Voyaging Into The Unconscious (Part Two): Dreams
I remember my intro to psychology course when I was a wee undergraduate, just beginning to adjust to a new major that would lead me toward becoming the professional clinician I am today. The professor requested a show of hands earlier in the semester: "how many of you believe that dreams have meaning"? The class split three ways (a third raising their hand, a third not raising their hand, and a final third presumably too apathetic to lift a finger for an 8 AM lecture) provided their response.
After receiving the consensus of the class, the psychology professor quickly offered his response: "dreams have no meaning" and promptly moved on toward a different topic. Obviously, this abrupt and straightforward answer left me curious; I wanted an explanation. Why don't dreams have meaning? If they have no meaning, then why do we dream? Through my research, I found that while dreams may not have scientific evidence for a specific objective meaning, I did observe that the dream itself holds specific subjective significance for the dreamer.
Yes, the dream is the result of intricate and specific neurochemical functionings of the brain; however, I find these explanations to be equally fascinating (from a purely biological standpoint) and unromantic (devoid of understanding the attachment and our relationship to dreams). Initially, it was Freud who believed that the dream is representative of some unconscious wish fulfillment.
This theory has been discredited by psychologists as well as disowned by Freud himself. Unconscious wish-fulfillment can play a role, but it does not always occur. He was onto something, though, particularly as it relates to where the dream forms. The answer lies in the unconscious mind.
Carl Jung, Freud's protegee, parted ways with Freud to explore, without inhibition, his understanding of where human motivation comes from as well as the nature of the unconscious mind. It was Jung's belief that dreams did indeed come from the unconscious mind and that it was the duty of the dreamer to understand its symbolism.
Within the symbolism is a revealed answer or solution to the dreamer's conflict (logistical, emotional, or both) with their relationship to the past, present, or future.
Most cultures rely on archaic symbols to derive meaning from their experience with the world in a process referred to as symbolic interactionism. These symbols can be religious, mythological, folkloric, memes, emojis, and of origins still, to this day, undetermined (I need to write a future article on the collective unconscious to explain this concept further). If this process is distilling in the waking state, why wouldn't it also occur in the dream state?
Dreams have meaning, just as life itself has meaning, and it is up to the individual to decide their fate. Should you be ruled by your mind's unconscious processes, then you are likely to fall into repetitive and maladaptive behaviors that will inhibit your ability to fulfill transformative desires.
A repetitive dream is the unconscious mind's deliberate request for an intervention on the part of the dreamer. Dreams, in the end, are a call to action for the application of meaning resulting in the increased consciousness of those willing to pursue their truth(s).
Once the correct meaning, based on the dreamer's experience, has been applied, the dream ceases to repeat. The conflict has been resolved, and true ingenuity is birthed within the mind. After all, how can one be creative in their day-to-day living without a problem to be solved. The answer dwells in the abstract unconscious dream world.
Works Cited
Burton, N. (2012, April 08). Jung: The Man and His Symbols. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201204/jung-the-man-and-his-symbols
Campbell, J. (2008). Myth and Dream. In The Hero With A Thousand Faces (The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, pp. 1-18). Novato, CA: New World Library.
Jung, C. G. (1989). The Analysis of Dreams. In Freud And Psychoanalysis (Vol. 4, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, pp. 25-34). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.