A Footnote to Jung's ‘Memories’

[from  Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1964, volume  33, pp.  567-74]↗

The recently published autobiographical study of C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections,1 is such an extraordinarily frank revelation of the inner world of the great psychologist that it would require another volume to do justice to the illumination it casts on the workings of his mind. One passage taken from the chapter, ‘Confrontation with the Unconscious’, however, is so strikingly obvious in its meaning, its psychoanalytical meaning, that it deserves special treatment. A key happens to be readily available, and it provides an interpretation quite different from Jung's own.

After his break with Freud, the historic occasion of which was the Munich Congress of September 7-8, 1913, Jung found himself ‘helpless before an alien world; everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible’. He felt violently assailed by fantasies which he did not comprehend, and with emotions - not described by him - which he thought would result in a psychosis like that of Nietzsche or Hölderlin. He therefore decided to submit voluntarily to a ‘scientific experiment’, to allow himself to ‘plummet down into’ the fantasies, and thus, if his attempt were successful, ‘to try to gain power over them’.

‘It was during Advent of the year 1913 - December 12, to be exact’ that he took this step. A series of fantasies followed, and either were recorded then, or possibly were only recollected later when he was recounting his experiences to his ‘biographer’ and disciple, Aniela Jaffé, the editor of this book. The original should be consulted for details.

The fantasies on which I wish to comment are the second and third of a series, the second being actually a dream during sleep. ‘I was with an unknown, brown-skinned man’ it begins, ‘a savage, in a lonely, rocky mountain landscape. It was before dawn; the eastern sky was already bright, and the stars fading. Then I heard Siegfried's horn already sounding over the