Decoding Dreams pt. 3 - Dreams of the Present
Introduction
Last time, we discussed how people have viewed and interpreted dreams throughout history. They often rely on mythology and religious symbolism to make sense of their dreams and use them to make decisions in their waking lives. We ended by discussing two prominent minds in psychology and their views on dreams: Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. Because Jung dedicated far more time and thought to dream interpretation, we’re going to take a closer look at his theories of dream interpretation and some other contemporary dream theories.
Science hasn’t reached a unanimous agreement as to why we dream or if dreams hold any significance. There are many hypotheses and theories as to why we dream. We’ve discussed those in the previous chapter a little bit. Instead of asking the question of why we dream we’re going to be focusing on what dreams mean to different people today and how people interact with them. Modern dream interpretation is often divided into two beliefs: psychological and spiritual. The psychological interpretation is often linked to Freud and Jung who believe dreams to be a phenomenon that arises as a byproduct of consciousness. In this way of interpreting, dreams become windows into the individual and their mind. It’s used as a tool to deepen the person’s understanding of themselves, their emotions and their experiences. This isn’t too far from the spiritual interpretation as it’s also used as a tool of self-expression and understanding. Other than linguistic and semantic differences spiritual puts a focus on metaphysics and religious beliefs. To the spiritual interpreter dreams are a direct communication with the soul of the person - soul of course being a non-empirical concept. In this interpretation, dreams arise from something greater than the individual and it can often act as a guide in life. Of course, the psychological interpretation also seeks to guide the individual towards self-understanding and aid the dreamer in understanding themselves better.
Between the two interpretations - we find Jungian theory. Jung was convinced that dream interpretation was larger than the individual and that it reflects the entire unconscious of both the individual and the collective. The idea of a collective unconscious is central to Jungian psychology. It refers to an unconscious mind and shared concepts between all people. According to Jung, it’s populated by basic instincts and symbols that Jung called archetypes. These archetypes are inherited ideas and patterns that emerge in all human consciousness and are expressed both collectively in culture and personally in individuals as personality traits. Jungian dream interpretation seeks to bridge the psychological and spiritual interpretation - rejecting and dismissing neither and approaching dream interpretation with an openness and multidisciplinary attitude. This however leads it to become somewhat mystical and impossible to prove through a single scientific lens. Instead, Jungian theory relies on a multitude of disciplines like psychology, neuroscience, anthropology and more.
Jungian Dream Interpretation
A central theme in Jung’s interpretation of dreams is the concept of individuation - a concept that was explored by philosophers like Nietzche and Schopenhauer before Jung. Individuation is the psychological process of developing as an individual through integrating the unconscious into the conscious. To Jung then dreams serve to lead a person to “wholeness” through what Jung himself called “a dialogue between ego and self”. The self is the self-conscious and “soul” of a person. It’s an amalgamation of hopes, dreams and archetypical expression. Whereas the ego is the primary perceiver and part of our consciousness that interacts with and navigates the physical world.
There are two approaches to analysing dreams according to the Jungian theory: the objective and subjective. In the objective approach, everything is to be interpreted literally, every person refers to the person they are: brother is brother, friend is friend etc. Today the subjective is more popular and common, at least in my personal experience and it analyses dreams through the self and its many sides and archetypes. For example, a dream of a mother is not about the literal mother but rather about the maternal aspects of the dreamer. Every person in a dream is a symbolic representation of an aspect of the dreamer’s own consciousness. The subjective approach Jung perceived to be much more difficult for people to accept, but to him the most important way to approach dream interpretation, as it leads to individuation and helps the dreamer recognise unconscious parts of themselves.
Archetypes like the animus and the anima - two opposing forces of unconscious masculine and feminine are very important to Jungian dream theory, and they are best explored through the lens of subjective dream interpretation. The animus represents the unconscious masculine side of a woman and may be represented in a dream by her husband, boyfriend, brother etc. It’s important to note that these archetypes may take these direct forms but may also be expressed more fantastically according to Jung. Cultural and story tropes like the wise old woman and young maiden are all expressions of the collective unconscious and its archetypes. Another aspect of the unconscious important to Jung was the idea of the shadow. The side of us that doesn’t match up with the ideals of our ego. It’s our fears, insecurities and simply put what we perceive to be our worst traits. It may express itself as insecurity, narcissism and many more unhealthy ways. What Jung called “shadow work” is some of the most important work an individual can do - it’s the process of integrating the worst parts of our unconscious into the wholeness of our consciousness. It’s to recognise that our anxiety and distrust stem from something that wants to protect us. The shadow isn’t the Hyde to our Jekyll - it’s not a condensation of all the evil within us into a separate darker clone of us. Rather it’s a part of ourselves our ego resists and projects onto others creating an inner conflict. An awareness of these archetypes is key to individuation and dream interpretation is a good way to become aware of these aspects of ourselves.
When interpreting dreams Jung warned against blindly ascribing meaning to dream symbols without a clear understanding of the dreamer’s personal situation. To this, he describes two approaches: casual and final. In a casual approach, the symbol in the dream is condensed down to fundamentals. E.g a half-empty glass may symbolise pessimism or optimism depending on how the dreamer interprets it. The casual assesses that the glass symbolises the mental state of the dreamer. The final approach is delving deeper into the dreamer’s own attitudes towards the symbol. Asking if they see the glass as half empty or half full. Symbols should be explored for their personal significance to the patient even if Jung thought archetypal symbols to be universal. He stressed the importance of context, especially personal one in dream analysis. Two identical dreams may then mean completely different things for different people.
To Jung dreams are not mere puzzles to be solved and deciphered, they are not inventions or riddles conjured up by the unconscious so that the truth behind them may be learned. Dreams do not serve as lie detectors, revealing secret desires and insincerity behind conscious thought processes. Dreams just like the unconscious according to Jung has its own language. It has its own primacy and mechanics. Because of this dream interpretation takes a lot of practice and learning, and you don’t interpret a dream by googling it and reading a few sentences from an article. It’s a long and arduous process of self-discovery and learning. Jung believed this to be paramount to dream theory and that if done correctly could reveal a richness and complexity to the inner life of man. He also believed dreams to contain unavoidable truths, philosophical proclamations, illusions, wild fantasies, memories, goals, abstract and irrational experiences and even telepathic visions - serving as a link between two minds even if separated by physical space. To Jung, our psyche has a daily aspect that we experience as conscious life and a nocturnal and unconscious side which we perceive as dreamlike fantasy. Jung argued that because we do not doubt the importance of our conscious experience we ought to not question the value of our unconscious lives.
Jung also recommended breaking the dream down to its barebones, a process adapted from a procedure from Wilhelm Stekel who thought of the dream as a newspaper article and writing a headline for it. This form of “dream distillation” is found in other contemporary dream theories.
Contemporary Dream Theory
Many others have written about dream interpretation in the 21st century. A lot of them work from the framework of either Jung or Freud when it comes to psychological analysis. However, we also see a rise in popularity of the more spiritual and religious interpretations. With the rise of neo-paganism, neo-shamanism and a resurgence of other new-age beliefs - dreams have once again become a centrepiece in the consciousness of contemporary culture. With the internet at our fingertips and with the rise of AI slop, one can now find any niche and specific type of dream interpretation one could desire. Throwing in your favourite keywords allows you to read an interpretation for specifics through the lens of any philosophy and religion in the world.
Now more than ever the theory of dream interpretation has become more muddled and more fantastical. The abstraction through the endless choices and possibilities leaves us with affirmations and delusions, in this post-modern dreamscape we are more than ever free to interpret as we wish, and while Jung would encourage us to do and to seek to understand our subjective and personal relationship with the dream the internet leaves the ones seeking guidance confused and incoherent. Schizophrenic and contradictory the information we seek can always be denied or confirmed and we are free to conjure up whatever monstrosities we wish. We lose ourselves and our individuation process doesn’t lead to a becoming of our authentic selves but rather trying to find the right puzzle piece applying different external ideologies and beliefs until we find something that seems to fit. But a circle may fit in a larger square.
Instead of developing a relationship with ourselves and our psyche, we rely on external sources to tell us how to interpret specifics. Now of course all of it isn’t bad, all of it isn’t malintent or misinformative, and the internet can broaden our minds and open us up to new ideas which can aid in individuation and personal interpretation. We should be careful however and make sure to maintain and cultivate that relationship with our inner world, it’s important to us as individuals. Ultimately if you decide to engage with dream interpretation or not is up to you and how you do so is also determined by you. Dreams continue to fascinate and there are so many people today that are dedicating their lives to dreams and sleep and it’s a fascinating science. In the scientific world ideas around REM sleep and beta brain waves are still being tested and thought about. Though these hypotheses often downplay the emotional role that factors into dreams they do not state that dreams are meaningless. Instead of fulfilling some physical need.
There will continue to be a large variety of methods and ways to engage with and interpret dreams. In my personal experience, the most meaningful to me personally has been the fundamentals of Jungian dream theory, but many other and more contemporary dream analysts have developed their own methods. There are plenty of free resources available publicly on the internet, offering both practical tools and tips for analysing dreams.
Final Words
Dreams are meaningful to people for different reasons and most of us do add some weight to them. In studies conducted a majority of people have stated that they believe their dreams to reveal meaningful but hidden truths. Dream interpretation is one way for us to interact with that part of our consciousness and try to make some more sense of it.
Dreams continue to be a rich and complex source of inspiration and guidance for people all over the world, and there are several practices and reasons as to why we should engage with dreams. Some people struggle with recalling dreams and some people’s dreams are experienced to be lacklustre or anxiety-filled. There are several practices to enrich your dream life and ways to interact with them more productively. Some common and popular practices include dream journaling, sharing dreams and even oneiromancy. Oneiromancy is a method of divination using dreams to determine the future or seek guidance. Some of these are better established and reported on than others, and a lot of parts of dreams will stay steeped in mystery.
Dreams are a meeting place of the magical and the real and in this borderland between the two it can be difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t. What’s productive and what’s harmful? People have many different reasons for dream journaling or other practices, some may wish to experience lucid dreaming while others may consider themselves oneironauts - travellers of the dream realms who travel on their own volition and conscious basis to view magical dream vistas.
Next time we’re going to be looking at some of these practices and things we can do to enhance our relationship with our own psyche. How to draw inspiration from dreams and how to remember more of our dreams through practice.
