Jungian Dream Interpretation

1 Confession – recording your dreams
Also taken from the PDF file in that first link:

When writing down your dream, keep this list handy.

• place/setting of the dream
• people/players in the dream – both known and unknown
• puns and metaphors appearing in the dream
• symbols in the dream
• feelings in the dream
• colour, sounds, smells
• movement of the dream
• the narrative/what happens in the dream

Sometimes it is seemingly the most insignificant aspects of a dream that turns out to be the most revealing. Remember you are not trying to make sense of these images yet, so don’t worry about how bizarre they may appear, don’t try and box them into a waking-logic, allow the dream-logic to speak.

Capture your dream in the present tense, as if it is currently happening, for example—The king summons his vizier.

During the first stage you just want to capture your dream; avoid trying to analyse or decipher what your dream might mean. You can also draw images from the dream – frequently this is useful, especially if you are trying to convey something that cannot be expressed in words.

Once you have captured your dream, identify key words in the dream and see if you are able to create a title from these words. This will help you to identify and link dream themes in future.

Having recorded your dream, you are ready to begin the process of illumination and clarification, finding personal associations for your dream images.

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There's a lot more in the actual PDF, I'm just copying down a few parts here so even those who refuse to click on links can understand some of this. If you want more, click on my friend, click on...

2 Illumination – finding personal associations
Every dream is made up of a series of images and symbols and dream work begins with discovering the meaning that these images have for you. Write down the first image that appears in the dream.

Next write down your associations with this image – what are the words, ideas, mental pictures, feelings or memories that pop into your head when you think about this image? Draw as many associations with your dream images as possible.

While looking for your personal associations, think about:

• Where was the dream set? Do you know this place or does it remind you of any place that you do know? What does it remind you of?
• Do you know the people in your dream, or do they remind you of anyone you know? What is your relationship to this person? How would you describe this person?
• What did you see? What does it remind you of? About what does it make you think?
• How do you feel in the dream? When have you felt like this before? What does it remind you of?
• What were you thinking?
• What feeling do you have about this image? What words or ideas come to mind when you look at it?

When looking for associations it is also helpful to look for the idiom or metaphor the dream is expressing, for example:

• dreaming of someone biting your back alludes to the expression ‘backbiting’. This means talking about and undermining someone who is not present (behind their back)
• dreaming about ‘taking the bull by the horns’ – an idiom which means dealing decisively with a difficult situation
• dreaming of blue could refer to feeling blue, in other words feeling sad or depressed about something.

At this stage you want to link your ideas, perceptions etc. that you have of the dream image, using Jung’s directed or controlled dream associations. This includes exploring spontaneous ideas which originates from the dream situation. It is important to keep going back to your dream image; as you don’t want to start a chain of free associations, which will lead you away from the dream image.

3 Amplification – finding objective associations
‘The soul thinks in images.’—Aristotle

Amplification is a Jungian technique which attempts to expand your personal associations and personal understanding of your dream images to connect with the collective unconscious, or as Jung came to call it later in life, the Objective Psyche. By looking at your dreams through amplification; through an archetypal framework, you will find unplumbed depths of your psyche. Yorum Kaufmann, in The Way of the Image advises that by looking at the image objectively, you can avoid being led astray by your personal, subjective associations.

The concept of psychological archetypes is one of Jung’s most useful and provocative contributions to modern thought. Jung became aware of the archetypes when he observed that the symbols that arise in dreams often correspond to images that have appeared in ancient myths, legends and religion, throughout time and across all cultures. Archetypes are primordial images and symbols found in the collective unconscious. Each archetype has a unique set of characteristics, motivations and personality traits. Examples of the archetypal images are for instance the hero, the child or the mother, etc. Jung’s archetypes are not limited to human characters; there are also animal archetypes like the serpent and the lion; as well as objects functioning as archetypes, such as gold, the castle or the forest.

Archetypes are inherited, inborn potentials; patterns of thought and emotions which provide us with a set of tools, skills, capabilities, lessons, opportunities and potential for this lifetime. They form the foundation upon which each individual builds his own experience of life, shading them with his unique culture, personality and life events. Since they are unconscious, they cannot be known or experienced in themselves and can only be known indirectly through examining their effects and their manifestations in images and symbols; as well as by examining behaviour, images, art, stories, myths or dreams.

4 Education – interpreting the dream message
‘A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’—Winston Churchill

The classic error made by beginners in dream interpretation, is to enquire, ‘What does this dream mean?’ instead of ‘what is this dream saying to me?’ To take the approach ‘what does this dream mean’ often side-lines valuable information contained in the dream. The dreamer will guess or accept an obvious interpretation, which often is already known by the dreamer; while ignoring the hidden message which the dream invariable contains.

Before you can discover the meaning of your dream, there are a couple of things you need to know about the nature of your dreams.

Your dreams seek to educate you ...

• it presents a map, showing your consciousness the path it is on; how this path may have diverged from the one you are meant to travel and what pitfalls and treasures lie ahead. Dreams are guides to areas in your psyche which need work
• it never tells you what you already know. They tell you what you don’t know and what is not seen by you.
• They intentionally communicate something to you that is currently consciously unknown and so invariably they communicate your blind spot or an one-sidedness that has developed in your personality. Usually, if the meaning is clear and too obvious; your interpretation is based on what you know. Dreams are teleological in nature – that is, they are forward looking – even though they appear to use images from your past
• It is generally triggered by an event/experience/realisation/thought that you had during the day prior to the dream. Reflect on the events of the day and try to identify an incident that triggered you emotionally; or elicited some response from you. The dream is about this experience.
• Dreams are the only access which you have to the ‘objective version’ of your situation or experience; since it presents a picture without personal bias.
• It is important to remember the dream is usually a criticism of your position or orientation towards a situation. Frequently, the function of dreams is to provide you with the opposite point of view, the dream attempts to balance your conscious one-sidedness.

5 Transformation – making the dream concrete
“What if you slept? And what if in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you woke, you held that flower in your hand? Ah! What then?”—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The specific images and messages you received from your dream are accompanied by an energy that contains transformative potential. Having insight and an understanding of these images and messages will not necessarily bring about transformation in your life. To transform, you need to turn your insights into action in the real world.

It is imperative at this stage of your dream work to find a way of integrating your insights or the message of your dream into your conscious waking life. It is important to ask yourself, ‘What am I going to do about this dream?’

Performing a physical act takes your understanding of the dream from a purely abstract level to an immediate, concrete reality, however this step requires either a practical or a symbolic act.

• A practical act. Often our dreams will show us where, how and what corrective action we need to take. The dream will demonstrate the need for practical action and this could include taking control of your finances; becoming more security conscious; taking a closer look at the need for a more balanced lifestyle (such as eating less junk food) or the need to exercise more, etc. Perhaps you discovered that you are being ruled by work and that you need balance in your life – more relaxation, fun, exercise, etc. A practical act would be to choose one of these activities, decide how much time you wish to spend on it and schedule time in your day or week for this. You need to honour your dreams by incorporating their advice into your life.
  
  
• A symbolic act. Sometimes there may not be a specific or practical act that you can perform – in these cases you can bring your dream into the real world by performing a symbolic or ritual act. Examples include painting a picture of the dream image, making a pottery piece that represents the dream, finding a symbol of the dream and keeping it in an appropriate place; or writing a letter to someone who you are angry with and burning it afterwards.
  

Somewhere in one of the links, (or was it in something I posted above?) it said that Jung recommends first using "Freud's method" to analyse a dream, and only if that is insufficient going ahead with Amplification by looking for images that match up with fairy tales, religious myths, or Alchemy/Tarot/Astrology etc.

That's a bit miselading, because Jung disagreed strongly with much of 'Freud's method'—in particular the idea that dreams are wish fulfillments with a manifest content (surface meaning) and a latent content (hidden underlying meaning), and that the latent content were things that needed to be kept hidden from the dreamer because they're unacceptable. I mean, it's not far from Jung's own Shadow idea, and in fact his Shadow is essentially the same as Freud's Id combined with the Personal Unconscious (the part Freud discovered and believed was the entirety of the unconscious). But there are crucial differences. Jung also disagreed with the idea that everything in a dream has a sexual meaning, and that everything psychological stems from infantile sexual desires that influence us unconsciously through our lives. So he disagreed with a pretty large chunk of Freud's theory!

I think what it really means is that many dreams can be interpreted using only your own personal associations for the dream imagery—in other words skip the Amplification step. But if that doesn't work, then quite possibly there are also archetypal images involved, so you need to move on and do Amplification. Not all dreams have archetypal energy in them, that usually only shows up at big transitional points in your life like when you reach an impasse or are going through a crisis. That's when the archetypal Rescue Team comes out to assist you.