Jung’s dream before discovering alchemy: A library with 16th century manuscripts
Before I discovered alchemy, I had a series of dreams which repeatedly dealt with the same theme. Beside my house stood another, that is to say, another wing or annex, which was strange to me. Each time I would wonder in my dream why I did not know this house, although it had apparently always been there. Finally came a dream in which I reached the other wing. I discovered there a wonderful library, dating largely from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Large, fat folio volumes, bound in pigskin, stood along the walls. Among them were a number of books embellished with copper engravings of a strange character, and illustrations containing curious symbols such as I had never seen before. At the time I did not know to what they referred; only much later did I recognize them as alchemical symbols. In the dream I was conscious only of the fascination exerted by the entire library. It was a collection of medieval incunabula and sixteenth-century prints. The unknown wing of the house was a part of my personality, an aspect of myself; it represented something that belonged to me but of which I was not yet conscious. It, and especially the library, referred to alchemy, of which I was ignorant, but which I was soon to study. Some fifteen years later I had assembled a library very like the one in the dream.
As an avid reader of Jung, your dream reminded me of one I once had.
It was a dark night and the medieval tower I was residing in was about to collapse and all I knew was that I had to carry the secret scriptures and documents of how to besiege the crumbling tower with me to the second tower, which is right next to me. Just when I fled to the first floor and took a quick exit, the tower I was in collapsed unreservedly. I quickly got to the second tower and went down to the basement and began to manually copy the scriptures. While I was looking at the strange symbols of a single page of the manuscripts I had, I heard a witchery voice that remarked crookedly about how I must preserve the original manuscripts. It was a terrifying voice and I awoke admonished.
Looking back, it was a period of real psychological transformation for me and I could only speculate that I was advised by the unconscious to maintain the psychological methods by which I have used to initiate my transformation. But of course, there could be more to it.
Daniel: Reminds me of the Tower in Tarot…
When I was little every night the light came. In the morning I thought it was a dream. Every single night. For eleven years I went home with the light. In the morning I would not remember what home looked like On my eleventh birthday the light came for the last time. I was told it would be back for me when it was my time. Out of body my thoughts create everything. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. I think that scripture means more than we think.
As an avid reader of Jung, your dream reminded me of one I once had.
It was a dark night and the medieval tower I was residing in was about to collapse and all I knew was that I had to carry the secret scriptures and documents of how to besiege the crumbling tower with me to the second tower, which is right next to me. Just when I fled to the first floor and took a quick exit, the tower I was in collapsed unreservedly. I quickly got to the second tower and went down to the basement and began to manually copy the scriptures. While I was looking at the strange symbols of a single page of the manuscripts I had, I heard a witchery voice that remarked crookedly about how I must preserve the original manuscripts. It was a terrifying voice and I awoke admonished.
Looking back, it was a period of real psychological transformation for me and I could only speculate that I was advised by the unconscious to maintain the psychological methods by which I have used to initiate my transformation. But of course, there could be more to it.
Daniel: Reminds me of the Tower in Tarot…
When I was little every night the light came. In the morning I thought it was a dream. Every single night. For eleven years I went home with the light. In the morning I would not remember what home looked like On my eleventh birthday the light came for the last time. I was told it would be back for me when it was my time. Out of body my thoughts create everything. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. I think that scripture means more than we think.