How to Analyze your Dreams: An example.
Author: Christopher Chayban
I thought I would take one of my dreams from my dream journal and Jungian methods in an attempt to interpret and analyze it.
Here is a dream from June 11th, 2018.
I am driving on a very high up highway with my wife. I appear to be following some animals. I remember following a tannish colored dog, who is up just ahead of me. Then I see a buffalo or buffaloes around (perhaps outside of the highway). I can control one of the buffalos out there in the distance (with my mind?) and I ask it to go up a hill. Then, as it is going up, I look on this typology reference chart to see what function the Buffalo is, and it says “Buffalos are “Se” (Extraverted Sensation). There are other things written on there as well. One thing written was “Romans” and next to it “Te” (Extraverted Thinking) and “Se” (Extraverted Sensation” I think. The chart wasn’t linear. The media of the chart looked like a Dinosaur Barbeque Menu that I saw a few days ago and the color of the paper was black with red text. I can’t remember what else happens.
Jung gives a general outline for the structure of the dream.
“1. Locale: Place, time, “dramatis personae.”
Highway, hills, me, wife, dog, buffaloes.
“2. Exposition: Illustration of the problem.”
I am trying to follow animals and get insight on the buffaloes typology by reading a reference chart. The chart is hard for me to read because it’s not a linear fashion.
“3. Peripateia: Illustration of the transformation—which can also
leave room for a catastrophe.”
The scene changes from “dog and highway” to “buffalo and hill.”
“4. Lysis: Result of the dream. Meaningful closure. Compensating illustration of the action of the dream.”
The result is that I am unable to make anything of this reference chart.
(Children’s Dreams pg. 30-31)
According to James Hall, from his book (Jungian Dream Interpretation),
“There are three major steps in the Jungian approach to dream interpretation:”
“ 1. A clear understanding of the exact details of the dream.”
Of which I wrote down as best as possible.
“2. The gathering of associations and amplifications in
progressive order on one or more of three levels –“
- Personal-
Me, Wife, Typology, Born in Buffalo, NY, Red is my favorite color
b. Cultural-
Highways, Dinosaur Barbeque Restaurant Menu, Romans
c. Archetypal-
Dogs, Buffalos
“3. the placing of the amplified dream in the context of the
dreamer’s life situation and process of individuation.”
At the time I had just gotten done visiting family in California. It seems some kind of inflation in the unconscious developed, shown by the really high highways. It seems like the place I was in, in terms of individuation is separating my ego from the unconscious and finding my ego standpoint through the lens of typology.
What could this dream mean? Jung extracts four methods of possible meanings for the dream.
“1.The dream is the unconscious reaction to a conscious situation
2. The dream depicts a situation that originated in a conflict between
consciousness and the unconscious.”
3. The dream represents that tendency of the unconscious that aims
at a change of the conscious attitude. “
4. The dream depicts unconscious processes showing no relation to
the conscious situation.”
(Children’s Dreams pg. 4-5)
To me, the dream seems to coincide with the third meaning in Jung’s method, in order to change my conscious attitude. Again, my attitude is obviously inflated and my head (ego) is in the clouds, likely too high on my intellect. The unconscious and the dream shows that although I am driving with my ego on this path that I believe to be blazed me, it is actually instincts (shown by the animals) running the show. I need to pay attention to them (so many buffalos) and the physical world again and come back down to earth. The unconscious or I asks the instincts to come up consciousness and change my intuitive and intellectual attitude (shown by the Buffalo walking up the hill).
How can we amplify this further? Jung says that instead of saying what comes to mind about a particular content and associate freely other possible content points, he tries to stay with the main content point and asks “What comes to mind about X, what do you think of it? And what else comes to mind about X?” (Children’s Dreams pg. 26)
If we take that method we can amplify certain contents.
Wife-Someone who is of high status in their job and does well in the external world. She is directive and confident in temperament. I think of work life, home life and things that still have to be done.
Buffalo associations-Born in Buffalo, Buffalo Bills are my Favorite Football Team, I have relatives in Buffalo, It has a big body like me and likes to eat all day. It reminds of Taurus, my ascendant sign. I see the “high highways” as an inflation because I look down on the buffaloes (instinctual drives).
Tannish dog-Reminds me of the dog on Full House, a show I used to watch when I was a little kid. It makes me think of Mary-Kate and Ashley as Twins playing one little girl named Michelle. I have a cousin in Buffalo named Ashley who is the same age as me and of a similar constitution as my wife. I think of my wife’s parents dog “chewy” and his playfulness. The little girl’s voice in Full House reminds me of my wife when she is trying to be cute with her voice and tries to get me to do something for her.
Romans-Powerful, physical people, my wife is Roman/Italian. I think of when John Beebe (who I listened to earlier that day) told me that the Romans were Extraverted Sensate people who were the inferior function of Introverted Intuitive Christ. It reminds me of my question about my typology and the axis of Introverted Intuition and Extraverted Sensation. Romans are Mediterranean like my culture (Lebanese).
Menu/Chart-I think of my wife’s mother who suggested ordering from Dinosaur Barbeque. Makes me think of graphic design and my career that a few months later will be brought to light. I think about how I am always analyzing some kind of model or chart. The chart makes me think of Astrology charts which are way high up like the highways. Perhaps alluding to my intellectual inflation.
The colors red and black-My favorite color is red, red and emotion, red and black remind me of my former best friend and his roofing company. He is a very physical guy, like a roman and he used to have anger problems.
Highways-Nothing really, maybe always taking the “high” way or the “high road.”
Sometimes I get the sense from Jung, that you can rectify the conscious attitude or position from the dream without giving the details or context within your own life. At least, that’s what I get from is innumerable interpretations, especially of historical figures that he has never met. So, I wonder, is all the information we need in the unconscious and in the dream? Sure, and true that amplification with consciousness makes the dream clearer, but the unconscious reminds of what people call, “The Akashic Records.” Where every little ripple made in the universe has been recorded unto eternity. It is amazing that Jung can draw such incisive conclusions with very little information from the unconscious contents in the dream, without much context from the dreamer’s life.
In the typology of dreams, the dream maker is all eight functions. The different characters within personify the different functions, according to John Beebe. So if you’re an Introverted Feeling type Heroine in your dream, then your opposite wouldn’t be an Extraverted Thinking Animus, but an “Opposing Personality” as John Beebe calls it, Extraverted Feeling Type, who has a “Shadowy” character. So we decipher the images with the helps of these tools, but you are right too that the dream is mainly symbols anyway, so why use anything thinking function towards it at all? I suppose the answer to that question is that we have to use all the functions, all the time or the appropriate one at the right time. I suppose one interpretation of why the infinity symbol looks like a sideways “number eight” glyph can be, is it takes the light side of the four functions and the dark side (their opposite shadowy side) have a whole and comprehensive view. Now, that’s a lot of stuff to work with, but that’s the point I think, is to keep you busy with yourself, rather then the tendency that I think anyone can fall into, which is to blame others and not yourself for understanding. There is a lot of that going on already in todays world, so one of the reasons why I may seem so critical of my self, and go to the worst case scenario (inflation) is for that very reason.
Interesting to take not that the psyche is married to the feeling function, even in mythology, Psyche is married to Eros. So it’s important as you’re advocating, to use this Eros to embody, feel, have empathy/affinity for contents of the dream. To really feel it and asses what its value is. And I know I am still being in the thinking function but just elucidate your point on feeling and to Eros, we only allow something to become conscious based on it’s intensity value (feeling function). In other words, what we give Eros to, becomes conscious and gives it power, but likewise, with the thinking function, when we name it, it loses it’s power because now it becomes liable to being controlled. It’s a balancing act.
It’s fascinating that our common expressions can also be a language used by the unconscious to communicate with us. I’ve noticed that many of them relate to physical sensations or bodily symptoms, like “I can’t stomach so and so”, but also to cultural expressions like “take the bull by the horns”. And that makes me wonder, which language will the unconscious use for those like myself who speak more than one language?
In conclusion, this is how I would go about analyzing someone’s dream. The dream seems to be speaking to latent emotion that is coming up to consciousness in order to ground me back into reality. The dream may be also be speaking about my wife and not me at all. I think there is a pinch of the struggle to individuate present in the dream. I am not particularly happy with this analysis but it’s a start.
Resources:
Hall, J. A. (1983). Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice (Studies in Jungian psychology by Jungian analysts ; 13). Inner City Press.
Jung, C. G., Jung, L., & Meyer-Grass, M. (2010). Childrens dreams: Notes from the seminar given in 1936-1940. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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