People have all kinds of dreams. The material of dreams can come from the external environment or from the personal subconscious. In this case, dreams can be explained by the materials and associations provided by the dreamer. But for some lingering dreams or highly emotional dreams, the dreamer's personal imagination often can't get satisfactory answers.
The contents of these dreams do not belong to individuals, nor can they come from the dreamer's personal experience. These contents are archetypal images from the collective subconscious, which are called important dreams or big dreams. Such dreams will appear when the subconscious mind has faults or confusion.
Dreams are an effective way to communicate between consciousness and subconscious, and it is a normal phenomenon to transmit subconscious reactions or spontaneous impulses to consciousness. Jung believes that there is no disguise in dreams, and everything in dreams should be regarded as legitimate and true, but we can't understand dreams because we can't understand the language of dreams.
Freud's dream interpretation is looking for complex, and Jung is looking for what the subconscious has done to complex. For Jung, the symbol of dream is an attempt that various prototypes develop in the direction of individualization and try to unify into a harmonious and balanced whole. Through the symbol of dream interpretation, we can bring enlightening things to the dreamer.
Jung believed that dreams have two functions. The first is the compensation function. "Dream compensation is not a simple spiritual confrontation. From affirmation to negation, dreams are the way to compensate the state of consciousness. The most common thing in dreams is that the dreamer does not make any comments on a specific situation in the dream, which shows that this is an affirmation of the state of consciousness. Some dreams compensate by exaggerating the conscious attitude of the dreamer, while others are a little inconsistent with the conscious situation, so only a few changes are put forward, and some dreams express the opposite view to the conscious attitude. Such dreams are generally inappropriate or appear.
Compensation often takes the form of imaginary wishes. They try to compensate those neglected and undifferentiated spiritual parts, thus trying to achieve spiritual compensation. Compensation is a reflection of conscious attitude, and the expansion of a certain part of personality in consciousness will lead to subconscious compensation behavior.
Another function of dreams is to predict the future. Because the collective subconscious is the precipitation of the common experience of all mankind, in dreams, symbols not only try to express the wisdom accumulated by human race and individual wisdom, but also represent various development levels of the pre-arranged individual future state, and symbols mark the fate of people and the future evolution track of their hearts. Dreams often walk in front of the dreamer's consciousness.
The two aspects of symbols, namely, the compensation function and the prediction function of symbols, are two aspects of the same existence. When interpreting dreams, we should pay attention to the aspects of symbolizing instinctive impulse and desire expression and looking forward to the future. Jung believes that the prophetic content of individual dreams and even the track of historical collective events are all due to the collective nature of the prototype.
Before we talk about specific dream interpretation techniques, we should first understand some principles that Jung believes that dream interpretation should follow. Because dreams are a response to the attitude of consciousness, we should try our best to get closer to the relationship between dreams and the state of consciousness when interpreting dreams. Jung wrote: "I even advocate that we are not allowed to analyze dreams categorically unless our position on consciousness is very clear." Dreams are not a psychological phenomenon completely divorced from daily life. In fact, the relationship between consciousness and dreams is extremely causal, and the reaction during it is very subtle. "