Soul Travel: It was believed in many ancient cultures that the soul left the body each night to gather information and basically just roam around. In some cultures, it was believed that if the soul did not return, the person would die.Lucid Dreaming: This is still believed today. Lucid dreaming is when the dreamer can tell that they are dreaming and becomes able to control the dream. It is especially useful when trying to solve a specific problem. However, if dreams become too lucid it becomes difficult to distinguish dreams from reality.
Surrogate Dreamers: This is also still done today, but was more common in ancient cultures. A dreamer would have a dream for a person who was unable to (due to illness or inexperience etc) and would interpret the dream for that person. A surrogate dream can be recognized because it uses symbols, contexts, imagery and scenes which are different from the dreams norm.
Incubation Dreams: Write down what problem you have of what you want to dream about and chances are you will. This is also still practiced today, although not as elaborately as in the past. It is very effective for problem solving. In ancient cultures, rituals were done before an incubation dream involving dancing, chanting, fasting or special diet, special temples and invocation of gods. Today, all most people to is write down what the want to dream about in their dream journal. This is a skill which must be practiced to be good at it. If you don’t get the dream at first, try again the next night and so on.
Latent and Manifest Content: Freud and his followers believed that latent content was what the mind was trying to tell you and it showed itself in manifest content, which was a distortion (sometimes using puns) of the message. Freud’s focus was on latent content, while Jung’s was on the manifest content.
Dream Archetypes: Jung had many, many dream archetypes which he believed surfaced during dreams as manifest content. Examples of these are the Virgin, the Holy Child, the Madonna, the Prostitute, the Warrior, the Hero and the Jester. There are probably thousands of these archetypes which can surface during dreams. There are four major archetypes:
Persona Archetypes: This is energy we expand within our social roles (student, wife, woman, waitress)Compensation: Jung believed thaht dreams try to compensate and create balance. For example, a male who is concerned with being "strong" and "masculine" may be shown kind and gentle dreams.Shadow Archetypes: Deals with the primitive, animal-like instincts of our evolutionary past. These are usually very dark and seem evil or negative (monsters, aliens etc)
Soul Archetypes: There are two major archetypes here: the animus and the anima. The animus represents the masculine side of a woman's personality while the anima represents the feminine side of a male's personality. These figures often appear as helpful guides or evil creatures.
Self Archetypes: These appear as the individual progresses. There is a wide variety of dream images here. FOr example, the divine child, the inner lover. Also, quarternary images (objects with four corners) and mandalas (circles) are representative of the self according to Jung.
Amplification: Used by Jung in dream interpretation. A symbol is examined in more detail using word association, attitudes, history, myths and the individual often takes on the role of the object. ie acts out the part of being a chair
Synchronicity: When something happens in a dream and the happens in your waking life with no causal link it is what Jung would call synchronicity. It differs from coincidence in that it is better than chance. For example, you dream of a friend wearing a purple dress with orange socks, then when you see her in the morning, she is wearing that. It can also be life to life, in the future or silmontaneous. It is more about events and symbols than precognition.
Free Association: This is one of Freud's tools. Basically, freely associate any feelings or personaly meanings you have with a word to get more words and more meanings. For example, a tree could mean life, friendshsip, health, shade, growth etc etc...