Close your eyes; start the show
What do you see when you sleep? Do you record your dreams? Are you integrating your conscious self with your unconscious psyche? In short, are you plumbing your dream world to find your soul?
The unconscious dreamworld of the acclaimed Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, is to be revealed publicly for the first time. The New York Times Magazine had a fine article last weekend about the forthcoming publication of Jung’s Red Book, a seemingly meticulous, revealing and graphically recorded tour through years of Jung’s personal dreams. This would be of interest generally given the comprehensive and aesthetically appealing work, but it is of deeper importance when one considers that Jung is one of the last century’s great psychologists and the founder of contemporary archetypal thinking.
There are, obviously, similarities between Jung’s Red Book and Federico Fellini’s Book of Dreams, which the Jungian analyst Ernst Bernhard, encouraged Fellini to maintain. Fellini duly noted and illustrated his own oneiric existence over thirty years and this exhibition at The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences informatively introduced that work.
It is easy to see the connections between Fellini’s Book of Dreams and his stunning cinematic artistry. One of my favorite films, Boccaccio ’70′s The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, reflects Fellini’s frequent nighttime fantasies of dominant, alluring womanhood in the voluptuous temptress played by a giant Anita Ekberg.
The Temptation of Dr. Antonio examines numerous themes associated with Fellini’s nocturnal journeys through issues of eroticism, religion, fear and authority. These issues are looked at articulately and with sophistication in his other films like 8½. In some sense, they reveal Fellini’s frequent consideration of Jung’s archetypes, such as the Shadow, Anima and Persona.
Brand consultants will recognize the value of Jung’s Red Book publication as it will, no doubt, further inform academic insight into the psyche’s archetypes and how that might influence the use of archetypes within the business world’s analysis of organizational brands. I also pondered how the Red Book might influence or inform other related disciplines, or simply my own self-analysis, given the creativity apparent in Fellini’s use of this introspective somnolent conversation.
Have any of you recorded and conversed with your dreams to better understand your psyche? Have you tapped into your soul?
Written by Stuart
David Day | Associates
About the Author: Stuart is constantly curious and believes conversation matters, for business, people and community. Feel free to join in...
November 20th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
[...] have referenced Carl Jung’s analysis of dreams before in this post here, as well as our use of brand archetyping as a tool to aid clients in deciphering and articulating [...]