Carl Jung believed that dreams are psychic facts and offer us an important window into the unconscious. By revealing hidden aspects of the self, they are guiding our overall development. Freud called dreams ‘the royal road to the unconscious’ and Jung called them ‘self-portraits of the psychic life-process.’ Unlike Freud, who primarily viewed dreams as expressions of repressed desires, Jung believed dreams played a compensatory role, balancing the conscious and unconscious mind.
“Consequently the dreams stand in strict contrast to his conscious behavior. They move along a progressive line and take the part of the educator. They clearly reveal their special function. This function I have called compensation. The unconscious progressiveness and the conscious regressiveness together form a pair of opposites which, as it were, keeps the scales balanced.”
— Carl Jung, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology, par 182
As a compensatory function, dreams help us see what we ignore, suppress or remain unconscious of in waking life. From a Jungian perspective, they can reveal the shadow — the parts of ourselves we reject or fail to acknowledge.
Additionally, Our Dreams Can Help Us:
• Expose Repressed Feelings – If you avoid expressing your authentic anger, frustration or fears about a relationship, your dreams may dramatize these emotions in intense or symbolic ways.
• Show Unconscious Desires – A dream about an ex, a stranger, or an idealized partner could be highlighting for us our unmet emotional or psychological needs.
• Reveal Self-Sabotage – Dreams can expose ways you might be unconsciously undermining intimacy or avoiding the healing that can come from vulnerability.
• Reveal Warnings—Dreams can tell you things you cannot possibly know such as warnings of future events.
• Give Us a Direct Experience of the Transcendent —If we work with our dreams, then we are working with God, the Self within us. These messages from our divine center are giving us direction and guidance as to what the Self wants from us.
Dreams also strive to regulate and modify the effects of our split-off parts, our complexes — such as our father and mother complexes.
Here is an example from my Workbook of a compensatory dream that clearly stated a conflict the dreamer was embroiled in suggested something deeper needing to be addressed for her own well-being.
A woman I will call Jennifer had a successful import/export business. She had several employees who were actively involved in sales for her company. She had hired one girl in particular whom I will call Susan, who over time elicited a sense of revulsion. She described this employee as a person who exaggerated her importance and talked incessantly about “who” she knew — the mayor of the city, the richest people in the area, etc. She bragged constantly about her sales ability and generally repulsed Jennifer. It started to drive her nuts, so much so that, although this girl was doing her job and doing it well, Jennifer wanted to fire her. She couldn’t stand Susan anymore and told me so. I had come to visit and stayed with her and her family for a few months as I was writing my workbook. I noticed Jennifer doing the exact things she was accusing Susan of and her teenage daughter, Amy and I talked about it. It became very obvious to both of us and together we told her. At first she hotly denied it, but because she was an introspective woman, she said she would think about it.
Things got worse before they got better. Jennifer resented me for pointing it out, but because I was a guest in her home, she couldn’t exactly get rid of me. Then one night during all of this, Jennifer had a dream. She dreamed that Susan, her employee, was walking toward her with a cigarette in her hand. Susan took the cigarette and swallowed it. Jennifer took this to mean that her dream was showing her that Susan was obnoxious. “She’s even swallowing cigarettes,” she said to me — which would be a very literal interpretation. The unconscious gave her this dream to show her this figure was inside her, that she was blowing a lot of hot air and she needed to swallow it. In other words, she needed to own it.
It was a great example of a compensatory dream and how the unconscious is offering up a solution for this split-off part of her psyche. It made a statement to correct the denial of her conscious mind. From studying and practicing dream interpretation, I knew that dream figures often represent your shadow, especially if they are a person you can’t stand. It became a touchy subject for her, so I didn’t tell her what I thought the dream really meant. I let it alone and allowed her to process the information in her own way. Life itself helped her get clear. One night we were all at dinner with a new prospective client. It was Jennifer’s daughter, Amy, myself, her husband and a couple that she was entertaining. Jennifer started doing exactly what she had accused her employee Susan of doing, and her daughter and I looked at each other and smiled. She saw us, and she got it. In that instant, she saw it herself and she stopped.
Susan did exhibit some traits of braggadocio, but it was obnoxious only to Jennifer and no one else at the company. Jennifer would zero in on just that aspect of Susan because it was part of her own shadow. The next day the three of us went to lunch, and Jennifer admitted to us that she got it that Susan was a shadow figure inside of her. She also now knew what it meant and why she drew this situation to her. Her mother had often belittled her and made her feel she wasn’t important. Unconsciously, she was compensating for this complex she had been carrying around her entire life. She told us it didn’t matter how successful she became. She knew she could never live up to her mother’s exaggerated expectations. She couldn’t believe it when it got clear and now I was able to explain it to her.
This dream is an example of how our shadow brings us important information that can help us heal our parental imagos. Though her mother had already died, that mother complex lived on inside of her until she could relate to it. I also want to stress that this is all of us, not just her. Jung defined a neurosis as ‘self-division.’ In Psychology and Religion, East and West, par 497, he said, “A psychoneurosis must be understood, ultimately, as the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning.” Everyone is somewhat neurotic as so much of us is still unconscious regardless of how much work you have done on yourself, there is always more.
Whatever one does not live, lives against us and will continue to run us from below so our dreams can show us what is next for our evolution. Paying attention to our dreams, writing them down and making an effort to remember them is the best way to start a relationship with our unconscious. Go inside yourself and do some shadow work. Start by asking questions like, “Why am I so upset about this?” “What inside me behaves like this person I cannot stand?” My favorite question to ask is, “What do you want from me? Why have I met this person right now. I want to know.”
“Projections can be withdrawn only when they come within the
possible scope of consciousness. Outside that, nothing can be corrected.”
— Carl Jung, CW 14: Mysterium Conuinctionis, par 697
For Jung, dream analysis wasn’t just about decoding hidden messages but about fostering a dialogue with the unconscious, leading to self-discovery and transformation. Keeping a journal and pen near your bed or even a small recorder is the best way to start recording your dreams because if we get up and walk to the bathroom, we can forget the dream quickly. We can also paint them, sketch them and if at all possible, speak the dream out loud to someone.
“The psychological rule is: the unconscious takes the same attitude toward the ego as the ego takes toward it. If one pays friendly attention to the unconscious it becomes helpful to the ego. Gradually the realization dawns that a mutual opus is being performed. The ego needs the guidance and direction of the unconscious to have a meaningful life; and the latent Philosophers’ Stone, imprisoned in the prima materia, [shadow] needs the devoted efforts of the conscious ego to come into actuality. Together they work on the Great Magistry to create more and more consciousness in the univers.e”
— Edward F. Edinger, The Anatomy of the Psyche, pg 230
As we make the commitment to ourselves to become conscious, the Self communicates to us in synchronicities, symbols and dreams to let us know that we are not alone. The love and acceptance we all long for is to be connected to the divine — the numinosum — and it’s inside us.
Rebeca Eigen
Rebeca Eigen, an astrologer for 25+ years and author of The Shadow Dance & the Astrological 7th House Workbook specializes in relationships. From every day decisions, to critical life-altering moments, Rebeca shares with you her practical wisdom and guidance for your life’s journey in becoming who you are meant to be.
https://www.shadowdance.com/
