Carl Jung’s Discovery of The Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung’s collective unconscious is one of his most well-known (and controversial) concepts. The collective unconscious is the aspect of the unconscious mind which manifests inherited, universal themes which run through all human life. He came upon the idea in a dream.

The collective unconscious does not owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition, while the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed. The personal unconscious consists of complexes, while the collective unconscious is made up of archetypes (or primordial images).

Archetypes are collectively-inherited forms or patterns of behaviour. They reflect basic patterns common to us all, and which have existed universally since the dawn of time.