Collected Papers on Analytical PsychologyJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Psychoanalysis
"Not for long shalt thou thirst, O burning heart!
There is promise in the air,
Winds come to me from unknown mouths--
The healing coolness comes."
Civilised man no longer believes in demons, he calls in the doctor. Our
patient wanted to be hypnotised. Then madness overcame him. What was
going on in him?
He answered this question in broken sentences, with long pauses, in that
twilight-stage that heralds convalescence. I give as faithfully as may
be his own words. When he fell ill he suddenly lost the well-regulated
world and found himself in the chaos of an overmastering dream, a sea of
blood and fire; the world was out of joint; everywhere conflagration,
volcanic outbreaks, earthquakes, mountains fell in, followed by enormous
battles where the peoples fell upon one another; he became involved more
and more in the battle of nature, he was right in the midst of those
fighting, wrestling, defending himself, enduring unutterable misery and
pain; gradually he was exalted and strengthened by a strange calming
feeling that some one was watching his struggles, that his loved one saw
all from afar. That was the time when he showed real violence to the
attendants. He felt his strength increasing and saw himself at the head
of great armies which he would lead to victory. Then more great battles
and at length victory. He would try to get his loved one as prize of
victory. As he drew near her the illness ceased, and he awoke from a
long dream.
His daily life again began to follow the regular routine. He shut
himself up in his work and forgot the abyss within himself. A few years
later he is again at B---- Demon or Destiny? Again he followed the
old trail and again was overborne by old memories. But this time he
was not immersed in the depths of confusion. He remained orientated
and _en rapport_ with his surroundings. The struggle was considerably
milder, but he did gymnastics, practised the arts, and made good his
deficiencies; then followed the dreamy stage with the love-songs,
corresponding to the period of victory in the first psychosis. In this
state, according to his own words, he had a dreamlike feeling as if he
stood upon the borders of two worlds and knew not whether truth stood on
the right or on the left. He told me, "It is said she is married, but I
believe she is not, but is still waiting for me; I feel that it must be
so. It is ever to me as if she were not married, and as if success were
yet attainable."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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