Since yesterday we touched on the topic of the collective unconscious, let me walk you through three myths that live in my mind. One of them — today, and the other two next week.
Myth One — about dragons.
Have you ever wondered why dragons appear in every culture? As a child, of course, I hoped it was some kind of leftover memory from humans overlapping with dinosaurs in time: if dinosaurs had lived not 65 million years ago, but maybe 10 thousand, the chances of resurrecting them would surely be higher.
But let’s think: what is a dragon, really?
- Basically, a giant snake
- Able to fly
- Massive
- And in Asian cultures it often has cat-like eyes and lives in water
Congratulations — we’ve just compiled a list of humanity’s oldest fears and dangers. Snakes, birds of prey, large predators — the natural enemies of our tailed ancestors. And honestly, meeting a bear alone in the woods even today is rarely pleasant!
Asians added a touch of tiger to their dragons, and since they have plenty of storms and rain, their dragons also control water. In dry Europe and Russia, dragons instead tend to breathe fire.
These fears unite nearly all of humanity — and once you name a fear, it becomes smaller. This is true in psychology too: whenever you articulate an emotion, its intensity drops. When you feel discomfort, sit with it, try to give it a name — you’ll be doing exactly what ancient people did when they combined everything terrifying into one creature, named it “dragon,” and taught their heroes to defeat it.
Our collective unconscious is that great hero — the one that has tamed all of its fears.