Thread: Universal Archetypes

I'm not sure how universal these are but here goes:



Your House. Either the house you grew up in or the one you live currently. I often dream about the house i grew up in..

Dream Narrator. This is sometimes present in my dreams as a helpful or explaining voice.

Rubbing Hands. This helps on clarity ansd stability.

Stretching and touching your body. These seem to prolong dreams.

Dreams of flying/floating down the stairs in early childhood.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Dreams of flying/floating down the stairs in early childhood.

I didn't fly or float but I used to ALWAYS jump over my bannister down my stairs, and wake up before hitting the ground.
Thanks for reminding me about that, by the way; I had completely forgotten about that recurring dream.

When I was younger, if I had a nightmare I'd open my eyes really wide in order to wake up. It almost never failed

People I know IRL never seem to stay as the same person, as in the same DC may cycle through various friends throughout the course of a dream.

I always know all the vital information about the situation I'm in, without ever having been told - in other words knowing things about people/places/events almost telepathically/empathically.

These are just things that are universal to me, so I don't know if there's anyone else that has the same experiences.

While snowboarding, I always seem to end up defying the laws of physics or getting WAY too much air.

Going underwater, I always underestimate the depth. Pools turn into underwater mazes, ocean shores end up dropping off into great mountains, caverns or ruined cities.

Even if it's a location I've been to many times, it's always got extra space I didn't know about, like some new area or room that I didn't notice IRL (because it never existed) but seems to fit right into the architecture or locale as though it's funny I'd never been there before.

In childhood, dreams of God-like control over the dream without lucidity.

More stuff:

Other Selves. I've had numerous dreams about myself from an alternate timeline/dimension. Sadly they were not lucids, but memorable anyways. This may be because I belive in such things and thus allow myself to experience them.

DC's that Assist. Several times there are DC's in my dreams that seem to know more than I do, and that want to help me in some way. They are not omnipotent, and they have an attitude of Love and Freedom

DC's that Hinder. These are like schoolyard bullies.

DC's that are Neutral. These are like robots with relatively few programs/functions


Also:

Things Can Talk. I've tried this only once, so I cant be sure how universal it is. Possibly also a belief-powered experience (the belief that everything is alive and concious). I talked to a pile of dirt. It started to dance and sing in a silly, male voice and faces started to form in it, faces of my friends.

Dream Drugs. These are extremely potent and have various effects, and always seem to work. I once drank a potion that changed my voice into someone elses as a part of a challenge. It left a numb feeling in my tongue. Also have had just a little of blue potion that prolongs dreams.
In a nightmarish kind of way I have also been injected with unknown chemicals. Most of them woke me up.

Early dreams that happen in a 3rd person perspective.

Closing my eyes- always wakes me up from a lucid dream

I always have lucid dreams that start with me getting out of bed, with the exeption of my first LD.

being chased seems to be pretty universal

Dreams are representative of a person's subconscious. In them, many times there will be a message or a meaning behind everything that is happening. Based on reviews of multiple peoples' dreams and the own meaning they place behind events that occur, I can make a conjecture that in many, or most (but not all) cases the symbolism across all peoples' dreams have the same, or similar meaning - only different by the events that are happening in one's life.

So to put it in an archetype, you may say "symbolism & meaning" behind specific objects or events.

This thread confuses me. Is this simply a list of things people have personally experienced in dreams, or is this a serious attempt at finding root schema?

If it's the latter, we need to analyze every entry in the list for validity by examining possible causes and gauging anecdotal evidence. Obviously, no one is going to care enough to do this "properly," and I'm not suggesting anyone needs to, but I clicked that link expecting higher levels of discussion than your typical list thread.

I guess I'll start; if anyone else wants to contribute something to this effect, feel free.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Mirrors are always portals.

The idea of a "mirror world," or a reality beyond the mirror, probably dates back to early childhood and is the lingering effect of a misunderstanding of how mirrors work. For me, and others I've spoken with, the mirror phenomena is much less pronounced than it seems to be for others. I attribute my personal experience to learning the basics of how mirrors work at an extremely young age (3ish).

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Looking at your hands is a good RC.

Another iffy one. Most of the people I've personally spoken with (especially ones with well above-average LDing experience who were self-taught) find this RC useless because their hands are always perfect. I'm the same way, so my best guess here is that this isn't a universal archetype, so much as one that is propagated through various reference material and accepted as fact by the masses. Personally, due to past experiences, I didn't give this idea much credence, which might explain why my hands are almost always shaped correctly in dreams.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Nose pinch is a good RC.

Except when it's not?

Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.

Since this is one of those few RCs that rely on physical, waking mechanics, I would agree that it's an excellent RC, but that's exactly what prevents it from being a universal archetype. I (and others I've spoken with or read the posts of) have had issues with this RC whenever the sinuses are clogged, which leads me to believe this isn't so much a mental thing going on as a physical thing.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Flying.[/B] Everyone either can fly or tries to fly in dreams.

This is pretty legit. Ctharlhie has already shed some light on the cause of this: namely, a desire conceived at childhood to overcome looming, physical obstacles. That's the sort of mentality that persists with you throughout life, so it's not much of a stretch to say this could be an "adult" manifestation of that core desire.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Loss of senses. Most people do not experience all senses in dreams, or must work on doing that.

This is just a matter of proper focus. The Cusp will back me up on this one, but the reason you'll "lose" a sense is simply because you aren't using it at the time. Throw some attention its way and you'll be sensing that sense in no time. Thus, this is simply another example of how the brain filters out unneeded information applied to dreams; the same thing happens IWL.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Spinning Spinning seems to be powerful in dreams, especially for teleporting.

I don't trust spinning with anything, personally. The effects are too random and across the board to be considered universal. Some people can use it to change the dream scene, others think it will help them stabilize, there are those for whom spinning will simply end the dream altogether, and for a few it doesn't do anything at all. I can't say for sure where the "power of spinning" comes from, but I'd guess that this falls into the same category as hand check RCs, due to its origin.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Dream Logic You think all the weird shit going on around you is normal, and do not become lucid.

Easily attributed to Normal brain functioning during sleep. Higher reasoning is all but dead unless you can manage to spark it into life with a bit of awareness. Would go into more technical details, but you can all do your own research on that stuff if you're interested.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Dream emotions Emotions can be very intense, or you may experience ones that you have never felt while awake.

Also normal brain functioning. To put it super simply, most of the filters that deal with that data are turned off, so the emotions you feel are much more primal and raw than what a fully conscious brain would be able to experience.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Dream colors You see colors you have never seen before.

It's very likely impossible to experience and retain something in dreams outside of what we can physically perceive. If you can find a way to transcend metaphor, as Sageous puts it, then it might be doable. But I've not heard or read of any such case, which makes it difficult for me to accept this as anything remotely universal. I'd like to hear your, or anyone else's reasoning on this, though.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Scene change Everything around you changes.

A normal function of daily life and thought flow. Makes sense that it'd translate to dreams in such a way.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Words Letters are mixed up in words.

Not for me and others with above-average visual and phonetic recall. I think it'd be interesting to do a study on the correlation between text in dreams and the dreamer's vocabulary and spelling aptitude.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Odd relationships Your best friend is your dog. Your dog is your grandfather.

Can't speak on this outside of personal experience, since it's not a topic you see come up very often, but the logistics of my dreams typically make sense even after inspection upon waking. If I had to make a conjecture here, I'd say it's because I'm very grounded in reality and critical about partially-formed or incomplete ideas.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

"That feeling" You just have that feeling.

You mean. . . hunches?

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Blurry/Dim sense of sight is weak, or everything is blurry or dim.

Can't say with complete certainty, but it seems like this could be attributed to experiencing the event without working memory functioning properly.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Vivid Colors Everything is bright.

Except when it's not?

Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Seems belief is vital for dream control.

Seems that way, but belief itself is nothing but another archetype. Dream control is achieved by manipulating the processes that form dreams in the first place. If anyone reading this wants a crash course in actual dream control, hit up the "Unifying Theory" thread I put together (link in sig) and read through all the guides listed at the top.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Imagination also seems to give power to control.

See above.



I'll cover more stuff later, but it is currently an hour past my bed time. And that's very bad when you're on a poly-phasic sleep schedule. x.X

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

I am searching for universal archetypes in dreams, ways in which the dream world is almost always the same for everyone.

It seems there are these:

By universal I mean archetypes that almost all dreamers experience, regardless of the culture they grew up in and live in.

What other universal archetypes can you think of?

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

This thread confuses me. Is this simply a list of things people have personally experienced in dreams, or is this a serious attempt at finding root schema?

If it's the latter, we need to analyze every entry in the list for validity by examining possible causes and gauging anecdotal evidence. Obviously, no one is going to care enough to do this "properly," and I'm not suggesting anyone needs to, but I clicked that link expecting higher levels of discussion than your typical list thread.

I guess I'll start; if anyone else wants to contribute something to this effect, feel free.



The idea of a "mirror world," or a reality beyond the mirror, probably dates back to early childhood and is the lingering effect of a misunderstanding of how mirrors work. For me, and others I've spoken with, the mirror phenomena is much less pronounced than it seems to be for others. I attribute my personal experience to learning the basics of how mirrors work at an extremely young age (3ish).



Another iffy one. Most of the people I've personally spoken with (especially ones with well above-average LDing experience who were self-taught) find this RC useless because their hands are always perfect. I'm the same way, so my best guess here is that this isn't a universal archetype, so much as one that is propagated through various reference material and accepted as fact by the masses. Personally, due to past experiences, I didn't give this idea much credence, which might explain why my hands are almost always shaped correctly in dreams.

Except when it's not?

Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.

Since this is one of those few RCs that rely on physical, waking mechanics, I would agree that it's an excellent RC, but that's exactly what prevents it from being a universal archetype. I (and others I've spoken with or read the posts of) have had issues with this RC whenever the sinuses are clogged, which leads me to believe this isn't so much a mental thing going on as a physical thing.


This is pretty legit. Ctharlhie has already shed some light on the cause of this: namely, a desire conceived at childhood to overcome looming, physical obstacles. That's the sort of mentality that persists with you throughout life, so it's not much of a stretch to say this could be an "adult" manifestation of that core desire.


This is just a matter of proper focus. The Cusp will back me up on this one, but the reason you'll "lose" a sense is simply because you aren't using it at the time. Throw some attention its way and you'll be sensing that sense in no time. Thus, this is simply another example of how the brain filters out unneeded information applied to dreams; the same thing happens IWL.


I don't trust spinning with anything, personally. The effects are too random and across the board to be considered universal. Some people can use it to change the dream scene, others think it will help them stabilize, there are those for whom spinning will simply end the dream altogether, and for a few it doesn't do anything at all. I can't say for sure where the "power of spinning" comes from, but I'd guess that this falls into the same category as hand check RCs, due to its origin.


Easily attributed to Normal brain functioning during sleep. Higher reasoning is all but dead unless you can manage to spark it into life with a bit of awareness. Would go into more technical details, but you can all do your own research on that stuff if you're interested.


Also normal brain functioning. To put it super simply, most of the filters that deal with that data are turned off, so the emotions you feel are much more primal and raw than what a fully conscious brain would be able to experience.


It's very likely impossible to experience and retain something in dreams outside of what we can physically perceive. If you can find a way to transcend metaphor, as Sageous puts it, then it might be doable. But I've not heard or read of any such case, which makes it difficult for me to accept this as anything remotely universal. I'd like to hear your, or anyone else's reasoning on this, though.


A normal function of daily life and thought flow. Makes sense that it'd translate to dreams in such a way.


Not for me and others with above-average visual and phonetic recall. I think it'd be interesting to do a study on the correlation between text in dreams and the dreamer's vocabulary and spelling aptitude.


Can't speak on this outside of personal experience, since it's not a topic you see come up very often, but the logistics of my dreams typically make sense even after inspection upon waking. If I had to make a conjecture here, I'd say it's because I'm very grounded in reality and critical about partially-formed or incomplete ideas.


You mean. . . hunches?


Can't say with complete certainty, but it seems like this could be attributed to experiencing the event without working memory functioning properly.


Except when it's not?

Which, for me, is almost always. Probably a result of all the gritty visual media to which I subject myself. Of course, having been in Hawaii for a few months, I can see how living there, or anywhere else that isn't grey and dull, could affect your unconscious perception a bit.


Seems that way, but belief itself is nothing but another archetype. Dream control is achieved by manipulating the processes that form dreams in the first place. If anyone reading this wants a crash course in actual dream control, hit up the "Unifying Theory" thread I put together (link in sig) and read through all the guides listed at the top.



See above.



I'll cover more stuff later, but it is currently an hour past my bed time. And that's very bad when you're on a poly-phasic sleep schedule. x.X

thank you very much for sharing. I'm going to read over this a few times and think about what you said.

people sharing personal anecdotal experiences about their own archetypes does help, which is apparently what you were confused by as opposed to my original post which is a rather pointed.

It's difficult for any one person to suggest a universal archetype because everyone speaks from their very limited personal experience. But if everyone says their personal anecdotes then you get a few people saying 'oh yeah, I get that too', you slowly build up a picture common archetypes.

You'd need a massive cross-cultural study to establish truly universal dream archetypes.

Have you read anything by Jung, Nomad? I think you'd enjoy what he has to say about the collective unconscious

Hopefully these will be universal archetypes, since they happen in almost every single dream of mine.

Distorted Real Life Places- Not always the case, but often enough a dream will take place in a distorted version of real life. It can be similar or very loosely based. In my experience, when multiple dreams go to that same place, it will be very similar to how it was in previous dreams, sometimes with the same locations leading off of them. I believe that some people create maps of their dreams, showing where they go often in relation to other areas. I should note this isn't just for actual physical areas, places read about, watched, or played in on video games also make appearances in dreams.

Conflict- There is always conflict in my dreams, I never just get to relax and enjoy things. I am kept busy by trying to run away from something, catch something, keep something away, fighting, hiding, etc. This keeps me busy and the dream constantly moving.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Dream colors You see colors you have never seen before.

Never heard of this one. Interesting.

Originally Posted by Anthonyyy0

Never heard of this one. Interesting.

I haven't either. I always thought it was impossible to see colors you have not seen before.

Not sure if mentioned already:

falling dreams where you wake up before hitting the floor (although I never really had these)

dreams where you have very low strength (punchs are weak ect.)

dreams of teeth falling out (never had these)

all seem to be dreams all sorts of people have

edit: also for me I have dreams where I experience death and its an ecstasy

Things that you see in real life appearing in your dreams.

Originally Posted by siuol

I haven't either. I always thought it was impossible to see colors you have not seen before.

Definitely possible; colors are just as inventable as anything else your dreaming mind can conjure.

The trouble I have with this is whether new colors could really be seen as archetypical...aren't archetypes the objects, symbols and metaphors that we all as humans share? Independent invention seems to be a separate event.

Unless of course those colors aren't new after all, but simply recovered archetypes? Okay, Nomad, I get it now.