Consciousness

1. Etymology

Consciousness names the function or activity that maintains the relation of psychic contents to the ego—conceptually distinct from the psyche as a whole, which includes the unconscious. Related: discrimination of opposites; compensation.

2. Plain summary

Consciousness is how contents stay related to “I.” Without sorting opposites, Jung says, there is no consciousness. It wells up from unknown depths—awakening in childhood, each morning from sleep—more superstructure on the unconscious than a self-made lamp.

It can flash in high emotional tension or in contemplative association that suddenly connects distant ideas. Related to ego as center of the conscious field, and to introversion/extraversion as orientations of conscious energy.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common consciousness-related figures and motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
relation of psychic contents to the ego; psyche = consciousness + unconscious; no consciousness without discrimination of opposites; arises via emotional tension or contemplative flash of association; discharge of energy-tension; wells up from unknown depths; daily birth from unconscious sleep; superstructure on unconscious; precondition for humanity and individuality; compensatory relation to unconscious; ego as conscious center; collective unconscious / personal layers beneath; typology of conscious functions; compensation from below; inflation when ego identifies with larger contents.

3. Academic elucidation

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Consciousness. The function or activity which maintains the relation of psychic contents to the ego; distinguished conceptually from the psyche, which encompasses both consciousness and the unconscious. … There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites. … Consciousness does not create itself—it wells up from unknown depths…

(Sharp, 1991, p. [provisional — unverified])

consciousness … By consciousness I understand the relation of psychic contents to the ego, insofar as this relation is perceived by the ego… recognising consciousness as a pre-condition for humanity as well as for becoming an individual…

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

By consciousness I understand the relation of psychic contents to the ego, in so far as this relation is perceived as such by the ego. … Consciousness is the function or activity which maintains the relation of psychic contents to the ego. Consciousness is not identical with the psyche… because the psyche represents the totality of all psychic contents…

There is no consciousness without discrimination of opposites.

Consciousness is continually widened through the confrontation with previously unconscious contents, or—to be more accurate—could be widened if it took the trouble to integrate them.

See also: ego; unconscious; opposites; compensation; introversion; extraversion; collective unconscious; individuation; self. (Queued — typology.)

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). Psychological aspects of the mother archetype. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 9, pt. 1, p. 95, ¶178). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1938)

Jung, C. G. (1969). The transcendent function. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (2nd ed., Vol. 8, p. 129, ¶193). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1958)

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types [Definitions: Consciousness]. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire (Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 6, p. 586, ¶700). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1921)

Samuels, A., Shorter, B., & Plaut, F. (1986). A critical dictionary of Jungian analysis. Routledge.

Sharp, D. (1991). Jung lexicon: A primer of terms & concepts. Inner City Books.