[[The first in the series of Pauli’s dreams that Jung interprets involves a hat — and first dreams of are particular importance and set the scene for the therapeutic journey.]]
On Hats, From Psychology and Alchemy
The dreamer is at a social gathering.
On leaving, he puts on a stranger’s hat instead of his own.
The hat, as a covering for the head, has the general sense of something that epitomizes the head. Just as in summing up we bring ideas “under one head” (unter einen Hut), so the hat, as a sort of leading idea, covers the whole personality and imparts its own significance to it.
Coronation endows the ruler with the divine nature of the sun, the doctor’s hood bestows the dignity of a scholar, and a stranger’s hat imparts a strange personality.
Psychology and Alchemy
¶ 53
The dreamer is at a social gathering. On leaving, he puts on a stranger’s hat instead of his own
DREAM COMMENTARY
(b)
The hat, as a covering for the head, has the general sense of something that epitomizes the head. Just as in summing up we bring ideas “under one head” (unter einen Hut), so the hat, as a sort of leading idea, covers the whole personality and imparts its own significance to it. Coronation endows the ruler with the divine nature of the sun, the doctor’s hood bestows the dignity of a scholar, and a stranger’s hat imparts a strange personality.
CW12 ¶ 53
(c)