The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams (23 page)

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Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

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BOOK: The Dream Sourcebook: A Guide to the Theory and Interpretation of Dreams
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letters being there and not reaching me is about. I feel a tremendous physical release realizing this.
Action: The message that comes to me from this dream is to stop and take a look at those "letters," to take time to "be with" my parents, or the memory of them, which in fact I have started doing. In analyzing a subsequent dream, which also takes place at a spa, I realized I had some further grieving and spiritual work to do around the loss of my parents. I decided in my waking life to write a poem based on the dream. The poem turned into a letter from my mother to me. At the end of the poem, I answer my mother in a letter that I write to her. Later I realized that I had the "Letters at the Health Spa" dream on the exact date of my father's birthday.
The revelations a dream can bring a dreamer are fascinating and can truly point us in new directions of self-exploration. Writing your dream down, giving it a title, translating it into dream language, and answering the five Ws are all excellent techniques for understanding a dream. But don't be alarmed if these strategies fail you: Dreams are elusive, and they sometimes take a great deal of work to interpret. If you get into the habit of considering your dreams from all the levels at which they operate, you will find you have better access to their sometimes hidden messages. For one thing, there is the literal dream contentthe actual people, places, and things in your dream. (Freud called this type of content "manifest," and Jung called this type of content "objective.") Then there is also the symbolic meanings, such as a policeman to represent authority, a child to sym-
 
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bolize innocence, or whatever your dream symbols suggest to you. (Freud called this type of content ''latent,'' and Jung called it "subjective.")
Always check your dream for manifest or objective content. This advice might surprise you, given how much time dreamworkers (including ourselves!) spend talking about the hidden meaning encoded in dream symbols. But often your dreams bring to the surface concerns that your conscious, waking mind had not quite registered. Say you dream about your car's brakes failing. You wouldn't want to jump to the conclusion that the dream indicated a failure in your life until you had taken the time to literally check your car's brakes, and considered whether you were due for a tune-up, inspection, or a trip to the gas station! Author Ann Faraday, in her book
Dream Game
, goes so far as to state that a dream "should be taken symbolically when and only when a literal interpretation makes no sense."
"We sometimes from dreams pick up some hint worth improving by . . . reflection."
Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president
Some dreams may have an obvious meaning to you immediately. If, for instance, you dream of beating up your co-worker Bill, whom you feel hostile toward in your waking life, there is not much of a mystery to solve. But even where the meaning seems clear, you might learn a lot about yourself by looking beyond the surface meaning. Translating the dream into dream language allows you to ask what part of yourself you might wish to attack: "I have me beat up the Bill part of me." What part of you might Bill represent? What part of yourself are you upset with? This kind of deeper interpretation can help you deal not only with the person you are angry with, but also with the various facets of your own personality. Remember to look at the dream from every angle. As Jung advised, "It is best to
 
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treat a dream as one would treat a totally unknown object: one looks at if from all sides, takes it in one's hand, carries it about, has all sorts of ideas and fantasies about it, and talks of it to other people."
Free Association and Amplification
Dreams seem to be a wonderful place to let the mind wander. But don't let that opportunity slip away after you've awakened. Exploring any and all related ideas or associations with the many parts of the dream is another way to learn more about its possible meanings. Freud called this method free association, and he used it in a clinical setting to enable the dreamer to move beyond the dream's literal content to its symbolic meaning. Jung's version of this method is called amplification, and it focuses more on the literal dream image than the latent or subjective dream content as the central source of associations.
In free association, the dreamer zeroes in on the original dream image and then, without interpretation or suggestion, discusses whatever associationsother images, thoughts, memorieshe or she has to that image. From there, the dreamer makes further associations to these associations, delving deeper into memory to dredge up the forgotten memories that inhabit the unconscious, where Freud believed the true meaning of the dream would lie. This linear chain of associations leads the dreamer away from the original dream image and into symbolic elements from waking life. A typical Freudian association would look like this.
Figure 5.1:
Freudian Association Chain
UNKNOWN FEMALE CHARACTER WITH SOOTHING VOICE
Þ
FRIEND
Þ
MOTHER
Þ
EARLY MEMORY OF NAPPING IN HER BED
Þ
SEXUAL DESIRE FOR MOTHER
Þ
ANXIETY AND GUILT ABOUT SEXUAL FEELINGS FOR MOTHER
 
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Jung's amplification process is similar to Freud's technique in that the dreamer freely associates from the original dream image to other images, thoughts, feelings, and memories as they arise without any guidance or censorship. One striking difference, however, is that while Freud followed these associations in a direction away from the dream, Jung continually brings the dreamer back to the dream image as the source of more and more associations, adding to its richness, depth, and meaning. Jung's method not only leads to reflections of the dreamer's inner world, but also taps into the universal world of myth and cultural heritageoften revealing the archetypes for which Jung is particularly known. Using Jung's technique, the dreamer starts with the original image, associates it with another image, then returns to the original image again in search of a second association, then a third, fourth, and so on, as if creating the spokes on a wheel rather than the chain of associations Freud's technique creates. Here is a typical Jungian association:
Figure 5.2:
Jungian Association Wheel
You can use either technique with individual passages or elements of the dream, or with the dream as a whole. What comes to mind when you think about the dream? What comes to mind when you think about the dream's images? Characters? Actions? Objects? Feelings? Don't try to make sense of it, just see what comes to mind.

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