Synopsis: Ships from a race fleeing the Gamma Quadrant stop at the station enroute to finding their promised homeland.
This episode is an illustration of what happens when bits of material from the Eros-driven irrational unconscious are made perceptible to the Logos-driven rational conscious ego and then the ego ignores it.
In “Sanctuary” Skrreean ships from the Gamma Quadrant come through the wormhole. The individuals aboard the ships are seeking their promised world of Kantanna – a planet of sorrow, where the Skrreea will find joy. They are led by a female, which the Leadership of Deep Space Nine finds odd, but is an indication that the Skrreea represent the unconscious. Their leader, Haneek, was the first to find the Eye of the Universe and has identified Bajor as Kantanna. She formally requests that her people be allowed to immigrate to Bajor. But the provisional government, representing here the rational conscious ego, denies them sanctuary, believing that the Skrreea would be a burden on the already war-devastated planet. Haneek then withdraws her request, but before she leaves she expresses the fact that her people are farmers, they were not asking for assistance, but in fact they could have come to the aid of the Bajorans by growing food for them.
This is analogous to how the unconscious will present itself before the conscious ego. The conscious ego can either acknowledge that the bits of unconscious material represent a moment of learning and growth, or it can deny this, and turn bits of unconscious material back into where it came; to be addressed later. It is difficult to watch the devaluing of the bits of unconscious material, but sometimes, as in the case of Bajor in this episode, consciousness is not ready yet to acknowledge and integrate what is before it.
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