I saw a dream in which my hand was not moving and it felt as if it was paralyzed. In my dream, I freaked out. Standing next to my father, I was asking him what would happen now, and he said it should be fine, but it felt like it might not be. Then I realized that, actually, outside of the dream, my hand was just stuck between two mattresses and I was sleeping on it with my full weight. So, unsurprisingly, it had gone numb. I woke up momentarily, removed my hand, went back to sleep, and continued in the same dream where my hand had become normal again. It was an interesting experience that made me think about Carl Jung’s work. If real life or the waking state affected the dream state, could it be that subconscious states also impacted conscious states?
I do not have academic training in psychology but have read a few works of Jung and his students. I also know that Jung would give archetype based visualization therapy to his patients in the hope of unlocking certain states in the subconscious mind, possibly with the hope of fixing or “unblocking” something in the conscious state. It might sound like voodoo science, and Jung was criticized in his later stage of being a bit too experimental and conjectural while being less and less empirical, but perhaps there is a possibility that images, symbols, and visualizations unlock, develop, or unblock certain subconscious aspects that could get us unstuck in the real world.
Carl Jung’s Work
In ‘Man and his Symbols’, Jung emphasized the interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind. He proposed that the unconscious consists of two layers: the personal unconscious, which is similar to Freud’s version of the unconscious and contains temporarily forgotten information and repressed memories, and the collective unconscious, which is genetically inherited and not shaped by personal experience. He emphasized that the collective unconscious is expressed through universal archetypes, which are signs, symbols, or patterns of thinking and/or behaving that are inherited from our ancestors. These archetypal patterns manifest in myths, tales, dreams, and even in the narratives of our everyday lives, serving as the building blocks of our collective human experience.
From one’s own inference it is easy to see how in movies, or in politics, characters and symbols serve as archetypes and become iconic. Jung would argue that these iconic characters tap effectively into the collective unconscious and are therefore giving people a usable blueprint to navigate their lives.
Hitler’s use of Swastika, Russia’s use of the unexplained ‘Z’ mark on its tank in its Ukraine invasion, and myriad examples of political ceremonies and speeches drawing upon ancient mythical or religious imageries are testament to the Jungian claims.
Where it gets interesting is that Jung and his disciples (such as Robert Moore and Douglas Gilette) translated his insights into practical therapeutic work. They used active imagination that involved dialoguing with different aspects of oneself as revealed in dreams or waking streams of imaginations, seen as a method to bridge the gap between the conscious and the subconscious, facilitating a healing integration that can manifest in the individual's real-life changes.
Doubts
The promise of this technique is huge. Imagine that if you are struggling with a real life situation, such as managing difficult relationships, fixing something in your career, or having an existential crisis, you could be helped by tapping into certain archetypes drawn out from the collective subconscious. But this is where it starts sounding a bit voodoo to me. Can it really be possible that your engagement with archetypal images and symbols from the collective unconscious could effectively address and potentially resolve real life issues such as being in bad financial situation or navigating a difficult work or personal relationship? For those who prefer tangible, empirically validated approaches, this is somewhat difficult to accept because it delves into the realm of the almost mystical, making it difficult to scientifically validate or quantify.
I grew up in an era where self-help books were a thing in India, and perhaps all over the world. From the ‘Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ to ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’, and later ‘The Secret’ (which was gifted to me by a well-meaning family friend on my birthday – all emphasized on the “power of visualization”. I was still in high school that time and was experimental with my readings. So, I plunged into this literature and all of these works had the same motif – you visualize the state in which you want to be in as much detail as possible and then start working towards it. The promise was that you will eventually get there. Under tremendous pressure due to my upcoming class 10 board exams, I did as Robin Sharma et. al. recommended. And while I did pass with decent grades in my board exams, one day in a group conversation with a few friends it became apparent that this method had limited success, especially among the boys using detailed visualization techniques in finding dating partners or getting together with the celebrities they fancied. And on good authority, I am convinced that their visualizations would have been ardent, detailed and strong, and many of them were taking active steps towards making them a reality, including some trying to get Kaizad Gustad (the director of the film Boom, who was visiting our boarding school for a movie making workshop) to give them Katrina Kaif’s number who had recently featured in the movie. Unsurprisingly, their efforts did not reap promising results and that was the end of the promise of visualization techniques.
After about an year, I had personally grown quite skeptical of all self-help literature and practiced an active disdain towards it.
Yet there have been research and anecdotal evidences from sports professionals and military personnel using and allegedly benefiting from visualization techniques to enhance their performance, especially under stressful conditions. According to Dr. Jennifer Cumming writing for the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, for example, “Imagery not only helps athletes to regulate the anxiety they experience during competitions, but also helps athletes to stay confident, focused and mentally tough.”
Reportedly, Novak Djokovic, Serbian tennis player, said: "Visualization is a big part of everybody’s life, not just athletes. I strongly believe in visualization. I believe that there is a law of attraction: You get the things that you produce in your thoughts." Serena Williams also pitches in: "You need to see things happening and envision yourself in a fantasy world — and really believe in that fantasy world — until it comes true." And even Virat Kohli - "I visualise a lot, and I see myself in difficult situations and actually convince myself that I can pull the team out in those situations." Sports persons tend to also be extremely superstitious in many cases and wear talismans, engage in pre-match rituals, and in doing so they can be said to be tapping into symbols and imageries form he collective unconscious or their deep seated person subconscious to enhance their performance. How do we explain this? There are three possibilities:
1. This is a big conspiracy and celebrities are being as inauthentic as a CEO who ostentatiously remains frugal to keep its workforce tied to suitable cultural norms. The celebrities have to manage their fanbases and agree, even propagate popular ideas to their own benefit. Chances are they want to mislead their followers to curb competition at a large scale and to become part of myths themselves. That is the art of being a celebrity after all.
2. Celebrities and sports professionals are naïve and misinformed. They think that visualization works but in reality it doesn’t. Their coaches are also caught in a similar delusion because even they are often just figuring out ways to enhance performance and when real breaks in innovative training techniques are limited, they fall back on this collective delusion to make themselves feel better by trying out things where there is a lot of room for work without a clear way to establish causality with performance.
3. It actually works.
I remain skeptical of the third possibility. However, there are neuroscientists weighing in on this field called positive psychology. For example, Tim Blankert and Melvyn R. W. Hamstra from the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics in their paper ‘Imagining Success: Multiple Achievement Goals and the Effectiveness of Imagery’:“examined mastery goals (aiming to improve skill level) and performance goals (aiming to outperform others) among 65 tennis players who were assigned to a mastery goal condition, a performance goal condition, or a mastery goal and performance goal condition. After reading instructions for a service task, which included the goal manipulation, participants completed 20 tennis services. They then completed an imagery exercise and, finally, completed another 20 services. Postimagery service performance was better in the dual-goal condition than in the other conditions.”
Figure 1: Graphical representation of the service task setting.
Source: Blankert, T., & Hamstra, M. R. (2017). Imagining Success: Multiple Achievement Goals and the Effectiveness of Imagery. Basic and applied social psychology, 39(1), 60–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2016.1255947
In this research study, 65 tennis players were investigated to determine how setting different types of goals—mastery, performance, and a combination of both—affects their ability to perform when using a specific mental imagery technique called PETTLEP – i.e. physical, environment, task, timing, learning, emotional, and perspective relevant aspects of the imagery all need to be aligned with the aspects of the actual activity. The PETTLEP method involves vividly imagining performing a task, in this case, serving tennis balls, with the aim of hitting specific targets on the court.
Participants were divided into three groups, each assigned to focus on different objectives. One group concentrated on improving their skills (mastery goal), another aimed to outperform their peers (performance goal), and the last group was tasked with striving for both outcomes simultaneously (dual-goal). The players participated in sessions where they practiced tennis serves both before and after engaging in the PETTLEP imagery exercise. The study found that players who were instructed to focus on both improving their skills and outperforming others (the dual-goal group) generally showed better performance. This suggests that aiming for multiple goals might enhance athletic performance more effectively than focusing solely on one type of goal.
Similarly, there is some evidence on how visualization techniques and art therapy is helping brain damage among army veterans. While concrete scientific proof is scarce, anecdotal evidence and preliminary research continue to validate the effectiveness of art therapy. According Juliet King, Professor at George Washington University, "Art therapy helps people 'tap into aspects of the self and the psyche that aren’t always accessible.'" However, conducting comprehensive scientific studies on art therapy presents significant challenges due to its complex nature. Art therapy involves multiple brain functions—visual, cognitive, and motor—which complicates the isolation and study of its effects. Despite these difficulties, emerging research employing techniques like functional near-infrared spectroscopy and EEG provides insights into how art therapy influences brain activity.
Essentially, there is some evidence that these Jungian techniques work but not enough to conclusively claim that they do.
Where do we go from here? A hypothesis in Game Theory.
Typically in traditional game theoretic literature, it is assumed that players have a common knowledge of all the players’ strategies and associated payoffs (the costs and benefits associated to choosing a set of strategies or actions). However, emerging literature seems to acknowledge that in real life, people may simply not know the game that they are in, i.e. in real life situations, they may not know the strategies available to them, they may not know the strategies available to other players, and they may not even have complete information on who the other players are and what would be the associated payoffs of their actions. Moreover, since real life situations are dynamic, the game that they are in is also likely to change. In fact, Kaushik Basu and Jorgen Weibull in an upcoming publication also argue that new knowledge such as the production of new research, can open up new strategies in a game and disturb already existing equilibrium conditions.
A good example here could be emerging technologies. When a new technology arrives on the scene, the world enters into a new knowledge condition. A classic example in this regard is the mass production of automobiles by Henry Ford and others in the early 20th century that not only revolutionized transportation but also led to the decline of industries such as blacksmiths and carriage makers. This shift not only affected jobs related to horse-drawn transportation but also reshaped urban landscapes and supported the rise of suburbs. In short, a new knowledge condition disrupted an existing equilibrium and created a new one. Basu and Weibull show through game theoretical analysis how the emergence of a new equilibrium may not be guaranteed. Without going into their game theoretic proof, it is still easy to see this play out in real life scenarios. For example, the displacement of dictatorships in many countries like Iraq etc. did not necessarily result in a stable regime. A game can stay in perpetual disequilibrium.
What does all of this have to do with Carl Jung, you may ask? And here is my working hypothesis – in a world where people have imperfect information about that games that they are in and acknowledging the fact that the game could be changing as new knowledge conditions evolve, people find it useful to fall back on archetypes and role models to formulate their strategy sets. In simple terms, when people do not know the game they are in, they do not even know what strategies are available to them and in those conditions, they look at mythical or legendary figures or role models from real life including historical figures to choose a set of strategies based on what these historical or mythical figures would have done or how they would have behaved in certain situations. They extrapolate from that. Often these historical figures or mythical figures are rich in archetypical data and could represent predictable archetypes. For example, for male psyche, Robert Moore and Douglas Gilette explain that there are four main archetypes – the King, the Warrior, the Magician, and the Lover. Each archetype has polar opposite traits where the negative traits for the shadow. Some people lean towards the positive aspects of an archetype, others towards the negative ones, and yet others maintain a balance between the two poles.
Theoretically, choosing or tapping into different archetypes could lead a person towards different strategies, i.e. different knowledge conditions, and therefore different equilibrium conditions. However, this could turn out to be a dangerous game. What if you tap into an archetype (such as a historical figure) whose actions may have led him or her into an equilibrium conditions in their own context and time, but the same set of strategies may be a mismatch for the context in which the current player (who is adopting those archetypes) is operating in. Alexander of Macedonia has, for example inspired a great many leaders but not all of them were as successful Some, like Ceasar were successful following Alexander’s template but they got assassinated which was not part of Alexander’s endgame. This is not to argue that Ceasar exactly followed in Alexander’s example, but to argue that even if he did, there was no guarantee of success. Often in magazine articles, or even research articles on leadership, there is a tendency to club the common factors or traits among successful leaders and those common traits are taken to be gospel lessons in how leaders should behave. No one however, captures the stories of those leaders who imbibed these traits but failed or never came close to the success of those leaders in the list. John Stuart Mill in his 1843 book ‘A System of Logic’ had warned us of this folly in our reasoning but we still kept on publishing these stories.
In any case, knowing that the strategies in archetypical characters may not our own reality does not help in a world when we operate in conditions of terribly limited information about the game we are in. So what do people do? They create a portfolio of archetypical characters and engage in a hit and trial mechanism trying to best match their current context and a suitable archetype. They use archetypes as fall back options – as cognitive shortcuts to navigate a complex world. The help that these shortcuts offer is a set of strategies when there is no right answer to what sets of strategies should be appropriate in a given situation where players and payoffs are unknown.
Answering the Big Question
To revisit the big question – is there a possibility that images, symbols, and visualizations could unlock, develop, or unblock certain subconscious aspects that could get us unstuck in the real world? For example, if a student is being bullied in school or if a salesperson is not finding new clients, could tapping into certain archetypes lead them out of a troubled situation? Some indication can be found to answer this in affirmative.
First, there is some research on how vicarious experiences can have impact on real life. Vicarious trauma, for example, can cause symptoms meeting the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is especially visible in mental health workers who deal with victims of violence. findings from a study conducted by Bober and Regehr (2006) although clinicians working with violence victims noted the benefits of engaging in coping strategies like self-care and leisure activities, no correlation was found between self-care practices and lower scores of traumatic stress. In simple terms, vicarious trauma through “carrying so many people’s stories” could be real. The converse is also true, if others’ negative experiences could create impairments in one’s brain and by extension in one’s real lives, then other’s positive experiences could create enablers as well. These others could be real people, or a closely identifiable mythical or historical character or archetype as well. This is only a minor leap but empirical research in this direction could shed more light on this phenomenon. The research on vicarious learning, advanced by Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posited that people learn new behaviors by observing and imitating others.
This is observed in how human beings pick up language and even skills at work. In a research ‘Effects of Mental Imagery on Muscular Strength in Healthy and Patient Participants: A Systematic Review’, Slimani et. al. show that internal mental imagery, i.e. where individuals visualize themselves performing an action from a first-person perspective has an effect on muscle strength. It showed, that while actual physical exercise had the greatest effect on muscle strength, advantageous effects of internal imagery (range from 2.6 to 136.3%) for strength performance were much greater than those borne through external imagery, i.e. when people view themselves performing an act from the perspective of an external observer (range from 4.8 to 23.2%). According to Slimani et. al. “the greater effects of internal imagery than those of external imagery could be explained in terms of neural adaptations, stronger brain activation, higher muscle excitation, greater somatic and sensorimotor activation and physiological responses such as blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate”. Furthermore, mental imagery with muscular activity was higher in active than passive muscles, and imagining “lifting a heavy object” resulted in higher EMG activity than imagining “lifting a lighter object”. Internal imagery requires that the person feel those sensations that are involved while participating in a physical act. By extending this logic, if tapping into archetypes can lead to an enhanced internal imagery activity, it could have some effects on actual mental states, which may, in turn have effects on behavioral responses. New forms of behavioral responses are akin to using new strategies in a game, which could lead to newer equilibrium outcomes.
Second, there is anecdotal evidence of con-artists such as Frank Abagnale Jr., the subject of the movie ‘Catch Me If You Can’ who faked being a pilot flying some 3,000,000 miles to 82 countries for free. He also posed as a doctor in Marietta, Georgia, a sociology professor at Brigham Young University in Utah, and a lawyer in the attorney general's office in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he is alleged to have fraudulently cashed 17,000 counterfeit checks, amounting to a total of $2.5 million. He was eventually caught, jailed, and invited to join the FBI in handling fraud prevention and cybercrime - which he did. History is full of such conmen and con-women who arguably tap well into certain archetypes of a character that makes them convincing in those roles. Movie stars and method actors tend to do this all the time. However, not everyone, of course, trying to tap into the archetypes become successful or celebrated con-artists and/or movie artists. There are failures too and the archetype tapping maneuvers may not work in all the new and different situations that these con-artists may find themselves in.
A third explanation could build on the game theoretical work of Kaushik Basu, especially on his chapter ‘On the Man of Influence’ in ‘Prelude to Political Economy’. In Basu’s terms, a man of influence is “a person who, if he so wishes, can get people to do him favors; that is, he can get things done out of turn.” What Basu argues is that a man of influence need not have any initial endowment of power and can simply, through mutual expectations, create a situation where he becomes influential.
Without going into formalizations, let me illustrate this through a story:
Imagine a small village where a man named Pal is known to everyone as a person with connections. In this village, there are several key figures, let's call them the "gatekeepers", each in charge of different types of resources or "licenses". These licenses could be anything from securing a spot in the local school for a child, getting a faster internet connection, or even getting a pass to a special event in the village.
Pal doesn't own any resources or licenses himself, but he's believed to have a lot of influence and all gatekeepers know that Pal is well known to the other gatekeepers. There is one more condition here, due to societal and government norms, the gatekeepers cannot directly ask each other for favors and cannot also sell licenses openly in the market for a price – both activities will be considered as corrupt. Each gatekeeper thinks that by helping Pal, they will benefit in the future because of his supposed connections to other gatekeepers and his perceived influence.
Here’s how it works: Each gatekeeper, let’s say there are five of them, needs a different type of license for their personal use (or for use by a friend of theirs), which is controlled by another gatekeeper. So, Gatekeeper 1 needs something that Gatekeeper 2 controls, Gatekeeper 2 needs something from Gatekeeper 3, and so on, with Gatekeeper 5 needing something from Gatekeeper 1. Remember, that they cannot directly ask for licenses – that is corruption.
Pal cleverly positions himself as the middleman. He promises to each gatekeeper that he will arrange for them to get the license they need from another gatekeeper. In return, he asks each gatekeeper to give him a license of a type he needs, perhaps in a future instance. Since all gatekeepers believe Pal is influential, they agree to his terms, thinking this will also ensure they get what they need through his connections.
This arrangement turns into a circle of favors where everyone gives a license to someone else and receives the one they need, facilitated by Pal. Because everyone believes in Pal’s influence, they comply with his requests, thus making his influence a reality. This belief in Pal's power turns him into a crucial figure in the village, almost like money that serves as a medium of exchange.
The story illustrates how Pal’s perceived influence, coupled with the gatekeepers’ belief that helping him will benefit them, creates a system where Pal becomes powerful without having any actual resources of his own. His power comes from the mutual belief among the gatekeepers that he is influential, making him a central figure in their transactions.
Note here that the initial belief in Pal’s influence and the common knowledge that others consider Pal as influential placed him in this position. This common knowledge is a second order belief system. Even if an individual gatekeeper may not consider Pal as influential as far as their one-to-one equation is concerned and Pal may not have any direct power on any individual gatekeeper, if gatekeeper 1 believes that gatekeepers 2, 3, 4, and 5 consider Pal as influential, Pal will be considered as influential. Similarly, the logic would apply on each of these gatekeepers where their first order belief system may not accord the label of ‘influential’ on Pal but their second order belief system (belief about what others believe) could still lead to Pal being considered influential.
That initial belief could have been created by just the knowledge that Pal is known to and is in contact with other gatekeepers. Perhaps Pal’s ability to tap into an archetype of an influential person could have also helped.
There is, however, a caveat to this fake it till you make it approach. Fake it till you make it can bring a person from being an absolute non-entity (or a non-influential person in this game) to being considered a relevant entity (somewhat influential). However, over a long period of time, if Pal is not able to fulfil at least some of the promises, i.e. if he is not able to get some license from a gatekeeper for another, his reputation will start fading. Therefore fake it till you make it is a good strategy for initial opportunity development and coming into a position of influence but to maintain influence and to enhance it, actual performance is needed. Fake it till you make it can bring you from 0 to 1 but may not be able to take you from 1 to 10. However, from 0 to 1 is a big leap in itself and the ability of Pal to tap into the archetype of an influential person may induce some behaviors in his conduct, which creates the initial common knowledge among gatekeepers that Pal is influential.
Second order belief systems are tremendously important in the world and tapping into archetypes could be useful in triggering those second order beliefs. Not only archetypes but the symbols Pal gets associated with, the rituals he engages in, and the psyche that he projects would influence the game that Pal is in.
By extending the above logic, the path from archetypes to real life outcomes can be traced in matter that may relate to influence or the subject dealing with another problem such as facing a bully or facing a tough financial situation. Therefore, there are many stories of struggling businesspersons faking it, at least in their earlier days trying to look more successful than they are, or maintaining expensive cars or public memberships that they would otherwise financially afford. All of this is done to get from 0 to 1. Research is still needed on whether archetypes and symbolisms could take a person from 1 to 10. We know at least, that in some manner, it does help.
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