We share a pool of inspiration.

The collective unconscious is our shared instincts, archetypes, and symbols.

Author Jean M. Auel incorporates the collective unconscious into her book Clan of the Cave Bear. She describes early humans living 20,000 years ago who share a pool of memories. They inherit the group’s memory at birth and share it within their community.

Today, this is known as racial-genetic memory. The idea that our body holds collective memories. One can access these collective memories through awareness and experiences.

The collective unconscious is known across cultures, around the world, and is now being proven by modern scientists.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung integrated the “collective unconscious” into our modern society.

Freud questioned the accepted notion of “I think therefore I am”.

Instead, Freud offered his belief that much of what is happening to you and inside of you is not immediately accessible by your conscious awareness. There may be other factors at play inside of you directing the show.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson speaks eloquently on the subject, saying that you can formulate ideas and act out things you are unaware of for reasons you don’t understand. Meaning, there is more going on inside of you than you think.

The term “collective unconscious” was coined by Carl Jung. He spoke about an encompassing soul of humanity. All humans, regardless of racial and geographic differences, may share the same collective pool of instincts and images.

“…there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.” Carl Jung

We share a library of mythological symbolism. It crosses oceans, continents, and cultures. It is our universal visual language.

From caves paintings to architecture to modern branding, we see the same images repeated over and over again.

We fit in there somewhere.