The dream of Gilgamesh
(1:29:03)Interviewer:
I would like you to interpret a dream now. The dream of Gilgamesh. (…)
In the middle of the nigh I walked proudly up and down among my people. There were stars in the sky. Suddenly, one of the stars of the Sky God, Anu, fell on me. I tried to lift it but it was too heavy for me. All Eric assembled around this star and the people kissed It's feet.”
Can such an acient dream have meaning for us today?
Marie-Louise von Franz:
(1:30:00) This dream is about 4,600 years old and still we can find modern parallels. The language of the Unconscious has changed much less than the language of Human Consciousness has. So, if we interpret this dream from a modern stand point we would say that uptil the moment when the star fell upon Gilgamesh he fulfilled the “collective” role of The King. He was the Hero and the King. He was probably a very ambitious man who made a big career. He's the typical man who follows up ambitiously and successfully a collective pattern. Nowadays he would be a great politician or a movie star...(...)
Such a person looked at from within is very Not individual. He's fulfilling a collective roll and fulfilling a roll of power, reacting in a very collective way.
The STAR on the contrary represents, as we saw before, the Uniqueness, because every soul has one star in heaven.
We can say that uptil now we can say that Gilgamesh with all his collective power achievements has not yet done anything unique. On the contrary he has only filled out a typical pattern of the hero king. And now, probably in the middle of life, because that's the most frequently when it occurs, something changes. While he's walking around the people, so to speak, proudly of his own power position, collective power position, from the sky falls a star on his back and turns to be a very heavy load.
That's the moment that the unique destiny befalls him, literally, falls upon his back. That means that from now on one carries on ones back the load (…) the burden of having to become himself. To become the unique, chosen individual he was meant to be. And which he had avoided by being an ambitious collective man uptil now. And that proves not to be a glorious call, but a heavy burden to him.
And now the star means also the immortal soul of man. (…) The star is the eternal kernal of the human psychy, the eternal man within us. And so he is now to follow his unique destiny instead of fullfiling a collective roll.
But the people kiss the star's feet, they prostate them selves before the star which means the real greatness...probably Gilgamesh thought that up until the star fell upon him, that he was a great man. He was a king, he was a hero, he was the fortress of his people. Now he has to see that he is not much. The people worship that star stone that greater thing in him.
So in that dream there's that little teaching for Gilgamesh:
Don't take all the honour people give you for yourself. Don't lap-up the complements they give you for yourself. It is that star upon you and that is your heaviest load, your necessity to become an individual. That's what they worship in you not you.
And so after that Gilgamesh becomes the servant of his unique heroic task, the search for immortality.”
(1:34:52) Interviewer:
Very few people follow their own star today. Why.
Marie-Louise von Franz:
It is easier to follow a great personality and become a pupil or follower.
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