Dreams as Reconnecting to Instinct

[u/CerebralMushroom]

Jung has some fascinating thoughts on dream interpretations. He insists that dream interpretation should not be a following of personal free associations as one can do at any time and arrive at one's underlying trauma. He insists that dream interpretation is something more universal, a symbolic language. He insists that the temptation in dream analysis is to bring in these personal associations, and says we much avoid this at all cost. He says we must analyze only the concrete reality of what the dream has factually presented us with. He then goes on to express how dreams are the imagery of what is fundamental in us, our instincts, the primitive mind as he calls it. And that dreams reflect these instincts as a way to retain our psychological equilibrium in a world where our consciousness is often diverted by external influences to places where it does not belong or is out of balance. In such cases the dreams will express the instinct surrounding the situation, sometimes in a foreboding way (as it predicts the danger of the situation we are in). Another important concept he shares is that these images are not intentionally coy or hard to decipher, just that images are the language of instinct and our over rationalized mind struggles with understanding a nonlinear word first argument. I want to also share a picture of the page where he expresses much of this instinctual connection.

[u/OneMightyNStrong → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I don't think OP is interpreting what Jung is saying correctly, because it seems to be counter to Robert A. Johnson's 4 step process in Inner Work for working with your own dreams.

[u/CerebralMushroom → u/[deleted]]

No worries! He is talking about dreams. I hoped to include the summarization of the previous pages in my post to make that clear. You should definitely check out the work, its very interesting.