Psychology of Dreams. Anthology Table of Contents Carl Gustav Jung. Function and analysis of dreams.

       Report :                         

Psychology of Dreams. Anthology Table of Contents Carl Gustav Jung. Function and  analysis of dreams.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

                                                                                            Pasechnik.N                                                     

Discussion of some details of the origin of our dreams dictated by the fact that the soil from which grows the majority of characters. Unfortunately, they are difficult to understand. As I have pointed out, the dream did not like the story of the life of the conscious mind. In ordinary circumstances, we think about what to say, we choose the most expressive way to transfer ideas and trying to make the story coherent. For example, literate people will avoid too complex metaphors, so as not to create confusion in understanding. But dreams have a different structure. The images seem contradictory, ridiculous crowding in sleeping brain, lost sense of normal time, even the most ordinary things in a dream can take a mysterious and menacing.

It may seem strange that the unconscious has its own material is so different from the accepted norms, which we awake, we impose on our minds. Anyone who paused a moment to remember the dream, recognizes this difference the main reason why dreams are so difficult to understand. They do not make sense in terms of the waking state, and therefore we are inclined or do not take them into account or considered "balamutyaschimi water."

Maybe this will be better understood if we first recognize that the ideas with which we deal in this, apparently, disciplined life, is not as clear as we would like to believe. On the contrary, their meaning (and emotional significance for us) becomes less accurate the closer we are considering them. The reason lies in the fact that what we have heard or experienced, can become subliminal, ie it can sink into the unconscious. And even then, that we keep in mind and can reproduce them at will, becomes unconscious shades, coloring or that thought every time, how we reproduce. Our conscious impression quickly learns the element of unconscious meaning, which actually means to us, although we do not consciously recognize the existence of this subliminal sense, or that conscious and unconscious being mixed and the resulting sense to us.

Of course, these psychological nuances are different in different people. Each of us perceives the abstract and general terms individually, in the context of your own mind. When in conversation, I use terms such as "State", "money", "health" or "society", I assume that my audience understands them under approximately the same as me. But the word "approximately" is important. After all, any word for a man slightly different in meaning than another, even among people of the same culture. The reason for such fluctuations (volatility point) is that the general concept is perceived in the individual context and, therefore, understood and used individually. The difference in the sense, of course, is most significant for people with different social, political, religious and psychological experience.

While the concept is formulated only in words, the variations are almost invisible and does not play a practical role. But when the exact definition or detailed explanation, you can suddenly find a striking difference not only in a purely intellectual understanding of the term, but especially in its emotional tone and application. Typically, these differences are subthreshold and therefore never understood.

Typically, these differences are neglected, considering their excess nuances of meaning, have little to do with the practical everyday needs. But the fact that they exist, shows that even the practical content of consciousness includes around twilight of uncertainty. Even the most carefully formulated philosophical or mathematical concepts, definitions, we believe, do not contain anything other than what we have invested in them, yet are more than we think. They are the creations of the mind and, as such, partly unknowable. Prime numbers, which we use at all, mean more than we think. At the same time they represent a mythological element (for Pythagorean numbers are represented by the sacred), but, of course, we do not take into account when we use them for domestic purposes.

Each concept in our unconscious mind has its own psychic connection, association. Since these connections can vary in intensity (in accordance with the importance of a concept for our whole person, or in relation to other concepts, ideas and even complexes with which it is associated in our unconscious), they are able to change the "normal" character the concept. The latter may acquire an entirely different meaning when shifted below the level of consciousness.

These subliminal elements of what is happening to us can play a minor role in our daily lives. But the analysis of dreams, when a psychologist has to deal with the manifestations of the unconscious, they are very important, as are the roots, though almost imperceptible, our conscious thoughts. Therefore, usually, and objects and ideas in the dream may acquire such a powerful psychological impact that we can wake up in terrible anxiety, although it would seem, in a dream we did not see anything wrong - just a locked room or a missed train.

The images are in dreams, far more vital and picturesque than the corresponding concepts and experiences in waking. One reason for this is that the notion of a dream can express their unconscious meaning. In its findings conscious thoughts, we restrict ourselves to the limits of rational statements - statements that much paler, as we remove them from most of the mental connections.

I recall my own dream, which was hard for me to comprehend. In this dream, a man tried to come up behind me and jump on my back. I do not know about him except that he once picked up my cue and famously parodied it. I could not see the connection between this fact and attempt to jump in a dream to me. In my professional life, it often happens that someone misrepresented the idea that I expressed, but perhaps I would have thought angry about this. There is a known value in maintaining conscious control of emotional reactions, and soon I got to the essence of the dream. It used the Austrian household word, translated into a visual image. This phrase is quite common in everyday life - "you can climb on my back" means the following: "I do not care what you say about me." U.S. equivalent of such a dream would be: "Go jump in the lake."

One could say that the dream seemed symbolic, since he did not express the situation directly, but indirectly, through metaphor, which I at first could not understand. When this happens (and it happens often), it is not deliberate "deception" of sleep, but just a reflection of a lack in our understanding of emotionally loaded language of images. In his everyday experience, we need to define things as accurately as possible, so we have learned to reject the cost of decorative fancy language and thoughts, thus losing the qualities so typical of the primitive mind. Most of us are inclined to ascribe to unconscious mental associations are unrealistic, which is a particular object or idea. Primitive as representatives, for their part, continue to recognize the existence of psychic qualities of the objects of the external world, they give the animals, plants or stones by which we consider unnatural and unacceptable.

The inhabitant of the African jungle takes night vision in the person of the sorcerer, who temporarily took its shape. Or he takes his forest life, or spirit of an ancestor of his tribe. Wood can play a vital role in the fate of the savage, obviously, sending him his own soul and voice, and with his hand the man himself paired with a sense that he shared his fate, the fate of the tree. In South America there are Indians who are convinced that they are red macaw parrot, though, and know that they do not have feathers, wings and beak. For the savage things are not as clear-cut boundaries, what they get in our "rational societies."

What psychologists call mental identity or "mystical participation" has been removed from our material world. And this is precisely the one halo, the halo of unconscious associations, which gives a colorful and fantastic sense of the primitive world. We lost him to such an extent that the meeting did not know. In us these things fit below the threshold of perception, and when they accidentally come to the surface of consciousness, we believe that there is not all right. Many times I had to advise the highly educated and intelligent people who saw deeply shaken their dreams, fantasies or experienced visions. They believed that no one in mind and memory have anything like this can not, and who still faces a similar, clearly not in his mind. One theologian once told me that Ezekiel's vision is nothing as painful symptoms, and that when Moses and other prophets heard "voices", addressed to them, they suffered from hallucinations. Can you imagine all of his horror when something like this "unexpected" happened to him. We are so accustomed to the "obvious" rational nature of our world that already can not imagine anything beyond the common sense. Savage in the face of shocking events, no doubt in his own mental competence, and he speculates about fetishes, spirits or gods.

However, our emotions, in essentially the same. Horror, generated by our refined civilization, may be no more threatening than those savages ascribed to demons. Sometimes the position of modern civilized man reminds me of a mental patient in my clinic, who himself was once a doctor. One morning I asked him how things were going. He replied that he had an amazing night sky disinfecting mercuric chloride, but in the course of this sanitization of God he could not be found.

Here we present a neurosis or something worse. Instead of God, or "fear of God" is the neurosis of anxiety or phobia. Emotion has remained essentially the same, but its object is changed for the worse and the name and meaning.

I remember a professor of philosophy, who once consulted me about the cancer phobia. He was convinced that he had a malignant tumor, although dozens of X-rays did not suggest anything like that. "I know nothing, - he said - but it could be." How did such an idea could arise? Obviously, she appeared as a result of fear, inspired apparently unconscious thinking. Painful thought seized him and held under his own control.

An educated person to admit this to him was harder than the savage complain that annoy the spirits. Malicious influence of evil spirits - a primitive culture for at least a valid assumption, but civilized man to a very deep experience to accept that his trouble - just a silly fantasy. Prehistoric phenomenon of "obsession" is not dissolved in civilization, it has remained the same. Only be interpreted otherwise, a less appealing way (way).

I've made several comparisons between modern man and the savage. Such comparisons, as I show below, essential for understanding the symbolic propensities of man and the role played by dreams of expressing them. Revealed that many dreams are images and associations, similar to primitive ideas, myths and rituals. These images were dreaming Freud called "archaic remnants", the expression suggests that they are mental elements, "survivors" in the human brain for centuries. This view is typical of those who see only the unconscious as an appendage to the consciousness (or, more figuratively, as a landfill, which resets all of which refused to mind).

Further investigation revealed that such an attitude is untenable and must be rejected. I found that the associations and images of this kind are an integral part of the unconscious and can occur anywhere - regardless of the degree of education and human mind. And these associations and images in any way not lifeless or useless "vestiges." They still live and act, proving especially valuable because of its "historical" nature. They form a bridge between the ways in which we consciously express their thoughts, and more primitive, colorful and beautiful form of expression. But this form is addressed directly to the feelings and emotions. These "historical" and the association is a link that connects the rational mind to the world of instinct.

I have already discussed the curious contrast between the 'controlled' thoughts in the waking state and the wealth of imagination in my dreams. Here you can see another reason for this difference. Because of their civilized life, we have deprived many ideas of emotional energy, the more they do not react. We use them in speech and in general, react when they use other people, but they do not produce a significant impression on us. It takes more to impress upon us more efficient in order to force us to change their attitudes and behavior. But this is precisely what makes "the language of dreams," he is so much mental energy that compels us to pay him attention.

I was, for example, a lady, known for its silly prejudices and stubborn resistance to any reasonable argument. With it, one could argue even though the whole evening without any result - it did not take into account. But her dreams took quite another direction. Once she had a dream in which she was invited to visit on a very important social occasion. She welcomed the hostess with the words: "How nice that you came from. All your friends are here and waiting for you." The hostess led her to the door and opened it, the dreamer has stepped forward and fell - in the barn!

Language has been sleeping in this case is quite simple and understandable even to the most ignorant. The woman at first did not want to take into account the content of his dream, which is simply struck her self-esteem and eventually achieved his goal. Some time later, she still found his meaning, but was never able to understand the cause of his own samoizdevki.

These messages from the unconscious is more important than most people realize. In his adult life, we are exposed to very different kinds of influences. People around us stimulate or suppress us, the events in the service or in public life distract us from his own life. Together and separately, they knocked us out of the way, typical of our personality. In any case, whether we admit or not a particular action, they have on our minds, it is stir and to some extent subject to these events. This is especially true in individuals with a strong extrovert setting or those who nurtures a sense of inferiority and doubts about its personal significance.

The longer the consciousness remains under the influence of prejudices and errors, fantasies and infantile wishes, the more will increase the role of pre-existing neurotic dissociation and ultimately lead to more or less unnatural life, far from the healthy instincts of nature and natural simplicity.

The general function of dreams is to try to recover our mental balance through the production of dream material, which restores - a very sensitive way - complete mental balance. I would call it more (or compensatory) role of dreams in our psychic life. This explains why people with unrealistic goals, or too high opinion of himself, or building the grandiose plans that do not correspond to their real capabilities, see the dream flying and falling. Sleep offset personal shortcomings and at the same time warns of the dangers of inadequate way. If warning signs are ignored by the dream, it can happen real accident. The victim can fall down stairs or get in a car accident.

I remember the case of a man caught in a large number of dubious scams. He has developed almost morbid passion for mountain climbing, in the form of compensation. He was looking for a place to "climb higher yourself." One night in his dreams he saw himself walking in a high mountain peaks in the void. When he told his dream, I immediately saw the danger and tried to warn her, urging him to limit his ascent. But all was in vain. Six months later, he stepped into the same "emptiness." Mountain guide watched as he and his friend went down the rope into a tight spot. A friend found a temporary foothold on the ledge, and a dreamer of dreams followed him down. Suddenly, he loosened the rope and, according to the guide, "like a jump into the air." He fell to his friend, both thrown down and broken.

Another typical case occurred in a lady, too highly moral. During the day she was in pride and arrogance, but at night she have dreamed a dream, filled with a wide variety of obscenities. When I suspected their existence, the lady indignantly refused to accept it. But dreams, meanwhile, continued, and their content has become more threatening, and sent to walk, that this woman used to perform in the forest, during which she indulged his fantasies. I saw this danger, but she did not listen to my warnings. Soon the forest it was attacked by a sex maniac, and only the intervention of people who had heard cries for help, saved her from imminent murder.

There is no magic in it. Dreams themselves have pointed out that this woman felt a secret passion for this kind of adventure - just like the mountaineer sought a way out of its difficulties. Of course, none of them are expected to pay such a high price: it was broken a few bones, but he did up his life.

Thus, dreams can sometimes inform about certain situations long before they occur in reality. This is not a miracle or a mystical prediction. Many of the crises in our lives have a long history of the unconscious.

We go through it step by step, not realizing the danger that accumulates. But what we have deliberately tried not to notice, often captured by our unconscious, which transmits information in the form of dreams.

Dreams often warn us in this way, although not always.

It would be naive to assume therefore that there is a benevolent "hand", which we always kept stopping. Raised some, the service of virtue sometimes works and sometimes not. The mysterious hand can even point the way to death, sometimes dreams seem to be trapped, and what are in reality. Sometimes they behave like Delphic oracle, which foretold the king that, crossing the river Khalis, he will destroy a great kingdom. Only after he was completely defeated in battle, it became clear that the kingdom was his own.

When dealing with dreams, do not get a naive. They originate in the spirit, which is not quite human character, but is rather a breath of nature - the spirit of the beautiful and noble, as well as cruel deity. To characterize this spirit, it should be rather close to the world of ancient mythology or fairy tales of the primeval forest, than the consciousness of modern man. I completely do not deny the great achievements that have occurred in the evolution of society. But these gains were achieved at the cost of heavy losses, the extent of which we are only now beginning to understand and evaluate. Part of the goal of my comparisons between primitive and civilized state of man is to show the balance of these losses and gains.

Primitive man governed mainly by their instincts, in contrast to the "streamlined" modern descendants, who have learned a "control". In the process of civilization, we are increasingly separated from our minds the deep layers of instinctive mental and ultimately from the somatic basis of mental phenomena. Fortunately, we have not lost these basic instinctive strata; they were only in the form of images of a dream. These instinctive phenomenon - they, incidentally, is not always possible to recognize as such because they are symbolic in nature, - play a vital role in what I call the compensatory role of dreams.

To preserve the constancy of mind, and, if anything, physiological health, the unconscious and consciousness must be linked closely to move along parallel paths. If they split or "dissociated," psychological instability occurs. In this respect the symbols of sleep - important ambassadors for the instinctive to the rational part of the human mind, and their interpretation enriches the poverty of consciousness, as she teaches him to understand the forgotten language again instincts.

Of course, people are inclined to doubt this function again, because characters often go unnoticed or unappreciated. In everyday life, understanding dreams is regarded as an unnecessary exercise. This can be illustrated by my research of a primitive tribe in East Africa. To my surprise, the natives denied having seen any dreams. But gradually, as a result of patient nenastoychivyh conversations with them I realized that they, like all dream, but that they believe that their dreams do not have any sense. "Dreams of the common man do not mean anything" - they said. They believed that only the chiefs and medicine men dreams can mean something; of these people depend on welfare of the tribe, respectively, and their dreams of receiving a specific meaning. True, there lies the difficulty - the chief and medicine man said that at present they have no meaningful dreams. The date of their loss, they attributed to the time when the British came to their country. Now the mission of the "great dream" took over the District Commissioner, an English officer in charge of their affairs - his "dreams and guide" the behavior of the tribe.

When the natives still acknowledged that dream, but consider them to be meaningless, they looked like quite a modern man who is convinced that the dream - nonsense, because in it he could not understand. But even civilized man can see that the dream (which he may even forget it) can change its behavior for better or for worse. Sleep in this case was "perceived", but only a subconscious way. So usually what happens. Only in very rare cases where sleep is particularly impressive or repeated at regular intervals, the majority considers it necessary clue.

It should be a warning about an ignorant or incompetent analysis of dreams. There are people whose mental condition was so unstable that the interpretation of their dreams can be extremely risky, in which case too one-sided consciousness cut off from the corresponding irrational or "crazy" the unconscious, and these two should not throw together without adequate preparation.

In a broader sense, it would be a folly to assume that there is a ready-made systematic interpreter of dreams, which is only enough to buy and find the appropriate symbol. No single character is sleeping can not be taken separately from the person who saw this dream, and no single unambiguous interpretation of any dream. Everyone is so different in the choice of the ways in which it complements or compensates the unconscious mind, which is absolutely impossible to be sure that the dreams and their symbols can be somehow classified.

True, there are dreams and some characters (I would prefer to call them "motifs"), rather typical and common.