Having studied myths, symbols, and religious material, Jung posited a collective unconscious, a deep layer of psychic experience common to humankind. This concept is unique to Jungian psychology. The repository of prototypical, instinctual human experience over millennia, the collective unconscious is a wellspring of inherent, universal patterns

the “I” in the dream is usually the least trustworthy part. Often at night our dream ego—the “I” in the dream—is confronted by figures that frighten, denigrate, or frustrate. Upon awakening, we tend to side with our dream ego and assume that the figures that have crossed us in the dream are mistaken or threatening. Usually, however, the new

“If the word is a sign,” wrote Jung, “it means nothing. But if the word is a symbol, it means everything.”

Committing to individuation helps us fulfill our unique pattern. When you do so, you remain open—to love, to criticism, to being wrong, to suffering, to joy. You feel your feelings. You admit your weaknesses but claim your strengths. You stand up for yourself and your truth, but you don’t remain in a defensive crouch longer than needed. We all know

As Jung put it, would you not wish to converse with a two-million-year-old sage who knocked at your door, who knows what nature knows and perhaps the dreamer has forgotten? So each night, then, this source of natural sagacity comes to us and invites a conversation. Seen this way, how could we not pay some respectful attention to such a summons?

“I have my eye on the central fire, and I’m trying to put some mirrors around it to show to others. Sometimes the edges of those mirrors leave gaps and don’t fit together exactly. I can’t help that. Look at what I’m trying to point to!”

Dreams address the unfinished business of daily life and anticipate future events. The unconscious takes in information that consciousness misses and tells us through dreams what we have missed and misjudged. Because the unconscious is ahead of consciousness, dreams can alert us to possibilities and probabilities that may lie ahead. Dreams foster

complex is an autonomous center of energy formed by memories, sensory experiences, images, and ideas that coalesce around an archetypal core. Jung discovered complexes through his word association test early in his career: subjects’ responses to stimulus words were delayed or inappropriate if a word was emotionally loaded and caused unconscious

Jung distinguished a symbol from a sign. Signs represent something specific: stylized images of a man and a woman indicate public restrooms; a red light signals stop.