The Collective Unconscious for Swimmers

“How was your swim?” We’re the only two left in the locker room, so it seems a bit strange to just get dressed without acknowledging each other. Granted, talking to strangers while dressing could be a bit intrusive, but I was pretty sure I had spoken to this woman before. So, according to me, she wasn’t a total stranger. And her response, as you’ll see, supports my assessment.

            “Great!” she proclaims.

            “I know, right?” I agree, slipping on my velour pants, their warmth cozy and familiar. “There was no one swimming laps today,” I continue. “I got my own lane. Did you?”

            “Oh yes!” She’s beaming now. “You know, I was on a business trip and I didn’t have time to swim. There were meetings and appointments and so…. I just felt like something was wrong, you know?”
            “I do! If I don’t swim at least 3 times a week, I feel awful.”

            “Yes, it is the psychology, right?” She pauses. “I even had this dream where I am trying to swim but there is barely any water in the pool…” She bends down and makes a line across her shin. “The water is only about this deep!”

            “Oh my god!” I exclaim. “I have the SAME dream!”

            She doesn’t seem to register my astonishment but continues on her dream narration as people will do when recounting their dreams. “And when I try to swim, the water, it is too shallow and then it gets more and more shallow and pretty soon there is no water at all!”

            “Me too!” This time she smiles at me, nodding. “I have this dream all the time. I am swimming and then the water gets shallower and shallower and pretty soon I am trying to swim on dry grass. It is very frustrating!” I start to laugh.

            She joins in, now smearing thick white cream all over her face. I’m distracted by this, but try not to stare. “It must be some sort of anxiety,” she offers.

            “Yes, that makes sense. You know, our psyches are all connected, the collective unconscious and Jung…”

            She nods, but I can see that she’s already thinking of the next thing she wants to say, “And I have this other dream, where the toilets are all overflowing and so so dirty!” She wrinkles her creamy face in disgust. I don’t tell her I have this same dream too. It’s getting too weird. I mean, I have always pooh poohed this collective unconscious. It just seems to woo woo to me. But today, when I had always believed that I was the only one who had this disappearing water swimming dream, the similarity was too much to deny.

            It makes sense that swimmers would share this anxiety of not being able to swim in their dreams. But for it to manifest in the same way?

            It’s a bit eerie.

            Jung writes about the collective unconscious with the example of the shared symbolism of the sea: “The sea is a symbol of the collective unconscious, because unfathomed depths lie concealed beneath its reflecting surface” (p. 122, Jung, Dreams, 1961)

            Could the disappearing water be a symbol of swimmers’ collective anxiety about not being able to swim? The water is too shallow. The swimmer still tries to swim. But as she swims, the water disappears until she is trying to swim on dry land.

            And the dirty overflowing toilets? Oh, hell, I don’t want to go there. The collective unconscious of bathrooms? Symbolizing what? Ugh!

            “Is the Plunge open?” she asks now, abruptly changing the subject.

            “Uh, yeah…” I’m mystified, wondering why she’s asking about this. Is it because the Plunge’s shallow pool feels close to this dream? I remember the first time I swam in this pool, I thought my arms were going to scrape the bottom, but of course, they didn’t.

            “They were closed because of vandalism,” she continues. “Someone took all of the chairs and equipment on the deck and threw it all into the pool and then they took a fire extinguisher and sprayed it into the pool!”

            “Wow! That’s terrible. I had no idea. It was open this last Wednesday.”

            “And no weird smell?” she asked.

            “Nope, none that I noticed.”

            She nods, smearing the cream for its final layer. Then starts to pack up her stuff. I want to talk to her more about dreams, but the time is up. The lifeguards have already started barking at us: “You Ladies almost finished in there???”

            “YES!” I holler back. “We have 3 minutes.”

            Dream woman smiles warmly at me as she heads out, “Bye bye!”

            “Yes, bye, hope you don’t have any more no water swimming dreams!”

            We both laugh. I work to gather up all my stuff, but there’s still a mom and her kid getting dressed. I have time.

            Stumbling out into the parking lot, the bright sun stunning me for a moment, I scan for Ian. He’s in the car, talk radio on, the door open.

            I call to him. He heaves himself out, strides toward me, “I had the most interesting Collective Unconscious Swimmer Experience,” I tell him.

            He grins, “Really?”

            “Yes, there was this woman who….”