So the ape-man said to her: Why the devil did you break the window?
LECTURE VIII 25 June 1930
Here is a question from Dr. Howells: “Did the dreamer have any feeling of disintegration when he had this dream in which his anima escaped?”
One would assume that he would have a certain feeling about such an agitated dream.
He would feel it in the daytime even.
But the fact of such a dream does not necessarily bring about a conscious realization of excitement or nervousness or anything of the sort.
We know that dreams are very often compensatory.
So the conscious feeling might be quiet.
If there is no proper realization of the possible implications, there is no particular excitement.
The dream, rather, brings a sort of information about a storm that is beginning to rage in the unconscious.
So this man was not particularly restless or nervous.
In this phase of his analysis, the dreams were more or less outside of him.
In the night he had funny dreams.
In the daytime things were as they usually were.
Only commonplace and everyday things happened.
He was not in the least bothered.
Nor did he feel any direct connection with his dreams.
There is an indication in the latter part of this dream that for the first time he gets a sense of his profound relationship to them.
Hitherto, they have been quite interesting to him.
Naturally he got a lot out of the interpretations.
But it was as if they didn’t get under his skin.
I was for a long time in doubt as to what he would make of it.
I wondered whether the thing would really grip him or not.
He was tremendously objective and scientific in his whole attitude.
I felt that that was the only relationship one had to him.
Or that the dreamer had to his unconscious.
Only occasionally was there a glimpse of something more.
If he had been deeply agitated in his conscious life, most probably his dreams would have mitigated the conditions.
That is often the case.
Last week we were talking about the attack of the ape-man upon the anima.
She succeeded in getting out of the window and into the world.
When she shouted for help, people instantly came.
The ape-man desisted.
Then something quite typical happened.
It happened already in the Bible, right in the beginning.
It seems to be a basic trouble of mankind.
Or perhaps one would say of men.
What did Adam say when things became awkward?
Mrs. Baynes: He said that Eve tempted him.
Dr. Jung: Yes, there it is.
The woman did it.
So the ape-man said to her: Why the devil did you break the window?
She had to fight for her life.
He complained that she had broken the window.
That is characteristic of the more or less civilized ape-man.
First he raises hell.
Then he complains that he has to dust his coat off perhaps.
That shows the nature of the ape-man.
He is terribly impulsive.
He tries to violate her.
When it doesn’t work he says: “Oh, excuse me, I just wanted to ask you what time it is.”
He is a coward.
As long as he succeeds it is all right.
When he sees that he has failed, he instantly swings round.
He complains that she has disturbed the noble household by breaking those windows.
The next thing is that the anima goes away with the people outside.
Obviously for the police.
Now what have the police to do with the situation?
That is a very serious turn in the dream.
Mrs. Deady: They are the guardians of the collective situation.
Dr. Jung: Yes, but what is the collective situation?
Mr. Schmitz: The moral situation.
The police are the protection of morality.
Dr. Jung: It is not exactly morality but it has to do with it.
I told you what the father said to the son when he was twenty-one.
I will repeat it: “You have come of age and I must tell you something that will be important for your later life: For stupid people there is the Bible, but for more intelligent people there is the penal code.”
That was his concept of morality.
Now here the police means a very particular degree of morality.
Our dreamer has never been bothered much with the moral problem.
Yet here it approaches in the form of the police.
Mrs. Crowley: It is not the individual standpoint but the collective conventional standpoint.
Dr. Jung: It is the most brutal form of the collective standpoint.
When the policeman gets you, it is most convincing.
It is most immediate.
It is a stone in at your window.
Conflict and trouble.
What is the problem which leads him into collision with the collective powers?
Mr. Schmitz: If one doesn’t assimilate the ape-man oneself, the police must interfere.
One gets into opposition to the civilized world.
Dr. Jung: But would you assume that he is played by the ape-man?
Mr. Schmitz: If he is identical with the ape-man, he is in conflict with the police.
Dr. Jung: Have we evidence?
It is the ape-man that makes the attack.
Mr. Schmitz: He allows the ape-man to make the attack in the unconscious.
Dr. Jung: But he does not allow it.
It just happens.
There is a story of three old veterans and an officer who were defending a fortress.
The enemy attacks.
Suddenly one of the veterans shouts: “I have made a prisoner!”
The colonel says: “Bring him here!”
The veteran shouts back: “He won’t let me!”
That is the story of the ape-man.
The complication is that the ape-man seems to be something quite apart.
In reality the dreamer is by no means an ape-man.
He is a very nice gentleman.
But it happens often that a very nice gentleman has some affiliation with the ape-man.
Though in a very remote degree.
Now this ape-man is loose.
We don’t know how far he will go.
In that former dream, the mouse escaped.
Now it is already the size of a gorilla.
The anima jumps out of the window and calls for help.
Nobody knows the ape-man is inside.
From the internal conflict the anima has escaped into the open.
That is a very special case.
It is not simple.
We ought to know what it means in order to understand why the police come in.
She is the reason for the police coming.
The mere presence of the ape-man does not call for the police. ~~Carl Jung, Dreams Analysis Semina, Page 690-692
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