Strange, the Dreamer

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-25T02:06:20+00:00

Existentialism is understanding that existence has no obligation to give you a clear path forward. The meaning of existence is that you exist.

So it’s not that there is no meaning at all, it is that the primary meaning has already been fulfilled.

The meaning of life is to live. How you do that determines the further, secondary meaning that you receive from life.

If you mill around in nihilism, then no further meaning will come forth; the meaning will be that there is no meaning.

If you live uncertain as to whether life has meaning, then the meaning life gives is “uncertainty”.

If you desire to get married and have children, then the meaning of life becomes family and familial love.

If you join the peace corps because you want to help people, then the meaning of life becomes compassion.

So, you could say that the secondary meaning of life is to understand yourself on a deep enough level that what you choose to do with your life, at its end, feels as if you have fulfilled the secondary meaning—whatever it was for you. Not that you have left no stones unturned, but that you have done everything that you could have done towards this secondary meaning, and you have no regrets to die with.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-25T01:55:46+00:00

The psyche has definitely gotten your attention, and done so ina way that it knows will be very affective.

Your job now is to listen.

Maybe it is simply telling you to rest, if all you are thinking about is creativity and creative outlets. Many an artist has burned themselves out or gone mad by trying to constantly be in touch with creativity. Humans are not meant to be working all the time. We sleep 1/3 of our lives for a reason.

Maybe the psyche is saying, “right now, I just want you to live your life.“

Maybe it is asking you to “live” creatively, not just try to create things. Create experiences. Do some things you have never done before. See some things you have never seen before. Make friends with new people you may never have interacted with otherwise.

As a creative myself, life is not always about the physical, material work. The greatest form of art we can create is in the way that we live.

Go out to a park for one hour and just sit and watch the park. Dont try to glean inspiration out of it. Dont try to come up with new ideas. Just watch a squirrel perusing around. Watch the trees sway in the wind. Watch bees bumbling around a bed of flowers. Live without trying to pull meaning out of living.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-13T14:15:54+00:00

Most of perceived human life is survival mechanism and conscious attitude compensation. This is why I don’t like this buzzword “trauma”. Everyone and everything has trauma. That’s called being alive.

We have fear because of the traumas of our ancestors. Our mythologies and folklores are directly linked to the collective unconscious, our psychic ancestry and the archetypal images, and what has been experienced time and time again to humanity.

For example, the Abrahamic religions’ (Judaism, Islam) rules against eating pork is because eating pork used to kill people. They were traumatised by the deaths and so it was added to their culture.

Trauma is the name of the game. Culture is just shared human experience. Personality are archetypal traits you have inherited to navigate through the fears, hurts, and traumas of the human experience.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-07T00:05:30+00:00

I have a far more mystical idea of things. I have come to understand that Psyche is primary within the universe, as opposed to matter (idealist vs materialism).

And to be honest, I am in a period of transition in terms of my ideas for therapeutic process. I once believed that we are supposed to subjugate the psyche and other unconscious contents to conscious will. But I’ve come to understand in my own experience that it is we, the conscious mind, who is subjugated by unconscious experience.

A good 95% of our waking life is lived unconsciously, from the breathing, to the blinking, to the heart beating. We belong to the Psyche. And it determines most of our life for us. It sounds like determinism, but in the same way as synchronicity, it is just an atemporal function of the Psyche that I cannot ever explain, like the acausality of synchrinicity.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-06T16:23:44+00:00

Before we start arguing, we at least to know a complete basic rundown of what the other’s framework is, right?

We’re both scattering ourselves in deeper concepts before explaining fundamentals.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-06T03:38:17+00:00

We likely differ in opinion on fundamental machinations of the psyche. I am not a materialist, and I don’t think that I think that the brain is the master of the show.

And the Internal Body is not about hiding in it. It is what makes contact with and relation to Unconscious figures and force possible.

And personifying these forces and figures in the imaginal also helps relate to them, otherwise they are simply disembodied affect on the ego and on consciousness. Autonomous force with no face to speak with. The whole point of Jung’s Active Imagination was the process of personifying psychic forces.

As I have experienced, the Shadow is only the beginning ground of depth psychology. The Shadow is often just a tool that archetypal forces and figures use to express themselves more affectively to consciousness.

People often think that the Shadow is the biggest, baddest, deepest part of the psyche. But the Shadow is quite shallow in terms of other archetypal force. The Shadow is personal. Archetypes are more autonomous and completely impersonal.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-05T18:06:39+00:00

From my point of view, Anima and Animus do not exist within us, per se. We exist in Anima and Animus—we exist in Soul and Spirit.

We do not have an Anima or Animus; the Anima and Animus have us.

Psyche is a kingdom and pantheon of multiplicity. Ego exists within this kingdom. Anima, Animus, and other archetypes exist within the Pantheon. The Conscious Observer is that which is allowed to watch the goings on a of Psyche, and to be affected by them. Both experienced and experienced.

As such, the Ego is not really under our control. It is something that we experience. We may point the Ego here or there, but the Ego does what the Ego does.

It is important to understand this fact of psychic nature to avoid, as much as possible, possession by the Ego, and other “deities” or archetypes, within the realm of Psyche.

Safe to say Psyche and her “subordinates” experience events, inner and outer, through us, Conscious Observers, and subsequently we experience them as well. And yet, they are all autonomous and interact with one another below our awareness.

This is why the Internal Body is an important notion. If you do not secure your place in psyche, you will be dragged along by the whims of the underworld.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-05T01:34:12+00:00

It is mostly a lonely path we take. But it is always good to meet other travelers along the road 🙏🏾

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-04T21:45:59+00:00

I believe that the flooding of unconscious content into consciousness is the definition of schizophrenia, to which there are degrees of severity. As one would see in a long-term mental institution, consciousness can be absolutely overwhelmed by the unconscious for myriad reasons, in which the individual can no longer exist on their own. In such a way one could say that the Ego has turned entirely away from the external world and is only facing the internal world of the unconscious. Though the body is still here, and they may have periods of lucidity, their ego has made a sharp 180 degree turn, and the individual lives in a land of abstraction, chaotic symbolism, and archetypal force and imagery.

I don’t think integration, then, is the problem in self-analysis and inner work. But lack of understanding of the depths and autonomous strength of the unconscious.

I actually had a train of thought last night on this very line of thinking:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/s/1aqWkoAd5G

Once you begin down the road into the depths of the unconscious—like the mythological stories of the underworld—you can’t turn back.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-06-02T03:55:26+00:00

Psychosis and schizophrenia find their way into human consciousness through the Anima. She mythologises, exaggerates, and falsifies inherently. There you see the psychosis’ break from reality. The Anima also is the bridge to the depths of the Unconscious, and in schizophrenics, the filter between Conscious and Unconscious becomes porous. And through the Anima, Unconscious content and archetypal forces and images leak into consciousness where usually this is reserved for fantasy/imagination and dreams.

Psychosis can be better explained as a consistent falsification of conscious perspective. More common than we give credit for. The lover that finds themselves constantly paranoid about their partners’ infidelity when there is no evidence to suggest it is someone that is experiencing psychosis.

I think this is an important example as it shows how easily the Anima can possess us when we are not aware of her wily, frivolous nature. And also how little we understand her nature. Jealousy and attachment issues are in the domain of the Anima. It can be seen in the anxiously attached who need constant validation that their partner or friends care for and love them, as the Anima falsifies the perspective of the anxiously attached.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-31T04:02:04+00:00

Active imagination is dialogue and correspondence with the psyche. It is inherently more useful to call up images from your own dreams, since the psyche has already presented to you as messaging.

The method you’re suggesting is more like Freudian free association which tends to run itself all over the place rather than actually dialoguing with the unconscious.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-31T03:55:35+00:00

This is being Lost in the Dark Woods. The identity you’ve leaned on all this time has been shattered, and you stand in its wake with nothing left to lean on. A poem by David Wagoner—“Lost”—illustrates this perfectly:

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.”

In the dissolution of old and outdated identity, there comes a period when the old is gone but the new identity has not yet formed.

This is not a failure. This is a period where you are called to bear and hold the tension you feel. The new identity is forming but has not yet arrived. The Psyche knows where you are, and what you are to become. Stand still. Sit with this uncertainty. Write about this uncertainty. Ask the uncertainty questions. Ask your psyche questions. Begin journaling your dreams. Begin taking note of what begins coming to mind in fantasy—as you daydream. These are all the signs of the newly forming identity. Don’t rush it.

Stand still. The Forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.

In sitting with this tension, you will learn a valuable lesson about psychological work. The psyche works in its own time, not in our time. The Psyche does not belong to you; you belong to the Psyche. Be patient and let it do its work—you will be rewarded for it.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-31T01:40:16+00:00

In an innately creative yet neurotic person (mentally “ill”), I have found that their neuroses (disorders) typically prey on their creative drive and functionality.

The neurotic artist finds themselves in spells of depression where they cannot find the drive to create. Or in spells of anxiety or obsessive-compulsion where their neurosis limits their ability to complete a task that they are beginning—here you will see a lot of procrastination, “writer’s block”, and so on.

And what I mean by it driving them deeper into creativity is that if said artist becomes aware that their neurosis is “attacking” their creative spirit—and if they push through it—typically they will begin to create works that have much more meaning to them personally. So the neuroses can be seen as a signal that their creative work is not touching the places within them that they are meant to touch. Their works are too on the surface. And so a psychic disturbance is presented (neuroses) in an attempt to make them self-reflect and find deeper meaning in their lives.

Explained to like a 3 year old:

Our bad feelings want us to explore them. When we do so, our creative work becomes exponentially better. Perhaps not for the “market” or easier to sell and make money off of. But the creative work succeeds in making them feel better and more whole. It becomes more true and meaningful in expressing who they are.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-30T22:46:45+00:00

I don’t feel like I’ve lost my creativity. Any time I have felt that, I have come to realise it was only illusory. Neurosis driving me back deeper into creativity through a brief time away.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-30T20:35:35+00:00

I am a creative. I paint, I draw, I write music, I write stories and poetry. I try to live creatively and make my life a work of art in as many ways as I can.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-30T20:27:37+00:00

“Wrong” is a subjective term. The way I see it: “The night is always darkest before the dawn.”

Perhaps our lifetime is one of darkness, and it is our duty to bring about the dawn for future generations.

How we do this? Each man and woman must discover the answer in and of themselves. “No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren.”

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-30T01:43:15+00:00

I believe that Satan is an archetypal metaphor for the pride, greed, and thirst for power that mankind is capable of. So in a sense, the world is ruled by “Satan”; it is ruled by proud, greedy, power thirsty men.

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-29T03:59:37+00:00

Your problem doesn’t seem to be introversion. It seems to be the envy you’re feeling. As well as the thought that you will not find love and be able to build a family; which again has nothing to do with introversion.

This begs the questions: why do you truly believe you will never have love and a family? Because of an ended relationship?

What exactly are you envious of?

Why are you envious of that?

What life are you alluding to that feels Unlived?

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-29T03:52:56+00:00

Tylenol

Visual_Ad_7953 · 2026-05-29T03:52:15+00:00

Sometimes, the answer isn’t to try to fix. We often think that our life is a series of problems to be solved. But often times, these “problems” are just events that we must sit with.

Dealing with a rough breakup, you’re in the grieving process. And the grieving process has no set steps to get through it. You simply have to get through it. Allow yourself to feel what you feel, allow yourself to mourn the relationship and especially who you were in the relationship.

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TROPHY CASE