Up: [[Blue Box]] Related: [[C. G. Jung]] Created: 2023-01-28 > [!Orbit] [[C. G. Jung]] in *Memories, Dreams, Reflections* > The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life — in them everything essential was decided. It all began then; the later details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the **prima materia** (original matter) for a life’s work. (p. 199) > At the age of 39, after a brutal severing of his relationship with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung entered a five year period (1914-1918) of extreme confusion and uncertainty. Some authors suggest he suffered a breakdown. Most assert that it was at least an extended [[Dark Night of the Soul]]. Jung began a long period of self-experimentation that he called his *confrontation with the unconscious*. This experiment consisted of waiting for signs of inner help, and finding that help in two places. One was in a memory, with strong emotional value, of a time at age eleven when Jung made things out of blocks and stones. As an adult, Jung started constructing a model village during his lunch hours and after finishing with patients for the day. He felt foolish pursuing a childhood passion, but he said it helped to save him. The other activity was to allow dream and daytime images to rise up from his unconscious and then work with those images through [[Active Imagination]], drawings and paintings. These were recorded in the Black Books and in [[Jung's Red Book]]. Jung had resigned his professorship at the time of this work, but he continued to see patients and he credits staying grounded with work and family for allowing him to keep his sanity during this time. This must have been really horrendous, especially since this all also coincided with the start of World War One, which was a time of intense anxiety and uncertainty for everyone. But, as the quote at the top indicates, Jung’s efforts decided everything that would ultimately form Jungian psychology. His Red book ends in the middle of a sentence with the word *possibility*.