Subjective level

1. Etymology

Subjective level names the approach to dreams and images where pictured persons or situations are read as symbolic representations of factors in the subject’s own psyche. Compare objective-level. Related: projection; shadow; complex.

2. Plain summary

On the subjective level, an object-imago in a dream is not automatically the real outer person—it is likelier a subjective functional complex using the object as vehicle. After reductive work, the mature task is to see what the troubling images say about oneself: assimilate positive values one had attributed only to others; discover that hated qualities may be one’s own shadow. The same lens opens literary figures as autonomous complexes in an author’s psyche.

Examples (exhaustive house list for this Index lemma — common subjective-level motifs named across Jung’s essays and standard Jungian lexica; not a claim that Jung’s CW contains only these):
dream persons as own-psyche factors; object as vehicle of subjective judgments; vs objective-level; assimilate projected value/shadow; literary figures as complexes; post-reductive self-understanding; kinship with projection / complex.

3. Academic elucidation

In analytical psychology subjective level is a mode of interpretation—inwarding the image after (or beside) reductive/outer readings. Lexica (Sharp; Samuels no dedicated head) supply paraphrase Do not invent loci.

4. Lexicon

Sharp (1991)

Subjective level. The approach to dreams and other images where the persons or situations pictured are seen as symbolic representations of factors belonging entirely to the subject’s own psyche. (Compare objective level.) … Interpretation on the subjective level allows us to take a broader psychological view not only of dreams but also of literary works…

(Sharp, 1991) — cites CW 6 ¶813.

Samuels, Shorter & Plaut (1986) — no dedicated subjective level head:

(no head) — may note “none.”

(Samuels, Shorter, & Plaut, 1986) — provisional.

5. CW concordance — sample, not exhaustive

Interpretation of an unconscious product on the subjective level reveals the presence of subjective judgments and tendencies of which the object is made the vehicle. When, therefore, an object-imago appears in an unconscious product, it is not on that account the image of a real object; it is far more likely that we are dealing with a subjective functional complex… Interpretation on the subjective level allows us to take a broader psychological view not only of dreams but also of literary works, in which the individual figures then appear as representatives of relatively autonomous functional complexes in the psyche of the author.
(Jung, 1921/1971, CW 6, p. 652, ¶813) Dual objective-level / projection untouched.

See also: objective-level; projection; shadow; complex; reductive; subjective-psyche; subtle-body.

References

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types [Definitions]. 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. 652, ¶813). 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.