Model

We can have a thought, plan, model or imagination of how we would like our life to be; we can be or have a role model; father and mother are our main model for our behaviour and aims; an aunt or uncle is a role model; professional people like film stars, singers or athletic players are also heroes for some people or a role model. So what or who are you modelling your life on? See Programmed; genes; The Nature versus Nurture Debate

 Even if we know the ‘role model’ it still depicts that person’s quality or skill in ourselves. The only difference might be that our personal reactions to that particular doctor or schoolteacher will also play a part. Roles often play an important part in our self image. Without an appreciated social role we may feel uncertain and ineffective. Maturity might require the acceptance that we are nothing, but can be many things.

A model or a fashion model is a copy or reproduction; they could even be what other people want or have created. But dreaming of a model of a thing you have created is about your creative ability.

Most of the brain’s task is modelling. That is, it constructs models or representations of the world around and our place within it. These models are based on or senses and our memory. The work of creating artificial intelligence and of science is to understand the ways we construct representations of the world.

When examining the model of our mind as shown by quantum physics, we need to leave space on one of the walls for doors. They need to be doors that open onto a different sort of universe than the one we may previously have felt to be solid reality. It is a universe that alters its appearance – no, its very nature – according to the way we observe it. Each question we ask of the universe, each attitude with which we approach it, each viewpoint we take, reveals to us a different universe. The universe is therefore not separated from us. We are intrinsically a part of it, and are participating in it. In some way the universe is constantly being created by us as participants. It seems as likely too, that we the participants are constantly being created by the universe. And the past is not set in concrete. In some mysterious way it is linked with what we do in the present.

 Example: Today I dreamt of a slightly smaller than life sized hippo – probably about a metre tall. The hippo seemed to be alive and yet like bronze model. It was sitting on its behind with its mouth wide open. The message or understanding I received was that it was a doorway to the collective unconscious.

Example: It often takes firm determination to allow unconscious content. “In most cases the results of these efforts are not very encouraging at first. Moreover, the way of getting at the fantasies is individually different… oftentimes the hands alone can fantasy; they model or draw figures that are quite foreign to the conscious.” From Commentary in Secret of the Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm, commentary by Carl Jung.

Example: I had no other role model at the time, so I did a terrible thing to myself. Also I lost all respect for my elders as in none of them could I see that gentleness of love. My schoolteachers were thrashing children with rods. The world was killing each other in tens of thousands. My mother had psychologically castrated me out of her fears for me, and my father hardly ever even spoke to me. So I divorced the world, and of course lost that wonderful quality of compassion for the human struggle.

Useful Questions and Hints:

What image do I have of myself?

Do I model my behaviour out of morals, religious beliefs or feeling anti social?

Have I ever created models – what ones appeal to me?

See Inner World – Working with associations – Emotions and Mood in Dreams