Culture and knowledge go through an evolution, but the human psyche stays the same. Consciousness forms under the influence of cultural rules and prohibitions and sometimes it is easier to understand what you can’t do than what you can.
To think that we do as we please is an illusion, since to be conscious is to act in ways accepted in a particular culture.
Drawing by C.G. Jung
Drawing by a patient with paranoia
To comprehend the world it is not enough to just open your eyes. “I would not be able to see an object as really existing if I would not be able to ask you about it.”
Reality does not rise out of sensations. Sensations as such don’t exist. What exists are images and processes, their opposition and oneness. To perceive anything we need to interact with it. If we stop the micro motions of our eyes, we will stop seeing the world.
When attention is distracted a healthy person may experience symptoms of schizophrenia. It is possible that, in the case of schizophrenia, the function of keeping attention is disturbed.
We all have an idea about who we are in society. If one were to disturb this knowledge and take away from us such objectification it could lead to a condition of anxiety and panic.
Drawing by C.G. Jung
Drawing by a patient with early dementia
The difference between fear and anxiety is that fear is objectified and anxiety has an unknown source. A human experiencing anxiety starts a chaotic and disorderly search for the source of the anxiety. When the source is found, anxiety turns into fear. But anxiety may also contribute to finding illusions and hallucinations instead of objects and events. In that sense, fear is better than anxiety. This is why it is good to introduce a child to scary images, like the boogeyman or a zombie, to objectify their anxieties.
Too much self reflection and analysis of one’s own condition is already a problem and it may lead to identity disorder.
Drawing by C.G. Jung
Drawing by a patient in the recovery period after the depression
Pareidolia is when a person sees faces in stains or in cracks of marble. Pareidolia is also when images appear in paintings and drawings as a result of combining various lines and forms into new relationships which were not meant by the artist. Pareidolias are hard to dispel as they persist when you begin to examine them. Pareidolia happens to people with abundant imagination and to alcoholics just before a delirium tremens. The less differentiated the image, the easier it will be to create an illusion out of it.
During the delirium tremens images formed from elements of various patterns can be threatening: spiders crawl, a person may see army of scorpions, cockroaches, flies, rats, devils crawl towards him from all directions. The more severe the delirium, the more difficult it will be for him to create holistic, beautiful images instead of some undefined mass of flies.
Drawing by C.G. Jung
Drawing by a patient with progressive paralysis
In art we can find many deviations from the norm, but it doesn’t mean that the artist is ill. An artist usually has a communicative intention, for example, to show how logical thinking can be disturbed.
Emotional world perception is more archaic. Myths, rituals and animation of nature are all connected with affects and not with the need to explain the world. In that sense affect is the creator of the world.
Emotions of animals signal biological meaning and prepare actions. Animals need them for quick response, for example, to run away. Human emotions signal personal meaning of an object or event in a particular situation.
Drawing by C.G. Jung
Drawing by a patient with schizophrenia
In humans biological and social meanings are separated. For example, to sleep as humans, is to sleep in a socially accepted way. As our emotions become connected to social needs it becomes socially unacceptable to immediately express certain emotions or even to express emotions at all. For example, you can’t hit someone in the face as soon as you feel like doing it.
To know on an articulate level is to be able to explain with words what you know and how to complete certain tasks. Non-articulate knowledge is to be able to perform what you know but not being able to articulate the how in words.