Big-Small

There is a strong symbolic relationship between what is (too) big and what is (too) small, much like in the alchemists' "as above, so below," and so on (Practice of Psychotherapy, par. 384).  

If one dreams of something enormous, according to Jung, one should watch out for something tiny, and vice versa. Archetypal ideas are always ambivalent. Jung says:

"What is right is also left, what is up is also down, what exists does not exist ... the greatest is also the smallest, and so on" (Children's Dreams, p. 389).

Similarly, "the very largest is disguised as the very smallest"; for example, the Self as a small fish in the vast sea – "one of the small, but powerful as few," capable of making "the proud frigates of the sea stand still" (Aion, par. 222-223).  

The connection between the small and the large is common in folk tales, where a comb can potentially be a mountain ridge, or a mirror a sea, and so on. In dreams, just like in folklore, the part represents the whole; for example, a bear’s claw contains the whole bear’s strength, or a hair represents the whole person. Conversely, the human being is seen as a microcosm containing the entire world, and so on.  

When in emotional turmoil or out of sorts, people tend to magnify and exaggerate – they create a storm in a teacup or make a mountain out of a molehill. These expressions show how small what is big remains for someone making a sober judgment. Giants are large, unruly, untamed, and an expression of this dynamic where one might be caught in a complex.

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