On the Unconscious

I feel that which is hidden tugging at me like an impatient child, and I long for this mysterious presence just as intensely as it longs to be seen and known by me. This desire was very prevalent in my early life as I (and many other young people do) fantasized about finding a secret passageway in my room or imagined a specific formation of trees may have been be a portal to other lands. I see this theme reflected in many of my favourite movies; In Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia descends down a spiral staircase, creates a doorway out of chalk, and crawls into the opening of a tree trunk to enter a hidden, fantastical realm with mythical beings.

I didn’t always have words for what I felt calling out to me, and I still feel the names I have settled on will never suffice. The Jungians use terms like the Numinous, Shadow, and Unconscious as they hold out a lantern to explore the deepest chambers of self. 

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"You are not born of man. It was the moon that bore you."

-Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro, 2006

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Looking inward and facing the darkness often evokes a sense of terror or resistance as the ego experiences what is unfamiliar/unwanted as a threat to its survival. An ego in the process of losing its grip on the wheel can feel very much like death as one realizes they are not only the driver, but the car and the road and the trees alongside it and the sky above and the whatever else is beyond that.

When we repress what wants to become conscious and materialized, the neglected energy can act much like a volcanic eruption, exploding through the surface and spilling out over our carefully crafted lives in less than favourable ways. This phenomenon can manifest as various neuroses, behavioural patterns we can’t seem to break free from, nightmares, illness, addiction and conditions like anxiety and depression, which I’ve experienced in my own life and witnessed in those of many others.

The language of the unconscious is spoken through symbols, metaphors, flickers in our peripheral vision, synchronicities, gut feelings that we can’t quite explain…And although there is a tendency to want to immediately label and figure it all out, the potential of the process can really only be realized by simmering in the soup of uncertainty, embracing curiosity and allowing the symbolic to do its work on us.

Some of my favourite ways to mirror and reflect on my inner life are through creativity, tarot, and dreamwork. The unconscious is often represented by bodies of water, and appears as such in many of my dreams. I find myself paddling madly to flee crocodile infested rivers or scrambling to find higher ground as a tsunami thunders towards me. In both cases, I feel consumed by fear and recognize that something there feels entirely too large and potentially traumatizing to face.

In other scenarios, I am drawn to a pool of water and am almost possessed by an urgent desire to be submerged in it. Although I can’t pinpoint the meaning here, it is certainly connected to my yearning to be cleansed of my worldly wounds and become one with something enchanting and divinely alive.

The Wrath Of The Seas, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1886

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Attempting to peer directly into the unconscious can leave us feeling defeated as the controlling nature of the mind often blocks our way to what exists beyond its walls. Other times, peeking behind the veil can shake our perception of reality so violently we become completely overwhelmed and lose our grounding in life, which we sometimes see with the overuse of/unpreparedness for psychedelics. There is a balance to be found between being fully engrossed in the physical world and routinely submerging ourselves in the transcendent.

I don’t believe in any one neatly packaged “purpose” in life, but I sense that whatever mine is involves continuously crossing the threshold of the two seemingly separate spaces and weaving them into one unified existence. Through the practice of illuminating our shadowy unknowns, we come to find ourselves emerging from the wardrobe into Narnia, leaving behind who we thought we were and trudging through the snow towards all that we may be.