The Dream Book of Self-Knowledge

Emperor, empress

  • they replace in some cases the symbol of a king or queen and in other cases raise them to a qualitatively higher level.
  • in the world they represent independent executors of a nation's will and in the unconscious they symbolize the executors of the will to elevate one's essential components (instincts to emotions and emotions to spirituality), even if the lower components do not approve of this and use the ego to prevent such elevation, just like an ordinary person does not submit to the benefit of the whole (nation, humanity).
  • seeing mistakes of the emperor (empress): paradoxically leads the dreamer to the danger of apotheosis*23, since reason is subconsciously put before will in favor of the lower components of beings (see Treasure archetype).
  • a fairy tale of an emperor or empress: symbolizes the developing process within the dreamer; a process that forms the future integral individuality from a person's mythological foundation.
  • delivering a gift to an emperor (empress), being his or her aide: very positive for the future since the dreamer establishes close relations with the executor of the will in favor of all essential components and himself becomes an active element in improvement.
  • seeing a good emperor (empress) or his (her) positive traits: qualities linked to the dream emperor (empress) attract the dreamer's attention so that they soon become the dreamer's actual traits.
  • an emperor directly linked to an empress takes on a different meaning in the event that it involves traditional psychological symbols of divided emotional components of anima – animus; only after their connection, so colorfully described by alchemy, is the spiritual child born as the representative of a new state (see archetypes of Anima – Animus, Alchemist and Coniunctio).
  • in a certain phase of spiritual development they can also represent higher forms, in which the empress becomes a creative principle and the emperor an element that revitalizes this principle.