

So important was this that Dr. Jung dedicated an entire Seminar to Children’s Dreams.

Children’s Dreams Seminar by Carl Jung