Synopsis: Voyager’s crew discovers a planet with a civilization advancing at an incredibly fast pace.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s concept of inflation. Inflation is when the Logos-driven rational conscious ego identifies too closely with the archetypal energy patterns that occur in the Eros-driven irrational unconscious.
In “Blink of an Eye” Voyager is caught in a gravimetric gradient that pulls her toward a planet and then keeps her in an orbit that she cannot break free from. Realizing that Voyager can be seen from the planet below and that there is humanoid life there, Captain Kathryn Janeway orders that a probe be sent to monitor the planet. Through the probe Voyager’s crew learns that the vessel’s presence there is causing seismic activity and that the development of the humanoid civilization below is happening at a fantastically high rate, something to the effect that a second on Voyager is an hour on the planet. With the advancement of civilization progressing so rapidly on the planet, it is not long before the humanoid aliens are able to travel to space. Two astronauts reach Voyager, and before they experience the transition to Voyager’s timeframe, which only one survives, it looks to them as if Voyager’s crew is frozen in time. After the surviving astronaut, the pilot, transitions to Voyager’s timeframe, Voyager is fired upon from below. The pilot is sent back to the planet. Eventually, the technology on the planet evolves to a point where it has surpassed Voyager’s and the aliens help Voyager escape from orbit.
In this episode, there are multiple illustrations of inflation. Voyager, called the Sky Ship by the inhabitants on the planet below, is considered a god and becomes part of the planet’s mythology. Voyager’s crew takes it for granted that their technology is more advanced, which will keep them safe, as they monitor what is going on below. Even the idea that the advancement of the civilization on the planet would be modeled after human development on Earth and that the planet is not even given a name are examples of inflation on the part of the writers. However, just as in the psyche, where inflation is followed by deflation, in this episode Voyager’s crew’s inflated idea that their knowledge is superior is negated when the technology below is able to free Voyager from orbit around the planet. This can be analogized to the necessary cycles of inflation and deflation that occur in the psyche when the conscious ego first identifies with the god-like power of an archetype in the unconscious, and then at some point is forced to move away from the attachment. This occurs in the ongoing process of individuation, the process by which the conscious ego becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
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