0.12 Carl jung  (Page 9/23)

Jung did not simply study symbolism, such as that in dreams, to uncover evidence of past repression. Jung believed that dreams could guide our future behavior, because of their profound relationship to the past, and their profound influence on our conscious mental life. Jung proposed that dreams can tell us something about the development and structure of the human psyche, and that dreams have evolved with our species throughout time. Since consciousness is limited by our present experience, dreams help to reveal much deeper and broader elements of our psyche than we can be aware of consciously. As such, dreams cannot easily be interpreted. Jung rejected the analysis of any single dream, believing that they belong within a series. He also rejected trying to learn dream analysis from a book. When done properly, however, dream analysis can provide unparalleled realism (see Jacobi&Hull, 1970; Jung, 1933):

…I cannot prove in every case that dreams are meaningful, for there are dreams that neither doctor nor patient understands. But I must regard them as hypothetically meaningful in order to find courage to deal with them at all…We must never forget in dream-analysis, even for a moment, that we move on treacherous ground where nothing is certain but uncertainty…When we take up an obscure dream, our first task is not to understand and interpret it, but to establish the context with minute care. What I have in mind is not a boundless sweep of “free associations” starting from any and every image in the dream, but a careful and conscious illumination of those chains of associations that are directly connected with particular images. (pp. 11-12; Jung, 1933)

In the final analysis, there is a particular challenge to understanding what dreams point to, and that is the situation under which a therapist typically learns of someone’s dreams: in therapy. Jung suggested that if therapists could continue to observe the journey of one’s dreams after therapy was successful, then the therapist, and possibly the client as well, might begin to more clearly understand the meaning and direction of the dreams. Still, dreams themselves are about both health and sickness, in keeping with Jung’s principle of opposites. As such, Jung wrote that “dreams are the natural reaction of the self-regulating psychic system.” The theory of entropy allows for an imbalance of energy in a closed-system. We may think of our conscious mind as just such a closed system. When we dream, however, the ongoing effort of our psyche to balance itself takes over, and the dreams counteract what we have done to imbalance our psychological selves. Thus, it is within the context of dreams, not the details, that meaning is to be found (Jung, 1959a, 1968).

Discussion Question: Jung believed that the source of our motivation was a psychological drive to achieve balance (the effect of entropy on the psyche). Have you ever felt that you were being pushed or pulled in the wrong direction, or in too many directions at once, and simply wanted to achieve some balance in your life? In contrast, have there been times that your life was unfulfilling, and you needed something more in order to feel whole?