Concept of Collective Unconscious, Carl Jung jung.net/collective_unconscious.

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Collective unconscious. Distinctive from the personal unconscious, the collective unconscious is made of archetypes or primordial images. Archetypes constitute the structure of the collective unconscious ... The most important of all is the Self, which is the archetype of the Center of the psychic person, his/her totality or wholeness. The Center is made of the unity of conscious and unconscious reached through the individuation process. The collective unconscious is an universal datum, that is, every human being is endowed with this psychic archetype-layer since his/her birth. One can not acquire this strata by education or other conscious effort because it is innate. We may also describe it as a universal library of human knowledge, or the sage in man, the very transcendental wisdom that guides mankind. Self. The archetype of psychic Totality, according to Jung. Totality. See Wholeness. Wholeness. Psychic stage in which the union of the unconscious with the conscious has been achieved. It is the aim of Jung's psychotherapy. Wise Old Man. Archetypal image that embodies wisdom. In the individuation process, the Wise Old Man embodies the collective unconscious. ................................................... www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/archetypes.html "The original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype. In Jungian psychology- a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., universally present in individual psyches." -- Excerpted from Dream Theatres of the Soul, by Jean Benedict Raffa, EdD They are the "givens" in our psychological makeup, the patterns that shape our perceptions of the world, Archetypes are neither good nor bad. They simply are. Archetypes are not susceptible to being sugarcoated or tamed by civilization; they live an autonomous existence at the root of our psyches in their original raw and primitive states. Archetypes can be loosely compared to the instincts of animals. For example, birds instinctively know how to build nests and all the birds of a species build the exact same kind of nest. The bird is unaware that it has a special instinct for a particular form of nest building. Nevertheless, it does. ...........................................................................................................................................

Aia
The innermost self, the will of any living object in our universe. Aias are explained in Orson Scott Card's series of novels, beginning with Speaker for the Dead and continuing in Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. An aia is an intelligent philote. Sentient

creatures consist of uncounted numbers of philotes (the true indivisible particle) and one aia, which holds the collection together and can be thought of as the physical representation of the soul. According to Grego in Xenocide, the term was inspired by the Sanskrit word for 'life,' probably "yus" (this is not the first time Card has derived fictional slang from real-world vocabulary). The existence of philotes and aias is also acknowledged, though not as large of a theme, in the parallel Shadow series. ........................................................................................................................ Zardoz "Sleep was necessary for man when his waking and unconscious lives were separated. As Eternals achieved total consciousness. Sleep became obsolete and Second Level meditation took its place." "It was careful genetic breeding that produced this mutant - this slave who could free his masters! And Friend was my accomplice! Don't you remember the man in the library, Zed? " Zed:" And I have looked into the face of the force that put the idea in your mind. You are bred, and led, yourself." "You are a mutant, second, maybe third generation - therefore genetically stable. Enlarged brain, total recall. Your potential is... " "You could be anything, could *do* anything. You must be destroyed." The Tabernacle: I cannot give information which may threaten my own security. Zed: Brain emissions refract low wavelength laser light, passing through the crystal in the brain. They're a code sent to you for interpretation and storage. Yes or no? The Tabernacle: Not permitted. Zed: A receiver must be like a transmitter. I think you're a crystal - in fact this one! This diamond! In here, there is infinite storage space for refracted light patterns. Yes or no? The Tabernacle: You have me in the palm of your hand! Consuella: [speaking into her ring as she observes Zed asleep in his cage] The Brutal is now in fourth hour of unconscious sleep. It's astonishing that Homo Sapiens spends so much time in this vulnerable condition at the mercy of its enemies. Is there any data on the sleeping-patterns of primitive people? [She reaches inside the cage toward Zed. With unexpected speed, he seizes her wrist even as he wakes. He holds her for a moment, glaring at her before releasing her. Slowly, she recovers composure and speaks to him] Consuella: Does it please you to sleep? Zed: Yes. Consuella: Why? Zed: I have dreams. The Tabernacle: Sleep was necessary for Man when his waking and unconscious lives were separated. As Eternals achieved total consciousness, sleep became obsolete, and Second-Level meditation took its place. Sleep was closely connected with death. [first lines] Arthur Frayn: I am Arthur Frayn, and I am Zardoz. I have lived three hundred years, and I long to die. But death is no longer possible. I am immortal. I present now my story, full of mystery and intrigue - rich in irony, and most satirical. It is set deep in a possible future, so none of these events have yet occurred, but they *may.* Be warned, lest you end as I. In this tale, I am a fake god by occupation - and a magician, by inclination. Merlin is *my* hero! I am the puppet master. I manipulate many of the characters and events you will see. But *I* am invented, too, for your entertainment - and amusement. And you, poor creatures, who conjured *you* out of the clay? Is God in show business too? ................................................................................................................................ http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v10/n11/full/nrn2716.html

REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10, 803-813 (November 2009), J. Allan Hobson Summary: our dreams are reminders that we too were (and still are) protoconscious. We are always ourselves in our dreams; we sense, we act and we feel vividly in an entirely fictive world of the brains devising. Dreams have more in common than not across individuals. As a species, we need REM sleep dreaming to accomplish shared goals, such as being capable of consciousness when awake. REM sleep dreaming can be viewed as a virtual reality pattern generator used by the brain to instantiate and maintain its readiness for adaptive interaction with the world. The theory advanced here emphasizes data that suggest that REM sleep may constitute a protoconscious state, providing a virtual reality model of the world that is of functional use to the development and maintenance of waking consciousness. Primary consciousness can be defined as simple awareness that includes perception and emotion. As such, it is ascribed to most mammals. By contrast, secondary consciousness depends on language and includes such features as self-reflective awareness, abstract thinking, volition and metacognition1. (Secondary consciousness: Subjective awareness including perception and emotion that is enriched by abstract analysis (thinking) and metacognitive components of consciousness (awareness of awareness).) Waking consciousness can be defined as the awareness of the external world, our bodies and our selves (including the awareness of our awareness) that humans experience when awake. When dreaming we are also consciously aware; we have perception and emotion, which are organized in a scenario-like structure, but we erroneously consider ourselves to be awake despite abundant cognitive evidence that this cannot be true. Dream consciousness is richer than waking consciousness in its ability to create a remarkably reliable simulacrum of the world and the notable capacity to integrate highly disparate images and themes into a seamless scenario. Dreaming abounds in features of primary consciousness, especially perceptions and emotions, which are produced by the brain without external stimulation. But, compared with waking, dreaming is deficient in its failure to recognize its own true condition, its incoherence (or bizarreness), its severe limitation of thought and its impoverishment of memory. ...that primary consciousness is an important building block on which secondary consciousness is constructed. lucid dreaming [refered to, meaninglessly 'analyzed', neurologically] Functional theories Dreaming has invited as many speculations about its function as it has triggered theories about its mechanistic source. Rats that were subjected to total sleep or selective REM sleep deprivation all died ... The fact that

sleep deprivation invariably causes psychological dysfunction supports the functional theory that the integrity of waking consciousness depends on the integrity of dream consciousness and that of the brain mechanisms of REM sleep. ...numerous studies subsequently showed that REM sleep duration is augmented when animals learn a new task and that REM sleep deprivation interferes with such learning ... Could it be that we must relearn all that we already know, as well as integrate new experiences into that vast storehouse of data? or do we simply need to rerun our built-in virtual reality simulation circuits to prevent disuse-induced memory loss? The hyperassociative and synthetic properties of dreaming suggest tentative answers to these important questions. The fact that no more than 20% of dream material is in any way related to what the dreamer recollects of events in his or her life history indicates that dreaming could represent a set of foreordained scripts or scenarios for the organization of our waking experience. According to this hypothesis, our brains are as much creative artists as they are copy editors. What we may need to navigate our waking world is an infinite set of charts from which we may draw the one best suited to an equally infinite set of real-life possibilities. To this end, it makes sense to tie even remotely connected scraps of experience together to give our library of plots enough verisimilitude to be useful. This...sets the stage for a view of dreaming as an autocreative process. A new theory: dream consciousness and proto consciousness. If REM sleep precedes dreaming during human development, what happens in the brainmind during REM sleep before dreaming appears? ... The development of consciousness is thus seen as a gradual, time-consuming and lifelong process that builds on, and constantly uses, a more primitive innate virtual reality generator, the properties of which are defined for us in our dreams. ... When we dream, we suppose that it is we who command our dreamed motor acts, but a moments reflection shows this sense of volitional agency to be as much an illusion as our wakestate sense of conscious will 63,64. Originally dreamless, protoconscious REM sleep could therefore provide a virtual world model, complete with an emergent imaginary agent (the protoself) that moves (via fixed action patterns) through a fictive space (the internally engendered environment) and experiences strong emotion as it does so. This state is at first not associated with awareness 65.
Although our dreams seem to be agent driven, they are not volitional nor do they contain the selfreflection, insight, judgment or abstract thought that constitute secondary consciousness.

... The brain is thus actively kept off-line during REM sleep. ... During dreaming our sensation and movement are entirely fictive, but the simulation of real, wake-state sensation and movement is impressive. The brain, isolated from the outside world, treats this endogenous stimulation as if it were exogenous. From this hypothesis flows a new theory of consciousness that suggests that the brain states underlying waking and dreaming cooperate and that their functional interplay is crucial to the optimal functioning of both. The hypothesis is grounded in neuroscience, through which its developmental and cognitive implications can be further explored. The new theory brings consciousness research into register with the burgeoning field of sleep science. The concepts advanced in this Review are directly related to one of the greatest challenges faced by modern science: what is the mind and how can it be described in terms of brain function? To the humanities in general, and to psychology and philosophy in particular, the new neuroscience of dream consciousness sends an appeal for more detailed attention to phenomenology that could help those disciplines advance without loss of their traditional and important adherence to meaning and to moral values. END voluME 10 | novEMBER 2009 Pg. 9 63. Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W. & Pearl, D. K. Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain 106, 623642 (1983). 64. Wegner, D. M. Prcis of the illusion of conscious will. Behav. Brain Sci. 27, 649659 (2004).

65. Kihlstrom, J. F. The cognitive unconscious. Science 237, 14451452 (1987). A review of the evidence indicating that much adaptive information processing is not conscious. FURTHER INFORMATION Allan Hobsons homepage: http://allanhobson.net Biography: Allan Hobson directed the laboratory of neurophysiology at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (Boston, Massachusetts, USA) from 1968 to 2003. He has published more than 200 original peer-reviewed articles and 10 books on sleep and dreaming. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award of the Sleep Research Society and the Farrell Prize of the division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In 2005 he moved to Sicily, where he now lives with his family. He has taught his course on the basic science of sleep and dreaming to graduate students throughout Europe and Asia.

.............................................................. Experiments in sleep and dreaming have shown, however, that there is a psychologcal and physiological need to dream. When persons in sleep laboratories were deprived of their REM sleep for one or more nights, they dreamed about 60 per cent more if left to sleep undisturbed on subsequent nights. They seemed to be trying to make up for lost dreams. Many individuals deprived of REM sleep showed psychological and physical abnormalities during their waking hours; others, however, showed no obvious disturbances. In general, however, experts agree that dreaming is essential to mental and physical well-being. ..................................................... The cycle of waking-NREM-REM sleep is essential to mental health of mammals. It has been shown through experimentation that animals subjected to inability to enter REM sleep show an immediate attempt to quickly enter REM stages and long-term effects on motor coordination and habitual motor habits, eventually leading to the death of the animal.