Glossary: Consciousness

The part of our psyche that we’re consciously aware of. Consists of all the thoughts and feelings that are presently inside the field of awareness. Things that are conscious are within the field of awareness of the ego, but this is a tiny fraction of what’s accessible to the Self. The aim of Jungian psychology is to bring into consciousness, i.e. to integrate into one’s ego, that which was split off from the ego and pushed down into the unconscious. We say we “become conscious” by bringing these split off parts of ourselves back into relationship with our conscious selves. The Jungian concept of consciousness differs from Freud in that while Freud believed that unconscious contents originated in conscious experience, Jung believed that the unconscious came first, creating consciousness, like an egg born from the primordial chaos.

Consciousness does not create itself-it wells up from unknown depths. In childhood it awakens gradually, and all through life it wakes each morning out of the depths of sleep from an unconscious condition. It is like a child that is born daily out of the primordial womb of the unconscious… It is not only influenced by the unconscious but continually emerges out of it in the form of numberless spontaneous ideas and sudden flashes of thought.

- "The Psychology of Eastern Meditation," CW 11, par. 935

There are two distinct ways in which consciousness arises. The one is a moment of high emotional tension, comparable to the scene in Parsifal where the hero, at the very moment of greatest temptation, suddenly realizes the meaning of Amfortas' wound. The other is a state of contemplation, in which ideas pass before the mind like dream-images. Suddenly there is a flash of association between two apparently disconnected and widely separated ideas, and this has the effect of releasing a latent tension. Such a moment often works like a revelation. In every case it seems to be the discharge of energy-tension, whether external or internal, which produces consciousness.

- "Analytical Psychology and Education," CW 17, par. 207

When one reflects upon what consciousness really is, one is profoundly impressed by the extreme wonder of the fact that an event which takes place outside in the cosmos simultaneously produces an internal image, that it takes place, so to speak, inside as well, which is to say: becomes conscious.

- CG. Jung, Basel Seminar, privately printed, 1934, p.1