Work with the dream material represents an inherent part of the analytic psychology and psychotherapy. A dream was brought to the awareness of the scientific community especially by Sigmund Freud and his classic work called “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900). A number of psychotherapeutic schools are currently involved in the work with dreams. This applies not only to the deeply dynamic schools, but also to the ones focusing primarily on cogitation and behavior, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy. Individual schools, however, differ in their approaches towards the dream and its interpretation as well as in specifying the significance which is attributed to the dream within the therapeutic process.

The significance of the dream, however, had been identified well before the scientific community found its interest in dreaming. We may sense the role of a dream in Judaism, for example, from the Old Testament. The significance of registering and interpreting the dream is often accentuated in the context of various religions and the spiritual development generally.

There are some primitive nations for whom the dream happenings are as real as the vigilant conscious reality. The American Indian Cultures were getting advices for their life steps through dreams. The North American Indians perceived the dream as an environment, where an individual was brought close to ghosts. The messages of a dream were then grasped literally and they were considered significant due to their origin (Becker, 1992). E.g. the Hurons understood the dream as an oracle which leads and guides through the life path infallibly. Orders of a chief were not fulfilled if a dream adopted a different viewpoint (Dieckmann, 2004). Levy-Bruhl (1959) notes that dream happenings are so real for the nations of New Guinea, Borneo, and the Lengua nation of Gran Chako that an individual is even responsible for his/her behavior in dreams of others. In addition to this, Oriental philosophies doubt the significance of a normal wakeful reality and they teach that our wakeful material life is just a dream.

 

The dream is a form of experience, psychological life, taking place when the body is sleeping. Different meanings have been attributed to dreams in various periods, cultures, and also psychotherapeutic schools.

Jung (The Psychology of Dreams, Selected Works, vol. I., p195) defines the dream as a ”spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious.“

„The dream is the speech of the unconscious, it is a language of symbols, the unconscious uses for communication with our conscious self.“ (Dieckmann, 2004, p9)

The dreams are the products of the unconscious. Unconscious, as the dream matrix, has a separate function designated by Jung as the autonomy of the unconscious. The meaning of the dream usually does not correspond with the tendencies of the conscious nor follows our will.

 

Jung has found an answer to the question, as to what the purpose of the dream is, in the compensation process. Jung’s principle of compensation considers functioning of both physical and psychic life to be the general rule.

„The psyche as the self-regulating system is compensated just like the body’s life. All events reaching too far induce immediate and inevitable compensation, a pre–requisite of
a normal metabolism as well as normal psyche. In this sense we may consider the compensation theory to form the basic rule of the psychic behavior. Thus, the relation between the conscious and the unconscious reality is a of compensatory character.” (Die praktische Verwendbarkeit der Traumanalyse, Selected Works, vol. I, p149)

Our dreams (as products of the unconscious) thus compensate the unilateral attitudes of the conscious, which are applied in the actual state. It is a principle of a kind of psychic homeostasis. Jung defines compensation in a more detailed fashion as “mutual compensation and comparison or arrangement of diverse data or attitudes which result in reconciliation or correction.“ (Vom Wesen der Träume, Selected Works, vol. I, p227)

A question arises here whether such mutual compensation and comparison of data resulting in correction is actually a function of dreaming or it rather represents the activity of vigilant ego, which is reflected by the dream. Based on Whitmont’s neurophysiologic research and statements (1990), James Wyly tends to accept the view that the dreams do not compensate the attitudes of ego despite the compensatory function concept of the dream is very useful in practice. Wyly believes that the assumption that “dream is effective only if remembered” would have to apply to confirm the compensatory function hypothesis. This assumption is, however, refuted by the neurophysiologic research conducted by Winston (1990). Winston, based on the investigation of rats, concluded that the dreams occur when psyche integrates the new experience with the material memorized previously. Information necessary for survival is processed during sleep which then becomes the core of the unconscious. The dreams do not need to be remembered and realized to function. E. C. Whitmont refutes the compensation theory from another position. Based on speculations on the “mythopoetic layer of unconscious psyche” he characterizes the dream as an integrative process complementing or completing the psychological experience. Dreams brings not only the personal history, but also the transpersonal materials from the collective unconscious. Dreams, however, continuously reorganize, complement and strengthen all in response to the everyday life experience. The existing events are then incorporated systematically into the set of experience, into the unconscious which transcends the life dimension of an individual. The individual is influenced by the cumulative historical experience of the mankind and this experience grows constantly with each particular experience. Memorizing and interpretation of the dream may stimulate compensation of a conscious attitude, however, this represents the function of the conscious ego and not the one of dreaming.

Reservation that the compensatory function of the dream requires its realization was not probably considered justified by Jung, as he claimed that dreams compensate the conscious attitude even if they are not memorized. Compensation occurs as a natural process without the need of its realization. The dream analysis, however, improves this process.

Jung considered necessary to distinguish strictly between complementation and compensation. He evaluated the term of complementation as unsuitable for explaining all modes of the dream behavior. He perceives complementation to be a too narrow and limited term characterizing the fixed complementary relationship. Complementation does not induce comparing and compensating. The term of complementation may also suggest a soft of secondary position of the unconscious – solely as a complement of the conscious life.

It is my opinion that dreams actually compensate the conscious attitude frequently. And this is not only about complementation of the entirety, since the dreams themselves can be critical to the conscious position. In addition to this, I think that compensation acts even if the dreams are not memorized and understood, however, the compensation effect may be stronger if they are remembered.

The compensatory function of dreams is applied in various intensities depending on the fact how the conscious attitude differs from the optimum condition. If the attitude of the conscious remains in harmony with the actual life situation (i.e. it is optimal), then the dream adopts the same attitude and its emphasized tendencies of the conscious. If the conscious attitude only slightly balances around the optimum then the dream brings possible alternatives of the conscious attitude. If the conscious tendencies are significantly inappropriate for the life situation then the dream expresses an opposite attitude.

„The compensation term, however, characterizes the function of dreams only highly generally. When hundreds of dreams in entire series unfold in front of our eyes during the long and difficult therapy, a phenomenon becomes obvious for the observer gradually, which would otherwise remain hidden behind this or that compensation. This represents a kind of developmental process in the personality. At the first glance we might have an impression that these compensations involve a sort of adjustment of one-sidedness or balancing of disturbed equilibrium. If we look at the issue more deeply and apply our experience we will see that those seemingly separate compensation acts group according to a certain plan. It seems they are related and that they are, in a deeper sense, subject to a common objective. Thus, a long series of dreams does not appear to be an unreasonable sequence of incoherent and isolated events anymore, but it rather resembles planned stages in the ongoing developmental or adjusting process. I have designed this unconscious process, which is expressed spontaneously through the symbolism of dream series, as individuation process." (Vom Wesen der Träume, Selected Works, vol. I, p229, p230)

Jung suggests here that the individuation process forms a basis of the psychological compensation. Consistently with this statement I believe that the development or individuation process is a core function of dreams, whereas the compensation represents rather means for achieving the objective. In this connection a comparison with tightrope-walker comes to my mind. Not only that he/she balances sideways using the bar to achieve a balance – compensation function, but also he/she goes forwards, approaches the finish; if this finish was not reached, the performance would lose its purpose. The ultimate objective of the artist is to achieve self-realization as an integral individual.

„A person who is aware of his/her ego forms a part of the living system only and his/her life does not represent the realization of the system. The more he/she is the sole ego, the more he/she is isolated from the collective human, he/she is also, and even gets into opposition to such collective human. However, as all living strives to achieve the entirety, a continuous correction and compensation occurs against unavoidable one-sidedness of the conscious life by the general human being inside of ourselves with the arm to achieve the final integration of the unconscious into the conscious or, better said, assimilation of ego into broader personality.” (Vom Wesen der Träume, Selected Works, vol. I, p233, p234)

When analyzing my own dreams I have acquired impression that a number of my dreams does not have a compensatory character. Many times they rather reflected the actual state of mind or expressed new life experience, without compensating the state of mind in the given moment more distinctively. As if the dreams only showed the possible growth capacity. I believe that the compensatory function of dreams is somewhat overestimated, while it is not stressed out enough that the dreams are primarily employed by the individuation process. In terms of my comparison – if the tightrope-walker loses balance then he/she is primarily trying to regain the balance, which may take some time and look a bit dramatically. Another time he/she is stable and makes several steps without compensating any imbalance. I am asking myself a question whether the assumption that the dream always has the compensatory function does not sometimes deform the actual contents of the dream.

Obviously, from the viewpoint of psychotherapeutic practice it is more advantageous to emphasize the compensation function. One reason for this is that people having lost their equanimity are usually joining the therapy. Another reason is that the therapy often does not take long enough to reveal the individuation process in the dream series. Finally, the compensatory function of dreams provides an interesting topic for the therapy since the only objective of it is to bring the conscious and unconscious back to harmony. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The structure of the dreams often corresponds with the classical drama structure. We may distinguish the following dream stages:

1.           exposition      –    representation of the initial situation, determination of place, dramatis personae and/or time;

2.           plot                 –    action is developing, complications and tension may occur;

3.           culmination   –    the most critical things happen, which bring the dream to a closure;

4.           denouement (lysis) – solution of a crises presented in stage 3 or result of the dream work. 

Individual stages may re-appear for very long dreams. Each scene change and new sequence of events then represents a solution of the previous section.

When working with a dream it is worth noting and searching for the elements of dramatic structure since these elements may help during interpretation.

 

As an illustration of the dream structures I am presenting the following dream of a young male:

„I went for a business trip to Prague. I was driving though a street which was above the city. It was a late afternoon and a small dog ran in front of my car suddenly. – Exposition

I turned the car to the roadside and I punctures the right tire. I got off the car and examined the damage. The dog was okay; it belonged to some girl with brother. The woman was very attractive and I caught myself looking at her breasts. She took notice of this and showed a trifling smile. I said they should have replaced my tire as it was their dog which caused the accident. They agreed willingly and started removing the spare wheel from the car. Meanwhile, I had to go to the toilet. – Plot

When I came back I could not find the car nor those people I got an idea immediately that they stole the car. I started running down the hill and saw them just approaching a curve. When I reached the root the car passed around me. – Culmination

I was not running away and the snakes started to be alert“ .- Denouement

Sometimes the final denouement or solution does not occur at the end of the dream. This may indicate that solution of the situation is not available currently. Jacobi (1940) mentions that dreams not including denouement indicate an unhealthy development in the life of the dreaming individual and an unfavorable prognosis may be expected based on those dreams. Dieckmann (2004) believes that such considerations are always tricky in practice since it is impossible to determine definitely whether denouement was just not present or dreaming person cannot remember it. In his opinion an unhealthy development can rather be determined based on the analysis of symbolism and attitude of the dreaming self towards the contents of the unconscious.

When interpreting it is always preferable to register the behavior of the dreaming ego and happenings connected with the dream ego. The dream self is an entity, which the dreaming individual experiences as “self”. It represents the individual center of the conscious in the dream world. 

 

 

In my therapeutic practice I experience various responses of clients when I offer them the possibility of work with dreams. Certain problems appear frequently especially at the beginning of the therapy which obstruct deeper work with the dream material. Some clients perceive dream almost as a pathological display and they guess that not having dreams is a sign of being normal and if dreams occur actually then they should be pleasant only. Another group of clients claim that they do not have dreams frequently and if they have they cannot remember the contents. This attitude is often a sign of resistance. Some clients do not understand the reason why they should be bothered with analysis of their dreams when even their wakeful reality is stressing. Another clients have a negative and depreciating attitude towards the dream reality. The dreams do not have any meaning for them. They stick with a motto: “when there is a day, no dream is significant.“ Some clients bear their dreams willingly, however, they are not able to associate them with the dream events. For example, instead of their own associations they present an interpretation using grandmother’s dream book. Other clients are even excited about work with the dreams, however, their attitude is more an escape from the life reality than a real work with themselves. With another group of clients I am intuitively afraid to undertake a more extensive dream analysis in order to avoid even more significant harm to ego by the unconscious material or separation from the wakeful reality.

Dieckmann (2004) distinguishes two basic types of clients for based on the initial attitude towards work with the dream material. There is a number of transitional types between these to extreme ones:

1.      Desert – they have only few dreams which are very short or they even claim not having any dreams whatsoever; their unconscious seems to be like a desert landscape;

2.      Flood – from the beginning of the therapy they bring a large number of long and colorful dreams, the description of which may take hours; the unconscious here looks like a flood.

According to Dieckmann both types lack a correct attitude towards the unconscious and therapeutic procedure must differ. In case of desert the analyst shall look for every trace of a possible source and support its springing. It goes without saying that caution shall be exerted since the blockage between the conscious and the unconscious may have its deep foundation – e.g. for clients with a very weak self, where congestion by uncontrollable contents of the unconscious is possible. The situation is opposite in case of flood. The border between the conscious and the unconscious is disturbed, unconscious contents advance to the conscious as a flood. The analyst then needs to endeavor to restore the healthy boundary between the conscious and the unconscious. A strong stream must be regulated. In case of these clients, however, a correct understanding of the dream may be helpful, which will allow the unconscious to find a way to handle the flood itself. Additionally Dieckmann states that the most corrupted one is usually so called “normal patient”, who brings one medium-long dream to each session in contrast to patients who miss dreams sometimes or who experience dreams as a flood-like activity. 

 

Therapeutic work with the dream is not an easy routine activity, but rather an art, which can be said about psychotherapy as a whole, after all. Therapist shall not rely upon his/her clairvoyant capabilities or visions, just like prophets and wise man of the ancient past. Not can the therapist use a simple interpretation method based on the previously determined meaning of dream images, such as the folk dream books. If such attitude was taken the dream images would cease to be symbols and they would be changed to signs. Individuality of the dreaming person and his/her specific history, uniqueness of psyche an the life context would not be respected in such case. The basic pre-requisite of a successful interpretation is a knowledge of context.

Ideal (and practically not entirely feasible) pre-requisites for creation of the complete context are presented e.g. by Dieckmann (2004):

1.      conception of the current state of mind;

2.      conception of the current problem including its roots in the personal history;

3.      event which was the immediate cause of trauma;

4.      subjective and objective associations of the dreaming person;

5.      objective associations of the analyst – assignment of the archetype analogies to the dream motive;

6.      conception of the transitional and counter-transitional occupations belonging to the dream;

7.      in special cases (psychoses, children) also objective information from third persons.

I could complement this listing with a knowledge of the dream series context.

 

Jung in his essay ” Vom Wesen der Träume“ divides the procedure of interpreting the dream material into two main sections:

1.      record of the context – meaning nuance is identified through the idea of the dreaming person for all remarkable details of the dream; this stage is, according to Jung, an easy mechanical work;

2.      interpretation of dream – in contrast to the first stage the interpretation represents a difficult task laying substantial demands on the analyst – empathy, combination capabilities, intuition, extensive knowledge and certain sensitivity of heart.

The first step of the dream understanding process is thus provoking the client’s associations to provide striking dream images. The client is called by asking specific questions to answer what comes to his/her mind spontaneously with respect to the dream images. Dieckmann (2004) suggests to ask the patient to concentrate on the motive and then to relax and addict to his/her spontaneous ideas, even if they are not related with the respective image.

In the above mentioned dream, the dreaming person would associate the following with the character of woman: ”She is luscious and dangerous, she flirts and at the same time she is unfriendly a bit. She evokes the actor starring in the “Sex and the City” TV series. I am attracted with this kind of women.“ 

Associations of the analyst play their role too. In fact, it is impossible to avoid them and sometimes they can prove very useful. Wyly warns against reckless providing the client with associations in order to avoid unwanted concentration of client’s attention to ideas given in advance by the analyst. Only deeply heart-felt "I see" answer of the client may become the only and real confirmation of correctness of analyst’s associations or interpretations.
He recommends to presents own associations in such a way to allow client to accept or
refuse them.

 

Another method is amplification. This includes multiplication of the dream happenings through material which is located out of the personal history of the dreaming person.

Sometimes the amplification term is understood as any multiplication or enrichment of the dream images. Then the association process represents one of the amplification types. James Hall (1977), for example, distinguishes three levels of amplification: 1. Immediate, which draws the materials from the personal unconscious of the client (memories and feelings); 2. Draws from the sources of the respective cultural environment; 3. Draws from archetype images contained in associations from folklore, mythology, religious tradition, and so on. The first level usually comes from the client, while the second and third ones is, under certain circumstances, produced by the analyst.

In addition to this, associations are divided into objective and subjective. The subjective associations come from the personal and individual experience sphere of the dreaming person, while the objective one arise from the human collective psyche.

Jung held the view the sole personal associations of the client cannot, in certain cases, lead to explanations of the dream message. The considered the mere association of the personal material with the dream images to be causal and reductive process which only leads to past memories. And it will fail if images of the collective unconscious appear in the dream. Jung developed the amplification method for these cases – extending the dream image through parallels from the cultural and archetype areas, through analogical mythological images. The client shall not, however, be forced to take excursion to the classic mythology. The analyst should submit the result of his/her amplification process and not the process itself.

The utilization of amplification should, according to Hall (1977), be governed by the following rule: The personal associations of the client take precedence over
the amplifications from the area of culture and these take precedence over the archetype amplifications. If the dream can provide a satisfactory explanation of the lower amplification level (personal associations) then higher level should not be used.

The objective associations or amplifications do not necessarily have to originate from the analyst, but they can also be produced by the client spontaneously.

E.g., in the dream described above the dreaming person described especially the second snake in details. To question, as to what comes to his mind when he thinks about such snake, he states the following: "The snake feels like the king of snakes. It lives everywhere and attacks everybody to test him/her. Not because the snake is evil-minded, it just wants to try what there is inside of humans. But, it definitely looks dangerous during such activity. Who passes the test does not need to feel afraid of the snake.“

The following amplifications could come to the analyst’s mind: Snake as an attribute of feminine godhood, e.g. Crete’s Great Goddess, who holds snake in both hands. The symbol of a snake in Christianity as a tempter from the Eden and its close relation to woman – seduced Eva. A snake of Kundalini as a symbol of libido, life and the energy of the Universe. This dream suggests a hypothesis that snakes and woman with brother (from the first dream sequence) express the identical psychic reality in various symbolic form. I can guess that this represents a confrontation with femininity, especially in the world of instincts. The dreaming person is attracted by the seductive and dangerous anima, he copes with her and it appears that he stand this confrontation - he raised a certain respect. At the same time we can also suggest that the real connection between the dream ego and the anima or symbols of snakes has not occurred yet. The dream ego only flirts with the woman and then leaves for the toilet and it fights with snakes only by swerving. It does not allow snakes to bite. It can be suggested that confrontation with the king of snakes has not yet finished completely. As if this was only the initial fight in which the dreaming person succeeded. His attitude towards the king of snakes is not hostile; it has rather a character of challenge to test his power.

 

John Hill (2003) emphasizes the significance of the contact with own emotions for understanding the dream. In practice he lets the patient say the dream twice - first he concentrates on the contents and then he closes his eyes and concentrates on emotions. He perceives the dream as a story about our emotions and thus it is necessary to stay in contact with its experiencing. The priority for him is to get involved, to be included into dream and interpretation is on the second place.

Dieckmann (2004) considers the subsequent therapeutic or auxiliary effect of the progress in the therapeutic process to be the final criterion of a correct interpretation. As for interpretation steps, he emphasizes the importance of patient’s associations with dream images as a pre-requisition of a correct amplification. Subsequently, when creation amplifications and interpretation itself the analyst shall rely upon his/her subjective experiencing – a feeling arising from own intuition and empathy with the patient. The subjective emotional reaction itself, the feeling of confidence, should be the central criterion of the technical intervention.

The following question may be asked in this context: What are, in fact, the effective factors participating in the therapeutic effect of the dream analysis and its understanding? In addition to this, we may also ask whether there is only one possible correct interpretation of a dream or whether dream is, to a certain extent, a projection screen with a number of symbols, on which it is possible to watch and interpret numerous stories, whereas many of these stories may be accompanied with client’s “I see”. Irvin D. Yalom (2002), for example, assumes a pragmatic approach towards dreams and give the following advice: plunder and exploit the dreams to facilitate the therapy. He utilizes the dreams for the benefit of therapeutic advance without meditating whether such interpretation is the only correct one and without trying to present a complete dream interpretation.

 

Jung drew attention to a special significance of the initial dream for diagnosis and therapy as a whole. The initial dream should accent the basic issues of the patient and his/her idea of the subsequent development. Thus, it shall have a certain prognostic meaning. I am personally interested in the potential of the patients’ initial dreams. In certain cases it happens that the initial dream reflects the client’s issues very clearly and additionally it provides recommendation for the therapy process. Another time, the initial dreams appear to be inexpressive. Often it seems that their significance is not special in any aspect and it does not differ from the significance of subsequent dreams.

Not only client’s dreams play a significant role in the therapeutic relation and process, but also therapist’s dreams about client. Dreaming about client may become a source of unexpected views and ideas.

 

Finally, I would like to note Jung’s warning against overestimating the significance of the dream, understanding the dream as a moral adviser or psychic leader, which guides infallibly through the life.

“Experience showed me that the unconscious can be overestimated easily with a certain knowledge of the dream psychology and this is to the detriment of the power of
a conscious decision making. The unconscious, however, functions satisfactorily only in case that the conscious fulfills its tasks on the verge of its possibilities. The dream may, perhaps, complement what is still missing or help where even our best effort failed." (Vom Wesen der Träume, Selected Works, vol. I, p238).

 

 

 

Becker, V. (2002), Slovník symbolů. Praha: Portál.

Dieckmann, H. (2004), Sny jako řeč duše. Praha: Portál.

Jung, C.G. (1996), Výbor z díla I. (Základní otázky analytické psychologie a psychoterapie v praxi). Brno: Nakladatelství Tomáše Janečka.

Stevens, A. (1996), Jung. Praha: Argo.

Yalom, I.D. (2003), Chvála psychoterapie. Praha: Portál