Understanding
of
Dreams
A Quick look at the
levels of consciousness
(the id, ego and Super
Ego)
Conscious and
preconscious (some)
level is your ego
Preconscious and
Unconscious is your id
Super Ego works at
every level
According to
Freud, dreams
were disguised,
hallucinatory
fulfilment of
repressed
wishes.
He also asserted that dreams
not only represented current
wishes,
but were also invariably
expressions of wishfulfilments dating from early
childhood.
Dreams, he
believed, gave
indirect
expressions to
infantile sexual
wishes which had
been repressed and
which,…
if expressed in
undisguised
form, would so
disturb the
dreamer that he
would wake up.
Because these wishes are
unacceptable and
potentially disturbing, they
are censored and disguised.
Freud described the
mental processes, or
“dream-work”, by which
the dream was modified
and rendered less
disturbing.
These processes
included;
Condensation, the fusing
together of different ideas
and images into a single
image;
Displacement, in
which a potentially
disturbing image or
idea is replaced by
something
connected but less
disturbing;
Representation, the
process by which
thoughts are converted
into visual
images;
Symbolization, in
which some neutral
object stands for some
aspect of sexual life or
those persons
connected with it
which the dreamer
would prefer not to
recognize.
Classic Freudian Symbols:
Phallic = anything projecting upward or outward
Yonic = anything into which something could be placed
Freud introduced the
term “manifest
content” to describe
what the dreamer
recalled.
In contrast, the “latent
content” was the
hidden, true meaning
of the dream.
This latent content could be
ascertained only when the
dreamer’s associations to the
images in the dream had been
subjected to psychoanalytical
scrutiny and interpretation.
There were many
other forms of
dreams e.g. traumatic
dreams, anxiety
dreams etc.
Carl Jung and the Collective Unconscious
Personal Unconscious
Freud vs. Jung
The personal unconscious contains repressed memories, painful
ideas, and subliminal perceptions from an individual's life.
Collective Unconscious
Just as animals are guided by instincts, Jung feels there are
universal archetypal images which we are programmed to
respond to.
The collective unconscious contains those elements common to
the tribe, the family, the nation, the race.
Jung noticed the similarities in the myths and fantasies of
different times and places. These concepts account for such
similarities and for the fact that mythological elements crop up in
dreams, psychotic fantasies, and so on in individuals who have
not been exposed to these mythic ideas in their lives.
Persona
Face we present to the world
Mask from Greek theater
Ego has limited grasp of whole Self
The psyche cannot be reduced to the ego. It
embraces a much wider reality that Jung called
the collective unconscious, and the lowest level of
that unconscious is nature.
Dreams of nakedness, clothing, cosmetics, etc. may
reflect persona issues
The Shadow
Dark shadow
The dark side of our nature… the part we
disown and tend to project onto others
Bright shadow
Personal and collective
Dreams with negative, scary people of
your same gender may express shadow
issues
Relationship Between Persona and Shadow
Persona refers to the outer mask of the personality-- that
which a person wishes to show the world while the
shadow represents those feared and unknown parts that
the person chooses to hide both from self and others.
Both persona and shadow have collective and personal
components.
The persona is a compromise between the individual and
society.
The more rigid our persona, the darker our shadow.
The shadow is a necessary aspect.
Anima and Animus
The mostly
unconscious
feminine aspect in
men
The mostly
unconscious
masculine aspect in
women
Archetypes
Notion similar to Platonic idealism
The archetypes are certain regular motifs or consistently recurring
types of situations or types of figures which arise from the collective
experience and which can be found in mythology, e.g.
The wise old man or woman
The Great Mother
The Divine Child
The Trickster
The Hero
The Fool
The Villain
The Temptress
They give rise to our fantasy lives.
• The Wise Old Man
• The Divine Child
• The Trickster
• The Hero
• The Villain
• The Temptress