Synopsis: While transporting representatives from two opposing enemy alien races to a peace negotiation on the planet Parliament, the Enterprise encounters an energy cloud.
Much as the last episode “Where No One Has Gone Before,” “Lonely Among Us” gives us an illustration of what ego inflation looks like and how it is part of the process of individuation, becoming more whole, as this concept is described by Carl (C. G.) Jung. Inflation is identifying with the god like powers of archetypes within our unconscious and is a necessary part of the union of opposites. The opposite in this case would be the humbling that we feel when we realize that the god like power is not truly ours, but only an illusion. It is fitting that the concept of inflation should be so predominant in the early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in that without this phase of the individuation process, the spark igniting the psyche’s drives would not move toward creativity or wholeness.
In this episode, it is Captain Jean-Luc Picard who is ultimately joined with god-like powers that emanated from the energy cloud that the Enterprise came in contact with while en route to Parliament. Once joined with this energy, Picard orders that the Enterprise be turned around to go back to the energy cloud, and that he is going to be one with it. Of course, Picard a mortal made of matter is not able to join with the energy cloud. He is humbled and forced to try to rejoin the ship through contact with her electronic systems. Through the process Picard is rejoined with his crew, but unfortunately, he has no memory of what transpired while he was joined with the alien energy cloud, so the knowledge of what his psyche went through was lost. No lesson is learned.
Original post created 13 May 2021
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