Information AboutCryptomnesia |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT CRYPTOMNESIA | |
| jungian psychology | |
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As explained expertly by Carl Jung , in ''Man and His Symbols,'' "An author may be writing steadily to a preconceived plan, working out an argument or developing the line of a story, when he suddenly runs off at a tangent. Perhaps a fresh idea has occurred to him, or a different image, or a whole new sub-plot. If you ask him what prompted the digression, he will not be able to tell you. He may not even have noticed the change, though he has now produced material that is entirely fresh and apparently unknown to him before. Yet it can sometimes be shown convincingly that what he has written bears a striking similarity to the work of another author--a work that he believes he has never seen." Jung goes on to list more specific examples. Friedrich Nietzsche 's book '' Thus Spoke Zarathustra '' includes an almost word for word account of an incident also included in a book published about 1835, half a century before Nietzsche wrote. This is neither considered to be purposeful Plagiarism nor pure coincidence. Nietzsche's sister confirmed that he had indeed read the original account when he was 11-years-old. Not all examples were of the same nature. For example, cryptomnesia is likely the result of some memories becoming forcibly unconscious ones due to lack of room in the conscious. Therefore it does not always take the shape of plagiarism, as it would in writing, as well as musical compositions, and other art forms, but can also be the basis of Philosophy . "The ability to reach a rich vein of such material the unconscious and to translate it effectively into philosophy, literature, music or scientific discovery is one of the hallmarks of what is commonly called genius." ---Carl Jung, ''Man and His Symbols.'' German academic Michael Marr's book ''The Two Lolitas'' (ISBN 1844670384) describes his recent discovery of a has always been a huge crucible in which familiar themes are continually recast...Nothing of what we admire in ''Lolita'' is already to be found in the tale; the former is in no way deducible from the latter." "We can find clear proof of this fact in the history of science itself. For example, the French mathematician Poincaré and the chemist Kekulé owed important scientific discoveries (as they themselves admit) to sudden pictorial 'revelations' from the unconscious. The so-called 'mystical' experience of the French philosopher Descartes involved a similar sudden revelation in which he saw in a flash the 'order of all sciences.' The British author Robert Louis Stevenson had spent years looking for a story that would fit his 'strong sense of man's double being,' when the plot of '' Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde '' was suddenly revealed to him in a dream." --- Carl Jung ''Man and His Symbols'' The mention of Kekulé is most interesting. While researching Benzene , the German chemist dreamed of a snake with its tail in its mouth. Kekulé interpreted the snake as a representation of the closed-carbon ring of benzene, but the symbol of the snake with its tail in its mouth is an ancient one known as the Ouroboros . It can be found in Greek manuscripts from as long ago as the third century BC. This snake can also symbolize reversible chemical reactions. |
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