Monster

Monsters and dinosaurs represent a kind of pre-human energy that is either truly or perceived as monstrous or archaic, and likely deeply unconscious. The monstrous sometimes illustrates the autonomous complex’s tendency to distort reality.  

Often the monster in dreams consists of a strange mixture of various types of creatures, each of which needs to be examined and interpreted to be understood. "Monsters" like centaurs or mermaids have a more spiritual quality and are certainly connected to creative fantasies.  

Defeating monsters is, of course, a universal element in hero myths and can symbolize the liberation of individuality.  

Monsters, in a broader sense, "want" to make contact with us in our dreams. The monstrous often arises from our attitude toward the content. (See also Animals.)  

von Franz notes in Projection and Re-Collection that the demonic—provided the dreamer stands firm and seeks to become conscious of the content through reflection—can be the creative taking shape, but which the dreamer has not yet realized or "made real" (p. 105). She writes that the creative and the demonic are, psychologically, closely related. "Nothing in the human psyche is more destructive than unrealized, unconscious creative impulses" (p. 106).  

von Franz expresses this somewhat differently in The Golden Ass: "... the divine is often initially experienced in its pathological and morbid form. This is where the divine experience lies, and it is what makes it so difficult to accept" (p. 31).  

Jung's comments in Visions convey a corresponding idea: The monster symbolizes the "hidden meaning" of a person, situation, or era. The hero always has a monster (which is why the hero sometimes has serpent eyes or similar attributes) that symbolizes his secret meaning, not yet revealed (pp. 850–851).

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