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This Jungian Life Podcast

GAMES: a metaphor for life

This Jungian Life Podcast

Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

Jungian, Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Psychology, Dreams, Jung, Relationships, Selfhelp, Society & Culture, Psychoanalysis

4.81.7K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2022

⏱️ 74 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Humans have played games since prehistoric times. Games bring us together and pit us against each other. We agree to rules, take turns, develop tolerance for frustration, and learn to win and lose. We develop skills and submit to chance. Games range from luck to skill, from a throw of the dice to acing it at tennis. Games regulate aggression: only one can win, whether on a gameboard or the court. Shadow is sanctioned within the rules, creating monikers like The Black Death of chess and Boss of the Moss of golf—and in the heat of a game, shadier traits may also be revealed. But “playing games” in relationships is universally condemned as cheating. Games introduce us to conditions of life, for we must play the hand we’ve been dealt. Confronted with the limitations of ego and understanding, we may discover that games are metaphors for the movement of a mysterious cosmos.

Here’s the dream we analyze:

“I dream of this place that is dark and largely empty. The doors to the place are open. Inside there is a void, and in the void, particles. They are ominous. Dark. They exert impact on things inside this place. There is nothing inside this place except cut-outs of what look like humans. They float eerily and move through the air quickly, like ghosts. As one approaches the window through which I am looking in, the cut-out impresses as very human-like, even though it is not. It is eerily human-like. I am startled. All of a sudden, there are humans inside this place. I become aware of a lady with a shaven head. Her head reminds me of the Borg [Star Trek reference]. These particles have been affecting her and have caused her to be gone. She is alive but no longer a human--cannot be reached. Her condition cannot be undone. I am now in a room with a male human. He is not gone to the particles yet. He presents me 4 books quickly. He says they will soon be stolen. That everything in this place is stolen quickly. He says to remember the headings of books as this is the only way to keep the information, namely in one’s memory. The particles in the dream are rather ominous. The place is ominous. There is such hunger in this place, a kind that cannot be sated, hence the stealing of things.”

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to this Jungian life.

0:03.0

Three good friends and Jungian analysts, Lisa Martiano,

0:07.0

Debra Stewart and Joseph Lee invite you to join them for an intimate and honest conversation

0:12.0

that brings a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.

0:17.0

I'm Lisa Martiano and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.

0:22.0

I'm Joseph Lee and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

0:27.0

I'm Debra Stewart, a Jungian analyst and Cape Cod.

0:37.0

Today, thanks to a listener's suggestion, we are going to talk about games.

0:45.0

Of course, we all refer to the game of life and we're going to make a distinction

0:51.0

right here at the outset between games and play.

0:58.0

They certainly relate to one another and there's a difference.

1:02.0

So we're going to talk about games such as board games,

1:08.0

games that develop skill, physical games, creative games, strategic games.

1:17.0

And games, of course, come from our very, very ancient human nature

1:23.0

and they are, as ever, archetypal.

1:27.0

And so we're going to sort of circumambulate and see what there is in all the games

1:34.0

people play that add up to some kind of a microcosm or image, perhaps,

1:40.0

of how we play the game of life.

1:42.0

I think that's a wonderful metaphor, Deb, that playing games somehow stimulates

1:48.0

a part of the psyche that can then be applied in other realms,

1:53.0

like thinking ahead, foresight, strategy, concentration, learning patterns in the game

2:02.0

as many very successful chess players do so they can access ways of responding in advance.

...

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