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Dreams - meaning of, Jung, what is it all about?

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Does anyone knows much about theories of dreams? I don’t atm but I want to find out.
Some from a very materialist standpoint think they are just a mashup of whatever you’ve been thinking of during the day and have no meaning at all. I think this is the mainstream view in psychology right now.
Alternative views exist though. One is Jung’s idea that they have meanings and are trying to tell us things.
I’m more and more inclined to think there is significance to dreams. Although you have to discern - some may just be a symptom of brain malfunctioning like PTSD causing getting stuck on a traumatic event. I have dreams which contain things that I hadn’t been thinking about that day or for months or ever really in many ways. Not consciously anyway.

I’m currently noting down any dreams I remember on waking and trying to figure out what they’re trying to tell me. I was having trouble recalling some details from dreams yesterday and I thought, I’ll just leave it for today. But I had a bad feeling in my stomach and a strong feeling that I was missing something important and this only abated when I went back and persevered to get the main details down and examined for meaning.

What are y’all’s thoughts and experiences? Anyone read Jung or done Jungian informed therapy?
 
My understanding is that as you are falling asleep your brain replays your day backwards. The dreams blend those ideas and images together with “long-term projects” that your mind is working on, like brainstorming how to solve problems which are bothering you, or get what you want, etc. The images are metaphors and the emotions you feel while experiencing the dream are the key to interpretation, so that you can find what you are looking for in real life, or protect yourself from harm, etc. And all the characters and places in dreams are parts of you, like internal family systems but internal dream systems. Which makes me wonder if when we have a nightmare and experience intense fear does that indicate fear of our selves as much as fear of the others? 🧐
 
Yeah, I can’t remember if it was Freud or Jung who believed that every person we dream about represents ourself. I find I can get too hung up in detail when I try to interpret my dreams - esp if the content is disturbing. So I try to ‘zoom out’ and try to identify key metaphors.
 
read Jung or done Jungian informed therapy?
Before current T I was deeply interested in finding a Jungian therapist. I asked potential therapists if they studied Jung. Never found one. Then I wanted one who studied Reich. At one point I did find one of those but ended up feeling creeped out.

I found Jung to be very sensual, when I read his words, listened to him speak on YouTube, looked at his art, saw pictures of his house, and read about his lovers. It seemed like a world of delicious possibilities and I wanted to dive in. This was also when I had no concept of boundaries.

After four years of recovery I see Jung and Freud as kind of power-hungry, genius, creative, highly-charged men. I still like their ideas, especially from a philosophical perspective and their roles in affecting cultural attitudes, but I don’t see Jungian therapy as especially relevant today when there are so many other perspectives added since then.

I still like his theory of dreams being a way the mind plans out the future, as I understand it. Which leads me to wonder how much dream theory has been added to since Jung’s time? 🧐 🐰🕳
 
@OliveJewel the metaphor and emotion parts seem like valuable things to focus on. I am noting this.

I think separating the men Jung and Freud from their work is required, yes.
And I agree the unreconstructed Jungian/ Freudian theory is dated today.
Their foundations have been developed over the years since though and I’m interested in this.
There has been a big fashion toward studying psychology through a materialist lens and largely writing off a lot of psychoanalysis as lacking evidence, suspect, endless money making and even woo woo etc etc. But there is something in it in my experience. Also in my experience I have found CBT to be absolutely crap - to the extent of being detrimental. Most certainly it isn’t the panacea some (many?) tout it as and I heavily question the evidence behind it. Abort rant about CBT..
 
Lol! I hear you on the CBT! 💩👎

And also about the modern materialist perspective (CBT, med psych, atheism) versus the empiricist view (shadow work, archetypes, spirituality), the trick is holding both at the same time, I think. When we go too far in one direction we lose sight of the whole.

But there is something in it in my experience.
Mine too, and it’s worth holding onto!
 
@OliveJewel - agree with your ideas above about those two standpoints and straddling them.

Was it you who said in another thread somewhere that CBT was like a diet? Whoever said that, that is exactly what I have thought too. Or maybe a Nike slogan.
 
No, I didn’t say that but it makes a lot of sense! I was seeing a Dietician who taught me all about diet culture, intentional weight loss, weight stigma, and the weight-cycling industry. I saw a meme recently that said, “Noom, we’re not a diet, we’re an eating disorder.” 😹

CBT, when I did it, felt like that. I was going for OCD, which turns out was a manifestation of my PTSD, but I didn’t know that yet. I’m guessing you also experienced that sense of crushing failure with CBT? And the sense that something must *really* be wrong with you if you can’t even do these simple exercises to counter the thoughts/compulsions? Ugh! Gross! I remember thinking I will journal my way out of the compulsion to pick my skin! And trying to journal for a whole hour to stop myself but the urge just came roaring back the moment I put the pen down.
 
@OliveJewel whatever behaviour CBT is attempting to fix is most likely a manifestation of some condition/ root problem. Maybe if the problem is thought distortion itself then CBT could fix it? So CBT to my mind for most things is just treating symptoms and doesn’t resolve the real problem.
My previous T was getting angry at me for failing at CBT. Grr.

Btw I had an image dreaming the other night of something in the garden that would need checking. I didn’t check it the next day. The day after, still not checking, I saw a bunch of twisted to the side tree branches that was abnormal. I thought what’s that? It could only be - I checked - yes it was per my dream that thing I dreamed needed fixing!
 
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