Carl Jung was both a colleague and student of Freud, yet their views and ideas differed. Freud thought dreaming as a means to cleverly allow the sleeping mind to disharge repressed and disturbing desires by disguising them. Jung acknowledged this level of dreaming, but felt that the unconscious was much more vast andthat dreams were an unconscious attempt to bring about our most wonderful potentials as human beings. We could actively participate in this process by seeing what the dream was revealing rather than disguising. What was the dream revealing? Our path to wholeness as unique individuals – something Jung called Individuation, which simply means that because each individual becomes who they most essentially are,themselves, the path is unique and different for each person. Each dream presents a unique set of circumstances, so that the application of any theory we have acquired in the past violates its uniqueness in the same way thattreating new people we meet (or old ones for that matter) like they should be someone else or something else we have previously decided upon would violate the essence of who they really are.
Finding Our Myth Outside of Therapy
Here I would like to focus on one group of Jungian techniques that include popular contemporary trends, such as mythology, wholeness, and establishing the center of authority as oneself in matters of meaning and value.
Amplification is an unfolding of a small image its full richness and depth, the associations that someone else might make, and the meanings that might apply, such as concerns about birth, death, marriage, success, and aspiration. James Hall (1983) identifies three levels of Jungian association to a dream image:
1) The Personal Level: This is a little like free association, except the dream image is kept in mind and only a little wandering is allowed. The personal level is what you feel and think about the image. For example, do you likeit? Does it make you feel joyful, sad, frightened, angry? Are you familiar with it? Was it something from your past? What was the mood of the dream? The personal level might also include quick associations to the image. Sometimes this is referred to as directed association.
Exercise: Pick an image in a dream and say what it is out loud. Then give one association to it, say whatever comes to mind. Say the name ofthe image again, then give another association. Repeatthis for a minute or two, going the image. Write these associationsdown as your say them. Underline three or four that havethe most feeling, even if they don’t make sense to you. Ifyou draw a blank, make note of it.
2) The Social/Cultural Level: These are the associations that anyone might give to the image (president as leader, red light as stop, white as a bridal color, etc. This approach creates a very poetic layer when multiple associations are allowed to coexist.
Exercise: Translate the elements of the dream into multiple cultural associations by assigning meaningto parts of the dream as your neighbor might. If you run into difficulties, ask yourself, what would my neighbor do with this or use that for? Gayle Delaney suggests explaining the dream to someone as ifthey were from Mars, so we can get at the cultural meanings from an outside perspective.
3) The Archetypal Level: Many dreams can be interpreted with the help of the dreamer, who provides the associations to the dream image. This method is adequate in most cases, but occasionallythe associations produced by a dream do not provide a satisfactory explanation. In such cases, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that elements often occur in the dream that are not individual and that cannot be derived from the dream’s personal experience (CG Jung, page 67, Man and His Symbols).
Archetypes are primordial centers of organization that transcend the psyche and are experienced by many individuals in a variety of ways (Hall, 1983). We can talk about archetypes in the profound and moving experiences of life (such as birth, death, marriage, and visions), as well as in general characters that from time to time grab us all (such as the Fool, the Wise Man, the Mother, the Father, the Lover). Each is its own little reality. When these plays are occurring in and around us, there is often an uncanny feeling thatlittle can be done about them. Jung felt that we can learn though dreams to cooperate with them in a way that contributes to our wholeness. To amplify dream imagery at an archetypal level, one needs to know the myths, fairytales, and folklores of society.
Exercise: Pick a dream and then anursery rhyme you might know. Use the rhyme to explore thedream. How is it the same? How is it different? Make some notes on your themes and stories. Example: "I look down a ong hall and see an open window. Two of my favorite nursery rhymes are Jack be Nimble and Humpty Dumpty. Comparing dream ego to Jack, I feel there is a connection with travel and achievement. For Jack its the leap; for me it’s the walk down the long hall. When I overlay the dream with Humpty Dumpty, there’s a feeling that some of the opportunities presented by the open window (like Humpty Dumpty’s broken and unfixable pieces) may be hard to reverse if I move down the long hall and through the window.
Myths, too, can add another interpretation to dream image. Often, myths are seen as primitive stories explaining the nature ofthe world. As you replay your dream as amyth, experiment with capitalizing different words, doubling them or repeating them, as if you were working or re-working an epic poem. Give the characters in the dream some fancy Greek or Roman-sounding names. For example, "Ricardosus gingerly peered down the Long Hall until his eyes beheld the Window, the Wide Opened Window." What differences do you notice using myths as overlays on your dreams?
Summary
For Jung, the individual strives to find him or herself by both understanding our connection with larger meaningful stories, while at the same time separating ourselves from these myths to create our own unique story. By becoming skilled with all three levels of association,(personal, cultural, mythological), we create a window that allows us to see into our personal depths as well as our collective heights.
Richard Wilkerson, Cyber-Pioneer and Dream Visionary, is an editor of Electric Dreams, an online magazine and dream sharing community, and the creative genius behind numerous
educational and interactive projects on the Internet, including DreamGate, Online Dream History Classes, Dream Art Galleries and much, much more.Visit him online atDreamGate
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on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 9:07 am and is filed under Commentary, dream history.
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Carl Gustav Jung: Using Dreams to Find Our Myths
by Richard Wilkerson
Carl Jung was both a colleague and student of Freud, yet their views and ideas differed. Freud thought dreaming as a means to cleverly allow the sleeping mind to disharge repressed and disturbing desires by disguising them. Jung acknowledged this level of dreaming, but felt that the unconscious was much more vast andthat dreams were an unconscious attempt to bring about our most wonderful potentials as human beings. We could actively participate in this process by seeing what the dream was revealing rather than disguising. What was the dream revealing? Our path to wholeness as unique individuals – something Jung called Individuation, which simply means that because each individual becomes who they most essentially are,themselves, the path is unique and different for each person. Each dream presents a unique set of circumstances, so that the application of any theory we have acquired in the past violates its uniqueness in the same way thattreating new people we meet (or old ones for that matter) like they should be someone else or something else we have previously decided upon would violate the essence of who they really are.
Finding Our Myth Outside of Therapy
Here I would like to focus on one group of Jungian techniques that include popular contemporary trends, such as mythology, wholeness, and establishing the center of authority as oneself in matters of meaning and value.
Amplification is an unfolding of a small image its full richness and depth, the associations that someone else might make, and the meanings that might apply, such as concerns about birth, death, marriage, success, and aspiration. James Hall (1983) identifies three levels of Jungian association to a dream image:
1) The Personal Level: This is a little like free association, except the dream image is kept in mind and only a little wandering is allowed. The personal level is what you feel and think about the image. For example, do you likeit? Does it make you feel joyful, sad, frightened, angry? Are you familiar with it? Was it something from your past? What was the mood of the dream? The personal level might also include quick associations to the image. Sometimes this is referred to as directed association.
2) The Social/Cultural Level: These are the associations that anyone might give to the image (president as leader, red light as stop, white as a bridal color, etc. This approach creates a very poetic layer when multiple associations are allowed to coexist.
3) The Archetypal Level: Many dreams can be interpreted with the help of the dreamer, who provides the associations to the dream image. This method is adequate in most cases, but occasionallythe associations produced by a dream do not provide a satisfactory explanation. In such cases, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that elements often occur in the dream that are not individual and that cannot be derived from the dream’s personal experience (CG Jung, page 67, Man and His Symbols).
Archetypes are primordial centers of organization that transcend the psyche and are experienced by many individuals in a variety of ways (Hall, 1983). We can talk about archetypes in the profound and moving experiences of life (such as birth, death, marriage, and visions), as well as in general characters that from time to time grab us all (such as the Fool, the Wise Man, the Mother, the Father, the Lover). Each is its own little reality. When these plays are occurring in and around us, there is often an uncanny feeling thatlittle can be done about them. Jung felt that we can learn though dreams to cooperate with them in a way that contributes to our wholeness. To amplify dream imagery at an archetypal level, one needs to know the myths, fairytales, and folklores of society.
Myths, too, can add another interpretation to dream image. Often, myths are seen as primitive stories explaining the nature ofthe world. As you replay your dream as amyth, experiment with capitalizing different words, doubling them or repeating them, as if you were working or re-working an epic poem. Give the characters in the dream some fancy Greek or Roman-sounding names. For example, "Ricardosus gingerly peered down the Long Hall until his eyes beheld the Window, the Wide Opened Window." What differences do you notice using myths as overlays on your dreams?
Summary
For Jung, the individual strives to find him or herself by both understanding our connection with larger meaningful stories, while at the same time separating ourselves from these myths to create our own unique story. By becoming skilled with all three levels of association,(personal, cultural, mythological), we create a window that allows us to see into our personal depths as well as our collective heights.
Originally published in The Dream Tree News, Volume 1-6. © Richard Wilkerson.
Richard Wilkerson, Cyber-Pioneer and Dream Visionary, is an editor of Electric Dreams, an online magazine and dream sharing community, and the creative genius behind numerous
educational and interactive projects on the Internet, including DreamGate, Online Dream History Classes, Dream Art Galleries and much, much more. Visit him online at DreamGate
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 9:07 am and is filed under Commentary, dream history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.