Dream psychology is a scientific research field in psychology. In analytical psychology, as in psychoanalysis generally, dreams are "the royal road" to understanding unconscious content.Entry "Rêve (interprétation du -)" by Roger Perron, p. 1472, Vol. II.
However, for Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, its interpretation and function in the psyche differ from the Freudian perspective. Jung explains that "the general function of dreams is to try to re-establish our psychological equilibrium by means of dream material which, in a subtle way, reconstitutes the total equilibrium of our entire psyche. This is what [he] calls the complementary (or compensatory) function of dreams in our psychic constitution".L'Homme et ses symboles, Robert Laffont, 1964, p 49. In this sense, dreams play a part in the development of the personality, at the same time as linking the subject to the vast imaginary reservoir that is the collective unconscious. According to analyst Thomas B. Kirsch, "Jung regards the dream as a natural and normal psychic phenomenon, which describes the dreamer's inner situation [and makes it a] spontaneous self-portrait, in symbolic form, of the present state of his unconscious".p. 1472.
Jung and his followers, such as Marie Louise von Franz (for whom dreams are "the voice of human instinct")« Marie-Louise von Franz » : interview by Rolande Biès, 1978, reproduced on the site cgjung.net. Consulted in 2009. and James Hillman, made a significant contribution to the science of dreams. Carl Gustav Jung proposed a dual reading of the dream in terms of object and subject, while representing the dream as a dramatic process with phases that shed light on its meaning, always individual but also reducible to cultural and universal issues. His method of interpretation, "amplification", allows us to compare dream messages with myths and cultural productions from all eras. Marie Louise von Franz has studied dream symbols, while James Hillman is more interested in what this other world represents for the dreamer.
As a nocturnal theater of symbols, dreams are for Jung a natural production of the unconscious,"Just as a plant produces flowers, the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream bears witness to this process", in L'Homme et ses symboles, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 64. as well as the locus of personality transformation and the path to what Jung calls "individuation". The dream is therefore at the heart of Jungian psychotherapy, which aims, through its study and the method of amplification, to relate each dream motif to the human imagination, and thus develop its meaning for the dreamer.
Dreams in analytical psychology In analytical psychology, the dream is a natural process emanating from the unconscious. As such, it has several functions, which Jung explores in two major works: Man's Discovery of His SoulBook III, "Dreams", pp. 193-337, is a synthetic introduction to Jung's thinking on the dream process. and On the Interpretation of Dreams.This book brings together Jung's seminar notes on dream analysis from 1936 to 1941. According to Jacques Montanger, for Jung, the dream is "an organ of information and control with a dual function": a compensatory and a prospective function, as well as being a physiological regulator.
Physiological function In his early writings on dreams, Jung considered the biological and physiological utility of dreams. He speaks of "functional automatisms which, like cellular reactions, necessarily find their justification"p. 15. in the dream process. Some dreams even enable the body to express feverish or sickly states, and herald future biological disorders. Dreams can in fact have somatic causes, a fact which, as Jung points out, has long been recognized by traditional and shamanic medicine and, more recently, by experimental psychology. Similarly, certain physical and environmental events, such as noise, heat or cold, can provoke dreams.p. 17. Finally, some dreams have a traumatic, haunting content, constituting "an attempt by the unconscious to integrate the shock psychically".p. 35.
Compensatory and psychic balance function According to Jung, the main function of dreams is to contribute to psychic equilibrium, just as they contribute to biological equilibrium. Recalling the role of compensation mentioned by Alfred Adler,p. 113. he notes that not everything we experience during the day reaches our consciousness. Some phenomena remain subliminal. In dreams, the hidden, unconscious aspect of a concept can be put into images.Essai d’exploration de l’inconscient, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 43. The human psyche is made up of conscious and unconscious parts, the latter of which are expressed in dreams, linking them together to safeguard psychic balance. To restore mental and even physiological stability (Jung speaks of the "compensatory biological function" of dreams),p. 115, quoting L'Homme à la découverte de son âme, p. 237. consciousness and unconsciousness must be integrally linked, in order to evolve in parallel.Essai d’exploration de l’inconscient, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 52. This compensatory function is found throughout his theory."The idea of dream compensation comes from Jung's view of 'the psyche as a self-regulating system'", p. 1473.
In On the Interpretation of Dreams, Jung distinguishes four meanings of the dream process in terms of its psychic balancing function.pp. 16-17. Firstly, it represents the unconscious reaction to a conscious situation, and thus reacts either by restoring the daytime content or by compensating for it. Secondly, the dream reveals a situation arising from the conflict between consciousness and the unconscious. Through compensation, the dream represents the unconscious' tendency to transform the conscious attitude.For example: "those who lack realism or think too highly of themselves, or who make grandiose plans that bear no relation to their real abilities, dream that they are flying or falling", in L'Homme et ses symboles, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 50. Finally, the unconscious processes inherent in the dream have no relation whatsoever to the conscious situation.p. 16: Jung explains that this difference between the nature of dream processes and those of the conscious mind leads to the subject's astonishment at these productions. The primitives called these astonishing dreams great dreams, while the Latin oracles regarded them as somnia a deo missa ("dreams sent by the gods" in Latin). Jung's conception of the unconscious sees dreams as "indispensable messengers, transmitting information from the instinctive to the rational part of the human mind".L'Homme et ses symboles, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 52. To represent this non-rational instinctive part, Jung takes into account the relationship between the personal unconscious and the collective foundations of the human imagination. For him, this collective unconscious produces meaning and compensates for the attitude of the ego, in order to maintain or re-establish psychic equilibrium; indeed, the "dream is a spontaneous and symbolic self-representation of the current situation of the unconscious".p. 254. For Jung, the dream is therefore an expression of the overall psychic situation, which is as much a representation of the momentary state of consciousness as it is of the collective dimension of the unconscious,Dream" entry, p. 79. making it an energy regulator that compensates for daytime life.
Prospective function Dreams have a foresight function, enabling us to find a way out of an immediate conflict.Dream" entry, p. 80. To reduce the polysemy of the term, Jung sometimes speaks of the "intuitive function" of dreams.p. 116. This prospective function is not in fact a premonitory dream, but teaches the dreamer a path to follow. As the unconscious possesses absolute knowledge enabling it to anticipate the future, Jung sees this dream function as the key to explaining certain "psychic""The unconscious is said to have the ability to go beyond the normal course of time, perceiving things that do not yet exist", p. 21. faculties such as telepathy. Nevertheless, Jung only really considers dreams that forecast future transformations in the dreamer's personality, and explains that "it would be unjustified to call them prophetic, for they are, basically, as little prophetic as a medical or meteorological prognosis".p. 116, quoting L'Homme à la découverte de son âme, p. 242. These dreams therefore take their place within individuation, a central concept for Jung. He considers the prospective function to have two meanings: it is both integrative and synthetic (or "reductive").
Within this prospective function, Jung includes a category of dreams: those in which certain psychic events penetrate the unconscious sphere. This is the case of dreams announcing the death of a loved one. Jung notes that these cases are close to a "situational instinct".p. 27. In his latest work, the Swiss psychiatrist sees this category of dreams as examples of synchronicity, i.e. acausal relationships between a real event on the one hand and a psychic and emotional state on the other. Conversely, dreams can evoke past events, both known and unknown to the subject. Jung likens them to the phenomenon of cryptomnesia.
Dream interpretation
Jung took his cue from Freud's psychoanalysis and his seminal work, The Interpretation of Dreams (Traumdeutung in German), and believed that dreams could be deciphered.According to Freud, dream interpretation "is concerned with making sense of the constituent elements of the manifest text (restoring their latent meaning), using the dreamer's associations", in the entry "Rêve", by Roger Perron, p. 1469, Volume II. However, Freudian concepts such as latent content and manifest content do not enable him to derive a meaning in line with the subject's equilibrium."The distinction between the manifest and latent meanings of the dream was never established by Jung", p. 1473. Jung therefore developed various notions and practices specific to his theory, based on his particular approach to the symbol.
Dreams and symbols: the language of dreams For Jung, the dream is the "theater of symbols", in the sense that a "symbol", as distinct from a "sign", is an image that combines contradictory contents, one conscious and the other unconscious. For Jung, "the symbol is endowed with a subjective dynamism that exerts a powerful attraction on the individual, acting as a transformer of psychic energy", explains Thomas B. Kirsch. Monstrous motifs remain significant in this respect: "the presence in dreams of monstrous or hybrid figures often points to an incursion of the non-homogenous, of independent motifs that are not part of the dream context".p. 84. Moreover, symbols are natural, spontaneous products of the unconscious, obeying the principle of psychic economy.L'Homme et ses symboles, Robert Laffont, 1964, p. 55. Thus, dream symbolism obeys the law of the smallest force necessary, bringing together in a single object several important clues, as Yves Delage already noted in his book Le Rêve (1921).p. 291.