Synopsis: In the process of being transported, a crew member is forced to face his worst fear.
In this episode, like so many others dealing with transformation, it is connected to a transporter issue. Here, Engineer Reginald Barclay is put in the position of facing his fears and letting go of them in a transporter beam. This lengthening of beaming over can be seen as a method by which we see what occurs during this technical operation, when the bodies of individuals in the transporter are broken down molecule by molecule and then recreated somewhere else. This seems for all the world an analogy as to what happens to us, or rather our conscious egos, when we are confronted by bits of unconscious material, in the vessel of the complex, and then acknowledge and accept them into our conscious awareness to strengthen the psyche.
Carl (C. G.) Jung called complexes “feeling-toned” and wrote that the way that we know we are in the midst of one is because we cannot help ourselves from doing what the complex calls us to do. In the beginning of “Realm of Fear” Barclay is clearly panicking and breaking out into a sweat in the anticipation of being forced to use the transporter to travel to another vessel. Further exasperating his fears in the fact that there is an ionic interference between the two ships which means that transport will not be what seems instantaneous, but that he will be in the in-between realm for long enough to know how it feels. He is most certainly in a complex.
As it turns out, because he is left in the transporter beam for an extended period of time, Barclay is able to discern that something else was in there with him, and he identifies a danger to the crew of the Enterprise outside the beam, and rescue members of the crew of a vessel in distress on the inside of the beam. Barclay, the crew of the Enterprise, and the crew of the other ship are all stronger because Barclay was forced to confront his complex.
Original post created 26 October 2021
mydailysoultrek 