Dreamwalking

WHAT A REMARKABLE AND REVEALING SCENE. One of the cable news shows aired a brief video clip of the FBI interviewing a young man who admitted using a Taser to assault a police officer during the January 6 attack on the capitol. There were two FBI agents in the room, sitting calmly on opposites sides of a table. The suspect (assumed to be innocent until proven guilty) slouched in his chair, chin on his chest, in a corner of the room.

One of the agents, leaning in, quietly asked the suspect why he had assaulted the officer. The suspect, crying, whispered in a halting voice, like a child, “I don’t know.” He went on to describe the assaulted officer as a “nice guy” with children, repeating that he didn’t know why he had done what he did. He seemed not only to be wracked with guilt, but also to be genuinely baffled by his own behavior.

The cynical among us might conclude the suspect was putting on a show of guilt and sorrow, just to gain sympathy. Maybe so, but in the video the emotions, the body language, and the tone of the suspect’s voice appeared very real, as if he truly didn’t understand himself.

Let’s assume the young man’s agonizing perplexity was genuine, because it easily could have been. Among Carl Jung’s many important insights into the human psyche, one of the lesser known but nonetheless important insights is his explanation of what happens to an individual who gets caught up in a “mass” of people. This mass of people could be the audience at a rock concert, or the congregation at a church service, or even a group of friends out on the town. It could also be a few thousand people gathered at a political rally, listening to a series of rousing speeches.

The individuals involved in a mass of people are no longer their “best” selves. The unconscious dynamics of the group infect each of the individuals, causing what Jung called an abaissement du niveau mental (“lowering of the mental level” — a term Jung adopted from his pioneering French predecessor Pierre Janet). The individual’s ego becomes weak and “group think” takes over. The individual’s consciousness diminishes, and the mostly unconscious dynamics of the group fill the void. One is no longer fully oneself, no longer fully in control of one’s decisions and behavior.

Surely, you’ve experienced this kind loss of self at one time or another, when you felt swept up in the moment. Perhaps you did something in such a situation that you would never have done any other time, something that is so unlike you that you not only regret what you did, but also don’t understand how or why you could have done such a thing. It happens to everyone.

So, it’s not at all hard to imagine what the young man in the FBI interview had experienced. He was a devoted supporter of president Trump in the 2020 election, and found it hard to accept the president’s defeat. When the president lied about a stolen election, the young man believed the lies and eagerly responded to the call to come to a rally to “stop the steal.” Once he was caught up in the enthusiasm and anger and excitement of the rally, once the crowd dynamics took hold and pushed his ego aside, all bets were off. It would have been as if he had slipped into a dream — and in a sense, he had.

In that FBI interview room, the dream was over. The young man had returned, at last, to reality. At that moment, he could see clearly what he had done under the spell of the mob that day, but he couldn’t understand why he had done it.

Yes, each of us is responsible for our actions. Still, there are times when any one of us is not fully in control. Our egos don’t like to admit their limits, but they are not always masters in their own houses. Of course, the loss of self-control occurs across a wide spectrum, and here we’re not talking about a psychotic break. The young man may very well be found guilty and sent to prison for many years, but he may never really understand why he did what he did. His waking dream will turn out to have been a nightmare.

Goya got it right: the sleep of reason produces monsters.

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