In abstract concept and meaning of dreams, there are two things that hold power, which are sign and symbol. Signs and symbols are two concepts that can be misinterpreted. Since my main interest is to see this from Jungian point of view, which also has a close relation with symbols, so I wrote this post from and using that point of view.
Symbolism makes life interesting. To understand and comprehend Jung’s clear definition about symbol itself, we need to compartmentalize sign, image and symbol. These three things are not the same, but they share a web of meaning.
To begin with, I shall elaborate on what image means from the general standpoint. Image is a visual representation based on reality or abstraction in mind. Thus, image is also communication and a deliverance of meaning.
Sign and Its Definition
Sign is a representation of something. It’s what we perceive optically and visually with a clear meaning which it beholds. It just is. Nothing is waiting behind the representation and there’s no mysterious path to be followed by what it is. In short, we can take lightly a sign as merely a known thing. Unless we put some effort into it by playing with our imagination. Unless there’s an archetypal energy that intertwines in those signs, it is just a sign with a semiotic understanding.
In conclusion, signs are a representation of semiotic. Each sign has its known meaning and association.
Symbols and Its Definition
Symbol, on the other hand, has a semiotic and also unknown meaning. It’s a part of mysterious knowledge. It contains unknown messages for us. Jung in Psychological type wrote:
The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possess only an historical significance.
So from this, there is a clear distinctive hallmark between signs and symbols through the differences in their meanings. Having said that, the meaning of signs is clear and known, while for symbols, there is a mysterious layer that plays behind its meaning. Another distinction that was made by Edward F. Edinger, a Jungian analyst, can be read in this following picture.
Meaning of Sign and Symbol
By having those elaborations, it is obvious that a sign has a clear and objective meaning. On the other hand, the meaning of a symbol is more subjective and personal. We can say that a sign has universal meaning, while a symbol has particular meaning, yet a mysterious element behind it. Moreover, sign correlates with collective association while symbol with psychic association.
