PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT


Archetypal insights: Jung’s dream world


Carl Jung pioneered the field of dream analysis while introducing an important spiritual dimension that had previously been missing from psychology. His techniques can provide valuable insights into our dreams and lives.


by Martin Oliver


AMONG THOSE WHO have devised frameworks for understanding the significance of dreams, perhaps the most influential is the celebrated Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. With a career spanning half of the 20th century, Jung was an important figure in the development of modern depth psychology and a pioneer in the field of dream analysis. In his earlier years, Jung studied


under Sigmund Freud, the originator of psychoanalysis, but over time the emergence of irreconcilable philosophical differences caused the two men to part company. While Freud saw the unconscious as a repository of primitive and sexually


16 MAY 2015


orientated material, Jung’s work became focused towards spiritual dimensions that the more rationally oriented Freud could not accept. In Jung’s view, these mysterious elements are fundamental to the psyche are most vividly encountered in dreams.


Exploring the dream world Psychology generally agrees with the


notion that below the threshold of regular understanding, the unconscious is the engine that drives much of our behaviour. The psyche has been likened to an iceberg, about ninety per cent invisible in the unconscious realm, and the remaining ten per cent accessible to


everyday awareness. Unconscious drives are recognised by advertisers through the sometimes sneaky way in which they tap into basic underlying drives that Freud described, such as aggression, fear and sex, in order to motivate purchases. Dreams can be seen as postcards


from the unconscious, which is obviously unable to communicate with the conscious self via everyday language. Instead, it resorts to sometimes baffling images and symbols, that if investigated can be of great personal value. Jung held the unconscious in great respect and awe, regarding it as a very wise part of the human psyche. In his view, all dreams are prompting us towards ‘individuation’, a process of spiritual growth and self- realisation. Everybody has dreams, including


those people who never remember their nightly journeys. If such a dream-deprived individual were to pay attention to even a vague dream fragment, a bond would be formed with their unconscious, which, like a speaker waiting for a sign of attention


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