Insights & Reflections

"Inner work, as a practical experience, shows us that we can embrace the conflict, embrace the duality, bravely place ourselves in the midst of the warring voices, and find our way through them to the unity that they ultimately express." —Robert A. Johnson

Dream Analysis

The process of dream analysis requires a commitment of time because attention to one's self, one's psychology, can be a slow-going path. The reward is great because we learn to deal with internal challenges, or affronts from the outer world, including systems and people. We find inner resilience rather than railing, blaming, demanding, or despairing when the outer environment doesn't bend to our will. Babies might scream when the world cannot or does not meet their needs, as this is developmentally appropriate; but when adults behave this way, we know that they, or we, are acting out of undeveloped, infant parts of self within. We want to be able to regulate our feelings, as we are situated from a place of solid ground.

Examples of the environment not meeting our needs in small and larger ways might be that we have worked very hard to get into a particular graduate university, but there are not enough seats for everyone and a rejection letter comes; or perhaps more consequentially, we are faced with the betrayal of a loved one; or we are profoundly misunderstood by significant others.

Growing inner resources allows us to call upon them in order to see these situations through. Internal resiliency can provide many options for dealing with failures of the environment to give us what we want or need. Some examples are that we sit with the disappointment and feel what is present. We can self-soothe. We can call upon past successes or times when we overcame other failures to get what we need and deserve. We might find that indeed we have the emotional and intellectual capacity to reflect and then to speak with grace, clarifying our stance to the other, and to ourselves, thereby feeling heard in community. We can recognize that we have inherent value, despite any failures or setbacks.

When we tend to our inner world, we are less hurtful to ourselves and others. When we are in touch with our own negative inclinations and, perhaps, unacknowledged attitudes, we are less likely to project the darker (more unconscious) parts of ourselves onto others. Also, we are less likely to be swayed by others who would use or abuse us. We are trustworthy for ourselves and others. In other words, we can develop the ability to better recognize unconscious mischief as it arises.

In the dream I analyze below, I confront a negative part of personality that at times I've projected upon others. Jung is noted for saying, "There is something about you that I don't like about me." (Italics is mine). He's talking about projecting unrecognized negative attitudes and tendencies onto others. The goal is to become more aware, and therefore, better at identifying those instances when we are projecting. We might think, "My emotional reaction in this moment is exaggerated." Or, we might realize that our level of emotional arousal doesn't match the event at hand. Or worse, we might blame the other for causing us pain instead of going inward and asking, "Why does this particular comment or behavior hurt so very much when other affronts are easier to manage, easier to respond to?"

As you might imagine, there are certain qualifiers that might be shared regarding dream work. If a person has difficulty with reality testing, that is, if he or she has experienced, or tends to experience bouts of psychosis, then dream work might prove overwhelming, and potentially dangerous. Another caution, is that if one can find a way to work with a Jungian analyst, or a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist, this could be very helpful to the process as each might see many links between image and psychological functioning that we, in the beginning, do not. And finally, there is a tendency in all humans to see fault in another's actions rather than in themselves. It's useful to be cautious when attributing negative capacities in the dream to others. In other words, saying, "Oh that figure behaves like my uncle," or "my dream is affirming that my co-worker is awful". Psyche brings us the dream so that we might uncover realities about ourselves. Even negative aspects, when brought to consciousness, can free energy in the psyche.

I had a recent dream, that invited me to see, or more accurately, to revisit a hidden dimension of my psyche, an inner attitude connected to what Marion Woodman refers to as the will to power. Without power we have no agency in the world. The question we ask is, "Is power manifesting in its negative or positive form?" Jung calls the power principle in women the animus archetype, and I've been investigating how this archetype is being experienced in both positive and negative ways in my own development. I'm excited about the new animus dream figures that are arriving in dreamtime because animus work is related to the collective unconscious, whereas shadow work is related more to the personal unconscious (what Freud termed the sub-conscious). There's a sense of going deeper, a sense that the work of years is indeed coming to a new phase, and with it a release of creative energy, confidence and spontaneity.

The Steps in Dream Analysis

According to analytical psychology there is a way to approach dream work. The following are specific steps from Johnson's Inner Work. I've expanded Johnson's shorter list a bit to explicitly state steps in the process that experienced dream tenders know, but those newer to the work might not. Step number one is an example of such an addition.

A Recent Dream and Its Meaning

The following is an example of a dream that at first glance was unpleasant and, seemingly, far from my own experience. I worked with it anyway and discovered its valuable kernel of meaning. I did not include all of my associations or amplifications, but I hope I've shared enough to demonstrate how we might engage in the process.

What follows are some of the associations to the dream images that came to me, as well as some of the things I wondered about as I explored the dream. My own associations wouldn't necessarily be those of another person. Even archetypal images, while they are universal patterns, are mediated by the individual personality of the dreamer.

Thoughts, Amplifications and Connections to Psychological Functioning

Some structures in the dream stood out, like the parts of a stage play. In addition to a clear setting, the battle field (which I associated with inner conflict), I noticed a telling story arc: when the dreamer leaves his hiding place to show compassion to, and connect with, the dying boy, the tone of the dream changes.

I can accept that the dream is communicating with my conscious part of self, the ego, using dream images. In Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth (1986), Robert Johnson suggests that we could think of each dream figure as a part of the psyche. He says that in the dream you are "meeting many of the selves that make the personality." The invading Russian soldiers, if I'm linking this image to my own psychological functioning, might represent the violence I may cause when I project my split-off negative attitude of superiority on others. Like all invasions of another's boundaries, harsh judgement can be felt as emotional violence.

The renowned analyst Edward Edinger in The Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical Symbolism in Psychotherapy, provided helpful illumination on the especially puzzling dream figures, that is, the Russians using their destructive fire power. I learned that the symbols and processes of the old alchemist texts can help us understand the symbolic voice embedded in the images.

The particular alchemical process (and according to Jung, a symbolic process) known as Mortificatio is especially useful with understanding my dream. Mortificatio is linked with darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death and rotting. Part of natural processes in the outer world of nature, and also in the psyche, can lead to growth, renewal, and rebirth if the process is not blocked.

I was reminded in Edinger that looking through a psychological lens, outbursts of affect, resentment, and power demands must undergo Mortificatio if the libido trapped in primitive, infantile forms is to be transformed. What might this mean from a psychological perspective? The dream might be asking me to acknowledge a part of my psyche that can be self-righteous and judgmental, and therefore may emerge in infantile ways. I'm aware that, indeed a self-righteous or superior attitude can pop out of me, seemingly coming from nowhere. That "nowhere" is the unconscious mind. This was a significant insight from the dream.

I felt humbled by this realization, and also grateful, knowing that being in relationship with a destructive inner force may allow my growing positive animus—power principle—to continue thriving, to survive whatever harm may have occurred in the past, causing an inner entrapment and subsequent lack of natural growth. I know, too, that conscious awareness of this tendency and the harm it can cause myself and others will likely render it less potent in my personality. This depotentiation of negative personality impulses would occur because of the dream and my reflection on it.

The dream figure who leaves the bombed-out car and goes to help the dying boy with compassion and a desire to respond and connect is also part of my animus, shown in the dream as forward action. He is a positive symbol of the power principal and his presence is healing. This figure suggests a capacity to show compassion regarding the confrontation with dark and harmful attitudes.

The dream ends with the dreamer realizing that he chooses to leave his big ambitions (lofty attitudes) and to know the "peace" of choosing to survive. It is interesting that the dream story asked me (the figure who chooses to survive) to look at "peace" vs. "ambition." Maybe the ambition has something to do with a need to always be right. To be a "right-fighter." The question that seems to matter is, "Do I want to be right, or do I want to be at ease (at peace)?"

Continue Wondering About the Dream

I'm intrigued and wonder that the figures in my current dreams are different from past figures for me, in that the dream figures in the present are often young men and link to the objective (or cultural) unconscious. In analytical thinking, shadow figures are those that link to the personal unconscious and would likely show up for women dreamers as figures that are girls or women. Marion Woodman moves away from male/female designations and speaks more generally of "the power principle" or "the will to power" for animus (male) functioning. She speaks of the "creative" impulse, meaning receptivity, relationship, and nurturing for feminine functioning. We might think of the Yin and Yang from ancient-Chinese philosophy. Yang denoted masculine functioning: in motion, activist, hard, warm, dry, light. Yin denotes feminine, at rest, receptive, soft, cold, dark. It goes without saying that all Jungian-oriented practitioners hope to encourage functioning out of every aspect of the individual.

I can say that for me to experience, night after night, male figures in dreams is new for me and signals a shift in the work that began in 2014 with the dream of the many male military figures, images of war and rats overtaking the tree of life.

Interpretation

The goal in Jung's psychology is to attempt to articulate the interpretation in a few sentences. Thus, this is my particular understanding of the "Dying Boy Dream."

Summary

For all of us who do the work, the inner resonance, or feeling of "aha" that emerges as we look for meaning is instructive. This "aha" might be understood as an intuitive response, "There is something to be trusted here. Pay attention."

The idea that I hope came across as I shared the work, is that we want to build a relationship between our inner and outer world, to "wonder," to keep an open mind in looking at dream stories from psyche, or engaging in Active Imagination. This is why it's so important for me as an individual and a therapist to continue learning about psychological processes, analytical concepts, and symbolic work in literature, religion and art. Each offers gifts from the ancestors about the human condition.

A central idea, on one's path to wholeness, is to uncover that which may be hidden, or destructive, or limiting to the individual. A different, though important, goal is to discover unlived (and unconscious) talents and possibilities within so they can be encouraged. This is exactly how we find the path that will allow our spirit to create and to sing. Dream work opens the sacred intention that we all might, in the end, become our very best, beautifully unique selves. Some might get there through meditation, some through prayer, some through a gift of insight (or a combination of any of these). This is the path I'm exploring at this time, the journey I've been on for these twenty-seven years. C.G. Jung calls this individuation.