DAY MARES AND NIGHT STALLIONS

Archetype and Somarchetype in the Mythology of Horses and Horse Dreams

by Beverley Kane, MD

MYTH , ARCHETYPE, AND SOMARCHETYPE

Myths are the dreams of the race.

Dreams are the myths of the individual.

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 73

[…]Excellent dream work can be done whether or not one knows these myths and folk stories. When the dreams call up archetypal images, the unconscious dreamer already knows what the basic story is, whether or not the interesting parallels to sacred narratives in other distant and obscure cultures are immediately available to consciousness. The universal themes can be discovered by "ordinary" explorations of the images for their personal associations and basic symbolic implications. The archetypal amplifications drawn from knowledge of the religious and folk traditions of other cultures enrich the work; but they are not necessary, since the same essential symbolic dramas and relationships can be revealed by the dream images themselves, even without their specific archetypal associations.

Jeremy Taylor, The Living Labyrinthpp. 107-108

THE LIVING MYTH

Speed. Strength. Grace. Power. Beauty. Every physical horse is a living myth unto its beholder. We do not require a book of fairy tales or a Joseph Campbell to articulate