A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE DREAM-EGO IN JUNGIAN PRACTICE J. V. Hunt. MSc. (Hons) Thesis submitted for Doctor of Philosophy Degree. School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney. 2008. Acknowledgement Thanks are due to my principal supervisor Associate Professor David Russell for the continuous and essential benefit of his time, his advice and his interest in my project, and to my associate supervisor Dr Brendon Stewart for his support also. The content of this thesis is original work and no part of the thesis has previously been submitted in any form for the award of any degree at this or any other educational institution. John Vincent Hunt Contents Abstract iii 1. Introduction 1 2. The Ego and the Sleeping State 11 3. The Ontological Justification for Psychological Personifications 14 4. Jung’s Concept of the Complexes 17 5. Research Method 26 6. The Dreams 31 D1. The Little Numinous Light 31 D2. The Oracle Bird Girl 35 D3. The House of the Ancient Psyche 38 D4. (a). The Burial Mound 41 D4. (b). The Giant Radiolarian 41 D5. The Ritual Phallus 44 D6. (a). A Prescient Experience 47 D6. (b). The Goddess Girl 47 D7. The Customs Official/Crusader Knight 49 D8. The Row of Living Dead 52 D9. The Frozen Earth 55 D10. The Killing of Siegfried 57 D11. The Winged Sky Man 60 D12. The Magnolia Tree on the Sunlit Island 62 D13. The Unknown House with the Old Library 65 D14. Trapped in the Seventeenth Century Courtyard 67 Some Characteristics of Dreams 69 7. Individuation as the Search for Authenticity 70 8. The Nature of Authenticity 80 9. Dream Compensation 85 10. Dream-ego, Phenomenology and Complex 89 11. Dream-ego and Shadow 103 12. Dream-ego and the Collective Unconscious 113 13. Dream-ego and Anima/Animus 124 14. Dream-ego and Persona 133 15. Dream-ego and Waking-ego 142 16. Dream-ego and Individuation 154 17. Dream-ego and the Self 168 18. In Conclusion 181 References 191 Abstract This study is textual in its resource rather than empirical, and is applied to the experiential nature of the dream-ego. It is conceptual in its application, and its domain of inquiry is focussed on redescribing and reinterpreting the Jungian literature in order to further inform the understanding of the role of the dream-ego in analytical psychological practice. The major underlying assumption which forms the primary foundation for this study is that ‘mind is the subjective experience of brain’ and this statement serves the purpose of positioning the study as being anchored in biological science but not biological in scope. The statement also implies there is no conflict in the conclusions of neurobiological studies and phenomenological studies and positions these realms as correlates of each other. The subjective experience of brain is the realm in which our lives are lived and in which all our perceptions, ideas and feelings are experienced and so the phenomenological approach of the study is a consequence of that fact. The focus is on the dream-ego itself, using a selection of Jung’s own recorded dreams as vehicles to support, describe and reinterpret concepts from the literature in order to elucidate the dream-ego’s function in psychological health. If the dreaming state were exclusively an innocuous epiphenomenon of neurological processes with no experiential function, then it would be expected that the images generated would be quarantined from consciousness entirely, for reasons of psychic stability and hence then cease to be images, but the commonality and regularity of the dream-ego experience indicates an evolved psychic phenomenon with a definite relationship to the waking-ego. The remarkable images and associations experienced in dreams are expressions of the psyche’s uncompromising experiential authenticity and although these dream experiences may be profoundly complex, the dream-ego is seen to have an underlying naivety whose nature is captured by the title of Charles Rycroft’s (1981) book “The Innocence of Dreams”. When the dream-ego is contrasted to the waking-ego it becomes clear that the major difference is in this ‘innocence’ which is a consequence of the attenuation of rationality and volition for the dream-ego. This weaker rationality and volition prevents the dream-ego from talking or walking its way out of confrontation with unconscious content which manifests before it. The dream-ego experience is based on feelings and emotions which were the original reasons and criteria driving the censorship of the ‘feeling toned complexes’, as Jung describes them. The experience of unconscious material by the vulnerable dream-ego and the subsequent transfer to the waking-ego provides the option for the waking-ego to ‘reconsider’ or to make decisions based on the authentic feelings of the psyche. The fact that mammals exhibit REM sleep, and the strong case for mammals dreaming during that period, complicates the understanding of human dream function. In non dreaming sleep the ego is annihilated but is underwritten by the neural networks which constitute the ego when ‘active’. Since neural networks are known to atrophy with disuse, the sequestered ego is at risk of loss of fidelity on manifestation, and therefore may mismatch the environmental context. The study presents the dreaming state as the periodic partial activation of the ‘neural ego’ to prevent atrophy and to maintain ego retrieval fidelity. This concept has applicability also to the animal case, since they must maintain their behavioural fluency and environmental congruence. Once the evolved dreaming state is established in mammals it may be subject to further evolutionary possibilities and subtleties in the human case. A consequence of this study is the presentation of the dream-ego as the partial arousal of the waking-ego, rather than the normal wording of the dream-ego as the half asleep waking-ego, since the dream-ego is seen as the psyche rehearsing its ego. The defining phenomenology of the dream-ego is found in its vulnerability to the feelings and emotions of the psyche, but paradoxically this vulnerability is its strength in its role as the feeling nexus between the unconscious and conscious mind. The waking-ego which may misconstrue its role in the psyche’s scheme of things and become aloof in its mentations believing all problems are intellectual, has the innocence of the dream-ego experience as its lifeline to the psyche’s authenticity. It is the intent of this study to contribute to the understanding of the role of the dream- ego experience in therapeutic practice, and placing the dream-ego as the protagonist of the study, to be attentive to the power of its innocence. 1 1 Introduction The evolution of consciousness brought humanity from an unconscious animal state, through the semi-conscious pre-hominid, to the conscious hominid and homo sapiens. With an instinctual and assumed phenomenalistic perspective, ‘we eat because we are hungry’, and immersed in their own survival functionality, early human beings understood the purpose of their own form and capabilities; except for some inexplicable, yet common facts about themselves. Among the most obvious of these would be the sound and feeling of the internal beating heart, and the experience of dreaming. Every early human being experienced and knew of the beating of the heart, yet was unable to assign a source or purpose for the phenomenon. The slaughtering of their food animals would have made them aware of the internal organs of animals and probably they would have observed an animal’s beating heart in the last few seconds of life during a premature slaughtering. Inevitably early human beings would have arrived at the knowledge that the beating inside them was caused by the pulsating movement of an known organ of unknown function. The growth of understanding of the function of the heart progressed in conjunction with the growth of a scientific culture. The crucial fact was arrived at, when the circulation of the blood was discovered and subsequently the heart as muscular pump for the blood, was proven by William Harvey early in the seventeenth century (Bridgwater and Sherwood, 1960, p.863).This discovery was not the final nor the definitive statement on the heart and the expanding knowledge of the complexity of the heart continues, but its central function as a pump is clear. For early human beings dreaming also was one of the most obvious and inexplicable features about themselves, similar in wonder, to the beating of the heart. The experience of dreams and dreaming, like the heart story, has seen a gradual understanding develop. Sleep itself would be clear to the phenomenalistic life of early 2 human beings, ‘we sleep because we are weary’. Dreams however were cause for wonder, and progressively through various cultures, purposes were assigned to them; purposes which were in keeping with the nature of the particular society of the time. The commonality and universality of dreaming, together with the difficulty of assigning a function for the dream, places the dream experience at a central and unique place in human life; transcending ethnicity, age, culture and nurture. The unique and enigmatic nature of the fact of dreaming has initiated various and diverse interpretations throughout human history, in attempts to assign a reason or purpose for the occurrence of the phenomenon. As would be expected, the nature of these assigned purposes has each reflected the cultural ethos of the community which gave rise to it. This progressive interpretation of the source and purpose of dreaming, has therefore developed in parallel with the increasing sophistication of human culture. For purposes of this study, the discrete cultures significant for dream interpretation, can be described as magical, spiritual, religious or pragmatic.