Dreams – Authentic Letters From The Self
This post starts an in-depth guide on Jung’s dream interpretation method.
Without further ado, shall we begin.
Authentic Letters From The Self
I’ve been meticulously recording and thoroughly analyzing my dreams for over 3 years.
Without a doubt, this is the thing that has made the most significant impact on my life and on my psychological development.
Whenever I’m analyzing my dreams I feel like I’m tapping into this eternal source of knowledge that holds the key to the Self.
We must approach it with reverence and learn its symbolic language in order to establish a dialogue with the depths of our being.
From this relationship, we may acquire its guidance.
However, we must not forget that every self-knowledge journey has a price to be paid.
Dreams reveal the objective truth about ourselves, not how we conjecture it to be, but the raw reality of who we are.
If you don’t possess the right attitude, soon you’ll face the relentless facet of the Unconscious.
Illusions about ourselves and the world must be shattered.
There’s nothing more humbling than realizing you’re the one acting extremely childish or that you’re the one hurting other people.
In contrast, dreams can also reveal our true potential and how little credit we’ve been giving ourselves.
I had many dreams where I was feeling extremely hesitant and the Self showed me I was extremely capable of overcoming every obstacle.
After this dramatic introduction, it’s time for a quote:
“The dream one gets at night is always like a letter from the same inner center, from the Self. Every dream is that, and the writer of the letter is always the same: the Self, the one thing, the quid. Therefore, if you go on for a long time having these “Aha!” reactions, you slowly become aware of the nature of that nocturnal letter writer, or constantly aware of the presence and reality of the Self. That gives the ego peace of mind. If, for instance, you get into any outer jam, you may worry to a certain extent, but then you think you will wait and see what the unconscious, or the Self, says. Thus you have a second source of information. You do not always have to follow your own voice, and that gives the ego a patient attitude and a certain continuity, for it waits to hear the inner source of information through which it will cope with the impossible situation, instead of going around wriggling like a frightened mouse and thinking as the ego always tends to think: “that it has to put stalks onto cherries,” as Jung once said. So the connection with the Self makes for a certain quietness and constancy in the personality”. (Alchemical Active Imagination, Marie Von Franz, p.67)
There’s something magical about experiencing these “Aha!” moments.
Suddenly you know which direction you must pursue and an inner shift occurs.
Sometimes we don’t realize it in the moment, but if you slightly tilt the helm of a boat you might reach a completely different country in a few months.
Certainly, there are dreams more impactful than others, but when you analyze a series of them, you can clearly see how everything is connected.
It’s like each dream is a piece of a bigger puzzle.
Over time, this relationship with the Self quietens our constant worrying ego.
Everything might be on fire, but something inside you knows it’s going to be ok.
Even though you might be feeling pulled in all of these different directions, you’re able to find your ground.
More on self-knowledge:
“Jung’s idea of self-knowledge does not mean that we subjectively muse about our ego: “I am like that and like that.” That may be useful, but it is not what we understand by self- knowledge, which would mean taking the information we get from dreams. In other words, if somebody wants to know himself, in our sense of the word, he has to accept the image which the dream gives about him. If you dream that you behave like a fool, though you subjectively feel most reasonable, you have to take into serious consideration, for, according to the unconscious, or according to the light shed by the archetype of the Self upon your conscious behavior, you are acting like a fool. That is an objective piece of information obtained from a dream whether you like it or not, and you know how often one does not like what one dreams. That is information which comes from the objective psyche within and which we think useful and advisable to accept”. (Alchemical Active Imagination, Marie Von Franz, p.129)
In order to benefit from dream interpretation, we must take the unconscious images with absolute seriousness.
Dreams will reveal the truth through the lenses of the Unconscious, and as we know, it uses a symbolic and metaphorical language.
It feels like we’re learning a new idiom.
In this process, it’s completely normal to feel hesitant about accepting certain interpretations and truths, our ego will resist, and will strive to maintain its ground.
However, this is exactly what’s causing our conflicts and problems.
If you continue treating the unconscious in a frivolous way, that’s when things can get dark really quickly (but more about that in the near future).
The unconscious works in a compensatory/ complementary relationship with the conscious mind.
Therefore it contains the information and the different angles we need to properly access ourselves and produce lasting changes.
That’s why working with a Jungian Therapist is so important because he can help us see these images from an objective perspective.
We always have the tendency to interpret a dream through the lenses of our ego, and if we’re neurotic, the interpretation will happen through the lenses of our neurosis.
Dreams will always reveal what we don’t know and will often come through our back door: the inferior function.
So if you’re a thinking type, dreams will revolve around your inferior feeling.
In my case, dreams generally access my inferior sensation.
Quoting Einstein, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”.
With time you’re able to apprehend the psychodynamics of dream interpretation and start to get insights on your own.
And making one capable of interpreting their own dreams is one of the greatest objectives in Jungian analysis.
But until this day I have some crazy dreams that would be impossible for me to interpret alone, lol.
If I hadn’t been working with an analyst all of this time, I’m positive I’d have evolved maybe 10% of what I did.
Anyway, the last thing I’d like to discuss is my favorite aspect of dream interpretation, its prospective aspect.
In other words, how the unconscious foresees our future self.
The Unconscious isn’t bound to the laws of time and continuity as our conscious mind is, so often we’ll be able to see certain aspects of our personality that are yet to be developed.
We’re able to recognize our potential and what we can become “ahead of time”.
Many times, this will be symbolized by a child, which contains all the potential.
The unconscious can point us in the right direction, however, we must engage our conscious mind and pay the price to become what we’re meant to be.
Rafael Krüger – Jungian Therapist
Read Jung’s Orginal Dream Interpretation Method
Engage with this post on Reddit – HERE
Learn about Jungian Psychology and the Art of Dream Interpretation: