This archetype was described as Carl Jung as a person with great judgment and wisdom. The wise old man is sometimes referred to as the Sage. This archetype is characterized by being old, bearded, father-figure type who uses his great personal knowledge of the world and offer guidance through stories and may impress upon his [...]
The Child is an archetype in Jungian psychology. It is refered to as a childish or childlike longing for the innocent, regardless of age. There are several recognizable child archetypes such as the “Abandoned Child”, “The Wounded Child” and “The Divine Child” to name a few.
This archetype is present in all of us. We were all children once and probably wish, once or twice, for the innocent and care-free days of our childhood as opposed to the complicated and chaotic world of adults.
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king who was prophesized by the Oracle at Delphi that he would kill his father, marry his mother and put his country chaos. The Oedipus Complex is also the term used by Sigmund Freud to describe a neuroses where a male child experiences unconscious desire to have the exclusive love of his mother, even feeling jelousy towards his father.
Oedipus was the son of King Larius and Queen Jocasta, His parents consulted the Oracle at Delphi before he was born. After which, his parents gave him to a herdsman and instructed him to kill the baby. The herdsman felt pity for the infant and gave him to another herdsman. The second herdsman brought Oedipus to the king of Cornith, Polybus and his wife Merope. The king and queen adopted Oedipus and raised him as their own son. Many years later Oedipus was told by a drunk that he was adopted. Polybus and Merope denied this and Oedipus instead went to an Oracle who told him that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus, thinking that the Oracle meant Polybus and Merope, decided to leave Corinth for Thebes.
Pandora was the first woman. Zeus ordered Hephaestus to mold her from earth as part of the punishment for mankind when Prometheus stole the secret of fire. All the other gods help create her by giving her different gifts. Venus gave her beauty, Apollo gave her music and Mercury gave her persuasion. Her name means “giver of all”.
According to the myth, Pandora was given a box, which is actually a jar, and was instructed by the Gods to never open it. However, the gods also created Pandora to be curious and so she opened the jar and out came disease, sorrow and death to mankind. When Pandora finally shut the box, only Elpis or Hope was left inside.
Narcissus was a young boy in Greek mythology who gazed upon his reflection in a pool of water and fell inlove with his own self. This is where we get the terms narcissistic and narcissism or somebody who loves only himself.
According to Ovid, Narcissus was a vain youth who had many admirers. When he turned 15 all the youths and young ladies were inlove with him, but he spurned them all. Echo a nymph, followed Narcissus out while he was hunting for stags. Narcissus knew that there was somebody following him but when he called out “who’s there”, Echo could only answer “who’s there” in return being too shy to talk to him. This went on for a while until Echo finally ran to his arms. Alas, Narcissus rejected Echo and she left him brokenhearted. Echo spent the rest of her life pining for Narcissus. Nemesis then punished Narcissus so when he drank from a deep pool Narcissus saw his reflection for the first time and fell in love with his own self. Realizing that he could never act on this love, narcissus beat his body and died. A flower grew on the spot where he died and was named after him.
Eros in Greek mythology is Venus’ son and Psyche’s husband. Eros and Psyche’s story is an age old tale of love overcoming differences.
It can be remembered that Venus was a vain God. Psyche had a lot of admirers and so her jealousy of Psyche led her to order her own son to shoot an arrow into Psyche so that she would fall in love with “the ugliest, vilest creature”. However, even Eros was no match for Psyche’s beauty, because when he leaned forward to look at her, one of his arrows pricked him on his chest and instantly fell in love.
Chaos in Greek Mythology meant the original state of the universe before the Gods were born. In other words: nothing. It is the opposite of cosmos, in ancient Greece meaning order. The Greek poet Ovid mentioned in Metamorphoses, a collection of 15 books the creation of the universe that Chaos is “rather a crude and indigested mass, a lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed, of jarring seeds and justly Chaos named” which is how we have the modern meaning for chaos: disorder.
Chaos in mythology is often referred to as where everything came from. In Hesiod’s Origin of the Gods, Chaos was the nothingness out of which the first objects emerged. From Chaos, we have Gaia or Earth, Tartarus the Underworld, Nyx darkness of the night, Erberus, darkness of the underworld, and Eros sexual love. In other words Chaos is the womb from which everything emerged from.
Recurring dreams are dreams that you repeatedly experience over and over again. Recurring dreams are said to be the inner self’s way of communicating to our conscious mind. These dreams randomly occur but are always about the exact same thing.
If you have had a recurring dream, you will notice that almost everything about that dream is repeated from the previous dream. The most common theme in recurring dream is falling, flying, drowning, being naked in public and the inability to speak.
A nightmare is a dream that causes strong emotions like horror, despair and terror. Most often people experiencing nightmares are in some form of life threatening ‘situations” like drowning or dying. Nightmares are usually caused by psychological trauma or stress. When a person experiences horrible ordeals like being kidnapped, the events sometimes come to haunt them as nightmares. Nightmares are common enough but recurring nightmares sometimes need the attention of professionals as they hinder the ability to sleep after the nightmare.
Nightmares are symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Another definition of nightmare is to wake up from a normal dream cycle and experience negative emotion like fear. Young children under the age of 5 rarely experience nightmares. Adolescents have the most frequent occurrence of once per week. Adults usually have nightmares once a month. As we get older, nightmares lessen in frequency. This probably co-relates with the ability to deal or cope with stress and other emotional problems.
Most often in Lucid Dreams, the person knows that he or she is dreaming and controls the dream. This is also called conscious dream. Dreamers often manipulate their experience while dreaming and actively take part in the dream. These dreams can be vivid and seem very real, depending on the self-awareness level of the dreamer.
There are two kinds of lucid dreams. The first kind starts off as a normal dream, and then the dreamer becomes aware that he is in a dream. This is called DILD or Dream Induced Lucid Dream. The second kind is called WILD or Wake Initiated Lucid Dream. In wild, the dreamer goes from a fully awake state to a lucid dream without an apparent lapse in consciousness.
I often have this kind of dream. Its like waking up several times before actually waking up. I would dream like I got up, took a shower, drank coffee and got on about my daily tasks and then, I find out that I’m still asleep and go through the motions again. I get several cycles before I find that I’m really awake. There were times when everything felt so real I had to pinch myself.
These are false awakening dreams and are also called double dreams. Psychologist find that this kind of dream happens because of the inability of the mind to sometimes distinguish dreams and reality. This is because our brain produces a “stimulated reality” from time to time. Proponents of this finding suggest that our reality in fact begins with this “stimulated reality”.
