CARL JUNG AFTERLIFE EXPERIENCES
The World Beyond the Earth
“What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it.”--Carl Jung (Psychologist)
Your Spiritual Preparation
 Many spiritual systems believe that life should be lived as a preparation for death. For many people, this process of spiritual preparation works on an unconscious level. Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist (1875-1961) believed in a spiritual survival beyond physical death. His conviction was strengthened when he observed that dreams behaved as if the psyche will continue to exist after death. In particular, the common denominator of the dreams of the dying does not seem to be simply an end of earthly existence, but transformation into a continuing other form of life.
Jung proposed that death dreams are linked with a primordial set of archetypes, and through their analysis it is possible to conclude that life will continue after death. Jung also maintained that the belief in an afterlife means a great deal to most people and helps them to live this life more harmoniously. For those who see death as the absolute end of life, death is a great catastrophe. Those, however, who believe in eternity often regard death as a joyful event.
DREAMS ABOUT DEATH
At many times throughout our life, dreams help us to deal with the angst of our own mortality. You may occasionally dream about death itself or dream about it event in a symbolic way. For example, a dream about death may be represented as a journey into the unknown, or as a wedding in which the soul joins its missing half with the wholeness. Gradually, such dreams can prepare your spirit for a transition yet years in the future.
Skeptics may argue that dreams about death and rebirth are merely expressions of wish-fulfilment. However, dreams do reflect more than simply one’s unconscious needs or wishes. Jung showed that dreams do sometimes symbolically foretell a death. They may use brutal motifs such as clocks that stop and cannot be started again, or the theme of the life-tree being hewn down. Don’t be alarmed, however, if you dream about death. Such dreams often occur as a result of stress caused by relationships, job changes, money worries, and other difficulties you may be experiencing in life. Death dreams may also symbolize a life where you are becoming emotionally overwhelmed or find it hard to cope. Not all death dreams are about an actual pending death.
AFTERLIFE EXPERIENCES AND THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
 Jung believed that we have a “collective unconscious,” which refers to the storehouse of myths and symbols that are common to all of humanity and to which everyone has access via their dreams. Dreams about death and dying often draw upon this reservoir of universal ideas. Many of the images that the unconscious uses are about transformation. The Jungian psychotherapist Marie Louise Von Franz says that the dreams of those who are dying can be interpreted as preparation of the consciousness for the transformation of the psyche and its entry into the afterlife. “All of the dreams of people who are facing death indicate that the unconscious, that is, our instinct world, prepares consciousness not for a definite end but for a profound transformation and for a kind of continuation of the life process which, however, is unimaginable to everyday consciousness.”
 This fact was once expressed in a dream that I wrote down in my dream diary:
“I am traveling through a beautiful countryside. All around is magnificent scenery. I can hear birdsong and smell flowers. I have a deep-seated feeling of joy. Everything is alive with light. It is as if the world is made of light. I look at my hands and realize that I too am made of light.
I come to a village hall and can hear the faint sound of voices from within. I step inside to darkness. In the gloom I can see a play in progress. Some people urge me to join in and soon I find myself acting a part in the play. We perform one play after another. Some are tragic, others comic. I become aware that they go on forever without end.”
This dream is a metaphor that expresses the human predicament. In reality, we are beings of light but have come to the world and become entwined in a series of plays. In the dream, these represent how we move from one life to another without end. Each play is another human life in which we act out our part. The problem is, we have forgotten what lies outside the village hall. We have forgotten that we are beings of light.
 The Shakespearean actor Sir Ralph Richardson who died in 1983 expressed a similar idea when he said “The idea (of reincarnation) seems quite logical to me. Not that I think I might once have been an Egyptian pharaoh, but the idea that man, or shall we say his spirit or mind, has at one time or another in its existence inhabited some other form of body seems sensible to me. I think of life as a great pool or reservoir.
We are taken from this pool and given a body, not necessarily a human body, like a suit of clothes to wear. When we have used that body to the best of our ability and it wears out, we die and for a time return to the pool of life until we are given another “suit of clothes.”
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