Jung - Dream-Analysis in its Practical Application

This is a piece of reflective writing to better comprehend how Jung thought, what ideas I should be aware of and what may be important for me to consider in my current interactions and future practice, be it counselling or psychotherapy. This collection of short essays will include many quotes from the book, Modern Man in Search of a Soul.

Dream-Analysis in its Practical Application

I have read the Interpretation of Dreams by Freud and have gained some insight into the importance of dreams in the attempt to better understand ourselves and be able to assist others. Many parts within this book were a slog to read and felt difficult to find useful to the understanding of dream interpretation for a few reasons: as the interpretations were based upon Freud's particular experiences with such patients, it was difficult to complete the task of understanding how he may have made such links without these first hand experiences. Additionally, the time in which this book had been set made it difficult to comprehend the culture and social norms on which each interpretation and dream was based. Differently, Jung's chapter on “Dream-Analysis in its Practical Application” is much more promising in its description of what's to come, in its conciseness of being only 27 pages and improved cultural understanding as it is more recent than that of Freud. 

After the adoption of Copernicus's heliocentric model of the universe, humans no longer believed they were at the centre of the universe. Following Darwin's theory of evolution, humans no longer believed in creationism, that humans were made different to the apes and other animals around them. Freud has been known to have dealt the third strike to human understanding of life as we know it, by highlighting the effects of the unconscious, in that there are parts of ourselves that we are unaware of but have significant implications for who we are and how we act. Both Freud and Jung held the position that the unconscious must be recognised to enable effective treatment with dream-analysis. 

"The Freudian school is of the opinion that important therapeutic effects are achieved by throwing light upon the unconscious causal factors - that is, by explaining them to the patient and thus making him conscious of the sources of his trouble." (page 2-3)

"For the purposes of therapy it is necessary for the patient to become conscious of the causal factors in his disturbance." (page 6)

"Often enough [dreams] appear senseless, but it is obviously we who lack the sense and the ingenuity to read the enigmatical message from the nocturnal realm of the psyche." (page 15-16)

"Dreams give information about the secrets of the inner life and reveal to the dreamer hidden factors of his personality. As long as these are undiscovered, they disturb his waking life and betray themselves only in the form of symptoms [of neurosis]." (page 16) 

It appears that the aim of dream analysis should be to make the patient aware of any unconscious causal factors that present themselves within dreams. This can give the patient a greater understanding of their thoughts, feelings and behaviours, which will help in attempting to resolve particular neuroses, now better known as mental disorders, including but not limited to anxiety disorders and phobias. Jung spoke of the aim of psychoanalysis, which is to widen consciousness. 

"[To bring light to] the parts of the personality which were previously unconscious and subjecting them to conscious discrimination and criticism." (page 10)

It is this enlightening of the patient, so to speak, that allows the individual in their totality to be seen, and criticised, and to improve receptivity to interventions, as these interventions are formulated while considering the whole.   

It is important to note that when conducting dream analysis, you are working with the patient's experiences. Phenomenologically speaking, every dream is real. It all happened. Whether it is a dream of murdering a friend or riding a magic carpet, these are experienced and thus should be treated as seriously as those which may have occurred in waking life. Jung highlights that after the beginning of treatment with dream-analysis:

"the dreams become less transparent, and more blurred, shortly after the beginning of the treatment." (page 8)

This is important to recognise as it indicates that the initial stages of treatment may be the most important stages to ensure detailed accounts of dreams are documented. Jung also recommended that despite this waning of detail and vividness of the dream, patients are urged to continue accurate recording of their dreams and the interpretations given. This is primarily because multiple dreams and interpretations can allow for a dream series analysis, in which important content and themes are highlighted which could facilitate the patient's widening of consciousness. 

Further practical guidance is given as to the psychotherapist's conduct with the patient:

"It is highly important for the analyst to admit his lack of understanding from time to time, for nothing is more unbearable for the patient than to be always understood." (page 9)

"Stand ready in every single case to construct a totally new theory of dreams." (page 11)

"Every hypothesis about the nature of the dream, its function and structure, is merely a rule of thumb and must be subject to constant modifications." (page 12) 

"The analyst who wishes to rule out conscious suggestion must consider any dream interpretation invalid that does not win the assent of the patient, and he must search until he finds a formulation that does." (page 10-11) 

"It is relatively unimportant whether the doctor understands or not, but everything hangs on the patient's doing so." (page 9)  

These excerpts emphasise the vast unexplored landscape that is dream analysis and how we have yet to find the ultimate method of interpretation. Instead, multiple approaches can be taken, some that are known and some that are yet to be known but may be formed over the course of a therapist’s ever-expanding experiences with dream analysis. The penultimate and final quotes used above, emphasise a person-centred approach to therapy, ensuring that the patient understands and is aligned with the interpretation given to a dream; if it makes sense to the patient but not to the analyst, it may be the job of the analyst to work with the patient's understanding of this interpretation as it is congruent with their phenomenological experience, as opposed to imposing the analysts assumptions, view and conclusions, on the patient. The following example highlights the balance between a therapy and interpretation that is person-centred, and is appropriately directed by the analyst:

"It frequently happens at the very beginning of a treatment that a dream reveals to the doctor, in a wide perspective, the general direction in which the unconscious is moving. But for practical reasons, it may not be feasible to make clear to the patient, at this early stage, the deeper meaning of his dream." (page 23)

Such 'practical reasons' aforementioned may be the belief that the patient's interpretation is flawed in some way, or there is something that the patient is not aware of that the analyst is. Instead of delivering what has been revealed to the analyst immediately and abruptly, it is vital that the analyst attempts to be the catalyst in assisting the patient's growth to this truth, without top-down attempts at inculcating a truth. By appealing to the patient's development and education through experience, this understanding often is deeper and more powerful than would be otherwise. 

Further speaking to the varied approaches in dream analysis, the use of dream symbols is one tool for widening consciousness, bringing an unconscious symbol of the dream into context within the patient's waking life. Similar to the interpretation of the dream, symbols of the dream must be considered within the context of the dreamer's philosophical, religious and moral convictions. However, this approach is not without its potential flaws:

"But if the practitioner operates too much with fixed symbols, there is danger of his falling into mere routine and dogmatism, thus failing to meet the patient's need." (page 23)

Analysts must be flexible enough to step outside of the framework of symbols and what they could mean, to avoid flaws of too rigid a routine. 

Another such approach is to consider the purpose of the dream. Instead of searching for why the dream content was the way it was, ask what the dream was for. This reframes the why question, in a way that allows us to bring some order to chaos, or some sense to the illusive madness of dreams. Analysts must ask themselves what conscious attitude the dream compensates. The specifics of a dream may not relate at all to the dreamer's conscious life, and thus may be distressing to experience or discarded as trivial. Instead, an ability to take the specific experience, and extract a superordinate pattern of the dream, then can be applied to the conscious life in a way not previously done. Jung spoke to the contents of the unconscious: 

"[The unconscious] does not harbour explosive materials, but it may become explosive owing to the repressions exercised by a self-sufficient, or cowardly, conscious outlook." (page 18) 

For example, if the patient has a dream in which they have murdered someone, there are multiple witnesses, and they now must run, their life will never be the same. Hopefully, this does not reflect the dreamer's inclination or intentions to murder someone but it could relate to the abstracted pattern that could be fear of regretful, life-changing events that they do not wish to engage in. This abstracted pattern may then be brought into consideration for the patient's waking life, and may facilitate consideration for potential actions that if continued, may lead to life-changing events that they would rather not have happen. What intentions or behaviours has the patient repressed, and are thus unaware of, that could have devastating impacts on their life if continued? This use of dream analysis can bring what was previously repressed into conscious awareness and reveal parts of the dreamer's personality that were unknown. Upon discovery, potential disturbances in his waking life in the form of neurotic symptoms may at once be reduced or attempted to be tackled. 

One premise of dream content that makes the application of dream-analysis challenging is that the dream content can be made up of that which is repressed and in the unconscious, as well as details and events from recent memories such as the last few days. Since the time of this book’s publication, many technological developments have occurred, introducing a greater number of new and novel experiences to our everyday lives. In attendance to the dream content being formed partly by recent waking experiences, experiences in waking life in 2024 can be seen to involve more "noise" than experiences in 1933. One such example of noise is access to the internet which can give you access to videos that give glimpses of what it might be like to skydive in Dubai, or perform a spacewalk around the International Space Station. This implicates our ability to decipher the purpose of the dream; it makes it difficult to answer the "what for" question. Generally speaking, increasing the amount of noise in a system can make it more difficult to find the signal. It is both unfortunate that we must deal with greater noise, and unavoidable given the modern world's technological dependence. Nonetheless, the use of dream analysis in therapy is still a viable avenue of therapeutic pursuit, only now it may require greater attentiveness from the analyst to extract insight from this window into the unconscious.