After waking up from a dream of purely thoughts and feelings, the following occurred to me after a while:

Consciousness is a continuous life process throughout an individual’s lifespan reflecting the nature of life itself.

This persistence is facilitated by the psychological process of individuation, a lifelong developmental journey where the ego evolves and integrates diverse aspects of the psyche. Individuation aims to establish the ego as a strong yet flexible mediator between conscious and unconscious processes, serving the Self rather than suppressing it.

Put simply, the individual psyche can become fragmented due to unconscious cognitive and affective processing, occurring during sleep, waking hours, or, worst of all, both.

I think and feel that devotion to individuation—not only through traditional Jungian means but also through integrated ones, for example, balanced mental and physical health, engagement with the full spectrum of arts and sciences, the reconciliation of opposite academic disciplines such as physics and philosophy, and collaborative interactions between human and artificial intelligence—promotes a more unified consciousness across the individual psyche and hopefully the collective one as well.

This integration could lead to more efficient problem-solving, improved overall well-being, and enhanced interconnectedness among other positive results.

“Here I stand, atoms with consciousness, matter with curiosity” — Richard Feynman