The shadow contains anything that is repressed and can appear and represent any of those qualities or characteristics. It’s completely possible to have contradictory ideas that are repressed. It follows that those contradictory ideas would not be represented by the same image. I’m referring to an image, figure, or character that appears in dreams or active imagination. There will be multiple images or characters that represent the shadow, so an image that is different from how the shadow usually appears shouldn’t be dismissed as being the shadow.

Some of the shadow images can be positive. I once had a dream about a shadow figure represented as a gentle C3P0. This dream character was part of gentle and sensitive feelings that were repressed and I completely missed the connection until someone else pointed it out.

I’ve been confused and spent time looking into what figures have represented the shadow at various points in time, but there have been many. Each shadow figure represents a different part of the shadow and this is possible because there can be a great diversity in the contents of the shadow and nuance between different aspects. I’ve had shadow figures that are represented by the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Soviets usually appear with left leaning shadow entities, but not always. In the case of Afghanistan in dreams and active imagination, the Soviets represented thoughts and processes associated with conservative Americans because of associations other then the obvious communist of leftist themes. At the same time I’ve had plenty of far right shadow figures representing subjects like racism or hatred of the disabled.

As a related tangent, I remember working with a nerd who was controlled by shadow figures against disabled people. He had a very messed up and crude appearance and had a disdain for handicapped people because he was put in special education classes with very damaged people. He didn’t seem aware of his projections.