Synopsis: Seven of Nine discovers a dream-like place where some Borg drones escape to during their regeneration cycle.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of two of Carl (C. G.) Jung’s perceptions of the collective unconscious, that part of the Eros-driven irrational unconscious that all humans share.
In “Unimatrix Zero, Seven of Nine begins dreaming. The Doctor sees this as one more indication that Seven is regaining her humanhood, while Seven is made uncomfortable by what she sees in her dreams and wants them to stop. The Doctor then tells Seven that dreams can contain symbols and that sometimes can also be useful. As it turns out, Seven is dreaming of a place called Unimatrix Zero, which is a sanctuary of individualism where Borg drones with a certain recessive mutation find themselves in when they are in their regeneration cycles – the Borg equivalent of sleep. At the same time that Seven is reintroduced to this dreamscape, the Borg Queen is trying to infiltrate it, because she feels that the drones that are able to access it are a threat and need to be either reassimilated or deactivated. The Borg Queen discovers how to access Unimatrix Zero and starts sending drones in to reassimilate those there, so that she can regain control over them. This is something the Unimatrix Zero community does not want. They ask Seven for her help, and in return Seven speaks to Captain Kathryn Janeway about their situation. Via a mindmeld with Seven, Janeway is able to visit Unimatrix Zero, and she is convinced that this sanctuary from the Borg Queen must be saved and mounts a rescue mission.
In this episode, Unimatrix Zero, the place where the mutated Borg drones go when they are regenerating, can be compared to one of the ways Jung envisioned the collected unconscious. Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious changed during his lifetime. In his early work, he believed that the collective unconscious was something that all humans had in common, but in his later writings he perceived it as something that humans were all inside, just as fish are in the sea. Unimatrix Zero here can be analogized to the early definition by the drones, yet it is arguable that the Borg Queen considered Unimatrix Zero closer to the second definition, and as such, was threatened by its ability to elude her power, which made her feel compelled to destroy it.
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