Deciphering dreams – how to get the most out of your downtime

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No one really knows just what dreams are or where they come from.

Materialists usually say that dreams are a random product of memory, based on the brain’s acquisition and interpretation of sensory stimuli.

Others speak of a release of physiological, sensory and psychological data accrued through waking and sometimes sleeping hours.

Freudians try to decipher the alleged true meaning of dreams according to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. By and large Freudian dream interpretation reflects Freud’s atheistic understanding of the dreamer’s real and imagined world.

Jungians arguably take a more comprehensive approach, saying that dreams involve the biological, psychological, cultural, transpersonal and spiritual aspects of the self and life in general.

A Quick Look at Dream Theory

Human beings have been interpreting dreams for centuries.

The ancient Greeks practiced ‘dream incubation’ to try to cure illnesses often associated with the displeasure of a deity. The afflicted would enter a sacred chamber, allowing visionary or incubated dreams to guide them towards health.

This practice was based on the belief that angry deities made people unwell but divine mercy could also heal them.

Meanwhile, Joseph of the Bible became a powerful figure in Egypt because he was a gifted dream interpreter. But dream interpretation was by no means unique to the ancient Israelites. Most ancient cultures studied dreams to prophesize, predict, assist and inspire.

The early Christian Tertullian (155-230 CE) believed that dreams came from God or Satan, and that some dreams were produced by the individual soul in connection with nature.

Macrobius (395-423 CE) was one of the first dream theorists to look seriously at nightmares.

In medieval times the paranoid side of humanity was prevalent with the Christian Inquisitions, irrational witch hunts and the burning of heretics. And dream theory within the Church reflected that paranoia.

By the 16th and 17th centuries Father Gracian, St. Theresa’s confessor, wrote that “it is a sin to believe in dreams.”¹ Gracian and other notables of the day placed much emphasis on Satan, linking the devil to the sexual content of dreams.

A few centuries later Freud said that dream analysis is the “royal road” to the unconscious and made a distinction between the manifest and latent content of dreams.

The manifest content is the dream remembered by the conscious mind, usually a condensed, displaced or symbolic version of the latent content.

The latent content consists of the dreamer’s unconscious feelings, perceptions and desires, to be deciphered through psychoanalysis.

Freud believed that upsetting and sleep-disturbing latent content is psychologically censored, just as a newspaper editor censors articles that would be too disruptive if published.

Freud also felt that environmental stimuli, such as traffic sounds outside the dreamer’s window, could influence the manifest content.

Alfred Adler once belonged to Freud’s inner circle but eventually broke with Freud over professional differences.

Adler argued that Freud placed too much emphasis on sex. Adler also regarded conscious intent as equally if not more important than unconscious impulses.

He believed that dreams help to identify and overcome daytime problems. Life wasn’t about accepting “normal human unhappiness” as Freud once put it. Alder saw life as an opportunity to overcome unrealistic feelings of inferiority and superiority. Through a process of self-improvement individuals gain an increased sense of mastery–and happiness.

Like Adler, Freud’s prodigy Jung once followed but ultimately critiqued Freudian theory. Sparking off a permanent rift in their relationship, Jung openly questioned Freud’s theories by suggesting they were reductive and unscientific.

Jung outlined two main types of dreams, unpretentiously called big dreams and little dreams.

Big dreams contain archetypal material originating from the collective unconscious. They may be visionary, involve grand themes, such as the mythic journey of the hero, and usually compel the dreamer to make a significant course correction in life.

Little dreams are more of the Freudian sort. They involve the personal unconscious and upper layers of the collective unconscious, such as the archetype of the shadow, and tend to be more about psychological touch ups instead of dramatic life changes.

The Gestalt theorist Fritz Perls believed that every aspect of the dream points toward some unconscious aspect of the dreamer’s total personality.

Contemporary parapsychologists say that dreams may be predictive and a link to the spirit world.

Jung too believed in these aspect of dreams but he was careful to integrate the physiological, psychological and spiritual dimensions as he understood them.

How Dreams Can Help

Materialists and skeptics aside, most theorists agree that the primary purpose of dreams is to integrate unconscious and conscious attitudes, this hopefully leading to a better, more realistic approach to life.

The following builds on several leading perspectives and includes some original ideas.

These categories aren’t watertight nor exhaustive. But hopefully they’ll illustrate some of the promise and complexities of dream interpretation.

Compensation

This occurs when the unconscious dreaming self attempts to restore or achieve balance within the conscious daytime attitude. A daytime racist, for instance, might dream of an enchanted encounter with someone of another color. Or a daytime gay basher might dream about having an enjoyable homosexual affair.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the dreamer should literally act out their dream content in daily life. Rather, the dream merely opens doors to new possibilities, encouraging an increasingly comprehensive, less judgmental worldview.

Wish-fulfillment

A person wants to take a trip to the Barbados but can’t afford the time or perhaps money to get away. If their desire and need for this kind of outlet are strong enough, chances are they’ll dream about it.

The same applies to lonely people in search of a soulmate. They may never find them during the day. But their dreams can be rich and satisfying to the point where it may be upsetting to awake. On this the Japanese poet Ohtomo Yakamochi wrote:

[These] meetings in dreams,
How sad they are!
When, waking up startled
One gropes about,–
And there is no contact to the hand.

–From the Manyo Shu, compiled 760 CE

Purging

In this type of dream one rids oneself of negative feelings for another person or situation. Typically, a person will dream of screaming and yelling at someone else whom they consciously or unconsciously resent during the daytime. On waking they feel better.

Residual

Residual dreams illustrate leftover conscious or unconscious feelings from daytime. They can involve the purging of negative emotions (above) but also celebrating positive feelings.

Getting in touch, seeing where it hurts

Here we dream about people or situations that upset us in daytime reality. We learn about and feel our pain so as to deal with it better.

This differs somewhat from purging and residual dreams since on waking one may still be upset, even shaken. But this can be therapeutic. For to not know ourselves is usually a recipe for disaster.

Feeling Tone

The content of feeling tone dreams are not remembered but on waking instill an emotional climate appropriate for the day. The waking self is emotionally prepared to “get up and go.”
An example would be a traveler who wakes up in a foreign country, eager to explore various architectural landmarks.

Feeling tone dreams may also be a bit more subtle. A grouchy spouse, for example, might wake up feeling more favorably disposed toward his or her partner and children.

Problem Solving

These dreams provide solutions to vexing issues and practical problems encountered by the waking self. The answer may be cloaked in symbolism but more often some kind of direct statement is produced.

A lost ring, for instance, might be located through a dream in which a voice simply says, “look under the mat.” This might seem trite but it points to the idea that in many instances the dreaming self is more knowledgeable than the waking.

Transformational

This is like wish-fulfillment (see above) but transformational dreams signify general motifs or trends as opposed to specific objects of desire.

For instance, we dream of flying around the neighborhood or to distant countries. The weightlessness is sheer joy. This could symbolize “taking off” in life, socially or professionally.

Creative and Inspirational

These dreams contain specific content that a person may apply to their daytime work. Music composers, for instance, sometimes dream about melodies and arrangements.

And history records not a few inventors who dreamed of devices and innovations before implementing them.

Nightmares

Nightmares are generally viewed as warning dreams. The nightmare is trying to jolt us into recognizing and readjusting an inappropriate conscious attitude or situation. A recurring nightmare points toward something in ourselves or in life that urgently requires change.

Visionary

Here we have wonderful or perhaps horrific dreams of things to come; that is, the future of humanity.

It seems that such dreams and their interpretation are almost always colored by personal and cultural filters. Some visionaries recognize this while others tend to habitually mistake their vague predictions for precise ones.

Precognitive

Precognitive dreams are similar to visionary dreams but not as momentous. Here one simply dreams of something which, in fact, occurs later in waking reality.

Controlled

Also called conscious or lucid dreaming, this is a controversial technique based on shamanic traditions where one actively creates or has a conscious effect on the dream content.

Some control their dreams for pleasure. Others strive to improve conditions in the everyday world, this premised on the belief (and perhaps observation) that dreaming and waking realities are intimately, if mysteriously, connected.

Empathetic

Here the dreamer experiences another person’s problems, concerns or situation. During the dream the dreamer fully believes that he or she is confronted with issues that, in actuality, pertain to somebody else.

An extreme example would be a law abiding person dreaming they are a desperate criminal, always worried that he or she will be tossed into jail.

The value of this type of dream is that the dreamer, upon waking, gains insight and can be sympathetic to the plight of others without actually doing the bad thing.

Although this differs from Intercession Dreams (below), the empathetic dream can be an explanatory companion to them–i.e. the dreamer better understands why they must spend time in contemplative or vocal prayer for another person.

This kind of dream is especially valuable for contemplative saints (or saints to be) who are said to ‘take the sins’ or ‘receive the karma’ of others less appreciative of esoteric, spiritual realities.

Intercession

Intercession is a theological term relating to the idea that souls mediate God’s graces to one another. In the context of dreaming, intercession may or may not take place in real time. That is, one may dream of a negative situation that could take place in the future.

In the dream state the dreamer mediates graces to another soul so as to engender healing or to encourage that person to avoid making a negative choice.

This kind of dreaming is related to or, we could say, exhibits aspects of precognitive and controlled dreaming. But it differs in the sense that, within the context of the dream, one prays in a contemplative way for another person.

As with daytime intercessory prayers, the ultimate source of healing and positive redirection is God, not the dreamer.

It’s conceivable that intercession dreams are effective in real time and, given the relativity of space-time, also with past events. Here, dreamers would intercede in a positive way, for example, for victims of past wars and other atrocities.

Moreover, intercession dreams may be related to Empathetic Dreams (above).

Paranormal

The terms ‘paranormal’ and ‘normal’ seem arbitrary, perhaps more reflections of the status quo than absolute categories. They’re mentioned here for convenience.

With paranormal dreams, believers claim that the psyche accesses information normally restricted by conscious and unconscious attitudes and also by the selective attention needed for daytime activity.

These dreams range from contacting the dead, traveling through time and taking astral journeys to faraway countries, distant galaxies, exotic realms and other dimensions. They also involve communing with aliens and perceiving other people’s thoughts, emotions and inclinations.

While some report seeing or contacting themselves in past lives (i.e. reincarnation), it’s important to realize that this is not necessarily fact. As a rule of thumb, paranormal dreams must be carefully interpreted and assessed.

To take paranormal dreams at face value without informed analysis seems unwise because there is no guarantee that the dream information is trustworthy or correctly interpreted.

Hellish

Hellish dreams are different from usual nightmares. On waking the dreamer feels as if they have had an actual glimpse or personally experienced an actual hell. The experience is far more profound than a mere frightening series of events, characteristic of most nightmares.

Hellish dreams arguably aren’t just imaginal representations but ontological encounters that occur during the sleep state. This is the very real feeling of being damned and tormented for all time.

Due to the immediacy and intensity of the hellish experience, on waking the dreamer usually feels it’s a dire warning to change some kind of attitude or behavior for the better.

Heavenly and Blissful

Some don’t agree with differentiating heavenly from astral realms and their respective numinous qualities. But one could reply that such folks haven’t matured enough in their spiritual formation to be able to appreciate the difference.

Many believe that heaven is of an entirely different order and beauty than astral realms, the ‘energy’ of the cosmos, etc.

At any rate, in this kind of dream one experiences heavenly realms and all the contentment, love, grace and profound peace that accompany them.

Here, heavenly bliss is often distinguished from natural and aesthetic beauty, vital pleasures (e.g. sex and eating) endorphin and adrenaline rushes, alcoholic merriment, drug-induced altered states and forms of intuitive or extroverted pseudo-spirituality characterized by immaturity, egoism and an absence of genuine love.

To what degree heavenly bliss might coexist with other, lesser pleasures remains a matter of much debate. But even if heavenly graces were to coexist with lesser pleasures, we can still discern the different components of a given experience. By way of analogy, water may be combined with coffee, sugar and cream but these various elements remain different.

The notion of a hierarchy of pleasures, from vulgar to heavenly, isn’t terribly new. The idea appears in ancient Indian and Greek philosophies. Tertullian noted that some dreams are an ecstatic, purely spiritual experience, in contrast to those generated by the soul and nature.

More recently Sri Aurobindo had much to say on different levels of spiritual experience. Aurobindo also warned against the deceptive influences of astral realms.

However, Aurobindo didn’t have too much to say about dreams per se because for him, sleep was something to be overcome. Aurobindo claims he eventually overcame “The Sleep,” as he put it, replacing it with the preferable state of meditation.

Final Word

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of dreams is their tendency to synthesize a great deal of information.

Assuming that one has a feel for dream interpretation, it seems that past, present and future possibilities as well as feelings, attitudes and suggestions for improvement are combined in a brief production often reminiscent of a great movie.

Because most ‘dream movies’ exhibit such a high degree of intellectual and artistic excellence, it seems improbable that the dreamer is their sole creator and director. Indeed, most of us could never hope to write a novel or screenplay containing the wisdom and brilliance of dreams.

This synthetic aspect suggests that some mysterious agency beyond the body, brain and soul is at least partly responsible for dream production.

And all we have to do is stop, look and listen.

—

¹Father Gracian cited in Robert L. Van de Castle, Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994, p. 83.

Further Reading

Castaneda, Carlos. The Art of Dreaming. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Nobody knows whether Castaneda was writing fiction, fact or some combination therein. But he admirably illustrates a shamanistic perspective through his account of Don Juan.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Penguin Freud Library Volume 4. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976.

Hall, James A. Jungian Dream Interpretation: A Handbook of Theory and Practice. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1983.

Jung, C. G. Dreams, trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, New Jersey: Bollingen Series XX Princeton University Press, 1954. This is a good collection of Jung’s work on dreams from diverse sources.

Lewis, James, R. The Dream Encyclopedia. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1995. This isn’t just another “10,000 Dreams Interpreted” type book. It contains referenced and insightful comments throughout.

Pliskin, Marcia. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Interpreting Your Dreams. New York: Alpha Books, 1999. Don’t be biased against the fact that this is an Idiots Guide. It’s a good introduction.

Telesco, Patricia. The Language of Dreams. Freedom, California: The Crossing Press, 1997. I found Part One of this book, ‘A Time to Dream,’ most useful.

Van de Castle, Robert L. Our Dreaming Mind. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. An excellent survey and resource book for further study by Dr. Van de Castle.

Some Interesting Dream Quotes » http://www.quotegarden.com/dreams.html

Disclaimer: This article does not possess any kind of medical or legal authority. Those with mental or physical health issues are advised to consult an appropriate health professional.

“Deciphering dreams – how to get the most out of your downtime” © Michael W. Clark. All rights reserved.