Is dream analysis a serious psychological exercise? Or is it just a variation on fortune telling? Or something else entirely (don't want to be accused of forcing people to make false comparisons)? Any thoughts, daydreams?
A friend of mine bought a book on dreams. I had a read through, it appeared to be mostly Barnum statements, although one entry caught my eye so much that I copied it out.
And here it is...
To see a horse in human flesh, descending on a hammock through the air, and as it nears your house is metamorphosed into a man, and he approaches your door and throws something at you which seems to be rubber but turns into great bees, denotes miscarriage of hopes and useless endeavours to regain lost valuables. To see animals in human flesh, signifies great advancement to the dreamer, and new friends will be made by modest wearing of well-earned honours. If the human flesh appears diseased or freckled, the miscarriage of well-laid plans is denoted.
In the matter of dream analysis, there is gold and there is cheap coin. A lifetime of close study of dream life is rewarding in secret ways, but most people will plump for a guidebook that saves them from having to pay the necessary attention. Many of these sometimes baroque guidebooks are the product of a single person's intuition, and, like the intuitive systems of the occult, are of doubtful provenance and questionable value.
Attention is the key. In the same way that dream drugs like LSD mediate attention, so do dreams attempt a mediation of attention. The unconscious, which communicates in its ancient language of symbols, tries to draw our conscious awareness to its messages of urgent import, and if we but pay attention, then we will be directed to aspects of our lives that are neglected, a dereliction usually caused by our one-sided piling of energy into those parts of our conscious life with which we are most comfortable. For sceptics like me, that is usually waking consciousness couched in the language of science. The unconscious speaks a different language whose archetypal imagery transcends culture.
In Jung's schema, the psyche, that is, the totality of consciousness including the vast, hidden unconscious underworld, is permanently biased towards the protection and realisation of the unique personality that is yourself, and its energy is directed towards wholeness. So dreams are hints, suggestions made to yourself, that, once interpreted, will reveal the way forward. As Heraclitus said: Man grows from his smallest to his greatest by removing excess and remedying deficiency.
Last edited by MartinH; 4th July 2008 at 12:20 PM.
Has anyone ever done a study to see if dream symbolism can be replicated between different people?
Good question. I am not aware of any such study.
I do think that dreams can have some relevance. Some dreams will be fairly meaningless, and bear no close attention, others will be loaded with meaning and significance, and this is why some psychotherapists (not just psychoanalysts) still examine dreams. However I reject anything as concrete as "A dream with this ... will always mean this..." due to the uniquely individual nature in dreams.
I do believe there are psychology studies where they've tried to analyse the types of dreams people have and correlate them to meanings. This is in psychoanalysis mind you and not the more mainstream scientific psychology.Originally Posted by Mulder
I don't know much about psychoanalysis (and what I have learned about it was completely potty) but to me dream interpretation is just a way, a facilitation method, to get people introspecting and focusing on themselves and their problems: a way of exploring their problems through abstract meanings.
A (very) major assumption of psychoanalysis is that we are controlled by our subconscious and we don't have any access to it. One way of bridging the gap is through dreams; they being fleeting glimpses of our subconscious mind.
FWIW, my opinion is that dream analysis is a load of bunk. It's subjective and down to interpretation. You can interpret a dream in any way you like and give it meaning. I guess that's how it helps in psychoanalysis but I wouldn't say there's any real mapping between dream interpretation and objective reality.
Unless someone knows better......
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That's genius. I...I'm speechless.To see a horse in human flesh, descending on a hammock through the air, and as it nears your house is metamorphosed into a man, and he approaches your door and throws something at you which seems to be rubber but turns into great bees, denotes miscarriage of hopes and useless endeavours to regain lost valuables.
How about my thing in dreams where I can never use a phone. I just keep dialling the wrong numbers and keep having to start again. I'm sure it's symbolic of Communication Issues. Or possibly cack-handedness.
It's just a variation of the common dream theme of lack of control. Falling, lost in a maze of corridors, suddenly have no clothes on, can't speak, etc, etc. Not that I know what it means or why it happens, or anything else much about dreams...
I used to lucid dream, suddenly be aware that I was asleep and dreaming. It didn't do much good, I'd try to control what was happening but it wouldn't work and I'd get frustrated and wake up. Hasn't happened for around 20 years now.
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