Within the depth-psychology corpus, geese appear across several distinct registers, none of them trivial. Most consequential is the oneiric register established by Homer’s Odyssey: Penelope’s dream of twenty geese slaughtered by an eagle furnishes the tradition with one of its earliest instances of symbolic dream interpretation, a passage examined by Dodds, and rendered in full by Homer himself, wherein the suitors are encoded as geese and Odysseus as the predatory eagle. This dream becomes a locus classicus for discussions of condensation, displacement, and wish-fulfillment in pre-modern psychological thought. A second register is cosmological-alchemical: the Taoist I Ching commentary (Liu I-ming / Cleary) employs geese as the governing image of hexagram 53, ‘Gradual Progress,’ where their stepwise ascent from water to mountaintop to level ground figures the staged integration of yin and yang toward the spiritual embryo. A third register is phenomenological: Jung and his editors repeatedly cite the subliminal smell of geese as a clinical demonstration of how unconscious sense-perception triggers involuntary memory chains, thereby evidencing the reality of the personal unconscious. A fourth, folkloric register appears in von Franz, where ducks’ and geese’s feet mark supernatural evil feminine beings in European folk tradition. Taken together, these passages show geese functioning as symbols of gradual transformation, unconscious affect, ominous otherness, and prophetic disclosure.
I dreamed that twenty geese came from the river to my house, and they were eating grain and I was glad to see them. Then a huge eagle with a pointed beak swooped from the mountain, broke their necks, and killed them.
Penelope’s dream presents the geese as the suitors and the eagle as Odysseus, constituting one of the earliest recorded instances of symbolic dream interpretation in Western literature.
, The Odyssey, 2017thesis
in Penelope’s dream of the eagle and the geese in Odyssey 19 we have a simple wish-fulfilment dream with symbolism and what Freud calls ‘condensation’ and ‘displacement’: Penelope is crying over the murder of her beautiful geese when the eagle suddenly speaks with a human voice
Dodds identifies Penelope’s geese-dream as the sole Homeric dream interpreted symbolically, reading it through Freudian categories of condensation and displacement as an archetype for oneiric wish-fulfillment.
, The Greeks and the Irrational, 1951thesis
Positive strength correctly balanced is like geese proceeding onto a mountaintop… Top yang: Geese gradually proceed to level ground; their feathers can be used for ceremonies.
In the Taoist I Ching commentary, geese ascending from water through mountain to level ground figure the complete integration of yin and yang in the alchemical process of gradual spiritual progress.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
Geese gradually proceed to level ground, resting in an even and safe place. Having progressed to peace and security, it is time to rest and stop work, to cultivate
Liu I-ming’s commentary identifies the geese reaching level ground as the symbol of completed spiritual development, the moment when striving gives way to cultivation and rest.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis
Back at the farm, the professor notices the smell of geese. Instantly he recognizes it as the cause of the interruption: in his early youth he had lived on a farm where there were geese, whose characteristic smell had formed a lasting impression
Jung uses the subliminal smell of geese as a paradigmatic demonstration that unconscious sense-perceptions, though unregistered consciously, can powerfully activate chains of involuntary memory.
, Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976thesis
he noticed the smell of geese, and instantly he realized that it was this smell that had touched off the flow of memories. In his youth he had lived on a farm where geese were kept, and their characteristic smell had left a lasting though forgotten impression.
This passage reiterates Jung’s paradigm case of unconscious olfactory perception, using geese to illustrate how subliminal stimuli can bypass conscious attention yet determine the direction of thought.
, Man and His Symbols, 1964supporting
subliminal sense-perceptions should be mentioned, because they play a not unimportant role in our daily life… He stops and looks back: there at a li
Jung’s account of subliminal perception, of which the geese-smell anecdote is the canonical illustration, grounds the clinical reality of the unconscious in ordinary sensory experience rather than pathological repression.
, The Undiscovered Self: With Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams, 1957supporting
In European countries, ducks and geese have a definite connection with devils and witches, who often have ducks’ or geese’s feet. There are many folk stories where all sorts of beautiful women and beings come along, but if you look at their feet you see that they have ducks’ or geese’s feet
Von Franz identifies geese’s feet as a folkloric marker of demonic or supernatural feminine evil, situating the bird within a shadow-symbolism where uncanny beauty conceals chthonic danger.
, Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales, 1974supporting
This hexagram represents gradual practice following the appropriate order… strong energy resides within, the mind is firm and the will far-reaching—one can thereby practice the path of striving for the gold elixir.
The framing hexagram commentary establishes the symbolic context within which geese function as emblems of disciplined, sequential inner work toward alchemical completion.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting
Inktumni wishes to fly with the geese. The birds take him up, but drop him in a mud-hole, where he is left sticking for several days… Sitconski wishes to travel with the geese, is warned of dangers, but insists on joining them.
Radin’s Trickster cycle presents geese as agents of humiliation for the inflated ego: the Trickster’s grandiose desire to join them results in ignominious collapse into the mud, a pattern of hubris and deflation.
, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, 1956supporting
Biologists once thought that herons and geese created their puzzling ritual dances for fertility or survival reasons… biologists in recent years, after extensive observation of herons, deer, geese, peacocks, and so on, have concluded that some ritual dances have no particular value for survival—they amount to display.
Bly cites geese’s ritual display behaviour as biological evidence that beauty and expressiveness exceed mere utility, grounding his mythopoetic argument for male initiation rites in ethological observation.
, Iron John: A Book About Men, 1990supporting
ducks and geese sometimes become imprinted on a person, thereafter choosing to follow the person in preference to a member of their own species. Canada geese have been i
James’s psychology text uses geese as the paradigm case of filial imprinting, illustrating how early relational bonding overrides species-typical attachment.
, The Principles of Psychology, 1890aside
Gradual progress means going slowly, not rushing… strong energy resides within, the mind is firm and the will far-reaching—one can thereby practice the path of striving for the gold elixir.
This passage provides the broader hermeneutic frame for the geese imagery in hexagram 53, linking slow forward movement with the disciplined cultivation required for inner transformation.
, The Taoist I Ching, 1986aside