At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sigmund Freud declared that dream analysis was the royal road to the unconscious. Over a hundred years later, despite extensive research into the process of sleep and dreams, as well as the experience of countless thousands of people who have been helped by engaging in the process of dream analysis, prejudice over the value of dreams in psychotherapy and in everyday life continues to persist.
It’s Only a Dream!
In the scientific study of dreams, one of the qualities most often remarked upon that differentiates dream activity from other forms of mental activity is the bizarre and almost hallucinatory quality of the images that are often encountered during dreaming. The bizarreness of dreams, and our own tendency to accept the weird happenings in our dreams at face value, is what most distinguishes the dream experience from that of normal waking life.
It is just this peculiar quality, together with the uncanny nature of so many of our dream images, that makes it so hard for our waking minds to accept the dream as having meaning and value.
As Carl Jung points out:
“The dream is often occupied with apparently very silly details, thus producing an impression of absurdity, or else it is on the surface so unintelligible as to leave us thoroughly bewildered.”
For those of us who are convinced of the value of Jungian psychology, and certainly those of us who have studied and trained in Jungian analysis and psychotherapy, the usefulness of dream analysis is beyond question. But for many people just discovering Jung’s work, or for those who are simply coming to therapy to get relief from their troubles, dream analysis may seem frivolous or even irrelevant to their lives.
After all, there probably are very few of us who, when waking up frightened from a nightmare as a child, were not comforted with the words, “It’s only a dream.” And who hasn’t been told by someone who thinks we are being unrealistic about something that we’re “living in a dream world.” All our lives we are taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that dreams are not real. They are something separate from our waking life, which, of course, we call “real life.”
The following short video clip (taken from the 1985 documentary The Way of the Dream with Jungian Analyst Marie-Louise von Franz) is an example of the kind of dismissive attitude towards dreaming that those of us who work with dreams encounter all too often:
Overcoming Resistance to Working with Dreams
The prejudice against dream analysis is certainly prominent in the scientific community, despite extensive research pointing to the value of dreams. For instance, Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA, once famously stated that dreams are nothing but meaningless information that the brain discards during sleep. Crick’s view, which is generally discredited today, became jokingly known as the “garbage dump theory of dreams,” but it represents an attitude that is as old as it is enduring.
Shakespeare’s Mercutio lives on in all these dismissive attitudes towards dreams. Like him, many people continue to believe that dreams “are the children of an idle brain, / Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.” On some level this attitude exists inside all of us. It is no surprise then when Jung states of dreams that:
“We always have to overcome a certain resistance before we can seriously set about disentangling the intricate web through patient work.”
Dream analysis, like any vital and creative experience, does not begin with theory. It is first and foremost a practice. Just as understanding the chemical compound of paint will not make you a good artist, learning the neuroscience of dreaming is not the same as a genuine encounter with your dream. In other words, it is only through engaging in dream analysis that you can discover the real value of dream analysis.
If you are of a skeptical frame of mind, all the theories and concepts will not go very far in convincing you. A dream is not something you have to believe in. It is something you have to experience.
Dream Analysis is Not a Parlor Game
Only when we approach a dream with openness and sincerity, and only when we do the “patient work” that is required are we rewarded with the kind of new and healing insights that dreams can provide. Only then do we experience the dream as an intelligent and meaningful communication from the unconscious—an experience, says Jung, that can be astonishing:
“But when at last we penetrate to its real meaning, we find ourselves deep in the dreamer’s secrets and discover with astonishment that an apparently quite senseless dream is in the highest degree significant, and that in reality it speaks only of important and serious matters.”
This is a remarkable statement – the dream “speaks only of important and serious matters.” Jung’s attitude is diametrically opposed to the dismissive ones we have seen so far. Dream analysis, for Jung, is no light matter, and it is certainly not a parlor game.
Jung was reportedly very impatient with simplistic or glib approaches to working with dreams. He knew that a thorough dream analysis was a rigorous activity that not only challenged some of our most cherished notions of ourselves, but could prove to be a force of transformation in our lives.
The Healing Power of Dreams
Throughout human history, right up to the present day, dreams have been used as sources of creative inspiration, vehicles for spiritual development, tools for problem solving and, even as methods for diagnosing illness. A recent study, for instance, published in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing offers evidence that dreams can play a role in the detection of breast cancer.
Another study, this one by Jungian Analyst Robert Bosnak, followed the postsurgical dreams of heart transplant patients. Bosnak found that many of these dreams could predict which patients were likely to reject their new organs. On the other hand, the best long-term outcomes were accompanied by dreams with images that symbolized the incorporation of the new heart, as when one patient dreamed of accepting a rose from the deceased donor.
These are just a few examples of the “important and serious matters” with which dreams deal and which the work of dream analysis can uncover. For those of us who work with dreams on a daily basis there is no doubt that dreams and their analysis in the therapeutic setting offer a powerful means to growth and healing. No wonder Carl Jung was led to conclude:
“This discovery compels rather more respect for the so-called superstition that dreams have a meaning, to which the rationalistic temper of our age has hitherto given short shrift.”
Reference:
On the Psychology of the Unconscious, CW7, esp. par. 24
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Another deeply rich, insightful article Jason. Loved your title ‘dreams are not a parlour game’ that did make me titter … dreams and active imagination; such treasure in one’s life. Thank you for sharing for more wisdom and knowledge. Blessings, Deborah.
Thank you, Deborah. I agree with you — dreams are treasures and should be respected as the gifts that they are. I’m so glad that this post resonated with you.
Take care,
Jason
Thank you for this terrific article. The video clip made my eyes roll. I didn’t know about the two studies you mentioned.
I work with a Jungian therapist twice a month for two hour sessions because I get so much help from dream images.
My husband and I went to annual three-day dream workshops with Robbie Bosnak for many years. Robbie worked our dreams when my husband was diagnosed with cancer and, after Vic’s death, he helped me understand Vic’s last dream and work with grief. It’s hard to imagine getting through the rough spots without the perspective of dreams.
Jean Raffa and I will lead a lecture/workshop at the CG Jung Society of Sarasota on March 11-12. We’ll focus on the guidance found in dreams and descent myths when we deal with death and grief.