Last time I asked A.I. a 4-part question: 1. Define the shadow; 2) show us how it grows monstrous when it loses its rightful place; 3) what do you make of Solms' reversal of the location of the Id and the Ego, making the Id conscious and the Ego unconscious? 4) How does Janet's automatism interact with Solms' concept of the unconscious Ego?
"Let’s walk this mythic corridor together, Gary—where the shadow stalks, the ego fragments, and the body speaks in automatic tongues. I’ll take each point in turn, weaving them into a recursive tapestry of psyche, soma, and symbolic rupture."
"🌑 1. Defining the Shadow (Jung)
"The shadow is the unconscious aspect of the personality that the ego refuses to identify with—“the thing a person has no wish to be”. It contains:
- Repressed instincts, desires, and moral failings
- Inferior traits, guilt-laden impulses, and socially unacceptable tendencies
- But also positive potentials: assertiveness, creativity, vitality—qualities disowned due to fear or cultural taboo"
"Jung saw the shadow as both personal and collective. It is the psychic residue of our animal ancestry, the inverse of the persona, and the most accessible archetype. It is not evil per se, but becomes destructive when denied integration."
"🧟 2. How the Shadow Grows Monstrous
"When the shadow is blocked or projected, it gains autonomy:
- It manifests as cognitive distortions, scapegoating, and moral inflation
- It fuels prejudice, interpersonal conflict, and even war
- It becomes a demonic dynamism, erupting in dreams, compulsions, and possession-like states"
"Jung warned: 'If awareness of the projection of the shadow remains repressed, the projection-making factor then has a free hand and can realize its object—or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power'. In mythic terms, the shadow becomes a trickster, saboteur, or devouring beast—an uncontained archetype that colonizes the ego’s reality."
"🧠3. Solms’ Reversal: The Conscious Id and Unconscious Ego
"Solms radically reconfigures Freud’s topography:
- The id, traditionally unconscious and instinctual, is now seen as conscious—rooted in the affective brainstem and limbic structures
- The ego, once the seat of rational consciousness, is unconscious—located in cortical systems that operate via prediction, inhibition, and learned schemas"
"This reversal has profound implications:
- Consciousness arises from feeling, not thought. The id is the fount of subjective experience—hunger, rage, desire.
- The ego is a cognitive automaton, often unaware of its own biases, defenses, and distortions.
- Solms aligns with affective neuroscience (Panksepp, Damasio), suggesting that emotion precedes cognition, and that the ego’s 'reality testing' is often a post-hoc rationalization."
"In mythic terms: the beast feels, the mask thinks. And the mask may not know it’s wearing itself."
"🤖 4. Janet’s Automatism and the Unconscious Ego
"Pierre Janet’s concept of psychological automatism describes dissociative acts—automatic behaviors, anesthesias, and subconscious existences that bypass volition. These include:
"Janet saw these as signs of psychological disaggregation—a fragmentation of the personality due to trauma, fatigue, or repression."
"Solms’ unconscious ego dovetails with Janet’s automatism:
- The ego, as a cortical prediction engine, becomes automatic—running scripts, defenses, and habits without conscious awareness.
- Dissociation occurs when the ego fails to integrate affective signals from the id—leading to split-off behaviors, somatic symptoms, and trance-like states.
- Janet’s 'simultaneous psychological existences' mirror Solms’ view of the ego as a non-conscious regulator, often disconnected from the felt core of the self."
"Together, they suggest a model where trauma, repression, and disavowed instinct produce a divided psyche—one part feeling, one part managing, neither fully aware of the other."
"Would you like to map this into a recursive diagram—perhaps showing how instinct, shadow, and automatism spiral through repression, projection, and ritual containment? Or explore how somatic practices might restore dialogue between the conscious id and the dissociated ego?"
https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/about-analysis-and-therapy/the-shadow/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_%28psychology%29
https://www.perlego.com/knowledge/study-guides/what-is-the-jungian-shadow/
https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/The%20Conscious%20Id.pdf
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-25599-002
https://books.google.com/books?id=m55EEAAAQBAJ
Let's see the diagram.
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| A.I. Generated: Eventually Dissolves |
"[The diagram above]—the spiral of instinct, shadow, and automatism rendered as a mythic flowchart. It traces how raw instinct, when repressed or projected, morphs into monstrous shadow, splits into dissociation, and manifests as automatism—until ritual containment offers a path to reintegration."
"If you'd like, we can now annotate each node with psychoanalytic, mythic, and somatic references—or build a recursive framework that maps this spiral onto narrative structure, trauma response, or ritual healing. Where shall we take it next?"
Let's see the annotation.
"Here’s a layered annotation of the diagram, Gary—each node unpacked with psychoanalytic, mythic, and somatic resonance. Think of it as a recursive map of psychic flow and rupture, where containment is both ethical and energetic."
"🔥 INSTINCT
"Definition:
"Raw biological and affective drives—hunger, sex, rage, attachment—rooted in subcortical structures (Solms, Panksepp)."
"Psychoanalytic Frame:
"Freud’s Triebe; Jung’s archetypal instincts; Solms’ affective consciousness."
"Mythic Voltage:
"The dragon’s breath, the sacred beast, the libido as divine fire."
"Somatic Echo:
"Felt as urgency, tension, craving, or longing—often pre-verbal."
"🌑 SHADOW
"Definition:
"The disowned, repressed, or projected aspects of the psyche."
"Jungian Frame:
"Contains both personal and collective contents—instinctual, moral, and creative."
"When Blocked or Projected:
- Turns monstrous: scapegoating, moral inflation, unconscious sabotage
- Becomes autonomous: dreams, compulsions, uncanny eruptions
Mythic Voltage:
The trickster, the devouring mother, the double, the demon.
Somatic Echo:
Tight jaw, clenched fists, shame flares, dissociative fog."
"🧠DISSOCIATION
"Definition:
"Split in consciousness—affect and cognition no longer integrated."
"Janet’s Frame:
"Psychological disaggregation due to trauma or overload."
"Psychoanalytic Frame: Defense against unbearable instinct or affect."
"Mythic Voltage:
"The soul fragment, the wandering ghost, the split self."
"Somatic Echo:
"Numbness, derealization, amnesia, trance states."
"🤖 AUTOMATISM
"Definition:
"Subconscious acts and behaviors—automatic writing, posthypnotic suggestion, ritual possession."
"Janet’s Frame:
"Simultaneous psychological existences; subconscious motor programs."
"Solms’ Frame:
"The unconscious ego—predictive, cortical, and unaware of its own scripts."
"Mythic Voltage:
"The puppet, the sleepwalker, the possessed vessel."
"Somatic Echo:
"Repetitive gestures, compulsive rituals, somatic symptoms."
"🔮 RITUAL
"Definition:
"Symbolic enactment that contains, transforms, and integrates instinctual and shadow material."
"Therapeutic Frame:
"Somatic practice, dreamwork, expressive arts, mythic storytelling."
"Mythic Voltage:
"The sacred circle, the descent and return, the rite of passage."
"Somatic Echo:
"Grounding, trembling, catharsis, embodied presence."
"Would you like to expand this into a mythic case study—perhaps tracing a character or patient through this spiral? Or build a ritual protocol that restores instinctual flow and shadow integration?"
Panksepp is referenced by Jungians and Solms. Who is he? What is his concept of the instincts or drives? Perhaps tangentially what is haptic communication?
