Dream On

As I noted earlier this week, a basic tenet of analytic psychology is the compensatory nature of dreams. That is, through dreaming, the psyche regulates itself by compensating for its conscious attitudes and thus striking a balance between the conscious mind and the unconscious. In his book Dreams, Jung uses the example of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as recounted in the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel. At the height of his monarchy, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a “tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.” Jung comments that the tree becomes personified and it is “easy to see that the great tree is the dreaming king himself. Daniel interprets the dream in this sense. Its meaning is obviously an attempt to compensate the king’s megalomania which, according to the story, developed into a real psychosis” (Dreams 37). This is a good example of a compensatory dream, in which the individual has become overbearingly powerful not only in actuality, but especially in his own mind; the dream shows the tree being cut down, which is what the psyche sees must happen if Nebuchadnezzar is to achieve any sort of wholeness.

the reductive dream

Nebuchadnezzar is a good literary example of a person who is not living on his true level. He is an inflated individual, given more credit or power than he is really due. The opposite may happen, where an individual is actually more able or powerful than he or she lets on in real life; in that case, the unconscious would probably compensate through somewhat inflated or grandiose dreams.

Jung suggested that dreams must also have a reductive function, since there “are many people whose conscious attitude is defective [. . .] as regards expression of their own character” (Dreams43). A person may have the conscious attitude and adaptive performance that exceed their actual capacities as people, making them “appear to be better and more valuable than they really are” (Ibid. 43). Such people have achieved outward respectability or even eminence, but haven’t grown enough inwardly to warrant their outer status. The individual’s unconscious in such a situation will be likely to buffet the dreamer with images of his faults, failures, or downfall in order to achieve psychic balance.

telepathic dreams

Occasionally, an apparently telepathic dream occurs. Telepathic dreams anticipate or foretell an event, and there are many historic accounts of telepathic and prophetic dreams. Although such events are often powerfully emotional to the dreamer or the individuals represented in the dream, sometimes the anticipated event is quite commonplace. For example, the dreamer may see someone in a dream whom he later encounters in actual life, or an unimportant letter may arrive. Freud saw dreams as wish-fulfillments, but Jung differs, stating that the dream portrays the actual situation in the unconscious. Today, some people theorize that people have the power to draw events to themselves, which is one way of looking at telepathic dreams. A more traditional and commonplace view of telepathic dreams is that they are simply gifts of the spirit and to be taken as such.

I’ve had several telepathic dreams in my life. According to my mother, the women in our family have been gifted with “second sight” for many generations. For example, when my grandfather was killed in World War II, my grandmother knew long before she was officially notified, because my grandfather appeared to her and told her. In another example, as a child I dreamed that my best friend received a rare black and white hamster as a birthday gift; the following week, she actually did receive a black and white hamster for her birthday. I’ve dreamed, too, of two of my adopted children before their arrivals, even dreaming the birth of one and awakening from the dream at the exact moment of his birth, a fact we learned only later. Finally, in one of my most profound telepathic dreams, I once dreamed of angels refusing my dying grandfather entrance to heaven, saying that it wasn’t time for him to enter yet. He miraculously recovered and lived another 10 years. All these are examples of telepathic dreams.

a dream interpretation

Jung gave many examples of dream interpretation in his voluminous writings, often analysing himself. In my first article about Jungian dream interpretation, I listed the four steps of dream interpretation: exposition. Look at the setting of the dream, including what has been happening in the dreamer’s conscious life. This is exactly what Jung did when analyzing his own dreams. For example, at one point in his life, Jung was working with patients and began to have conflict with an analysand, Mr. A. Jung concluded that the cause of the conflict was Mr. A., but soon after coming to this conclusion, he had the following dream:

“I consulted a lawyer on a certain matter, and to my boundless astonishment he demanded a fee of no less than five thousand francs for the consultation–which I strenuously resisted.” The attorney of Jung’s dream was an unimportant reference to an acquaintance from Jung’s student days. However, Jung’s psyche had pointed him to an exposition that indicated that the setting was, in fact, important to his unconscious. This suggested that the period of Jung’s student days was significant to solving his current problem, for during this time Jung got into many arguments and disputes with others. As Jung associated the elements of the dream, he realized that the brusque manner of the attorney in his dream reminded him of the personality of his current client, Mr. A. In effect, Mr. A. was now hiding behind the lawyer in Jung’s dream, therefore Mr. A. was asking too much of Jung and was clearly in the wrong, as Jung’s conscious mind had already concluded.

Also in the dream, the attorney demanded five thousand francs; this indicated to Jung that Mr. A. was greedy. Feeling very satisfied with himself, Jung analysed his dream in his own favor, at first blush coming away feeling self-righteously smug about how well his unconscious and conscious minds had worked together. But there was just one problem: that niggling thing about greed. What was Jung’s personal experience with greed—his own greed? Jung recalled that he had been greedy for attention as a student, sometimes getting it by arguing and debating with others. He had almost forgotten to look at the similarities between himself and the dream attorney and Mr. A., his client. What parts of Jung were like a demanding, greedy attorney and a draining, tiresome client? Ah, of course: the parts that had manifested in Jung during his student days. That part had merely gone unconscious, just waiting to erupt under the right circumstances. His client, Mr. A., had heralded the right circumstances.

One reason I admire Jung so much is his humility and candor. Jung was often his own best critic, hard on himself but loving enough to accept his own frailties. His conclusion about the attorney dream was that he had been unconscious to his own inner, argumentative, greedy attorney and that this unrecognized part of his psyche had gotten into the driver’s seat and was driving the analysis with Mr. A. The conflict wasn’t Mr. A’s fault, it was first and foremost Jung’s fault. Had Jung not recognized his reaction, thanks to his dream, he would probably have made some analytic errors that didn’t serve his client. But he was able to resolve his own conflict, which was personal, and stop the transference and counter-transference happening between he and the client.

dream analysis: proceed with caution

Although there are numerous rules of thumb one may use when analysing dreams, there’s no objective rule book for interpretation of dreams. At best, each individual contains the reference work for his or her own dreams and other unconscious content. No one can do your work for you, in other words.

Jung cautioned against giving the analyst’s opinions or insights too much weight. The analyst him- or herself must have gone through a thorough analysis before attempting to help others, lest the analyst project his or her particular psychological makeup onto the client. Jung wrote that everything that is unconscious is projected, and that therefore we are all subject to having our unconscious conflicts come back in our faces. Even analysts are at risk.

One of my favorite Jung quotes about dealing with dream interpretation is this:

Everyone who analyses the dreams of others should constantly bear in mind that there is no simple and generally known theory of psychic phenomena, neither with regard to their nature, nor to their causes, nor to their purpose. We therefore possess no general criterion of judgment. We know that there are all kinds of psychic phenomena, but we know nothing certain about their essential nature. We know only that, though the observation of the psyche from any one isolated standpoint can yield very valuable results, it can never produce a satisfactory theory from which one could make deductions. (Dreams, Bollingen Series, Princeton University Press, 1974, p. 45).

The intense feeling of aloneness and loneliness that often arises in middle-age or during the third half of life is real, because we finally have lived (and survived) long enough to understand that it really is all about the individual journey. When Jesus Christ said that “the kingdom of heaven is within you,” He wasn’t just turning a pretty phrase. I think he meant it, and that it is.

There within each of us: a kingdom.

 

References

Jung, C. G. Dreams. 1974. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Dream Work

I’ve been having vivid dreams for weeks now, and doing a great deal of dream work as a result. Because I’m personally immersed in unraveling my own dreams, I thought it might be useful to write another article about how to work with your own dream content.

To begin, let’s recall the idea analytical psychology poses about the contents of the psyche. If we imagine the psyche as a bus full of characters, we could say that the ego is the bus driver, getting everything he needs to direct the bus from his conscious mind. His unconscious is in the back seats of the bus, full of complexes and archetypal images that are usually unruly and even out of control. But as long as the ego has control of the bus, the ego believes that all is well. He doesn’t want to look into the rearview mirror or be reminded that he may not be in control at all. So he maintains a firm grip on the steering wheel (the conscious mind) and barrels merrily down the road.

The problem is that the ego is not in control. The ego merely thinks he or she is in control. The personal unconscious reminds the ego day and night that the ego is definitely not in control, whether through dreams, through sudden and emotional reactions and outbursts, through slips of the tongue, through strange or unusual reactions that arise unbidden; through discontentment, through depressions, through “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,” and through all other manner of uncontrollable urges and reactions, the personal unconscious reminds us that we, the conscious Ego, are definitely not in control.

And so a battle for control ensues. These characters riding in the back of the bus really just want to work together and get along with the ego. Unfortunately, the ego often cannot tolerate sharing power. And so we dream.

Ego Trip

An interesting and useful exercise for anyone doubting the power of the Ego will take only five minutes and is likely to have surprising results. The Ego maintains a stubborn and tenacious grip on control at all times-so much so that our unconscious is forced to communicate its distress and balancing signals while the Ego is unconscious! To demonstrate how much control the Ego needs, get a timer and try this exercise:

Set the timer for five minutes. Assume a comfortable position. If you’re experienced with meditation or guided imagery, prepare yourself as you would normally: take several deep, slow, long breaths. Relax your body. Close your eyes and focus your mind’s eye on an object or image. If nothing comes to mind, simply focus on your own breathing. Try to hold the image or your concentration on your breath. At the same time, keep out any other thoughts or images that come up. Continue with this exercise until the timer calls the time.

Unless you are a very aware meditator, you will most likely have experienced a great deal of “noise” from the ego and the conscious mind. Rather than being able to maintain one image in the mind for five minutes, much self-talk and chatter probably occurred, such as, “I’ve done this before, how boring,” or “What’s the point?” or “Did I leave the coffee pot turned on?” Your mind probably left the station and drove away, even after you told the driver to sit quietly in his or her seat and concentrate on one simple image. Perhaps you blocked the first one or two interruptions, but allowed the fifth and sixth to distract you.

The ego is always in a “doing” mode rather than simply being. The unconscious is willing to simply “be,” but not so with the ego. If the ego were to surrender her control, then the ego would have no function, as far as the ego knows. The ego is compulsively task oriented, and when we become so, too, then it can be said that we are ego-driven.

The ego does everything it can do to maintain and preserve our sense of individuality and uniqueness, and “it achieves this goal by separation, by eliminating any- and everything that could infringe on our ‘differentness’” (Elsom Eldridge and Chandler D. Brown, Perchance to Dream, 5).

Types of Dreams

Most dreams are of a compensatory type. Compensation is the natural balancing function of the psyche, so the dream compensates for the ego’s stance. Let’s say that the ego is ultra-responsible, duty-bound, and even Boy Scoutish in conscious life. This sort of a person is likely to dream about out-of-control situations or symbols, perhaps of bums or winos, whores or reprobates. The shadow self, represented by a same-sex figure in the dream, is likely to be quite different from the conscious, ego-driven individual.

There are several different types of compensation possible in the form of dreams. In the dream, the psyche may take the following stances:

1. The conscious attitude is one-sided, so the dream provides or suggests the opposite position.
2. The conscious attitude is correct, so the dream affirms this position.
3. The conscious attitude is in the middle, and the dream coincides with this.

There are also at least two different types of dreams: compensatory dreams and prospective dreams. The compensatory dream balances out the ideas of the conscious, ego-driven mind. The Boy Scout leader who dreams of bank robbers; the bank robber who dreams of Boy Scouts; the middle-aged stuck woman dreaming of babies; all these are examples of possibly compensatory dreams.

In the compensatory dream, the unconscious is considered relative to consciousness, adding to the conscious situation all those elements from the previous day or week which remain subliminal because of repression, or because they were too weak to reach consciousness. This compensation is purposive because it allows for a self-regulation of the psyche.

The prospective function, on the other hand, is an anticipation in the unconscious of future conscious achievements. In a prospective dream, the unconscious offers a map of sorts to the conscious, ego-driven mind. Rather than predict the future in a prophetic way, prospective dreams offer more of a weather report: they are an anticipatory combination of probabilities which may coincide with the actual behavior of things, but “need not necessarily agree in every detail” (Jung, Collected Works 8:492-3). It is generally regarded as an error when an individual mis-uses a prospective dream as an objective predictor of the future. The rule of thumb with prospective dreams is to go gently, friend.

How to Interpret a Dream

Dream work is instructive and rewarding if undertaken diligently. One should keep a dream journal and write down the dream immediately upon awakening. I’ve found few more exciting relationships than the one I’ve developed with my own psyche. Going to sleep at night is like spelunking—exciting, mysterious, dangerous, and demanding.

Because dream content is symbolic and has been hidden from the ego, one must take great care with dream elements. I don’t recommend interpreting the dreams of other people, or even attempting it, until a person has learned a great deal about dream work and theory, myth, and symbolic communication. Begin with your own dreams and, after some months or even a year or two of doing your own work, you should find yourself able to help others.

There are two basic approaches when working with dreams: the objective interpretive stance and the subjective interpretive stance. The difference between these approaches speaks to how we react to the dream. In an objective approach, the dream is viewed as making a direct commentary on an external world issue, such as how you deal with a colleague at work or how you treat your children. The subjective stance, on the other hand, relies on the idea that all the parts of the dream are parts of your self. It is probably best to always begin with an objective interpretation and to only proceed with a subjective interpretation when an objective one is inappropriate.

In an objective interpretation, the dream is a direct comment on a real-world experience. The dream comments on an interpsychic issue, meaning an issue between you and another person or several other people. Intrapsychic means within you. A key idea for an objective approach is that if the laws of physics hold within the dream and known people, places, or events are the components of the dream, you may well consider taking an objective stance to the dream interpretation. In an objective dream, everything in the dream is as it would be in the real world: people in the dream look and behave as they might in real life. One doesn’t walk through walls, see fairies or dragons, and dead relatives don’t appear. The dream is like a short documentary film, a realistic or direct report on the way you’re handling issues external to you.

If an objective interpretation doesn’t work, the dreamer must move on to trying a subjective interpretation. In a subjective interpretation of a dream, all aspects of the dream are aspects of the dreamer’s personality or psyche. The dream’s “you” is the dream Ego; a female figure may be the Anima (for a male dreamer) or the Shadow (for a female dreamer); a male figure may be the Animus (for a female dreamer) or the Shadow (for a male dreamer). This sort of dream is a comment on the relationships within one’s own psyche. It is an intrapsychic comment.

There is a possible third interpretive stance of dream interpretation: a comment on the transference relationship in a therapeutic relationship. If you’re not in therapy with an analyst or other therapist, it’s not likely that your dream would reflect a transference relationship. However, it might be possible in the case of enmeshment or another relationship during which one person transfers his or her unrecognized and unworked-on “stuff” to another, stronger, person.

Working on an objective dream

1. Write the dream down. Read the dream slowly out loud once or twice. Slow down, take a deep breath, center yourself, and advise the dreamer to do the same, because you’re about to bring unconscious material into the conscious. Remind yourself that you know nothing about dreams, so you have no preconceived ideas; you are simply going to hear the dream as though you’ve never heard one before.
2. What is the dream affect? Ask the dreamer to describe how he felt in the dream; you (analyst) also look at your feelings as you listened to the dream.
3. Look at the affect on waking. What is the dreamer’s feeling on waking after the dream and writing it down, and how do they feel now about the dream?
4. Find the conscious attitude that the dream is responding to. We have a conscious attitude, and the psyche responds by commenting on it. It’s crucial to know what the conscious attitude was of the dreamer just prior to having the dream. We would ask, what have you been dealing with over the past few days? What’s been bothering you? What have you been thinking about? What feelings have you had that relate to the situation(s)?
5. Develop the personal associations to the content of the dream. Ask the dreamer to list three or four things that come to mind when listing the various objects or material in the dream.

This material gives us the basic skeleton for interpreting the dream objectively. Because knowledge about archetypes and symbols is important to the subjective interpretation of dreams, I’ll approach that subject at another time.

In dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d

I cried to dream again.

~ Shakespeare, The Tempest (III, ii).

Suggested Reading

Betts, John. Jungian Dream Interpretation.

Hall, James A. Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice.

Jung, C. G. Collected Works, General Aspects on Dream Psychology, Vol. 8.

– Dreams.

Mattoon, M. A. (1978). Understanding Dreams. Spring Publications, Dallas TX.

Whitmont & Pereira (1989). Dreams: A Portal to the Source.

More on the Psyche: The Seed So Full of Meaning

My Animus and I Go to Drawing Class

I’ve enrolled in an art class at our local art center. The class, which begins Sunday evening, will cover the basics of drawing. This is one of my manifold attempts over the past year or so at trying activities that may assist me along the path of individuation, and may encourage my more unconscious, repressed, or shy aspects to show themselves. Put another way, perhaps it will show them that I care.

As a child I was always writing, drawing, painting, or making music. I played the flute and the harmonica (yes, the harmonica), and always longed to play the piano. I gave up the flute when the pressures of popularity became too large in high school, and my life began to be predominantly externalized. Everyone knows that the kids in band are dorks. So I sold my creative self down the river and plugged my ears to his objections.

There is a lot written by depth psychologists from Jung on about the value of art–so much, in fact, that the thought of trying to corral the subject into a handful of pithy posts overwhelms me. How can I do it credit, while still working so imperfectly on integrating the creative animus influence in my own life?

Perhaps sharing a dream will illustrate the art of relating to one’s contrasexual part by showing how it’s working in my life. If this is your first visit to the blog, you may want to read my first post about Jungian dream interpretation before continuing.

Hello, My Friend, Hello

I dreamed last month that I went to visit a friend, who embodies aspects of the great earth mother archetype, at her home, which was situated in a grove of tall, ancient trees. The house was a small white frame house that had been added onto time and again and had the air of a comfortably tousled bed. I realized upon entering the house that my friend, who in real life has been divorced and single for over a decade now, had a new partner or husband (which never became clear during the dream). He had the tweedy, relaxed air of a somewhat rumpled but intelligent and reservedly friendly professor. The two were so engrossed in their lively conversation that they barely paid me any attention.

I wandered through the house, encountering this and that, but found myself unsatisfied because the couple wasn’t terribly interested in entertaining me. At one point I meandered through a series of three connected bathrooms which were tiled but had no counters and no fixtures–suggestions of purification rituals and shadowy, private content waiting to fully manifest.

I found my way back to the front of the house and realized I was in an underground aquarium and could see through huge plate glass windows into the outer world beyond. What I saw through the window was a great tsunami, which was sweeping scores of men, women, and children away in its huge waves. I saw mothers and fathers trying to save their children; I saw their mouths open as they cried out. There was a beach nearby from which a person might effect rescues, or upon which a lucky victim might be thrown by the wanton waves. I looked for a way to go into the water or to get onto the beach, thinking that perhaps I could help a few people. But it was obvious that I could do nothing, for there was no ready means of ingress. I hesitated before the plate glass window.

As I stood there frozen, a strange man approached me. Like my friend’s partner or husband, he too had a rather professorial air about him, but his gestures to me indicated that he wanted to lead me in prayer. I had the impression that he was Catholic, and I already knew the prayer we were to pray. I had the sense that a few other people, perhaps a woman or two, were nearby him, hovering in my peripheral vision, and would join us for prayer. He looked at me expectantly again, inviting me to pray as tides of people were carried away before us. Neither he nor his companions seemed the least bit worried about the waves or the people, but rather had the air of serious single-mindedness bestowed by resolute self-confidence.

But I turned away from him and pretended not to see his signals, thinking, “Praying is useless!” I noticed then that small plaques were affixed near each window, just as in an actual aquarium or museum, describing the scene. I pretended to read the plaque but never actually read its words. The whole time I maintained the thought that prayer was ridiculously inappropriate in the face of such a disaster and I wouldn’t participate with the stranger.