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Deb Carney 7-18-10
Spiritual Dimensions in Psychology
ED_620
Prof. Andrew Birr
Dream Interpretation and Psychology
In the book “Jung to Live by” Carl Jung once stated that “The dream itself is its own best
interpretation, so all we need is assistance in seeing the dream more clearly and more
objectively. The analyst can fulfill this role in various ways, but we can do much on our own to
determine what our dreaming is all about, since the dreamer ultimately has the last word about
the meaning of a dream. (Pascal, pg. 223) Jung once stated that “The dream itself is its own best
interpretation, so all we need is assistance in seeing the dream more clearly and more
objectively. The analyst can fulfill this role in various ways, but we can do much on???
Dreams are full of symbolic language and it is up to the dreamer to understand their own
personal dream symbols. All of us interpret symbols in our own way. For instance, I may have a
dream that I am walking through a muddy puddle that seems to never end. I interpret that as my
emotions which is represented by water and the mud which could be me feeling depressed in life,
and there seems to be no end to this puddle of mud which tells me that I feel trapped in my
emotional distress and there is no end to the problem. Someone else may interpret this in a very
different way.

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“Dreams do not necessarily assume a logical chronological order according to Jung.
Dreams cluster around a “nucleus of meaning” that wants to be made conscious and from which
the dreams radiated like the spokes of a wheel. Each dream appears as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle,
one piece of dream fitting the upper-right corner, the next dream completing the lower-left-
middle, another dream the lower center, etc. Keeping a record of as many dreams as possible is
essential, as each dream is an intricate part of a larger picture of meaning.” (Pascal, pg.240) It
seems that the unconscious or subconscious not only liberates emotions through dreams, but
seeks to bring them to the attention of the conscious mind in order to maintain mental and
emotional stability through to a change in activity and/or character.”
In the book “Dreams the magic mirror”,” a psychiatrist who had successfully aided a
mentally disturbed patient regain a normal mental state observed a change in the symbols of his
patient’s dreams, which were representative of the patient’s altered state of mental health. The
early symbols revealed the dead state of a vital area of the patient’s life. This was seen in the
symbols of deserts and dead plants. From these symbols he gradually emerged with signs of an
awakening, illustrated by dreams that contained areas of land under cultivation with new shoots
emerging. In the next series of dreams statues were seen coming to life. When the patient
reached the symbolism of facing wild animals in his dreams he was discharged, because he had
now reached a state where he was looking at himself and recognizing the origin of his problems
as emanating from within himself.” (Sechrist, pgs.19-20)

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Symbols are the language of dreams. A symbol can invoke a feeling or an idea and often
has a much more profound and deeper meaning that any one word can convey. At the same
time, these symbols can leave you confused and wondering what that dream was all about.
Acquiring the ability to interpret your dreams is a powerful tool. In analyzing your dreams,
you can learn about your deep secrets and hidden feelings. Remember that no one is a better
expert at interpreting your dreams than yourself. It is you who know best what the symbols
mean to you.
Every detail, even the minutest element in your dream is important and must be
considered when analyzing your dreams. Each symbol represents a feeling, a mood, a memory
or something from your unconscious. Look closely at the characters, animals, objects, places,
emotions, and even color and numbers that are depicted in your dreams. Even the most trivial
symbol can be significant. Your own personal experiences, memories and circumstances, will
serve to guide you through a meaningful and personalized interpretation. With practice, you can
gain an understanding of the cryptic messages your dreams are trying to tell you. I have always
told my students when I was teaching then about dreams that the best dream book would be a
journal that they kept. Write down your own symbolism to dreamscapes you may remember.
“The findings of the present study clearly indicate that working on dreams still plays an
important role in psychotherapy, particularly in psychoanalysis, and contributes considerably to
treatment success. However, therapists without psychoanalytic training used dreams much less
often than psychoanalysts. In view of the response rate of 60.3% (although this is considerably
higher than that of Keller et al..) and the sample size of 79 respondents, the findings should be
considered preliminary. A larger sample would permit more detailed analysis of the different

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therapeutic schools (e.g., psychoanalysts, psychoanalysts with additional cognitive-behavioral
training, psychoanalysts with additional training in client-centered therapy, Gestalt therapists). “
“In addition, the generalizability is restricted because only psychotherapists in private
practice in two German cities were included. Although in Germany psychotherapeutic treatment
of outpatients is conducted mainly by this group, future studies could also include therapists
working in different institutions, such as psychiatric or psychosomatic clinics and mental health
centers. In addition, a comparison between different countries could be very interesting. As in
(Keller et al,). work on dreams was most often initiated by the client, but a difference between
psychoanalysts and the rest of the group was not detected. In view of the beneficial effect of
work on dreams, it will be very interesting to carry out studies in which clients will be stimulated
to work with their dreams in order to compare their outcome with that of a control group with
less or no working on dreams. “
The result that therapists who worked on dreams with their clients reported an increase in
clients' dream recall frequency fits with findings of previous studies. that therapeutic working on
dreams enhances dream recall. The more pronounced enhancement of dream recall in the
psychoanalytic group may be explained by the more intense use of dreams in that therapeutic
school.
“As expected, the theoretical basis of the psychoanalysts was Freudian dream theory. On
the other hand, quite a few non-psychoanalysts were familiar with the Jungian approach. Adler
played a minor role as dream theorist. Several other authors such as Eugene Gendlin and
Frederick Perls were mentioned by the humanistic therapists, but the frequency was clearly below
that of the psychoanalysts Freud and Jung. This result indicates that "modern" theorists are

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seldom the basis for working on dreams in private practice in Germany. Psychoanalysts reported
more intense reading of literature on dreams and had more experiences in personal working on
dreams. This can be interpreted as reflecting the more important role of dream interpretation in
psychoanalytic training. However, work on dreams was also a component of the training for
other therapies.”
Interestingly, no difference in dream recall frequency between psychoanalysts and
humanistic and cognitive-behavioral therapists was found; one might have expected that
therapists who often work with dreams in their business would recall their dreams more often.
Correlations between the therapist's dream recall frequency and the use of dreams in therapy
were also nonsignificant. On the other hand, the frequency of personal work on dreams was
related to frequency of the use of dreams in therapy, and the beneficial effect of working on
dreams was rated high. These findings confirm the observations of Greenson3 and Altman17 that
personal experience with working on dreams seems to be crucial for the effective use of dreams
in the therapeutic setting.
“To summarize, working on dreams is still an important therapeutic technique that is
frequently used, especially by psychoanalysts. The estimated contribution to treatment success is
high: therapists reported that the majority of the clients who work with their dreams have
benefited from this technique. The major shortcomings of the present study are the use of very
crude measures of estimating the benefit of working on dreams (i.e., using averages across all
clients) and the absence of self-ratings by clients. The study was conducted in this way in order
to reduce expenditure and obtain a reasonable response rate. Further studies should elicit the
variables analyzed in the present study for each client and should include clients' self-ratings

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measuring the subjective benefit of working on dreams. Furthermore, it seems fruitful to continue
the research conducted by Hill and co-workers, who have investigated the effectiveness of
working on dreams, the process of working on dreams, and the question of which clients benefit
most. “
Dream interpretation today is as significant in psychotherapy as it was in Freud's time.
The dream might not be the royal road to the unconscious, but its successful analysis is a certain
path to therapist and patient working in a therapeutic alliance. When a patient reports a dream, it
an act of courage and of hope. The patient, in every instance, is telling the therapist that there is a
product of his or her mind that is not fully understood, in the hope that the therapist can help
unravel it. To do so is to engage in a process in which the therapist and patient work
collaboratively, a process involved in the experience of insight, the engine behind
psychotherapeutic change.

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References
http://www.dspp.com/papers/herman.htm
(http://jppr.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/9/2/8.
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