Dreams
What are dreams? Dreams are products of unconscious
psychic activity occurring during sleep. In this condition
the mind is to a large extent withdrawn from our voluntary control
With the small portion of
consciousness that remains to us in the dream
state we apperceive what is going on, but we are no longer in a position to
guide the course of psychic event according to our wish and purpose; hence we
are also robbed of the possibility of deceiving ourselves.
The dream is a spontaneous process resulting from the independent activity of
the unconscious, and is as far removed from our conscious control as, shall we
say, the physiological activity of digestion. Therefore, we
have in it an absolutely objective process from the nature of which we can draw
objective conclusions about the situation as it really is.
I
want to emphasize that it is not safe to interpret a dream without going into
careful detail as to the context. Never apply any theory, but always ask
the patient how he feels about his dream-images. For dreams are always about a
particular problem of the individual about which he has a wrong
conscious
judgment. The dreams are the reaction to our conscious attitude in the same way
that the body reacts when we overeat or do not eat enough or when we ill-treat
it in some other way. Dreams are the natural reaction of the self-regulating
psychic system. This formulation is the nearest I can get to a theory about the
structure and function of dreams.
“The purpose of dreams is to compensate for the one-sided distortions of the waking ego; they are therefore in the service of the individuation process, helping the waking “self” to face itself more objectively and consciously.” (Jewish Values in Jungian Psychology pg 14)
We
know, for instance, that what is small by day is big at night, and the other way
round; thus we also know that besides the small by day there always looms the
big by night, even when it is invisible. AION 30
It is not difficult for the modern
intellectual to concede that the symbolism of
mythology has a psychological
significance. Particularly after
the work of the psychoanalysts,
… there can be little doubt, either that
myths are of the nature of dream, or that dreams are symptomatic of the dynamics
of the psyche.
1000 faces, pg. 219
… - symbolic expression is given to the unconscious desires, fears, and tensions that underlie the conscious patterns of human behavior.
“Sleep, too, is an abaissement du niveau I which leads to more or less complete oblivion of the ego” (BW page 403 – par 522) - On The Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia”.
Lotus - BW 505 "We have every reason to believe that dreams mirror exactly the
underground processes of the
psyche. And if we get there, we literally get
at the "roots" of the disease.
“Beyond control of the conscious mind”.
Dreams are compensations for the one-sided/narrow attitude of the conscious mind.
“always helpful to ask: ‘What conscious attitude does the dream compensate.
Dreams – Chapter 1 - MMISoaS
“Dreams contain images and thought-associations which we do not create with conscious intent.” (BW 115)
“They arise spontaneously without our assistance and are representatives of
psychic activity withdrawn from our arbitrary will.
Therefore the dream is properly speaking, a highly objective, natural
product of the psyche, from which we might expect indications, or at least
hints, about certain basic trends in the psychic
process.”
(BW 115)
Cont'd ... Dreams contain … in the psychic process. Now, since the psychic process, like any other life-process, is not just a causal sequence, but is also a process with a teleological orientation, we might expect dreams to give us certain indicia about the objective causality as well as about the objective tendencies, precisely because dreams are nothing less than self-representations of the psychic life-process.
“… for dreams behave
in exactly the same way as active imagination; only the support of
conscious
contents is lacking. To the extent
that the archetypes intervene in the shaping of
conscious contents by
regulating, modifying, and motivating them, they act like the
instincts.”
BW, pg 77
“Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; … cont’d … both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche.
… cont’d … But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problems and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.
1000 faces, pg 14
The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you'll have a bad dream.
Blind people who have been blind since birth cannot dream sights, but they dream sounds instead.
Dreams are, after all, compensations for the
conscious attitude. MDR 133
All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912, almost fifty years ago. MDR 192
We do not take the trouble to understand them, let
alone draw ethical conclusions from them. This stopping-short conjures up the
negative effects of the unconscious. MDR 192
Insight into them must be converted into an ethical obligation. Not to do so is to fall prey to the power principle, and this produces dangerous effects which are destructive not only to others but even to the knower.
… The images of the unconscious place a great
responsibility upon a man. Failure to understand them or a shirking of ethical
responsibility, deprives him of his
wholeness and imposes a painful
fragmentariness on his life. MDR 193
Theriomorphic symbols are very common in dreams and other manifestations
of the unconscious. They express the psychic level of the content in question;
that is to say, such contents are at a stage of unconsciousness that is as far
from human consciousness as the psyche of an animal. Warm-blooded or
cold-blooded vertebrates of all kinds, or even invertebrates, thus indicate the
degree of unconsciousness. It is important for psychopathologists to know this,
because these contents can produce, at all levels, symptoms that correspond to
the physiological functions and are localized accordingly. Aion 186
… Only when we let its statements amplify themselves,…, does it come within the range of our understanding; only then does a new aspect become perceptible to us. This process is convincingly repeated in every successful dream analysis.
Cont’d … That is why it is so important not to have any preconceived, doctrinaire opinions about the statements made by dreams. As soon as a certain “monotony of interpretation” strikes us, we know that our approach has become doctrinaire and hence sterile. MDR 312
(Nebuchadnezzar’s case) is the eternal problem of the successful man who has overreached himself and is contradicted by his unconscious. The contradiction is first shown in the dreams and, if not accepted, must be experienced in reality in a fatal way. These historical dreams, like all dreams, have a compensatory function: they are an indication – a symptom, if you prefer to say so – that an individual is at variance with unconscious conditions, that somewhere he has deviated from his natural path. Somewhere he has fallen a victim to his ambition and his ridiculous designs, and, if he does not pay attention, the gap will widen and he will fall into it, as our patient has. AP 123
If people observe their own unconscious tendencies in other people, this is called a “projection.” Political agitation in all countries is full of such projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little groups and individuals. Projections of all kinds obscure our view of our fellow men, spoiling its objectivity, and thus spoiling all possibility of genuine human relationships. M&HS 175
But if one watches one’s own dreams over a period of years and studies the entire sequence, one will see that certain contents emerge, disappear, and then turn up again. M&HS 159
Thus our dream life creates a meandering pattern in which
individual strands or tendencies become visible, then vanish, then return again.
If one watches this meandering design over a long period of time, one can
observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, creating a
slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth –
the process of individuation.
Experience tells us that the meaning and content of dreams are closely related to the conscious attitude. Recurrent dreams correspond to equally recurrent conscious attitudes. TDoP 101
So, guided by long experience, I now proceed on the principle that a dream
expresses exactly what it means, and that any interpretation which yields a
meaning not expressed in the manifest dream-image is therefore wrong.
Dreams are neither deliberate nor arbitrary fabrications; they are
natural phenomena which are nothing other than what they pretend to be.
They do not deceive, they do not lie, they do not distort or disguise,
but naively announce what they are and what they mean. They
are irritating and misleading only because we do not understand them.
They employ no artifices in order to conceal something, but inform us of
their content as plainly as possible in their own way. We can
also see what it is that makes them so strange and so difficult: for we have
learned from experience that they are invariably seeking to express something
that the ego does not know and does not understand. Their
ability to express themselves more plainly corresponds to the inability, or
unwillingness, of the conscious mind to understand the point in question.
TDoP 103
Thus the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art. Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one’s inner realm, whereas generosity and love of one’s neighbours and of animals attract him and give him life. Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of nature. M&HS 162
The Self can be defined as an inner guiding factor that is different from the conscious personality and that can be grasped only through the investigation of one’s own dreams. M&HS 163
… These show it to be the regulating center that brings about a constant extension and maturing of the personality.
...
as I have pointed out before, when a figure appears in a dream in a double form
it means that it is approaching the threshold of consciousness.
TAoPA 126
Usually
a landscape in dreams, especially if it is worked out with so much detail and
love …, can be said to be a soul-landscape. TAoPA 133
(Having
a knowledge of Freudian analysis) produces an intellectual attitude toward life,
robs it of its mystery: one knows all about it, and if one does not, then the
doctor in the white coat who sits behind your couch does.
Freudian analysis explains everything to you as the
Oedipus complex, and so on,
and dreams are no mystery; they are quite clear! All long
objects are phallic, and the others are feminine, and the rest have some sexual
connotation. If you know just a little anatomy you know all
about it; you only have to make the connection. So dream
interpretation becomes very monotonous and easy. Freud even
once complained to Jung that he no longer worked much on dreams because it was
too monotonous! Of course! He knew what
would come out, so he played the magician’s trick and first dropped a rabbit
into the hat and then pulled it out! That is Freudian dream
interpretation: one knows what it is driving at, namely, the
Oedipus situation,
which you first put in the hat and then triumphantly pull out again.
It is an intellectual trick, always the same thing, and you get into a
rut of monotony. Your mind is no longer open to the fact that
something might exist which you do not yet know, or that you might dream
something which is not yet known to you. The ego is therefore
fed with conscious illusions, namely, that it is just a question of knowing all
about it, and with that comes the complete
stagnation of life.
TPoPA 155
What are dreams? Dreams are products of unconscious psychic activity occurring during sleep. In this condition the mind is to a large extent withdrawn from our voluntary control. With the small portion of consciousness that remains to us in the dream state we apperceive what is going on, but we are no longer in a position to guide the course of psychic events according to our wish and purpose; hence we are also robbed of the possibility of deceiving ourselves. The dream is a spontaneous process resulting from the independent activity of the unconscious, and is as far removed from our conscious control as, shall we say, the physiological activity of digestion. Therefore, we have in it an absolutely objective process from the nature of which we can draw objective conclusions about the situation as it really is. TDoP 59 Con’td ……
That is all very well, you will say, but how in the world is it possible to draw trustworthy conclusions from the fortuitous and chaotic confusion of a dream? To this I hasten to reply that dreams are only apparently fortuitous and chaotic. On closer inspection we discover a remarkable sequence in the dream-images, both in relation to one another and in relation to the content of waking consciousness. This discovery was made by means of a relatively simple procedure, which works as follows: The body of the dream is divided into its separate portions or images, and all the free associations to each portion are collected. In doing this, we soon become aware of an extremely intimate connection between the dream-images and the things that occupy our thoughts in the waking state, although the meaning of this connection may not be immediately apparent. By collecting all the associations we complete the preliminary part of the dream analysis, thus establishing the context, which shows the manifold connections of the dream with the contents of consciousness and the intimate way in which it is bound up with the tendencies of the personality. Cont’d …..
When we have illuminated the dream
from all sides we can begin the second part of our task, namely the
interpretation of the material before us. Here as everywhere
in science, we must rid ourselves of prejudice as far as possible, and let the
material speak for itself. In very many cases a single glance
at the dream and the assembled material suffices to give us at least an
intuition of its meaning, and no special effort of thought is needed to
interpret it. In other cases it requires much labour and
considerable experience. Unfortunately I cannot enter here
into the far-reaching question of dream-symbolism. TDoP 60