MEETING THE BOOGEYMAN AND LIVING TO TELL THE TALE: THE SPECTRAL OTHER ARCHETYPE AS SURVIVAL INSTINCT

Agency and/or Creator

Holly Priest Holtz, IDSVA

Bureau/Division/Agency

Library

Files

Document Type

Text

Broad Creation Date

2026

Language

English

Location

Portland

Abstract

This dissertation argues that the Boogeyman, a monster found in folklore throughout the world, is a survival instinct that is expressed through a Jungian archetype that I call the Spectral Other. When our unconscious survival instincts identify a pattern in the environment that is dangerous, the Spectral Other archetype is activated and presences itself to our conscious mind through fear, a sense of the uncanny, a feeling of being watched, and a desire to leave the location. I argue that the Spectral Other archetype is an empty monster-form that our unconscious mind fleshes out with cues from the environment, our imagination, and our expectations, serving to reify the Spectral Other into its monster-form, the Boogeyman. The filled-out monster-form serves as a customized Boogeyman for each perilous location, and this phenomenon explains the numerous individual iterations of the Boogeyman throughout world folklore. I will argue that telling Boogeyman stories is an extension of our survival instincts, as these stories serve to warn listeners of an environment’s perils, and gives them an objective reason – a monster is lurking there – to be afraid of, and stay away from, that location. The Spectral Other archetype serves as a mechanism, or ‘spirit police,’ to enforce social cohesion and rule-following, as the feeling of being watched causes us to monitor our actions for social compliance. We use this spirit police agent to coerce others to conform to religious and civic rules, and to enforce proximity and obedience in children, by using folkloric figures, such as Santa Claus, as a behavioral monitor, and the sackman variety of the Boogeyman that steals wayward children as a threat. This dissertation turns to the work of Brian Boyd, Sigmund Freud, and Eric Kandel to deepen the philosophical exploration of storytelling and the workings of the conscious and unconscious mind.

Keywords: Boogeyman, Survival, Archetype, Spectral Other, Storytelling

Disciplines

Philosophy | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Publisher

Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts

City

Portland ME

Recommended Citation

Priest Holtz, Holly, "MEETING THE BOOGEYMAN AND LIVING TO TELL THE TALE: THE SPECTRAL OTHER ARCHETYPE AS SURVIVAL INSTINCT" (2026). Academic Research and Dissertations. 78.
https://digitalmaine.com/academic/78