Deep in Dreams
Dreams are some of the most fascinating unreal-real experiences we may ever go through. This is about to be a semi-long read so if you’d rather enjoy the simplified version of dreams click here.
Dreams amaze me. I dream every night, multiple times a night, and they tend to be some crazy dreams. I’ve looked so deeply into dreams, and to this day, no one can really make much sense of meanings, interpretations, formulations, or really much at all. Of course there’s “dream experts” and similar individuals out there but in all honesty…they don’t seem too reliable. Because who really knows what is going on in dreams?
One of my favorite people, Carl Jung, has thrown together some theories about dreams that are worth discussing.
First and foremost, Jung believes that dreams have two roots: 1) Conscious contents, impressions of the previous day, etc. and 2) Constellated contents of the unconscious.
Carl Jung also stated that there are 4 meanings of a dream:
1) The dream represents an unconscious reaction to a conscious situation.
2) The dream describes a situation which has come about as the result of some conflict between your conscious and unconscious.
3) The dream represents tendency in the unconscious whose purpose is to effect a change in a conscious attitude.
4) The dream represents unconscious processes which have NO recognizable relation to consciousness.
Now these meanings may be a bit confusing, and even tend to oppose each other in different ways, which is beyond frustrating. You might’ve had a dream which changed you, or made you realize you need to change a certain behavior…but what if you’re interpreting the dream in the wrong meaning and therefore behaving “incorrectly”. Fear not, because the unconscious will steer you back onto the right track, just incase you had a slight misunderstanding.
Dreams can be somatically formulated OR arise from creative sources in the psyche OR be based upon physical or psychic events in the environment, either past or future.
Okay, first of all, somatically formulated basically means the dream is formulated in your body rather than your mind (somatic-relating to the soma aka your body). Secondly, in case you’ve never heard the word “psyche” before, it is describing your soul, mind or spirit, whichever resonates best with you. Lastly, you may be thinking…wait so can I see the future with my dreams? Um…it is actually possible, but the rate at which you forget dreams basically makes this useless, plus this is NOT a proven theory.
Mr. Jung thinks that some dreams can bring contents that balance a one-sided attitude of consciousness which are compensatory dreams. Dreams can also be complementary, meaning they complete what is lacking in those contents of consciousnesses which are too narrow or not considered sufficiently valuable. This is an amazing theory, because it essentially means that if you understand your dreams, you will consciously change, in view of yourself and your experiences. Basically, dreams are free therapy, but you have to be able to understand and apply yourself in order to benefit from them.
One of the most annoying occurrences related to dreams and waking is that if you wake up by an alarm clock, loud noise, or are startled, then you will not be able to remember major contents of your dream, or sometimes you won’t even remember that you dreamt anything at all. However, if you awaken on your own, you will remember the majority of the dream you just had, and it will basically float around in your short-term memory until it either converts into long-term memory or disappears. An interesting thought is how this concept could be related to further awakening moments. Many people believe in spiritual awakenings, as well as other types of awakenings. In my opinion, it is very possible that if the individual “wakes themself up” instead of with the help of an “alarm” that their “after-effects” increase positively.
Moving on to another crazy guy you might’ve heard of, Sigmund Freud.
Freud wrote a book The Interpretation of Dreams, which I highly recommend reading, but if you don’t like big words and confusing sentences, I’ll sum it up.
Some of the first people to ever have written anything about dreams stated that dreams were divided into two classes/meanings. The first is influenced by the past or present, but has no future significance. The second was supposed to determine the future. This could be through direct prophecies received in the dream, vision of a future event, and symbolic dreams which require interpretation. This theory lasted for centuries. Not decades…centuries!
I believe dreams are our personal access into our unconscious and if used and understood correctly, can be life changing. Others believe dreams are randomly generated by our memories and habits. Others believe that dreams are sent from gods meant to be prophecies, interpretated, and tell the future. With all these different theories, and so little research, what can we really believe?
