We spend nearly one-third of our lives sleeping and dreaming. We know we need rest and recovery, so the sleep part makes sense. But what of the dreaming part? Do dreams matter? If dreams do matter, and if, as we Jungians contend, they are crucially important in our lives, then how do they matter?
Dreams across time and cultures
Now, we must acknowledge at the outset that this question of whether dreams matter is very much a modern question rooted in the scientific materialism of western, European, culture. Other cultures and societies throughout the world and throughout history automatically answer such a question with an obvious “Yes, of course dreams matter! How could you think otherwise?” The ancient Egyptians, who have left us one of the oldest dream interpretation guides, viewed the dreams as communications from the gods. This is true of the Hebrew scriptures as well – think of Joseph’s dreams (of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame…) or of Jacob’s ladder. In the ancient Greek temples of Aesculapius, the father of medicine, the suffering would sleep in the temple awaiting dreams which would bring healing. Shamans in Siberia, healers in West Africa, future leaders of the Sioux of North America, these and many more turn again and again to their dreams for insight, wisdom, guidance, healing, and connection to the spirit realm. In fact, viewed through the lens of history and anthropology, it is us scientifically “enlightened” folk who are the outliers in our doubts about the meaningfulness of dreams.
Yet, even in out hyperrational, post-enlightenment culture, the reality that dreams are meaningful was never fully lost. We have only to remember Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which captures the full scope and force of dreaming and its transformative effects on people and worlds – effects which are felt down to the present! Even as there was skepticism about dreams, and the recognition that contents, events, happenings, from our daily life filter into these nighttime worlds, there was also a recognition that dreams were somehow interwoven with the well-being of the waking world.
Dreams and the beginnings of psychoanalysis
It was not until the late 19th and early 20th century, primarily starting with the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), that close observations of dreams lead to grappling more fully with the meaningfulness of dreams. Through listening to, and taking seriously, the dreams of their suffering patients, Jung and Freud started to discern patterns emerging from the dreams. These patterns provided insights into the psychological challenges and symptoms patients were experiencing. Furthermore, both Jung and Freud discovered that when patients undergoing therapy, “the talking cure,” could engage with their dreams, integrating the insights gleaned from interpreting their dreams, they could experience improvements in their symptoms and in their daily lives.
Now, Jung and Freud had significant differences in how to go about interpreting dreams – differences which led them to part ways. I don’t have the space here for a detailed exposition on the differences between Freudian and Jungian approaches. However, as a Jungian, it’s probably pretty clear where my sympathies land! So, I want to give you the Jungian view on dreams, or at least my Jungian view…
Dreams and the archetypal structure of the unconscious
For Jung, dreams are natural products, and just like anything in nature, dreams are what they are. This means, that dreams don’t hide anything or intentionally obscure anything. Trees don’t hide their true nature. They are trees. Same with dreams. Now, the catch is, that, unlike a tree, dreams emerge out of the depths of the psyche. And the psyche, or soul, is an image maker that has been shaped by millions of years of human and pre-human evolution. So, dreams speak in the language of images which are, in turn, shaped by the common experiences of our human and pre-human ancestors. We call these experiences which structure our psyche “archetypes,” and realm of archetypes we call the “collective unconscious” or the “objective unconscious.” These are the depths of our psyche which are not directly accessible to our conscious mind (aka the “ego”), and which are common to all humans. Kind of our psychological ancestral heritage. An example of this, and we could pick many others, is the image of “mother” – even if someone never knew their own mother, there is an archetype of “mother” in their psychological make up with common elements to every other human’s basic image of mother. One of Jung’s greatest realizations was that these archetypal patterns are at the core of the images which emerge in dreams.
Complexes, Symbols, and Homeostasis
Before we can really get into the practical side of understanding how and why dreams matter, I need to bring in three linked concepts: complex, symbol, and homeostasis. Bear with me a bit, as I think unpacking these terms helps a lot in grappling with Jung’s approach to dreams.
First, Complex. We’ve likely all heard of complexes – mother complex, an inferiority complex, a God complex, etc. Jung said that a complex is an autonomous cluster of emotions, memories, and behaviors wrapped around an archetypal core. Complexes function like splinter personalities in our psyche – with their own agendas and actions which seem to take us over with emotion and trigger the same behaviors and thought patterns every time. We can all probably remember moments like that, when something seems to possess us and we’re right back in the same pattern we’ve been stuck in for years… This is likely what brought us into therapy in the first place…
Well, because our complexes have an archetypal core, we encounter our complexes and their archetypal cores in our dreams in the images we encounter.
Ok, on to Symbol. Or, why you can’t use a dream symbol dictionary to understand your dreams (sorry). Jung was very careful to distinguish between Symbol and Sign. To understand this, imagine a STOP sign, with its red color and octagonal shape… It tells you exactly one thing and one thing only – STOP. The STOP sign is a direct representation of the rule STOP HERE. That is what a Sign does it is a 1:1 direct stand in for something else. Alas, this is how most dream dictionaries work – did you see a Tree in your dream, that equals Mother. This for that. Direct substitution.
That is not at all what Jung means by Symbol. Rather, for Jung, a Symbol is an image which is the best possible representation in a given moment and context for something which cannot be reduced to a single image, and which always already overflows any representation. There is always more to what the symbol is pointing towards than what can be captured. There is always mystery and numinosity in the symbol. Symbols draw us in and open new spaces and energy within us because they always point beyond themselves to that something more. Symbols, therefore, work through metaphorical relationships. Now it is sadly too easy for symbolic images to get reduced to signs. Jung felt this was what happened in religions – real religious symbols gradually get reduced, solidified, hardened into signs, no more mystery, no more numinosity. This happens for us as well in our lives. The images which lead us forward, which animate us, gradually diminish, calcifying, no longer giving life.
This brings us to our last concept (for now): Homeostasis. Jung, in keeping with his notion of the dream as being a natural product emerging from the unconscious, viewed our entire psychic system as being similar to a physiological system. If we take the example of blood pressure – say we stand up quickly and gravity pulls our blood down toward our feet, a balancing, or homeostatic, system leads to increased heart rate and squeezing of blood vessels in our legs, which cause the blood to flow against gravity back to our heads so we don’t pass out. Jung saw dreams, and the unconscious more broadly, as functioning in this way. When we are stuck with calcified symbols, when we are too one-sided (maybe too intellectual or thinking, for instance) in our approach to life, then the dream maker in the unconscious gives us images which illustrate the place we’re in (the complexes that are active), what the likely outcomes are (where are these complexes and their dynamics heading), and what might be done about it (alternative images, new symbols). And it does all of this in the language of symbolism and metaphor.
Why Dreams Matter!
Thus, for Jung, the dream gives us Diagnosis, Prognosis, and where to start the Treatment. And it can do all of these because it is providing a counterbalance, a compensation, to our normal way of being, our “Ego position,” which is not working any more. And how do we know the Ego position isn’t working anymore? Well, we have symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and the myriads of other things which may bring us into therapy.
So, there it is – why dreams matter is because they bring up, night after night, symbolic images which are specifically targeted to address the challenges, the stuckness, the agonies in our lives. Our task is to learn to listen to them, to learn to speak their symbolic language.
Perhaps you have awoken from a dream and knew it was important, but you didn’t quite know how. Perhaps you have a dream that has stuck with you for years. Perhaps you have dreams which come night after night with evocative imagery. Perhaps you have short snippets of dreams that you can just barely remember. Perhaps you have a recurring dream that comes back again and again. All of these are meaningful. All of these are direct messages from the unconscious. Dream work is learning to listen to the language of dreams, and in listening we receive symbols, images, imagination, which can transform our lives.
If you would like to explore dream work with a Jungian Analyst in the Philadelphia area, please feel free to reach out for a consultation.