Why do Jungian Analysts Value Dream work?

Nearly everyone who begins to pay attention to their dreams finds that they are very helpful in understanding and improving the quality of everyday life.

Jung discovered that dream images usually compensate or correct one-sided conscious attitudes, so analyzing their imagery has a healing effect. In addition, because dreams are among the most obvious and easily accessible products of the unconscious, they are a good beginning point for analysis.

Tess Castleman's Threads, Knots, Tapestries is an excellent book on dreams from a Jungian point of view. Sacred Circles: A Guide to Facilitating Dream Groups is also very informative and interesting. Her website is threadsknotstapestries.com.

You can also read a short article I wrote for the May 2012 issue of Bohemia Magazine: "Self Discovery Through Dream Analysis."

Self-Discovery Through Dream Analysis
Susann McDonald

In our quest for self-discovery, dreams provide the most universal and readily available insight into our deepest, unconscious selves. Nearly everyone who undertakes dream analysis finds it both enlightening and helpful.

Leading a meaningful life, respecting and valuing ourselves, and feeling connected to other people are universal needs. Whenever they are unmet in collective life, then symbolic art, social movements and other cultural forms will emerge either as symptoms or attempts to restore what is needed. When unmet in personal life, dream images attempt to restore the balance.

Dreams seem always to correct or compensate for one-sided, conscious ways of living. We know that when someone is prevented from dreaming, they become physically and mentally ill. So we know by implication that dreams have a healing effect and that their work of healing takes place even if we can’t or won’t remember them.

Carl Jung’s work has repeatedly shown that bringing unconscious images and symbols into conscious awareness greatly increases their healing potential.

Dream images, however, usually seem strange and mysterious. They may even be frightening. They make sense only when recognized as symbolic rather than literal. Jung taught that dreams are ”the best possible representation of their psychic contents” like that of other “psychic products” such as myths, fairy tales and fables. He cites the example of fantastic stories such as Aesop’s fables which on the surface may seem like nonsense, but have a “hidden moral meaning” to “anyone who reflects upon it.”

Consequently, reflection and a receptive attitude toward the mysterious are requirements for discovering the richness of dream symbolism.

If you have ever watched a pet cat or dog sleep, you know that animals dream and that dreams are a natural life experience. Dreaming is one of our most ancient human experiences, and dreams are often formed of very old, symbolic images. For examples, a middle-class school teacher might dream that a cougar lives in her home, while a mild-mannered, suburban youth might fight wolves in his sleep. A Swiss banker might have a vision similar to a ceremony from an African culture. This universal, archetypal quality of dream symbols is why Jung insisted on an analyst’s being familiar with folk lore, mythology, ethnology and comparative religion.

Dream analysis is a little like reading a pictograph from an alien culture.
 
Jung believed that the healing purpose of a dream is to teach, to compensate one-sided conscious attitudes, and to facilitate self-awareness by using symbols from both the personal, collective and universal unconscious. Paradoxically, as one discovers the universal unconscious, he or she feels both more intimately connected to the rest of humanity and more uniquely individual.  

Most dream symbols are universal, but a specific dream image will also have personal implications – to the point that most analysts are persuaded that everything in your dream is part of your psyche.

But, however personal the image, it must be understood symbolically. For example, I might dream of a tiger when feeling a bit burned out, but you might dream of a red Ferrari. Does that mean I should adopt a pet tiger or that you should race in a Ferrari? Here is where integration of dream symbols into conscious awareness comes into play. Probably, I just need to be a little more assertive, and you just need a little excitement in your life.

These are “little dreams” whose meanings are mainly limited to every day events and whose purpose seems to be self-regulating – like drinking water when thirsty or getting more rest when tired. While becoming conscious of their meaning can provide needed energy for living, taking them literally might be a bit foolish. On the other hand, ignoring them would certainly be unwise. For example, burn out, if unrecognized and unameliorated, can lead to serious life crises.

And then there are “big dreams” that may be remembered for a lifetime. Jung taught that big dreams usually contain images that have reappeared in myths and rituals throughout human history – archetypal images that are “collective and objective.”  The purpose of big, archetypal dreams, like that of little dreams, is to bring conscious and unconscious attitudes into harmony, but the part of the unconscious they represent is the Self, “the universal human being in us.”  Big dreams may make us feel as if our future life’s path is opening or that God is trying to communicate with us. Failing to heed and honor our big dreams may lead to a loss of soul.

So how does a person begin to recognize the meaning and discover the healing power of dreams?

It is always helpful to write out a dream as soon as possible, while the images are fresh and unedited by the waking ego. Don’t try to interpret your dreams. Analysis and interpretation are not synonymous. Simply honor the dream and let the images begin to integrate into your consciousness. Ask yourself what associations you might have to the images in your dream? Ask how your dream images may have appeared in other places – stories, myths, or movies, for example. Do they bring up memories or feelings about your life? Why do you think these specific images and memories are appearing to you just at this time? What is their purpose? If possible, after you have kept a dream journal for some time, look back at earlier dreams and see whether similar themes repeat themselves.

If your curiosity is aroused, and you want to look a little more deeply into your psyche, consider making an appointment with a Jungian analyst – someone with post-graduate training to analyze dreams.

Published in Bohemia Magazine
May 1012