I first read in Memories, Dreams, Reflections as an introduction to the work of Carl Jung as a part of David Tacey’s class in university. I am not sure what it says about me, but I had not realised that the book was actually ‘recorded and edited’ by Aniela Jaffé. (Clearly, I skipped the introduction?) It was therefore interesting to return to it again all these years later.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections is not an autobiography that captures the events of life, rather it is better consider as Jung’s psychic reflection on the his journey with the unconscious. Edward Glover sums it up as follows:
The title is an apt one, for the main purpose of his recollections, dreams and visions is to illuminate his inner development, to trace the effect of his “confrontation of the unconscious” at various stages of his life, in a form unhampered by the necessity for scientific presentation and valuation. It is a personal testament and, above all, a religious testament.
Source: Illuminations From Within by Edward Glover
Glover also highlights the point that Jung requested that the book was not included in the official edition of his collected works. Eugene Kernes describes the book as a ‘detached autobiography’ that allowed Jung to share details that he would not usually have shared.
This is an autobiography, but a detached autobiography which enabled Jung to relate personal details that otherwise Jung would not have wanted to share.
Source: Review of Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl G. Jung by Eugene Kernes
I wonder if the request to have it excluded related to the fact that the book was co-written with Jaffé?
It had been proposed that the book be written not as a “biography,” but in the form of an “autobiography,” with Jung himself as the narrator. This plan determined the form of the book, and my first task consisted solely in asking questions and noting down Jung’s replies. Although he was rather reticent at the beginning, he soon warmed to the work. He began telling about himself, his development, his dreams, and his thoughts with growing interest.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
With this dual writing experience, it was interesting to read the analogy raised in the Prologue to life as being ‘rhizome’:
Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away–an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
For me, I was reminded of the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
We are writing this book as a rhizome. It is composed of plateaus. We have given it a circular form, but only for laughs. Each morning we would wake up, and each of us would ask himself what plateau he was going to tackle, writing five lines here, ten there. We had hallucinatory experiences, we watched lines leave one plateau and proceed to another like columns of tiny ants.
Source: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
Grant Maxwell suggests that their concept is at least partially derived from Jung’s discussion of this concept.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections is split into distinct points of reflection, whether it be childhood, coming to analytical psychology, the meeting with and diversion from Freud, confrontation with the unconscious, the Bollingen Tower, experiences of other cultures, and thoughts on the afterlife. It is not necessarily about the people in Jung’s life, whether it be family or those he may have met throughout his life. Although they are a part of the story, at no point are they placed on centre stage. The book touches on this when we are told:
The finest and most significant conversations of my life were anonymous.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
Instead, we get a unique insight into Jung and his world. This includes the idea of being two persons:
Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that I was two persons. One was the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up–old, in fact–skeptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, a living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever “God” worked directly in him.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
Something that has me wanting to re-read Donald Winnicott’s work on the true and false self, especially after reading Winnicott’s review.
Writing as guided by the unconscious:
The work is the expression of my inner development; for commitment to the contents of the unconscious forms the man and produces his transformations. My works can be regarded as stations along my life’s way.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within; their source was a fateful compulsion.
This reminds me of something that Jon Hopkins said about writing music. In a conversation with Jamie Lidell, he explained that that he wished that he could ‘choose’ the music he writes. Instead, he argues that we have no choice over what we do, the choice is about what our body gives energy for.
Mistakes involved in the path of individuation:
When one follows the path of individuation, when one lives one’s own life, one must take mistakes into the bargain; life would not be complete without them. There is no guarantee not for a single moment that we will not fall into error or stumble into deadly peril. We may think there is a sure road. But that would be the road of death. Then nothing happens any longer at any rate, not the right things. Anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
This is a reminder of the importance of mistakes and forgiveness.
Life after death through the unconscious:
If there were to be a conscious existence after death, it would, so it seems to me, have to continue on the level of consciousness attained by humanity, which in any age has an upper though variable limit.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
I wonder what Jung would make of the modern world and artificial intelligence? Does our data consumed and sitting on serves somehow add or augment the ‘collective unconscious’?
Loneliness as the inability to communicate what is important:
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)
With so many spaces to broadcast, I wonder if the challenge with ‘communication’ is our ability to not only speak, but also to listen?
It is interesting reading some of the reviews and comments about Memories, Dreams, Reflections online, which explain that some of the medical practices have become obsolete. In addition to this, I was not sure what to make of some of the cultural observations.
Jung does not though come across as a man who is simply enjoying going to these countries, but sometimes can come off as a bit presumptious about the way he deals with other cultures. He can seem like he thinks he is above them, or their better and this does nothing for the autobiography.
Source: Book Review: “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” by Carl Jung by Annie Kapur
All in all though, this book offers an insightful introduction to Jung. Although it does not necessarily provide a clear summary of his work, it does provide context for it. It also includes some letters in the appendix between Jung and Freud, which I am going to assume had not been published before.
