“Dreams—the Language of the Unconscious Mind”

February 22, 2017

Contributed by: J.D. Mitschke, B.A. Msc., M.S., Counseling.

Did you ever stop to think that the average amount of time a person spends in sleep is around seven hours? That’s one-third of your entire life! On first glance one may think, that’s a lot of time for one to spend on sleep—what a waste of time—I could be doing something more productive with my time!

On second look, one has to acknowledge that without sleep—how could we renew ourselves after a long day’s expenditure of energy via the physical body, brain activity, and emotional engagements? It is with sleep that we are able to bring ourselves back into balance, harmony, and rejuvenation by the renewal and healing that can only come about with ample sleep.

But then, there is another facet of sleep in which we achieve renewal that some of us may not have thought of. The late great Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung devoted his life to the study of the human psyche and he gave particular attention to the study of human dream activity. He concluded that through dreams during our sleep we achieve psychic and spiritual renewal. He categorized two major types of dreams; “big dreams”, and “little dreams”. It is the “big dream” that one should give full attention to. It is unmistakable when one awakens after a big dream. The big dream has a well-defined beginning and end, it tells a story or narrative, and upon awakening, one generally has a strong emotional feeling that may persist through the day, even for weeks, and be remembered for a lifetime. In American Indian culture, the tribal medicine man welcomed the big dream as it signified a gift of grace from the Great Spirit and great heed should be paid to it as it portended something special to the individual or tribe.

A second major conclusion Jung arrived at in explaining dreams is that dreams serve the individual in a “compensatory” fashion. What does this mean? If an individual is out of balance in their psyche, attitude, behavior, or even biologically out of balance—their dream activity will present the very opposite point of view, attitude, behavior, or biological standpoint. Just a few examples: if one has been deprived of food for many days, he may dream of sitting at the dinner table with a bountiful meal; if one is much too introverted in their behavior, one may dream of being the outgoing extrovert; if one acquires a full bladder during sleep, one may dream of going to the toilet to relieve himself. In these examples just given, one can see that the aim is to achieve balance and equilibrium, just as in the same way the human body strives for equilibrium when a virus or germ invades it. The body instinctively engages its defenses to combat it and achieve healing and balance. So too, it is within our instinctive striving to achieve psychic balance.

Some may say, “I don’t think I dream because I don’t remember them.” The fact is, everyone dreams, it’s just that many don’t recall them upon awakening.

I remember well a compensatory dream of mine from a number of years ago. It so happened, in that period, my life was filled with a lot activity, pressures, deadlines to meet, and all-in-all, stress producing. Laughter and humor was a scarce commodity… nowhere to be found. Then, one day near dawn, I had this dream; and this dream was composed only of dialog—nothing visual, no story—just dialog as if someone were relating a sentence to me, which was this declarative statement: “There are two kinds of stupidity in the world—average and better than average.” I literally jumped out of bed engaged in belly laughter. My laughing I recall actually woke me! You may ask, “So what’s so funny?” You tell me. In a manner, it was the absurdity and illogic of the statement. Think about it—imagine, you the reader must fulfill a mandate and make a major decision in your life between one of two choices. Would you prefer ‘average’ stupidity, or, ‘better than average’ stupidity? If you choose ‘average stupidity’, does that mean you are better or worse off than choosing ‘stupidity’? Is there an advantage of one above the other? But then, the objective of my unconscious mind was to get me to laugh! That’s the point! Remember, the unconscious mind is a well-spring of creativity which operates far outside the range of our conscious processes.

So, dear reader, if you are interested in your dream activity, here’s my suggestion. Get yourself a notepad and pen and place it by your bedside. When you are awakened by a dream, immediately write it down and be as thorough and specific as you can be. But remember, based upon what you learned here—you may not want all your dreams to come true.

JDM