The Universal Unconscious.

Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung is credited with the creation of the idea of the collective unconscious. The concept is birthed from the thought that a deeper, shared layer of the mind exists in humans. It is passed on generationally and inherited through genetics. Rather than inheriting specific memories or factual knowledge from ancestors, humans inherit the capacity and readiness to experience life in specific, universal ways.

Because the collective unconscious consists of universal, inherited human patterns, it naturally appears in human expression. Artists and musicians act as conduits, capturing these invisible psychic structures and turning this into sensory experiences.

A Musician in the Flow State

I had the opportunity to speak with musical producer Wizards With Attitude, as he has a unique experience with the collective unconscious as a musician. "It feels like 'the zone' or 'flow state' in athletics or any activity in which a person stops using metacognition and sinks into a state where there is less thinking about thinking or thinking in general and only fluid actions happen." It is not creation through thought. It is that which exists within us that connects us to something deeper than us as individuals. It is the absence of thought, when practice meets creative authentic expression. The music, brush stroke or words flow through us, both as an expression of us and of the universe at large.

He goes on to say "I only stack a few bricks on top of a tall structure of music, language, and ability that every person before me has been constructing back from the dawn of life. I feel like that is what I'm tapping into. The universe itself, the ancient history that has been unfolding up until this exact moment." His expression through his art is not just his. It also belongs to those who came long before him. It is the collective learning of the experience of all his ancestors, and his ancestors, ancestors.

Beyond a Human-Centered View

The collective unconscious aims to achieve an understanding of the universal experience that humans are a part of. While this certainly feels to be a truth to those who venture into understanding what it means to be human, it paints an almost egotistical view of the reality of experience. It places too much emphasis on the experience of being human, as if we are at the center of existence.

What Is the Universal Unconscious?

Beyond the collective unconscious exists a deeper, more fundamental experience that exists among all things, not just humans. The 'universal unconscious' exists as a part of the experience of all things that inhabit the universe. We are all born of the matter of the universe. We are connected to the universe in ways that are inconceivable to us humans, as we seek to understand the universe through our very limited lens.

The 'universal unconscious' goes beyond that of the collective unconscious, the part of us that experiences interconnectivity through the expression of our human-ness, into the experience and expression of being. The expression that we dub as human, is more than just that. As our expression is more than just our own, it is the expression of those that have come before us. Our expression is more than just ours and those that have come before us, it is of the very universe itself.

The 'universal unconscious' exists not only in the matter of the universe, but in the very fabric itself. How can that which does not have consciousness as we know it share this universal constant if it has no way to perceive and express it? If we look at the micro-scale, to the atoms that compose all matter, we can see complex arrangement of sub-atomic particles, dancing in beautiful patterns, shown in uniformity across a near infinite number of atoms in the universe. If we look to the macro-scale, we see large bodies of mass creating complex geometry to what the untrained eye perceives as chaotic movement. And this is only that which we can conceive through our human lens. Anyone who has ventured into the psychedelic world can tell you that there are examples that exist beyond what we can see in our human realm.

Non-Duality: The Wave and the Ocean

Non-duality, an ancient Indian philosophy hints at the possibility of the universal unconscious. Non-duality is the idea that the universe, consciousness and reality are an indivisible, interconnected whole. In our day-to-day life, we experience what is called the illusion of separation. We view ourselves as a localized 'self', moving and separate from the external world in which we are a part of.

When we look at the ocean, we see a cohesive mass of water, one world. When a wave appears for a brief moment, it gains separateness from the ocean, unique from each wave that surrounds it. The reality is that the wave is not in the ocean, it is the ocean. A wave can not be plucked out of the sea. It has no independent existence. Its substance, from top to bottom, is nothing but water. We are the waves and the reality we live in is the ocean. We exist as separate only in our limited view of reality. Our ego, in an attempt to give us a unique sense of self, creates the illusion that we are separate from the universe we exist within. The reality is we are a part of a whole much larger than us. A part of everything.

Guided by the Universe Itself

And because we are a part of everything, we have an interconnectedness that allows us to experience reality in universal ways. We are guided by forces and a presence that exists deeper than we can typically perceive. We are not only guided by our experiences and our history. We are guided by the universe itself.