Reddit reviews Memories, Dreams, Reflections

In his autobiography, Carl Jung puts forth a similar idea. Later in his life, he had came to the conclusion that both partners should each have a room exclusively for themselves, where the other isn't allowed to enter.

His idea was that, for each partner to keep evolving, they need to retain a part of solitary individuality; a part of the self that is independent and unaffected by the relationship. That is what the "exclusive room" was meant to achieve.

I think a lot of young couples would have trouble with that kind of arrangement. Our culture puts so much romantic emphasis on fusional relationships, being able to say "we share everything!" almost becomes a requirement to consider the relationship successful.

Personally, I tend to agree with Jung's idea. I'd definitely require a mancave for myself. I'm used to requiring lot of time to be by myself, regardless of my dating status. So much so that it had me backed out of moving in with a girlfriend more than once. I'd have absolutely no problem with my SO having a womancave neither.

Why do you think so many couples starts experiencing difficulties once they move in together? It's not just the trivial things like fighting over the toilet seat or the dishes. A lot has to do with not having any space to be by yourself at your own home.

He had a natural, inherited inclination toward mystical/supernatura experience. Jung's maternal grandfather was a pastor and possible schizophrenic who "trained" his young daughter (Jung's mother) to ward off evil spirits while he worked on his sermons. As a child, Jung witnessed his mother in conversation with spirits in her room as he hid behind the door. This contrasted with the beliefs of his father, who was also a pastor and had Jung's mother sent to an asylum for long periods at a time. From an early age, Jung had an extremely active dream life, was a strong introvert who spent his free time communing with nature in the woods near his house, and developed many peculiar rituals to protect himself from negative influences. In school he realized he had the power to create and overcome his own neurosis, but he became convinced that he had two personalities: one, a regular Swiss child who followed the boring rules of society, and two, a mysterious 17th century nobleman who was wise and respected scholar with mystical powers (possibly influenced by the legacy of Jung's paternal grandfather, a famous Swiss physician, 33rd degree Freemason, and possible illegitimate child of Goethe). In college, Jung organized seances with his mother and cousin, who seemed a talented medium, to contact the spirit world, and learned how to put himself in a controlled trance and evoke hallucinations.

So you could say Jung was predestined to become who he was. I wrote a bio on Jung in college and obviously it was incredibly fascinating. It's also interesting to see how he changed after college:

Jung at one point realized that his cousin had been faking her medium experiences, after he caught her repeating some stories he had given her to read while she was supposedly channeling a spirit. He became disillusioned and wrote his master's thesis "On the psychology and pathology of so-called occult phenomena", in which he basically labelled his cousin as mentally ill and managed to hide all the details of his own involvement. Soon after this he got a job at a world-renowned mental hospital (Burgholzli), working under the "discoverer" of schizophrenia, Eugene Bleuler, and focused purely on mainstream psychiatry for years, in which he became a famous researcher in his own right. Only after meeting Freud later on did he become interested in psychoanalysis, which eventually led him to study the mythological content of schizophrenic hallucinations. This contributed to his theory of the collective unconscious ("how else could schizophrenics show similar thematology all over the world?") and, I think, gradually reawakened his interest in the occult. I think that tension between keeping up appearances as a mainstream psychiatrist but wanting to explore the deeper truths of mankind was a huge stressor on his psyche, so that when the dams finally burst, he did a complete 180 and got lost in his own mind for a good while. During his "confrontation with the unconscious" he refined his technique of "active imagination", which combined the trance techniques he already knew with the free association methods he had developed as a psychiatrist.

A great read for understanding Jung's life and the development of his thought processes is his quasi-autobiography, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.

http://www.amazon.ca/Memories-Dreams-Reflections-C-G-Jung/dp/0679723951

Carl Jung said himself that he consulted with a spirit guide he referred to as "Philemon". He wrote about him in the book Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I advise that you look at a copy of the book.


Here are two articles that briefly describe some of what Jung says about Philemon: Who is Philemon? and Mystical Experiences of Carl Jung.

Carl Jung was considered an introvert and wrote an autobiography. He also coined the terms introversion and extroversion. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679723951/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

This is where I started.

Start with his autobiography. It's easy reading, and is a fascinating insight into the man. A great jumping off place to get into his works.