There comes a time in our lives when we realize that many of our decisions were not entirely our own but rather the result of unseen forces—what we often call "fate." As Carl Jung famously said:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Sigmund Freud divided the mind into three psychological forces: the conscious, the subconscious, and the unconscious. He used the analogy of an iceberg to illustrate his model. According to Freud, the conscious mind is like the visible tip of the iceberg—the small portion of mental activity we are aware of—while the unconscious remains hidden beneath the surface, forming the bulk of our psyche.
Building upon this foundation, Freud’s student Carl Jung further distinguished between two levels of the unconscious: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious, which he defined as follows:
“In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.” — Carl Jung
By understanding Jung’s distinction between the personal and collective unconscious, we gain insight into the profound ways in which universal patterns and symbols shape human experience. At the heart of the collective unconscious lies the concept of archetypes—the fundamental, recurring motifs that govern human thought and behavior.
“Archetypes are typical modes of apprehension, and wherever we meet with uniform and regularly recurring modes of apprehension, we are dealing with an archetype, no matter whether its mythological character is recognized or not.” — Carl Jung
Jung proposed that archetypes are universal, primordial images embedded in the collective unconscious, inherited rather than learned. These archetypes manifest across cultures in myths, fairy tales, religious stories, and modern narratives. Some of the key archetypes Jung identified include:
The Self – The unification of the conscious and unconscious.
The Shadow – The unknown, darker side of the personality.
The Anima/Animus – The feminine aspect in men and the masculine aspect in women.
The Hero – The figure who struggles and ultimately triumphs over adversity.
The Mother – A symbol of nurturing and caretaking.
While Jung explored the collective unconscious and archetypes within psychology, I believe these concepts extend far beyond psychology into broader and more profound realms of meaning. In my books, Dog and God: The Coincidences of Collective Unconscious, I demonstrate how these theories provide the best explanations for the phenomenon of meaningful coincidences—connections that often escape our normal perception.
The title of my book, Dog & God, itself illustrates a striking coincidence in word formation: reversing the letters of “DOG” results in “GOD.” Similarly, flipping “live” produces “evil,” and the letter M—which symbolizes “Mountain” and “Man”—becomes W, representing “Water” and “Woman.”
Following this pattern, I discovered many words that exhibit this mirrored symmetry. One striking example is the word “evolve”, composed of three symmetrical letter pairs (ev-ol-ve), corresponding to the three stages and six processes of life described in the Chinese Book of Changes (Yi Jing). The beginning (ev) and ending (ve) mirror each other, just as the name “Eve” symbolizes the origin of life. The middle letters “ol” (01), when reversed, become “lo” (10), reinforcing the idea that life does not merely repeat but moves forward in a spiral evolution.
Even deeper meanings emerge from the letter structure of “evolve”:
The first and last letter, “E”, originates from the Egyptian hieroglyph (𓀠), representing a human figure.
In the English alphabet, “E” is the most frequently used letter, appearing in countless essential words.
The lowercase “e” resembles both a fetus in the womb and a spiral galaxy—symbols of creation and expansion.
In science, “e” represents electrons and the electronic age, reinforcing its role in shaping human progress.
Although the original meaning of “human” has faded over time, the essence of “e” persists in the collective unconscious, appearing in fundamental words like Eve, egg, eye, ego, earth, evolve, eternal, and more.
These words formations suggest that language structure may not be entirely a product of conscious human design but instead follows deeper, universal patterns governed by the collective unconscious. Words, as the seeds of culture, instinctively align with the fundamental structures of life.
For over twenty years, collecting coincidences has been my everyday hobby. Observing, documenting, and contemplating these patterns has felt like assembling pieces of a cosmic puzzle—bringing order and meaning to what initially appears chaotic.
Jung’s theories transformed this pastime from a mere curiosity into a profound exploration of the hidden layers of the collective unconscious. I firmly believe that coincidences are neither random nor meaningless; rather, they serve as important messengers bridging our conscious awareness with the deeper, largely unexplored dimensions of the psyche.
Moving forward, I will share a series of intriguing coincidences involving words, numbers, symbols, colors, flags, maps, and more—each offering a glimpse into the mysteries of the collective unconscious.
Thank you for following me on this journey!
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