 Originally Posted by Rosanna
I will go back and read it. Have we got any easy videos or accounts of the stages of individuation again? Only if you can think off the top of your head, I don't want you to go searching....
I can scribble up a more detailed account than I have yet - but really there's not much more to it that what we've been discussing already. But here it is in better resolution:
- Encounter with the Shadow -- Simple, but can take place over months or years through dreams, fantasies, artwork, life, whatever.
- Encounter with the Anima/Animus -- Same as above. The difference being in the nature of the encounters - dreams or fantasies or artwork concerning your opposite-sex 'perfect match' or something along those lines. Perfect life partner match.
- Encounter with the Self -- Again, but now you're encountering figures that seem to be some kind of perfect version of you, or an alternate reality version. Might or might not look like you, but feels like a perfect or a better you somehow I think.
The Shadow figures you encounter represent parts of yourself that you've disowned or are ashamed or afraid to admit are parts of yourself, so you project them onto other people around you. If you tend to get in the same arguments over and over again with the same person or with different people over the same things, that is probably some unwanted quality in yourself that you're projecting onto them. Or maybe they're projecting something onto you - it can be hard to tell sometimes.
I know a lot less about the Animus/Anima and the Self. I have encountered figures in dreams that I think came from each of these categories. My shadow figures were mysterious, sometimes frightening but not always, but they always exerted a certain fascination as if they were something really special.
The ones I assume are Anima figures have been girls or women I used to know. Usually that I liked a lot and maybe had hopes of hooking up with or having a relationship with. Or at least ones that were really cool and I enjoyed hanging out with.
They weren't always people I had known in waking life - sometimes it was just a really amazing woman appearing in a dream. But you get a certain special kind of feeling - a feeling that this was a really significant dream, you know? This is always true of a dream containing Archetypal figures.
The Self figures I've encountered so far have been mostly authority figures. There was a plumber who showed up in 2 or 3 dreams and as they went on he lost his ragged lowly plumber persona and actually began to show a definite golden glow about him, and gave a strong aura of being a powerful Godlike figure. I suppose Self figures do always seem like Gods, though I think in the beginning they can show up as lowly people in ragged clothes. This is the way Odin used to like to walk among the people of Earth - disguised as a beggar. He was a Self figure in that regard. In fact in many religions/Myths there are Gods who like to disguise themselves as lowly peasants or beggars and get involved in people's lives. These religions and myths are reflections of Self figures. In my earlier dreams my Self figures tended to try to make me work harder or do menial labor of some kind and I would refuse. In the latest one he didn't do that - he actually showed up and started doing some work for me to fix my devastated house that had just demolished itself before my eyes. He had a crew of helpers who assisted him, and he sang loud bawdy songs in German that I couldn't understand. He seemed kind of uncool - sot of an asshole but like I needed him there to do whatever he was setting out to do. Fixing things in my damaged Psyche I assume. Lol - he actually reminded me of a mix of Carl Jung and Skip Conover, the guy who does the readings from Jung books on YouTube. Had Jung's sparkling mischievous eyes and Gnomelike demeanor.
 Originally Posted by Rosanna
And I suppose Mercurious is an archetype 'in' us as well as outside of us, waiting to scare us with the shadow and then become out beloved as the animus / anima.......and then.....whatever else the next stages are, I've not got that far. You may have noticed I start off quite literal, until my imagination starts working, LOL.
The reason we perceive them as existing outside is because the only way we can 'see' Archetypal figures is either in dreams and fantasies or through projection. They definitely come from inside. Another way we can externalize them in order to fix them down and see them better is through artwork. Because art starts as imagination -- fantasy essentially. Then we turn it into art. So it's the internal made external and put down on paper or canvas or whatever your medium is.
 Originally Posted by Rosanna
Something else that's niggling away at me, is that, those feelings, 'oceanic feelings' or whatever you want to call them, are so perfect, that to me, when I'm 'there,' there is no other 'work' to be done.......so they kind of feel like a destination, and much 'lighter' than any other mental process, especially that stuff which I imagine is individuation, lol.
What I was trying to say is that a feeling is an emotion - and emotions are the end result of a process. Individuation is the process - the oceanic feeling is the end result of the process, it isn't the process itself. You get a great feeling of accomplishment or pride when you win a competition or complete a difficult task, but the feeling is the result of whatever you had to do in order to get there - see what I mean? You might win a competition because you studied hard or learned some new skills and practiced a lot. Getting the great feeling at the end of it is a reward - but the process was the learning and the practice. They're not the same thing. They are cause and effect basically. When you said that the oceanic feeling is the encounter with the Self, I'm saying I think the feeling is more like an after effect of the encounter.
But I was also trying to say that I think other things can cause the same feeling. Not only Individuation. Just as many different things can cause any other emotion. We only have a very limited number of emotions, and they result from many different causes.
Just to try to be clear, because I think we're talking past each other - I was reacting to the fact that you said you thought the oceanic feeling might BE the encounter with the Self. I was just saying it isn't the encounter, but could be the end result of an encounter.
 Originally Posted by Rosanna
And if they are a desired end point (or are they? or is the state just a stage further along in the process?), how is it possible to get there without going through all the other stuff, because I'm pretty sure in my life, especially years ago when I had a lot of 'issues' as a younger person, I could still get to that state and feel at one with the world...
The desired end point is Individuation - which is a balanced Psyche, or at least more balanced than it was previously. The feelings are a byproduct.
Individuation happens frequently - especially when we're young, because then it's a natural thing that just happens - a part of growing up. It stops happening naturally after you've become an adult, and then it can happen automatically during times of great turmoil and stress, or through an effort of facing your own shadow elements and then Anima/Animus elements, usually while in psychoanalysis, though some people have done it themselves. Jung did it himself, though as an analyst of course he had his own analyst - they always do because a broken analyst can't fix anybody else. It's said that a person is incapable of recognizing and 'owning' all the contents of their own shadow without a lot of help from a very good qualified analyst.
So yes - Individuation can happen spontaneously if you're undergoing something traumatic or if you just happen to have a few epiphanies.
 Originally Posted by Rosanna
PM sent. :-)
Thank you!! Much appreciated.
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