collective unconscious

In psychology, a shared pool of memories, ideas, modes of thought, and so on, which, according to the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, comes from the life experience of one's ancestors, indeed from the entire human race. It coexists with the personal unconscious, which contains the material of individual experience, and may be regarded as an immense depository of ancient wisdom.

Primal experiences are represented in the collective unconscious by archetypes, symbolic pictures, or personifications that appear in dreams and are the common element in myths, fairy tales, and the literature of the world's religions. Examples include the serpent, the sphinx, the Great Mother, the anima (representing the nature of woman), and the mandala (representing balanced wholeness, human or divine).