Personal unconscious

1. Etymology

Personal unconscious names the personal layer of the unconscious, distinct from the collective-unconscious. Related: repression; subliminal perception; contents not yet ripe for consciousness.

2. Plain summary

It contains lost memories, painful ideas repressed (forgotten on purpose), subliminal sense-perceptions too weak to reach consciousness, and contents not yet ripe for consciousness.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common personal-unconscious motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
lost memories; repressed painful ideas; subliminal perceptions; unripe contents; distinct from collective-unconscious; Samuels → shadow / unconscious; dual-stamp path; complex neighborhood.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology personal unconscious is biographical unconscious layer—CW 7 ¶103. Descent Press keeps Sharp and Samuels redirect in §4. Prefer CW 7 ¶103; dual-stamp CU / unconscious / shadow.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Personal unconscious. The personal layer of the unconscious, distinct from the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions … and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness.

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 7 ¶103 in Sharp’s lemma.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — personal unconscious redirect

personal unconscious See SHADOW; UNCONSCIOUS.

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986/2013)

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

We have to distinguish between a personal unconscious and an impersonal or transpersonal unconscious. We speak of the latter also as the collective unconscious… The personal unconscious contains lost memories, painful ideas that are repressed (i.e., forgotten on purpose), subliminal perceptions… and finally, contents that are not yet ripe for consciousness. It corresponds to the figure of the shadow so frequently met with in dreams.
(Jung, 1917/1966, CW 7, pp. 101–102, ¶103)

Dual-stamp collective-unconscious CU-1–4 — already folded; no rewrite.

See also: collective-unconscious; unconscious; shadow; complex; ego; repression (no polished leaf — prose).

References

Jung, C. G. (1966). On the psychology of the unconscious. 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. 7, pp. 101–102, ¶103). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1917)

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.