an article about the importance of taking dreams seriously, the kind of dreams, dream symbols and dream work.
It is useful to look a little bit closer at our dreams and to analyze them. They contain unconscious happenings which compensate the conscious ego. Dreams give us clarification on non-personal motives, situations, our shortcomings, and so on, of which we are not, or only vaguely, aware of in everyday life.
When analyzing one’s dreams, one obtains a healthy self-criticism, the first step necessary for a purposeful psychological development. Dreams tell us precisely what is wrong and what needs to be done to correct it. By acting correspondingly, one becomes more conscious of oneself. The consciousness grows from its restricted and personal, sensitive ego-world to a new horizon.
The origin of conscious actions, with all their shortcomings and advantages, is in the unconscious of man. One of the ways the world of the unconscious expresses itself is by dreams. By means of symbols and events it tries to communicate with our consciousness. All too often one does not attach any importance to dreams and one does not make any effort to recall them. They contain complete information of our entire being and by listening to this dream world, man can gain access to a wonderful world that is as real as what we call our conscious reality. It is a world in which we are rooted. From this dream world we get the food for our inner growth, although we do not recognize it. He who closes himself of to this world is just floating around on the ocean. But he who listens and understands the language of the birds, the winds and the waves, knows where he can go unhindered. So it is with dreams. He who knows their language, knows how to repair mistakes, and thus lead a better life.
Carl Gustav Jung wrote in his ‘Ubergang’ that the dream is as "a small hidden door to the most deep hidden and secret corners of the psyche, an entrance to the cosmic night, which was the psyche before there was any trace of an ‘ego’-consciousness: and what will remain the psyche, no matter how far our ‘ego’-consciousness might stretch itself… All consciousness acts to divide, but in our dreams we take the form of a more universal, true and eternal man who wanders through the darkness of the primal night. There he is still the whole man, and this wholeness is in him, not distinguishable from nature and devoid of any ego-consciousness. From this all unifying depth the dream arises; no matter how childish, grotesque or immoral the dream might be."
No comments:
Post a Comment