…Jung identified the point of rotation of the disks with the mystical speculum, for it both partakes of the rhythmic movement yet stands outside it. The two disks belong to the two universes of the conscious and the unconscious, which intersect in this speculum. The whole figure together with its elaborate internal movement is therefore a mandala of the Self, which is at one and the same time the center and the periphery of the world clock. In addition, the dream could also stand as a model of the universe itself and the nature of space-time…

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But it should also be pointed out that Pauli, as a physicist, was also seeking to discover an innter unity between the elementary particles and their abstract symmetries. The vision of the world clock is therefore capable of many levels of interpretation, and it is indeed a particularly rich image in its resonances of meaning.

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Pauli’s rebirth as “a perfectly normal and reasonable person … completely adapted” was therefore the result of sensing a deep inner symmetry to his own mind, a dynamic pattern that had been illustrated in symbolic times by the early Gnostics, the alchemists of the Middle Ages, and the Taoists of ancient China…

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The notion of symmetries in nature and in the psyche continued to preoccupy the physicist for the rest of his life. The results confirmed Jung’s findings on what he called the archetypes, dynamic forces and mosaics of energy within the collective unconscious which are revealed to us symbolically through dreams, fantasies, works of art, and myths.

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Jung's interpretation of Pauli's 'World-Clock' Dream