JUNG AND THE IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS

The psychotherapist, Carl Jung, placed much importance on dreams. Like his great contemporary, Feud, he was focussed on the workings of the unconscious mind. He believed that our unconscious minds act as a reservoir to soak up many aspects of our lives, such as how we feel, our fears, and our desires, because there is a limit to what we can process consciously.

In turn, our dreams act as an outlet for what is happening unconsciously and can therefore draw attention to aspects of our lives which we may not be consciously aware of.

In studying the dreams of his patients, Jung became aware of patterns that seemed to go beyond an individual’s particular concerns and found repetitive images and figures that could be found in mythology and folklore. He called these archetypes and considered them to be representations of the fundamental forces of the human psyche.

There are clear parallels with traditional Chinese medicine, in which dream interpretation can sometimes now be a slightly neglected form of diagnosis. The Nei Jing, the oldest of all medicine text states “people’s dreams will often reflect their state of energy”.