“In a period of human history when all available energy is spent in the investigation of nature, very little attention is paid to the essence of man, which is his psyche, although much research is made into its conscious functions. But the really complex and unfamiliar part of the mind, from which symbols are produced, is still virtually unexplored. It seems almost incredible that though we receive signals from it every night, deciphering these communications seems too tedious for any but a very few people to be bothered with it. Man’s greatest instrument, his psyche, is little thought of, and it is often directly mistrusted and despised.“
Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
Why, amidst the bustling busyness and technological advancements of our modern world, do our dreams still go unnoticed?
Why is such a vast part of our existence is acknowledged and considered by so few of us?
In this article, we will look into the forgotten psychology of dreams.
Sigmund Freud’s Dream Theory
Freud Birthed the Psychology of Dreams
In “The Interpretation of Dreams”, Sigmund Freud writes:
“Dreams may be thus stated: they are disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes. By the analysis of dreams, we can obtain a deeper insight into the processes which underlie our mental functions in health and disease.“
When his book was first released, Freud’s dream psychology of dreams, was groundbreaking, opening a window into the depths of our psyche. He posited that dreams are manifestations of our deepest desires and anxieties, often rooted in repressed memories and unresolved conflicts. According to Freud, the content of our dreams is shaped by inner wishes, conflicts, and thoughts that have been relegated to what he termed as the “unconscious mind”. Freud identified two types of dream content: the manifest content, which is the literal storyline of the dream, and the latent content, which represents its hidden psychological meaning.
Freud stated, “Dreams are never concerned with trivialities; we do not allow our sleep to be disturbed by trifles.”, emphasizing the importance of understanding dreams as reflections of significant inner experiences. By meticulously analyzing the symbolic language of dreams, Freud demonstrated that seemingly unimportant or bizarre dream elements reveal deeper, unconscious processes.
Psychology of Dreams Through the Freudian Lens
To illustrate Freud’s idea, let’s imagine a man that recently suffered the tragic loss of his mother. Let’s imagine that this man, despite his mother’s recent death, dreams of being abandoned by her. If we adopt a Freudian lens, we could recognize through the man’s dream a dynamic of separation with his mother, which might hint to an unconscious difficulty in processing his loss.
Freud erected a bridge that links the abyss of unconsciousness to the stars of consciousness. He laid the foundation for the psychoanalytic tradition, transforming our understanding of the human mind and emphasizing the profound impact of our unconscious processes on our conscious lives.
How Dream Reveals our Internal State
Ferenczi’s Contribution to the Psychology of Dreams
In his First Contributions to Psychoanalysis, Sándor Ferenczi posits:
“Behind the conscious dream-content is hidden a latent dream-material, which, for its part, was aroused by coherent, logical dream-thoughts. The interpretation of the dream is nothing else than the translation of the dream from its hieroglyphic-symbolic speech into conceptual speech, the leading back of the manifest dream-content to the logical dream thoughts through the clues of association provided by the hidden dream-material.”
Through this declaration, Ferenczi expands upon Freud’s perspective and asserts that dreams constitute the “prima materia” of our internal state.
The manifest dream-content of our dreams can be understood as what is apparent in the dream: the apparent storyline, the symbols, the colors, the characters, and the places that you see, feel and experience. This manifest content is essentially the dream’s surface layer, easily accessible to our conscious mind upon waking. However, Ferenczi emphasizes that there is more to these dreams than meets the eye.
Beneath this surface lies the latent dream-material. The latent dream-material is the hidden layer of what is at the source of our thoughts, emotions, and memories that our conscious mind may be reluctant to acknowledge.
The dream material that shapes the symbolic appearance of our dreams is created through the accumulation and crystallization of everything that has been omitted by our consciousness in our waking lives.
To understand the concept of dream material, let’s imagine a woman who habitually looks into the mirror to remind herself of her beauty. By seeking validation from her reflection, she subconsciously harbors a heavy feeling of not being beautiful enough. Over time, this unrecognized feeling of inadequacy settles deep within her and crystallizes into potent dream material. Eventually, this material will manifest in her dreams as symbols hinting at this inner void.
When we dream, the dream matter reveals itself through the “hieroglyphic” language of symbols, a language of symbols and signs that requires great perspicacity and awareness to demystify.
The 4 Jungian Stages of Dream Analysis
“Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend. This is one reason why all religions employ symbolic language or images. But this conscious use of symbols is only one aspect of a psychological fact of great importance: Man also produces symbols unconsciously and spontaneously, in the form of dreams.”
Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
A fundamental element of the psychology of dreams is that dreams use symbolic language to represent complex concepts that are beyond our conscious comprehension. Just as religions use symbols to convey profound truths, dreams use symbols to communicate messages from the unconscious mind. These symbols can reveal hidden aspects of our personality, unresolved conflicts, and deep-seated desires that we might not be aware of in our waking life.
The process of unearthing the deeper meanings of our symbols we produce while dreaming is referred to as “dream analysis”. The goal of dream analysis is to reveal insights into our unconscious, the part of ourselves that goes beyond our current understanding and that controls our waking life without us realizing it. Dream analysis is not an easy exercise, it requires a great deal of courage to look into our inner darkness and a great deal of humility, perplexity and patience not to jump to hasty conclusions.
“Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full.… By accepting the darkness, the patient has not, to be sure, changed it into light, but she has kindled a light that illuminates the darkness within. By day no light is needed, and if you don’t know it is night you won’t light one, nor will any light be lit for you unless you have suffered the horror of darkness.”
Carl Jung, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Carl Jung developed a 4 stage process of dream analysis: Confession, Elucidation, Education and Transformation.
Confession
The first stage of dream analysis is confession. This involves the open and honest acknowledgment of the dream content, regardless of how strange, unsettling, or trivial it may seem. When you confess your dream, it is particularly important to express freely without judgment or guilt what happened in your dream. The act of confession helps bring subconscious material to the surface, setting the foundation for deeper exploration.
As Jung eloquently stated: “The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is.”
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Elucidation
The second stage is “elucidation”. “Elucidation” is the process of interpreting the symbols and themes within the dream. In this step, you list and categorize the different symbols that appeared in your dream, like the colors, places, characters, emotions, objects seen in your dream. Then, you try to elucidate each of these symbols by asking yourself what they might represent about yourself. To explore personal associations, you can ask yourself : “What could this symbol mean about me?”, “How does this symbol relate to my current waking life” or even “How does this symbol make me feel?”.
Education
The third stage of the dream analysis process is “education”. In this phase, you will ponder the deeper meaning of what you have elucidated about the symbols. This will allow you to draw a hypothesis about what the dream might symbolize about yourself and how it fits into and influences your waking life.
Transformation
The fourth and final stage of dream analysis is “transformation”. In the “transformation phase”, you apply what you have learned about yourself through the three previous steps of dream analysis. In the “transformation phase”, depending on what has been discovered, you might want to adopt a new perspective, change unhelpful patterns, or address unresolved conflicts that your dream has highlighted.
For instance, let’s imagine an individual that keeps dreaming of a specific scenario from his high school years. Through dream analysis, this individual might have discovered that this recurring dream hints to an unresolved traumatic experience or belief inherent to his teenage years. To transform, he might use this insight, and set for himself the goal of being aware of how this experience of the past arises in the pattern of his thoughts and how it influences his waking life. It is during the “transformation phase” that dream analysis goes from theoretical insights to long lasting and deep growth and evolution. The psychology of dreams infuses itself into your own psychology.
Our dream analysis app, that you can find in the description, closely follows these Jungian principles.
Individual and Social Dream Influences
“No dream symbol can be separated from the individual who dreams it […]”
Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
Individual Aspect of the Psychology of Dreams
The psychology of dreams incorporates an element of individuality. The dream content is shaped by the uniqueness of the individual that dreams it. To consider the dream content of the dreamer, it is primordial to consider the aspects of him that make up his individuality, such as his own subjectivity but also how he has been shaped by his social connections and his environment.
For instance, the personality of the dreamer, a fundamental dimension of his individuality, has a profound impact on how the dream is manifested and lived.
Extroverts, defined by their propensity to direct their attention into the outer world and characterized by their outgoingness and sociability, tend to experience dreams in a direct relationship with the external environment. Extroverted dreamers experience more physical interactions and positive emotions in their dreams, as stated in the “International Journal of Dream Research”.
On the other side of the personality spectrum, introverts, defined by their propensity to focus their attention inward and characterized by their reservedness and introspectiveness, adopt a more contemplative approach towards the symbolic content of their dreams. Introverted people experience a passive emotional tone and greater emotional intensity in their dreams. Introverts also tend to feel more distressed during nightmares.
Social Aspects of the Psychology of Dreams
Dreams are also heavily shaped by our social and external environment. The French sociologist Bernard Lahire stated:
“A dream is social through and through, in its mechanisms and the modalities of its production as well as in the objectifiable regularities of its content.”
The content of dreams is shaped by beliefs that have been ingrained into the dreamer’s individuality by his close family and by societal norms and systems. The myths, traditions and cultural beliefs upheld by the dreamer’s society are deeply reflected by the dreamer’s dream content. In the dream’s analysis, the dreamer should take into consideration not only its significance for his individuality but also its significance in regards to his social and environmental background. For example, the dreamer should ask himself : “What does this symbol represent about my society?”, “Is this symbol mythical in any way?”.
By taking into consideration both the relation of the symbol with his individuality and with his society, and by interconnecting them together, the dreamer can develop a broader and deeper understanding of the reasons behind the appearance of the symbols in his dream.
Dream Analysis, the Via Regia for Emancipation
“The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach. Through dreams, we access the timeless and universal aspects of our psyche, gaining insights that foster healing and personal growth.”
Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
When we garner the courage to open this little door and enter into our sublimely horrifying darkness, we descend into the potential of our transformation.
Within the chaos of our dreams lies the potential for emancipation. Dream analysis is the tool that melts the chains of the unconscious, as it rebalances the asymmetry of power that the unconscious had over consciousness. The act of unearthing the symbolic content of dreams fluidifies the crystallized aspects of our being, infusing in it an illuminating sense of clarity and lightness.
There is profound virtue in dream analysis, because it is not something that is done by necessity or by convention but by a desire for self-understanding and deep reverence for self-accountability.
“What is it, in the end, that induces a man to go his own way and to rise out of unconscious identity with the mass as out of a swathing mist? Not necessity, for necessity comes to many, and they all take refuge in convention. Not a moral decision, for nine times out of ten we decide for convention likewise. What is it, then, that inexorably tips the scales in favor of the extraordinary? It is what is commonly called vocation: an irrational factor that destines a man to emancipate himself from the herd and from its well-worn paths.”
Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
Dream analysis is one of the last opportunities we have to become complete individuals, acceptant of our incompleteness. To become well informed about who we are, grounded into our depths and equipped to take the right decisions for the greater good of humankind.
