The Psychology of Dreams - Why Dream?

Many people view dreams as random. Blamed on the particular food one has eaten, or substances they have taken, or just a random firing of neurons. However, this simply doesn’t make any sense. Why would we evolve to have dreams, if they are of no use? Following this line of questioning, some have suggested they are ways of consolidating our days memories, although this doesn’t seem reflected in many dreams people have. Others suggest they are ways of processing difficult events, but then why do happy, problem-free dreams exist? For all the suggestions and research, dreams remain a complete unknown, a mystery. Some psychoanalysts, amongst other therapists, view dreams as an incredibly powerful source of personal exploration, of personal depth. A way to break through to one’s unconscious; an expedition into what lays beyond, as your consciousness sleeps.

Freud described dream as the ‘royal road to the unconscious’, meaning that they tell us something about what is going on for us unconsciously. Freud popularised and made common the idea that we have an unconscious, an idea many other thinkers in his time disagreed with, which has become common knowledge today. Like many of Freud’s ideas, they have become so entrenched in what psychologists and therapists do that the founding of them is forgotten, and Freud is ridiculed for what was left behind. However, Freud’s view of the unconscious was relatively shallow, compared to how many think of it today. It consisted of the id – your primal urges such as hunger, thirst, rest, sex etc, and your super-ego – your internal, nagging over-protective parent. This is a very useful and applicable model of the unconscious for many issues we face. However, when it comes to dreams, it only scratches the surface.

To really delve into the potential of dreams we need to read Jung. Jung explores, at unrivalled length, the symbolism within dreams, the personification within dreams and the archetypes within dreams. He also embraced what he called, ‘active imagination,’ to tap into the dream state through an almost meditative practice, in order to experience his unconscious. He would them write down what he experienced and attempt to analyse it. What Jung stressed, and must be understood, is that dreams are personal. Not only are the experiences themselves personal, but the symbolism within the dream is personal too. Therefore, if two different people had a dream that contained a horse, we cannot assume that symbol meant the same to both people. Therefore, we cannot impose meanings onto other people’s dreams, only help them discover their meaning for themselves. There are many books that tell the reader what their dream meant. They are very loosely based on some psychology and barely based on any research.  It is impossible to cover Jung’s ideas in a few paragraphs, but we will take some very common dreams, and attempt to analyse them using some of his philosophy in the following posts.