Dream Psychology

I have always had a certain fascination with dreams and why we have them. How do we take every day events and turn them into fantasy (both wonderful and terrifying) when we drift off to sleep? I have obtained numerous dream interpretation resources to try and analyze and hopefully discover what signals my own dreams are sending me. The observations and studies of Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung have helped me get on the right track in finding the true meaning of my dreams. In the following pages I will reveal what I have learned related to the different stages of sleep, the three types of dreams you can have, and the stage in which you actually dream. Also, through the dream stage, I will compare and contrast Freudian theories with Jungian theories on the subject of dream explanations, analysis and symbolism. By studying dreams, we can gain important knowledge of how our inner mind works; we can learn of any existing differences between our conscious,

social, and public self as well as our internal forces (Piotrowski, 9).

Dream interpretations help to remove the blinders from our eyes. Freud once said, “A dream is a wish fulfillment” (Stekel vol. 1, 3). So one might reply with the question “What about

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A Freudian view

Freud calls his concept of dreaming, Dream Work, which is when the text of the dream is made by hidden dream thoughts. Also dreams that are induced by opiates, fevers, mesmerism, and ill health come under this category. When every dream

image has shown it’s meaning to the dreamer, Jung then studies the dream more thoroughly along with the dreams that came before as well as after the main dream. Anything that connects two things, such as a bridge, represents the male genitals connecting the parents in sexual intercourse (Boss, 91). Freud laid a

great foundation for the world of dream psychology, but more and more contributions from accredited experts are moving it further and further away from its founder. There are two functions of the dream according to Freud: The first one is to guard sleep, and the second is to periodically discharge the unconscious (Kramer, 41) The first function of the dream is to be the guardian of sleep.

Jung has also come to disagree with certain conclusions that Freud came up with in his first steps of analysis. There can only be educated hypothesis when it comes to these phenomena.

It was medical and human necessity that led Freud to the interpretation of dreams, which he described later as the ‘royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’ (De Becker, 261).

Jung’s theory of symbols is quite different than Freud’s. Jung flatly denied the quote from Freud about a dream can be a fulfillment of a wish. He also claims that a dream is something that is uncontrolled and spontaneous and that nature is trying to tell us things through dreams; the reason we feel the need to analyze these dreams is because they are usually a mix of symbols and pictures that don’t usually go together or even make sense. Freud’s first statement about daydreaming (that during this state we are paralyzed) has a lot of physical evidence (Kramer, 48). These dreams happen because the dependent mental pictures of the past are constantly falling upon the conscious mind of the dreamer (Miller, 22). The first is that he believes in the value of dream interpretation, and in the possibility of giving dreams a definite meaning.

Approximate Word count = 2104
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

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