Dark Clouds over Europe

Dreams provide us with insight into ourselves. For the dreamer, they bring up important issues that can balance out or complement any one-sidedness on the consciousness level. But they can also provide objective insights and give us orientation with regard to external people and things. If they also have collective components, so-called big or archetypal dreams can also be important for society as a whole. Such dreams reveal things in a person’s collective unconscious psychic background that can be destructive, but can also bring cultural benefits. In this book, the author and psychotherapist interprets dreams collected between 1989 and 1992 from a wide range of people relating directly to the question of an independent sovereign Switzerland and to Europe in general. Such "big," archetypal dreams have something to say not just to the dreamer personally. They also contribute to an understanding of the collective situation in Switzerland at the time and still have something important to say today. Their symbolic content remains valid and of significance as long as they continue to draw attention to something that has not yet become generally conscious. The dreams presented here give a sense of what is probably being activated in the background of contemporary events.

The dangerous consequences of turning a blind eye to the reality behind the dreams and conversely, the positive effects of incorporating the images from this unconscious dream world are summarized at the end in relation to Switzerland, in relation to Europe and to the world in general.

Theodor Abt (1947), born in Zurich, Switzerland; Ph.D. from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich 1977, 1973-79 project leader of overall regional development concepts for two Swiss mountain regions. Since 1975 Jungian Analyst in private practice. 1983-88 member of the board of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich. Since 1990 Professor for Rural Sociology at the ETH. Since 1995, member of the board of the Research and Training Centre for Depthpsychology according to C.G. Jung and M.-L. von Franz, Zurich. Since 1988, President of the Society of the Friends of the Royal Tombs of Egypt. His research focuses on the relationship of the outer world with the needs of the inner unconscious world.