Yes, he really is. One of his most accessible books I've found yet is Dreams Memories Reflections (think I messed up the order, but you know). I just finished that one plus 2 more, and have a couple more sitting in my bedside stack for the future. I love his ideas about the collective unconscious, but the way I interpret it is different from what you seem to mean. I think he's talking more about instincts and racial memories that get passed on to everyone through DNA and lie dormant in the unconscious until needed, when you experience an archetypal intrusion... a dream or vision or weird thought out of nowhere that seems to tell you something important. I don't think it means an actual database of thoughts that everyone can tap into as if by wi-fi or something, which is how a lot of people seem to interpret it. For instance, your example of knowing what the word meant that you had never learned... I think it's more likely you might have heard it like on a TV that was on in the other room while you were on the phone to a friend, and never consciously realized you even heard it, but the subconscious logged it away.

Oh sorry, you didn't say that on this thread!! Oh well, Ill leave it here anyway.