Jungian Dream Theory. (Masters essay. September 2020).
This essay is about dreams and the place of dreams, both in theory and in practice, within Analytical Psychology.
Jung said of the importance of dreams: ‘I must learn that the dregs of my thought, my dreams, are the speech of my soul. I must carry them in my heart, and go back and forth over them in my mind, like the words of the person dearest to me’ (Jung, 2009: 232). He believed that the numinosity of some dreams constituted nothing less than a religious experience saying ‘the voice in dreams’ which, for Jung, emanates from the deep collective unconscious ‘is capable at times of manifesting an intelligence and purposiveness superior to the actual conscious insight. There can be no doubt that this is a basic religious phenomenon’ (CW11: 63).
In this essay I discuss Jung’s life-long relationship with dreams, arguing throughout that dreams were of central importance to him, both personally as well as professionally.
Whilst it is beyond the scope of this short essay to cover all the factors that influenced Jung’s thinking on dreams, I endeavor to provide a balanced account of the historical development of his dream theory. I argue, for example, that Jung’s relationship with Freud, whilst important, was only one of many influences on Jung and that he also gained important insights from a diverse range of other intellectuals from the fields of philosophy, psychology and religion.
I highlight certain definitive periods in Jung’s life that were central to the development of his thinking on dreams, acknowledging that there were many more which have been left out. The examples I have chosen include his childhood during which he experienced several significant, life-changing dreams, his time as a young doctor working with the dreams of his patients at the Burgholzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich, his relationship with Freud and the period following the split with Freud, often referred to as his ‘confrontation with the unconscious,’ during which he experienced many dreams and fantasies which were to form the basis of his future psychological theories.
I also explore Jung’s differing epistemological approaches to his dream theory positing that, at different times, he demonstrated both closed and open stances. I contend that an open approach is vital for the future development of Jungian dream theory.
I also discuss some interesting post Jungian developments focusing mainly on findings from neuroscience, again arguing for ongoing, open collaboration with science as well as other theoretical approaches. As a person centred practitioner, I tentatively propose that an open stance on dream theory along with a client centred approach to clinical practice, offers intriguing future possibilities for the utilisation of Jungian dream theory within the person centred model, where very little has been written on dreams.
Finally, I provide an overview of contemporary Jungian dream theory and practice in the clinical context as well as a brief exploration of dreams in non-clinical applications.
Jung defined dreams as ‘impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse’ (CW10. 317).
Cultural milieu.
Jung’s development of his dream theory must be seen from the context of the prevailing cultural milieu of his day which, according to Shamdasani (2003), was already deeply saturated with the writings of a variety of 18th century intellectuals. According to Shamdasani, Jung drew extensively on the works of important figures such as Pierre Janet, Theodore Flournoy, William James and F.W. Myers and, to further emphasise the breadth of Jung’s sources, Shamdasani cites a note in one of Jung’s unpublished papers referring to some seventy-eight different writers on dream theory alone (Shamdasani, 2003: 103).
Ellenberger (1970) also stresses the spread of Jung’s research in to dreams identifying the importance of lesser-known philosophers such as Troxler who’s concept of ‘the Self’ and of ‘individuation’ (which were later to become Jungian terms) held the idea that dreams revealed the Self to man as a means of individuation. Another influential Romantic philosopher was Friedrich Creuzer in whose works, according to Ellenberger, Jung discovered important knowledge of myths as well as symbols and their interpretations.
Ellenberger also credits Alfred Adler’s theory of dream interpretation, Alphonse Maeder’s theories on the teleological function of dreams as well as Herbert Silberer’s idea that certain dream images could be symbolic representations of the dreamer.
Jung’s childhood.
Even in childhood, during which he experienced several powerful dreams, Jung recognised their importance and was to spend the rest of his life working creatively with dreams as he became increasingly more aware of their deeply formative role in both his own process of individuation as well as the development of his dream theory.
Marie-Louise von Franz argues that Jung’s childhood dreams, in addition to other fantasies and ritual behaviors, were expressions of archetypal patterns which were early precedents of later experiences of his own individuation process. She says, ‘from early childhood his own dreams had contained the most impressive mythological images which could not possibly have been explained through his own personal memories and for which he found explanatory parallels in religious history only many years later’ (von Franz, 1975: 124).
The Burgholzli psychiatric hospital, Zurich.
As well as working with his own dreams, Jung also analysed the dreams of his patients, family, friends and colleagues (most famously Freud) using them extensively to inform his theories.
An important early period in Jung’s professional life was his time as a young doctor at the Burgholzli psychiatric hospital in Zurich when he started to observe that the dream images of his patients resembled themes from ancient mythological and religious traditions from around the world. This was to eventually lead to Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious which, he proposed, contained archetypal patterns and existed in addition to the personal unconscious which contained material from an individual’s personal history.
Jungs relationship with Freud.
Whilst at the Burgholzli, Jung studied Freud’s seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and it was his interest in this book that eventually led him to contact Freud and, subsequently, to their working collaboration, which started in 1906.
Jung said of his first reading of the The Interpretation of Dreams that ‘at the age of twenty-five, I lacked the experience to appreciate Freud’s theories. Such experience did not come until later’ when, Jung said, he ‘discovered how it linked up with my own ideas’ (Jung, 1963: 169).
During the early days of their collaboration Jung was a close colleague and supporter of Freud and, superficially at least, aligned himself with Freud’s theory that dreams were expressions of forbidden wishes that had to be disguised (repressed wish fulfilments) and that the purpose of dreams was to preserve sleep.
However, their underlying theoretical differences which existed from the beginning, dreams being just one of many, began to surface. For example, unlike Freud, Jung believed that dreams were natural phenomena with nothing to hide, saying: ‘a dream expresses exactly what it means … They do not deceive, they do not lie, they do not distort or disguise … They are invariably seeking to express something that the ego does not know and does not understand’ (CW17. 189).
Jung’s ‘confrontation with the unconscious.’
In the end, it was clear that their differences were insurmountable, their arguments became more and more bitter and they eventually broke relations in 1913. The split was acrimonious and emotionally painful for both men, following which Jung fell into a prolonged period of depression and emotional turmoil often referred to as his ‘confrontation with the unconscious.’ Lasting for several years it was a time of deep introspection for Jung during which he experienced many significant dreams, fantasies and various other psychic experiences, the results of which were profoundly influential on the rest of his life.
Jung says of this time ‘The years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important of my life in them everything essential was decided. It all began then; the later details are only supplements and clarifications of the material that burst forth from the unconscious, and at first swamped me. It was the prima materia for a lifetime’s work.’ (Jung, 1963: 225).
During this period, Jung further distanced himself from Freud’s premise that dreams were merely a form of disguised wish fulfillment, arriving at his own theory of compensation. For Jung, ‘The dream rectifies the situation. It contributes the material that was lacking and thereby improves the patient’s attitude. This is why we need dream-analysis in our therapy’ (CW8. 482).
In addition to his belief that dreams were compensatory, Jung also proposed that dreams could be seen from a purposeful as well as a causal perspective, advocating synthetic and teleological methods rather than the purely reductive. Jung argued that Freud’s causal approach of assigning a fixed meaning to a symbol was too rigid and that a purposeful approach ‘perceives in the dream image the expression of an altered psychological situation. It recognizes no fixed meaning of symbols’ (CW8. 471).
Jung’s open approach to dreams.
Zhu (2013) proposes that, over the sixty years that Jung was developing his dream theory, there were three overlapping, but relatively distinct, phases. The first two phases, as already discussed, being his initial alignment with Freud followed by the emergence of his own theory of compensation.
The third phase, according to Zhu, saw Jung adopting a more open and relational approach to his theory of dreams, in which he viewed his theory of compensation as being just a hypothesis as opposed to a rigid theory and, in clinical practice, Jung sidelined theoretical interpretation and placed the client’s experience and meaning of the dream, rather than that of the therapist, at the heart of the work.
Jung himself said ‘It is far better, in actual practice, not to make any assumptions at all, not even that dreams must of necessity be compensatory. The fewer assumptions you have, and the more you can allow yourself to be acted upon by the dream and by what the dreamer has to say about it, the more easily you will arrive at the meaning of the dream’ (CW17, 189). This, according to some, also heralded a more client centred approach to psychotherapy (Douglas, 2005).
Post Jungian developments.
Jung was still working on dreams in 1961, the year of his death, during which he wrote his final essay Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams (CW18). Since his death, dream theory and the continually evolving techniques involved in dream analysis have remained an essential part of Analytical Psychology. I have highlighted a small number of developments, paying particular attention to the interesting findings from neuroscience which, in many cases, have been supportive of Jungian dream theory.
Wyley (1995), for example, turning to the research of Jonathon Winston (1990), concludes that dreams take place as the psyche ‘integrates new experience with all it remembers from the past’ and ‘that information essential to the survival of a species gathered during the day was processed into memory during REM sleep’ (Wyley, 1995: 107-109). This, according to Wyley, both supports and elaborates Jung’s theory that dreams, as part of an individual’s coherent unconscious, serve a compensatory purpose which aids survival, growth and development.
Whilst many of the findings from neuroscience provide encouraging parallels with Jungian dream theory, it must also be noted that there remains one important difference which is that the science only takes in to account unconscious contents derived from the personal experience of the individual’s current life span, without any reference to the possibility of the existence of inherited, collective, impersonal contents of the unconscious.
Jungian dream theory, on the other hand, assumes that a deeper collective unconscious, one which transcends an individual’s current life and contains material from a cumulative history of life on earth, exists in addition to a personal unconscious. And, furthermore, that our experiences are affected by the collective unconscious, as well as the personal unconscious, and that in turn our experiences continually augment the entirety of the unconscious, dreams playing a crucial role in this integrative process.
Whitmont (1990) also pick up on another important point of difference between Jungian theory and the findings of neuroscience, that most dreams are not remembered, but that psychological integration takes place regardless. He argues that it is useful when dreams are remembered but, picking up on Jung’s theory of compensation, posits that in such cases it is the ego, rather than the dream itself, that undertakes compensatory measures.
The Jungian clinical model.
I will now summarise contemporary Jungian dream theory as it is generally applied in clinical work.
Firstly, as already discussed, the Jungian theory of dream interpretation rests on the assumption that dreams reveal the objective reality, whether good or bad, of the dreamer’s current situation.
In addition, as a mechanism of compensation or completion, dreams provide images from the unconscious which, whilst unknown to the dreamer, may be important for the dreamer’s individuation.
These images, for Jungians, represent the symbolic language of dreams and are a central part of dream interpretation. Dream images are usually bizarre and completely non-sensical to the logical mind, as Jung says ‘It is characteristic that a dream never expresses itself in a logically abstract way, but always in the language of parable or simile. (CW8. 474). Elsewhere, he says ‘A symbol does not define or explain; it points beyond itself to a meaning that is darkly divined yet still beyond our grasp, and cannot be adequately expressed in the familiar words of our language’ (CW8. 644).
However, Jungian dream theory argues that if dream images are treated symbolically their underlying meaning can be usefully explored and, in order to do so, it is important that a Jungian analyst posseses a good knowledge of symbols and mythology.
According to Jung, as summarised by Marcus West (2018, 15), dream images can be interpreted either on an objective level, a subjective level, an archetypal level or a transference level (CW7. 130).
Using the dream image of ‘a wise old man’ as an example, on the objective level this image might simply be referring to a conversation the dreamer had with an intelligent elderly man the day before his or her dream. On a more subjective level the image might be alluding to ‘the wise old man’ within the dreamer’s own psyche. On the archetypal level, the image might be pointing more symbolically to some universal attribute shared by ‘wise old men’ throughout time. And finally, on the transference level the dream might be saying something important about the unconscious relational dynamics between the dreamer and a significant other such as a grandparent, a teacher or a therapist.
Another important concept for Jungians is the recognition of the dream ego as being experientially very different from the waking ego. Jung defined the ego as ‘a complex of ideas which constitutes the center of my field of consciousness and appears to possess a high degree of continuity and identity’ (CW6. 706).
However, the ego in a dream, whilst still acting as the centre of awareness, often feels very different in terms of continuity, identity and the way in which it experiences dream content. The dream ego can behave in ways that seem completely bizarre to the waking ego, as Wyly puts it ‘Even when a dream situation apparently involves tremendous danger to life and limb, resources and precautions that would be obvious to the waking ego will be ignored for the sake of the dream’s unfolding plot’ (Wyly, 1995: 112).
For Jungians a dream, or a dream series, often displays a narrative structure comprising an exposition, development, culmination and solution (Whitmont and Perera, 1991: 67-78) and, in analysis, each stage can provide clues as to the symbolic meaning of the dream.
For example, the initial exposition of the dream (the time, place, characters, objects and so forth) is often problematic for the dream ego and, in analysis, this may point to the current issue or theme for the analysand. The solution may indicate ways in which the issue may be resolved or compensated, otherwise if the dream ends catastrophically, for example, that a favorable solution may, for now, be unlikely for the dreamer.
All the various levels and stages of dreams can be explored in analysis using a blend of interpretation techniques such as personal association, archetypal and mythical amplification, reductive as well as prospective explorations and the utilisation of active imagination with dreams.
Applications.
In terms of the applicability of the Jungian theory of dreams, by far the most obvious and prevalent is still to be found within Jungian clinical practice, where dream work remains fundamental.
However, with the sort of open, epistemological approach already discussed, there is much potential for the synthesis of Jungian dream theory with other psychotherapeutic models. West (2011), for example, argues that an open approach to dream work allows for the integration of both Freudian as well as Jungian concepts.
Samuels (1996, 2017), casts the net even further, arguing that the strength of an open, Jungian model lends itself well to humanistic and relational models, as well as traditional depth approaches. Believing there is still much potential in comparative studies as well as several research possibilities, for example within clinical efficacy, clinical process and practice, as well as research into assumptions underpinning clinical work.
As I have already mentioned, this is particularly interesting for the field of person centred therapy, within which there is precious little theoretical or practical emphasis on dreams. Whilst some person centred therapists, as well as practitioners from other non-depth schools of psychotherapy, might question the plausibility of certain Jungian assumptions, such as the existence of a deep and dynamic unconscious (collective as well as personal) and the centrality of archetypes and myth, an open approach from both sides offers the potential for collaboration.
Given that, historically, the approach to dream theory by the various schools of psychotherapy has been marked by isolationism and conflict rather than self-examination and collaboration (Vedfelt, 2020: 88), it seems more important than ever that an open approach to dream work is adopted.
Applications outside of the clinical setting are not as immediately apparent. Vedfelt (2002) points to areas such as community-based dream groups, national and international social dream groups, personal development groups, coaching, the utilisation of dreams within religious and spiritual traditions and guidance for parents interested in the dreams of their children.
Research into lucid dreaming, something rarely mentioned in Jungian dream theory, provides tentative findings with regards to its use in waking situations such as wish fulfilment and problem solving (Stumbrys and Erlacher, 2016: 148).
Conclusion.
In this essay, I have outlined the place of dreams in Analytical Psychology, demonstrating their importance for both Jung as well as post-Jungians. I have provided a brief but, hopefully, balanced historical account of the development of Jung’s theory of dreams, including important intellectual sources as well as influential periods in Jung’s life, taking care to avoid the usual bias towards Freud. I have also discussed the development of Jung’s epistemological approach to his dream theory, arguing that an open relationship is critical for its future survival and development. I have outlined certain important developments in post Jungian dream theory, focusing mainly on the findings of neuroscience, advocating for ongoing collaboration both with neuroscience and other psychological schools. I tentatively propose that an open Jungian dream model offers future possibilities for its utilisation within person centred counselling. Finally, I discuss the application of Jungian dream theory in clinical practice as well as providing some brief examples of certain non-clinical applications.
References
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