Dream Interpretation, Psychology

Dream Interpretation, Psychology

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Dream Interpretation; Exploring the Subconscious

In this article, I’m trying to summarize a very large book. C. G. Jung’s book “Man and His Symbols” is required reading if you would like to learn more. Try to get a large book, so that you can clearly see the pictures. Audio books and pocket-sized books will not work well, because there are so many pictures.

Hopefully by reading this article, a second part of you will awaken. Like a cat sleeping in front of a mouse hole, that second part of you will still be awake only enough to capture the ideas that appear. These ideas and symbols can not be easily gathered consciously, unless you are very in tune with your subconscious. I will be analyzing one of my dreams in a few different ways, and along the way giving you the vocabulary to analyze your own. In order to remember your dreams, I recommend you try to bring them to your conscious mind in some way. Either by talking about them as soon as you wake up, or by writing them down and dating them. The same symbolism can be found in old memories and psychedelics – anytime the subconscious wants to communicate. You should ask yourself why you have chosen to remember those memories, and what the images symbolize. The value of understanding your symbols should be obvious. Imagine not being able to access half of your own mind. If you couldn’t, could you ever be sure of yourself? You might never acknowledge that a part of you is objecting very loudly to your actions. The idea here is to play the game with a full deck.

The Dream: I am running through the forest, following a cleared out deer trail. My dad is in front of me, and my girlfriend is behind me. We leave the woods, and continue running along a sandy beach. The beach is divided by a small river. There is a narrow bridge of sand going over the river, so out path is never cut off. We cross it, and continue on a much rockier beach. My girlfriend is having a hard time keeping up, so I pace her. As I’m running along side her I become slightly more conscious that I’m dreaming, and decide to take my girlfriend a little inland and give this dream a happy ending. As we start going inland, my father keeps running up the beach. We try going behind a very large, smooth, black rock, but we can still see my father. My father is far ahead of us, but still visible. The dream ends with us clothed and a little disappointed, but still resting by the rock.

The Conscious Interpretation: Don’t sell yourself short, you are somewhat conscious. Often when you try to “control” the dream, you’re about as in control as a person who orders their dog to do what it is doing. But there is still a voice. The conscious interpretation would see the figures from my history at face-level, and give a 5 out of 10 rating on the dream because it didn’t end with sex. I’ll give it a couple points, because at least I remembered the dream! Once I analyze the subconscious aspects of the dream there is much more literal meaning. Some of this I don’t mention because it is personal, and the interpretation would be too long.

The Symbolic Interpretation: I associate the woods and the beach with “home”. This symbol is unique to me. Every single one of your symbols will be unique to you. I see it as home because the place I grew up in was a forested island. My girlfriend and I have had 3 homes together. There are also 3 settings: a forest, sandy beach, and rocky beach. We always have had to hide if we wanted privacy, and could never express our selves freely – even with something like wanting to play guitar or sing, because of roommates. The rock is an archetype. An archetype is a repeating thought, action, or pattern that can occur regardless of the age, culture, or people (like the archetype of a hero, everyone knows what it is regardless of where they came from). A rock often symbolizes solidarity, shelter, and the essence of something

I like to think of the shadow like the shadow of the moon, while the conscious mind would be the visible side of the moon. The whole moon is the mind. With these symbols, the shadow can communicate to the conscious mind. With the above symbolic interpretation, it’s a very hopeful message to me. Because even though my girlfriend and I are running, trying to hide, not able to do what we want, and we still stay together (the rock is shielding, solidarity).

Deeper into the Shadow: When I looked at the dream in terms of my animus and anima, I realized it was a compressed version of my entire life. The anima is like yin, while the animus is like yang. In this case, my girlfriend represented the anima, and my father the animus. The animus is what tells me to keep on soldering on, learning, working towards my goals, and getting good grades. The anima would represent my social, creative, intuitive side, and tells me to not overlook the present moment.

In the beginning I start in the forest, but there is a path. I think that in the beginning of my life I didn’t have any choice but to play along and see things through. I may have thought about suicide a lot even when I was as young as 3 or 4, but I decided my only worthwhile option was to push on and become better than those I saw. From the age of 8-16, it was easy living, which could be represented by the sandy beach. 17-18 was a very reckless and dangerous series of close calls and blind luck. At this point the beach narrowed to a very thin point. After 18 came the “real life”, jobs, self-studying, and rocky beach. The timeline and dream end at the present day.

One of the conflicts in my life right now is my studies. I’m going to school and studying something I don’t want to, because I know I’ll make a lot of money in the field. Digital forensics is interesting, but I really don’t feel like finding out what perverts are up to (child porn). Likewise hacking is interesting, but I really don’t care about helping millionaire CEO’s make more money. Lately I’ve been spending more time doing things that I like, such as guitar and programming. I won’t make any big money with these things, but I now know I shouldn’t abandon this side of me. I would be turning my back on my feelings (girlfriend) and true foundation (rock), just to keep on soldering on (father). What gives it even more meaning is that I haven’t lost sight of my animus, and I could easily catch up if I needed. Another literal observation: until I met my girlfriend, I was very out of touch with my anima. My days of creativity and imagination used to be nothing more than a memory that was already behind me. Something weaker, inefficient, and a drag on my goals.

Conclusion: Hopefully you have some tools for listening to your all of your mind now. Nothing is a static straight-shot with the mind. There are many more possible interpretations with this dream. I personally believe that the reason why these images were selected is because they follow the same pattern or underlying algorithm shared by multiple things; the symbols were playfully collaged together by my mind.

“If we could just remember our dreams, psychedelics would become obsolete.” - Terrance McKenna in his lecture “Eros & Eschaton” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCsEnbi2oM

Terrance McKenna also said that DMT (the chemical that gives us our dreams) has the archetype of the carnival. You can see the playful collage in this DMT-inspired art in the link here. http://www.zaporacle.com/wp-content/uploads/Andrew41.jpg