Definitions for "Collective unconscious"
Carl Jung proposed that, in addition to the personal unconscious (that region of the human psyche having its origin largely in the repression of experiences actually undergone by the individual in the course of life), there is a collective unconscious. This is the repository of our "racial," rather than individual, experiences. What the human race has undergone in its actual evolution has, in some measure and manner, become encoded in the human organism itself, such that instincts and archetypes are transmitted from earlier generations to later ones. The supposition that there is a collective unconscious is a highly controversial one; but it is a position for which Jung strenuously and painstakingly argued, not without effect.
This is a term used by psycho-theorist Carl Jung to refer to the commonality that all humans share through our Unconscious. Most people are familiar with Freud's idea of the personal unconscious, which contains suppressed feelings and perceptions. But Jung believed that we all share certain common experiences of life at an unconscious level, which emerge as parallel stories and themes in areas like cultural stories, mythology and personal dreams. The Collective Unconscious is where archetypes are found, which reflect the essence of those common experiences. Some astrologers regard the astrological zodiac signs as being reflections of universal archetypes. See also: archetype.
the psychic connection between people, plants, animals, insects and spirit.