Now Allah has created the dream not only as a means of guidance and instruction, I refer to the dream, but he has made it a window on the world of the unseen.
– The Prophet Mohammed
The notion that dreaming is positive, and dream interpretation a powerful tool, dates back millennia. Ancient art and literature are rich in dream references. Back in the mists of time dreams were not so much regarded as tools for personal growth (as they are today) but believed to have supernatural or prophetic significance. For example, the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians all believed dreams had miraculous healing powers, and the Bible promotes the idea that dreams are divine messages.
Other cultures, such as the Australian Aborigines and many African and Native American tribes, have always believed that dreams are a way to enter an unseen spirit realm. To this day, dream interpretation plays a major part in these tribal societies. The Inuit of Canada believe that when a person dreams, their soul leaves their body and enters the spirit realm.
As far as dream interpretation is concerned the Egyptians are thought to be the pioneers, producing the earliest known dream dictionary, written over 4,000 years ago. Called the Chester Beatty Papyrus today, it came from Thebes in Egypt and is kept in the British Museum. It is the ancient Greeks, however, who first proposed the theory that dreams are not from some external or divine source but are internal communications, or the divine spark within. Plato (427–347 BC) suggested that dreams were representations of hidden wishes and desires, while his pupil Aristotle (384–322 BC) suggested that dreams shared collective or similar themes. It was the ‘father of medicine’ Hippocrates (460–377 BC) who presented the idea that dream symbols had a physiological interpretation – for example, fire denoted indigestion – and should be used as diagnostic tools.
Artemidorus (AD 138–180), a Roman living in Greek Asia Minor, is believed to be the first dream researcher to focus fully on dream symbols and themes. He wrote a book entitled Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams) that is still in print today. He postulated that dream symbols had certain meanings but that the most important aspect of dream interpretation was the personal significance of the dream symbol to the dreamer. (This author is in total agreement with Artemidorus about the personal significance of dreams and their meaning, and can only dream that this dictionary stays in print as long as his remarkable manuscript!)
Throughout medieval Europe, even though the early Christians respected dreams for their spiritual significance, the repressive control of the Roman Catholic Church put a stop to any attempts at dream interpretation. By the end of the 15th century dreams were regarded as no longer significant, and a century or so later even Shakespeare called them ‘children of the idle brain’. The ‘dreams are meaningless’ school of thought persisted well into the 18th century.
During the early 19th century, when the restrictive influence of the Church began to wane and the members of the Romantic movement – in their quest for spontaneous expression – rediscovered the potential of dreams, a revival of interest in dream interpretation began. Popular dream dictionaries, such as Raphael’s Royal Book of Dreams (1830) trickled into the mainstream and set the stage for Freud and Jung, the two giants of dream interpretation whose theories continue to influence the way dreams are interpreted today.
The Revolution of Freud and Jung
Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.
– Sigmund Freud
Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1858–1939) opened the door to the scientific study of dreams with his book The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). At the time, when prudish attitudes were prevalent, he caused general outrage with his controversial theory that dreams are wish-fulfillment fantasies that have their origins in our infantile urges, and in particular our sexual desires.
Freud believed that the human mind is made up of the id (the primitive or unconscious mind), the ego (the conscious mind which regulates the id’s antisocial instincts with a self-defense mechanism), and the superego (which is the consciousness that in turn supervises and modifies the ego). According to Freud, the id is controlled by the pleasure principle (the urge to gratify its needs), and the instinct that the ego finds hardest to manage is the sexual drive first awakened in childhood. The id comes to prominence in dreams, when it expresses in symbolic language the urges repressed when we are awake. Symbols are used because if these drives were expressed literally, the ego would be shocked into waking up.
To interpret a dream successfully, the symbols need to be uncovered and their true meaning discovered. The way that Freud suggested doing this was a technique called ‘free association’, or spontaneously expressing the responses that immediately spring to mind when certain words relating to the dream are put forward. The aim is to limit interference from the ego to discover the dreamer’s unconscious instincts.
Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1965), although an initial supporter of Freud’s ideas, could never fully agree with them. He felt there was far more to dreams than hidden sexual frustration, and put forward the theory of the ‘collective unconscious’: a storehouse of inherited patterns of experiences and instincts common to humans and expressed in dreams in universal symbols, which he called ‘archetypes’.
According to Jungian theory, the psyche is made up of the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious, and when a symbol appears in a dream it is important to decide whether it relates to us personally or is an archetype. The way Jung suggested we do this is by a technique called ‘direct association’, i.e. concentrating only on the dream symbol when you think about the qualities associated with it.
Jung speculated that the unconscious mind projected dream symbols in an attempt to bring the conscious and unconscious mind into a state of balance he called ‘individuation’. According to his theory, the only way the unconscious mind can express itself fully is in dreams, so it will flood our dreams with symbolic messages that reflect our current progress in waking life. These messages can bring comfort and guidance, or bring repressed urges to the fore, but their aim is the same – to encourage personal growth and self-development. However, before we can benefit from such intuitive wisdom, we first of all need to understand the language of symbols.
Other Important Dream Theorists
If you can dream and not make dreams your master …
– Rudyard Kipling
Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870–1937) suggested that dreams are all about wish-fulfillment because they allow the dreamers to have skills and powers denied to them in waking life. According to Adler, ‘The purpose of dreams must be in the feelings they arouse.’
Gestalt psychologist Fritz Perls (1893–1970) believed that dreams project hidden aspects of our personalities and the best way to interpret them is to use a non-interpretative interviewing technique. In other words, you ask your dream character or object what they are trying to say. Then you try to adopt the dream’s mindset and answer the questions.
Noted Australian dream expert Gayle Delaney suggests using an interviewing technique that addresses questions such as ‘How did the dream make you feel?’ or ‘How can you connect your dream with your waking life?’ Some dream theorists believe dreams deal with problems we can’t solve in waking life and offer solutions. Looking at them in the light of waking day, and believing them to be full of insight, we may sometimes come up with new ideas or insights while studying and interpreting them.
Thanks to the work of Jung and Freud and other influential dream theorists, dream interpretation is now accessible to everyone. It’s more popular today than it has ever been, with people from all walks of life using their dreams as unique and personal sources of guidance and inspiration, or as tools for change, growth, and personal development.
Dreams can offer us profound insights into what is preoccupying us and, although they are likely to forever remain mysterious, interpreting them can be healing