Carl Jung walked away from the Freudian idea that dreams represented dissatisfied desires. He developed other concepts to interpret his patients’ dreams. The symbology of dreams in Jung’s analysis is much richer and more interesting.
This psychological approach suggests both a collective and personal unconscious, identifying the characters of the dream world as symbols that convey messages from the world of the unconscious.
- Jung’s analysis deals with archetypes.
- It identifies them with unconscious attitudes hidden in the conscious mind.
- These archetypes manifest themselves through symbols.
- More or less universal.
- That contribute to improve the understanding of unconscious attitudes.
- Each figure that appears in a dream can represent an aspect of the dreamer.
- Psychology schools also attribute this characteristic to the inanimate objects that appear in dreams.
From the patient’s point of view in therapy with a Jungian analyst, the experiment leads, in many cases, to a real discovery. Opening the door of understanding in the sense of dreams from the Jungian approach also opens the door to a fascinating world.
Symbols are, for Junguian psychology, the language in which we express ourselves in dreams, a language that is not always easy to express with words.
In fact, in our conscious life we also use many symbols to express ideas, so Jungian psychoanalysis emphasizes that while the symbolism of dreams seems to have universal characteristics, a symbol should not be interpreted without having a deep understanding. of the dreamer’s personal situation.
The most important archetypes are animus, animaus or shadow, each representing a part of the person who dreams, they find themselves in the dreams in the form of an old man or an old woman who can also be an admired teacher, a young woman or a huge insect In addition to identifying them, the therapist helps the person discover what they mean to them.
Symbols such as the forest, in the current Jungian school and especially in the West, represent an enigmatic and strange place, which is linked to the fear of facing what emerges from the unconscious, this is an example of how the Jungian analyst does not attribute a fixed meaning to the image of sleep. What it does is it looks for a personal meaning for the person who dreams, beyond the obvious appearance of the image.
There is a certain symbology in dreams that seems to be repeated in many people, dreaming of being pregnant is a type of dream that generates feelings encountered when taken to the letter, from the Junguiana perspective this may be related to a certain type of births. Transformative internal growth.
When an ex or ex appears in a dream, it can actually symbolize a part of the individual who dreams of it, so it is always important to do an analysis based on what the image represents to us emotionally, that is, what the evocation of this image makes us feel.
Dreaming of tooth loss is another dream that has a repetitive pattern in the population, it is a dreamlike symbol that usually appears during periods of transition or significant changes.
Dreaming about animals is also archetypal terrain. Interpretation has a great influence on the sociocultural environment of the person who dreams and the emotion conveyed to us by the dream animal, whether it arouses fear or confidence, whether it is a pleasant dream or a feeling of hostility. wide range of interpretations in mythology.
Recurring dreams are often associated with negative experiences that we internalize in the form of emotional trauma and can be interpreted as a warning that attention must be paid to remedy a hopelessly repressed appearance.
The psychoanalytic approach is not entirely accepted in more conventional clinical psychology and is not considered a scientific psychology, however, to graduate as an analyst you must face years of training in psychology.
In addition, it is necessary to carry out a postgraduate degree offered by prestigious academic institutions, the future therapist must also undergo an analysis before being able to exercise, this is not a method that can be used lightly and the training of these professionals is very intense.
Based on this approach, dreams can be an excellent tool that offers the opportunity to learn and get to know each other better. Writing dreams can also be helpful in linking the personal meanings and symbolism of dreams.
However, if there is a possibility of having therapy with a good Jungian analyst, experience can be one of the most rewarding elements in the path of self-knowledge.