A balancing act

Dreams provide us peeks into our subconscious, revealing our deepest, darkest fantasies.

Dreams provide us peeks into our subconscious, revealing our deepest, darkest fantasies. Freud described dreaming as wish-fulfillment. But Jung says they help correct imbalances in the psyche. And often in dreams, we can find codified solutions to problems we are up against in life, says the author, a dream analyst

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As a dream-counselor I am often asked about dreams and their significance. In my explanation, I cite a metaphor used by Carl Gustav Jung: "Whenever our body is infected by a virus or a bacteria, the rising level of fever is a natural process. No conscious decision is needed to re-establish the body's balance. The same system works in our psyche. In times when we are out of balance with our natural pattern of life, our subconscious sends us dreams and visions that are created by our inner self."

That means, during phases when you feel too great, too important, wise and invincible, you tend to dream about falling down, being small, feeling the ground giving away beneath your feet or of plane crashes. 'Down to earth' is the message here. On the contrary, when you underestimate or belittle yourself, you get a boost in the form of dreams about huge houses, great quantities of food, going up a mountain or taking off in a plane.

At times, you even see a form of a mandala, the archetype of your spiritual self. Thus most dreams have a regulating function, to help you maintain a balance. Dreams fall into four categories. In the first category of dreams, the message that is revealed to the dreamer simply mirrors his or her present circumstances and situation.

Stefanie, a 24-year-old student of law, dreamt she was running to reach the metro station. But no matter how hard she tried to move, her body refused to respond and she remained stuck on the ground. In actuality, she desperately wanted to complete her education quickly and get on with her career.

Totally focused on her future plans, she ignored the fact that she still had to sit down and study hard for her next exam. The message her dream conveyed was: You cannot move on right now, even if you wish to speed up your journey (the metro, as any transportation device, is symbolic of the journey of life).

Alexander, an Austrian engineer landed a new assignment with a company in Norway. As he was required to move to the north for three years, he needed someone to look after his apartment. Being familiar with the creative power of dreams, he contacted me for the interpretation of his dreams two months before he left for Norway.

At that time, he had planned to ask his elder brother and sister-in-law to look after his property, but hadn't discussed it with them yet. In one of his dreams he saw himself walking down a hill in deep snow, accompanied by his brother and sister-in-law. Suddenly, he fell into a dark hole. His brother and the sister-in-law continued on their descent unconcerned.

Getting out of the dark hole, Alexander turned away from the snowy hill to a new landscape where he stepped into a boat and peacefully floated down a river. The message of the dream was: Don't expect anything from your relations but proceed on your path of life, taking it as it comes. In this second category of dreams, the subconscious again produces a picture of the present situation.

But the dream also reveals another direction or possibility: avoid planning too much, everything will resolve itself. In this compensatory part of the dream we see exactly what we tend to ignore in our waking self. In the third category of dreams, we meet our shadow and other symbols of the collective unconscious.

The life force within us begins to create a tension between the conscious and the unconscious levels by flashing symbols that represent the so-called shadow or 'the other person in us', the one we tend to ignore and forget. Mary, a 44-year-old photographer, presented herself as a decisive, strong and independent woman.

(This article appeared in Life Positive, October 2002. For more log on to www.lifepositive.com)