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Dream of 20th July 1954

I am in Copenhagen, at the home of Niels Bohr and his wife, Margarethe.  He makes an announcement to me, a very official one:

“Three popes have given you a house.  One of them is named John; I don’t know the names of the other two.  I have made no secret of the fact that we two do not share their religious beliefs but have nevertheless persuaded them to offer you the gift’.

He then presents me with a sort of document of the gift, and I sign it. At the same time, I am given a train ticket by Bohr and his wife to ride to the new house.

I regret very much that my wife is not present, for what can I do in a new house without her?

(Here I wake up briefly but soon go back to sleep. The dream continues.)

A late uncle of mine from Austria, a Catholic, appears to me in the dream, and I say to him: "The new house is for you and your family. I hope you will enjoy it."

Context. This dream is a very fundamental one, and I cannot actually say that I have "understood" it. Niels Bohr stands for the idea of complementarity and for theoretical nuclear physics. In real life, he does actually have the ability to overcome people's resistance and convince them of practical measures that he considers right. His own house is a focal meeting point for many people; his wife enjoys organizing large parties and does so extremely well.

The Bohrs also have several grandchildren (not 19 but 11), some of whom are often there.

Now comes the archetypal part of the dream. As for the three popes, it occurred to me that this was an earthly representation of the Trinity and also a linkup with a Catholic tradition. This is also represented later by the Catholic relatives. In contrast to the dogmas, the rites of the Catholic Church have preserved several experiences of a "magical" nature that may be of value in parapsychological terms and that arouse my interest. I am thinking, for example, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, an "experiment" that involves the transformation of the person experimenting.

My dreams actually make no basic distinction between "laboratory" and "church" (see below and cf. alchemy!), so the new house could be both. The pair of opposites in this dream is natural science (physics)-Catholic tradition. The new house is always the place where a union of pairs of opposites takes place, a conjunctio.

As for John, I think of the Evangelist and hence gnosis, although of course the Evangelist was not a pope. Otherwise, the three popes are rather indeterminate, but the Trinity-supplemented by Bohr and his wife-fits in well with the coniunctio. [Father and Mother and Son; Rex and Regina]

The absence of my wife or her loss (disappearance into the unconscious), or the fact that I am in a place where I try in vain to reach her by telephone is a motif that often turns up in my dreams.  I should like to propose an interpretation on a subjective level, for the simple reason that, as far as I can judge myself, it seems to correspond to reality. My wife is a sensation type, whereas with me the fonction du reel is the inferior function.