Dreams

According to Jung, dreams as well as daydreaming, fantasies and artistic expression is a manifestation of the psyche. The dream, weird though it may seem to us have something important to tell us, if only we can decode the message.

The dream speaks to us in a symbolic language, colored partly by our individual experiences, by our cultural adherence and by the life phase we are going through. A child's dreams may differ very much from an adult, the dreams of a person in his 70´s or older differ from a younger one.

During certain periods of our life, we seem to have more vivid dreams than at others. It would seem that during periods of stress, unhappiness or depressions, the dreams are more poignant and filled with a sense of urgency. If we can remember them when we wake up, and if we can bring them into a therapeutic situation, where their symbolic content may be resolved and worked with, we might benefit from the information.

When life flows on in an even rhythm, when we are content and happily go about our daily business, the dreams seem to have no great significance and they are quickly forgotten. And even in times of difficulties they too easily slip away as soon as we reach consciousness. For the one who wants to get a grip on them, it will take a certain practice and readiness to take down notes to be able to catch them, but it can be done.

The deeper the sleep, the deeper out of the consciousness the dreams will rise. And unfortunately, the harder it can be to remember them. But when we succeed in keeping such a message, we have struck gold. We have the chance of getting information directly out of the unconscious. To understand the dreams there are several things to keep in mind:

Everything that appears in a dream, be it another person, well-known to us or a stranger, or be it an animal or a thing, is a direct manifestation of something hitherto unknown or unperceived in our own psyche. If your best friend appears to you it means that what this person represent are really your own aspects, properties, though you have pushed them aside. (And quite understandable, sometimes it can be harrowing!)