I believe in a form of collective unconscious but I relate it
more to "things in common" simply by being human. Our societies
are all similar. Our needs are all similar. Our hopes and dreams
are all similar. But we use different types of symbolism to
express difficult concepts with depending upon our cultures,
which is why different cultures use different types of
symbolism. Egypt has its set of symbolisms. Christian cultures
(the West is a Christian culture steeped in Christian symbolism)
have theirs, Chinese culture has theirs, Japanese culture has
theirs.
They can all be tied together of course; the specifics differ
but the underlying concepts are more-or-less similar.
Is it a collective unconsciousness? Of a sort, yes.*
We can even level up to Gaia; from a long-away perspective, we
could be considered "one life form" on this planet. Like a slime
mold oozing over the planet over billions of years, dependent
upon the systems of this planet for birth, life, death,
reconstruction, rebirth and continuation into myriad
metaphorphized forms.
In that sense, all life is one and connected, and it's not
unreasonable that being similarly patterned as humans that we
would have similar unconsciousnesses.
Is there a deeper connection? Quite possibly.*
I'm a fan of embodied cognition and with that, the brain, the
body and the environment and our social relationships are all
"one thing", like a machinery with invisible wires that we just
can't see or measure at present using scientific tools, but
we're certainly aware of in day-to-day life via communication,
feelings, words, etc.
Even here; are you an I physically connected in some way?
Absolutely. My brain and yours are linked across the gaps of
Time as we negotiate meaning as we communicate.
So it's not unreasonable to me to consider a collective
unconsciousness as being a tangible reality.
