Why meditate on your dreams?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Thickening, displacement, transformation of the image into the opposite: together with the psychotherapist Ilya Nikiforov we understand how over the millennia, starting with the ancient Greeks, people's ideas about dreams developed, what new psychoanalysis brought to them, by what mechanisms the unconscious hides from us "banned" internal censorship of meanings, what the analysis of dreams can give us and what principles can be relied on when interpreting images.

Development of ideas about dreams

To answer these questions, it is helpful to start with a brief historical overview. The development of views on dreams can be compared to how, moving through the centuries, a person becomes more and more capable of realizing himself as an individual, as a separate and responsible being. People of primitive cultures identify themselves as part of a tribe, but not as an autonomous person.

Being a person is the privilege of only two figures: the leader, who takes care of the physical well-being of the members of the tribe, and the shaman, who is responsible for their mental state. The shaman plays an important role, since illness and strong emotional disturbances are considered the intrigues of evil spirits, and not something related to the person himself. Over time, society becomes more complex, offering more and more new social roles. Identification with them helps a person to become aware of himself as separate from the group and having his own will and desires. With the retreat of traditional culture into the background, these roles themselves are no longer obligatory, and society reduces the degree of control over the behavior of its members.

Previously, a person walked along the path trodden by fathers and grandfathers, and taught children to walk in the same way, but many old paths turned out to be unsuitable, and how and where to go is now unknown. This uncertainty gives freedom of choice, but also imposes responsibility for it. We see how, from being dissolved in a team, a person has reached the joys and anxieties of the individual path. Now he stands in front of the mirror and stares at it intently, hoping to discern who has appeared before him.

During its long history, the attitude towards dreams has managed to go a similar path. The ancient Greeks believed that Hypnos (sleep) and his twin brother Thanatos (death) were born from the union of Night and Kronos. The same couple gave birth to Eris (discord), Apata (deception) and Nemesis (revenge). Unsurprisingly, given this pedigree, dreams were alarming and dangerous.

They were believed to be sent by Gaia and associated with the forces of the underworld. Several centuries later, in the 5th century. BC e., Euripides rehabilitated part of dreams, pointing out that in addition to the terrible dreams sent by Gaia, there are also light Apollonian dreams. Later, Plato (428 BC - 348 BC) took the next step: in his opinion, not all dreams are associated with gods, many of them are born in the confrontation between the three parts of the human soul. If the rational part of the soul fails to cope with the lustful and furious parts, then a person will see in a dream the fulfillment of his reprehensible desires.

A significant contribution to the development of the initial ideas about dreams was the five-volume work on the art of interpreting dreams "Oneurocriticism". It was written by Artemidor Daldiansky, who lived in the second half of the 2nd century. n. e. He was one of the first to talk about the importance of knowing the dreamer's personality and his emotional state during sleep for correct interpretation.

It would be useful for both the dreamer and the interpreter, and not only useful, but it is necessary that the dream interpreter knows who the dreamer is, what he does, how he was born, what he owns, what his health is and how old he is.

Centuries later, Freud explained how his dream interpretation technique differed from that of antiquity. If earlier the dream interpreter could work with some degree of arbitrariness, because completely different associations may come to his mind than the dreamer himself, now a significant part of the work was entrusted to the dreamer.

Lying on the couch, he had to tell what comes to mind about the individual symbols of the dream. Since that time, not only the personality traits of the dreamer have been taken into account, but also his inner world, his own associative chains and meanings that they can discover. It became the responsibility of the psychoanalyst to see possible connections and prepare an accurate and understandable interpretation.

If you take a little time and take a closer look at Freud's ideas about dreams, you can see how close the world of night dreams is to the very core of a person's personality.

Dreaming as a wish fulfillment

In 1900, the first edition of "The Interpretation of Dreams" was published. In it, Freud argues that with due attention in every dream one can find the satisfaction of a repressed desire. How can this be understood? Freud cites many dreams of children in which they saw the fulfillment of what they could not receive during the day. For example, after the poisoning, his one and a half-year-old daughter Anna was forced to starve all day, and at night in her sleep she excitedly said: "strawberries, strawberries, scrambled eggs, porridge."

Adults are less likely than children to see dreams in which a desire is explicitly fulfilled. This can be explained by the following feature of the development of the psyche. It takes a child a long time to "absorb" the requirements of the parents, to make himself the way they would like to see him. Only by the age of 5-6 does he form a psychic structure within himself, which evaluates him. Parental influence is now required to a lesser extent, since there is an internal censor. Compliance with its precepts makes the child a sense of pride in conformity to the norms, and deviation from them can turn into a painful experience of shame or guilt.

Not all human desires are as harmless as those of little Anna Freud. Many of them are associated with our aggressiveness and sexuality, which we must curb so as not to lose self-respect and not come into conflict with our conscience. Awareness of unacceptable desires can hurt self-esteem, and therefore, according to Freud, they are repressed into the unconscious and seek indirect ways of satisfaction from the depths of the psyche. One of the indirect ways of gratification is provided by the dream, hiding the true desire of the dreamer from the inner censor.

Freud talks about a patient's dream, which, it would seem, cannot be the fulfillment of desire, since it contains disappointment from unfulfilled expectations.

I dreamed the following: I want to arrange dinner for the guests, but I have nothing prepared except smoked salmon. I think about going to buy something, but I remember that today is Sunday and all the shops are closed. I want to call suppliers on the phone, but the phone is not working. As a result, I have to give up the desire to have dinner.

During the analysis, the patient recalls that one of her friends asked when she and her husband would invite her to dinner, because they always have such good food at home. Further it turns out that this friend wants to get better, and the patient's husband is a curvy lover. This involuntarily causes a feeling of jealousy in the dreamer.

Freud summarizes: “Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I can tell the patient: “It's the same as if you thought at her words:“Well, of course, I will invite you - so that you can eat at my place, get better and be able to please my husband even more! I'd rather not have any more dinners at all! After this interpretation, the patient recalls that the smoked salmon that was in her dream is this friend's favorite dish. It can be frustrating to be aware of your jealous or vengeful impulses.

In the dream of a dinner party, there is neither husband nor girlfriend, but jealous feelings have been satisfied: everything prevents the organization of a dinner at which the girlfriend could get her favorite dish, get better and even more attract the patient's husband.

If we agree with the ideas of Freud, then dreams become not only their own creations of the human psyche, which reflect his personal characteristics. Their connection with the area of desires is manifested. The spiritual area, perhaps the closest to the essence of a person, to what prompts him to stop his choice on something and strive for it.

Dream functions

Now, just as in the days of Freud, one can come across the idea that dreams serve only to automatically utilize the impressions of the past day. In The Interpretation of Dreams, dreams are declared as wish-doers, and a year before his death, Freud realizes that they can also serve to seek resolution of conflict, eliminate doubt, or form intention.

In my opinion, during sleep, last impressions can be processed, and physiological processes can be depicted in a symbolic form, but - perhaps more importantly - often a dream and its symbolism contain a semantic load. Trying to discern the meanings veiled by internal censorship, you can better understand yourself, your current conflicts and desires, as well as the outlined ways of resolving difficulties.

Principles of interpretation

What can help you get closer to the hidden meaning of dreams? To understand how the analysis of dreams is built, you need to briefly talk about the rules of interpretation of Artemidor, as well as about the mental mechanisms of dreams described by Freud.

For example, Artemidorus said that it is important not only to cover the whole dream with a glance, but also to find the meaning of individual symbols. For example, in a dream one person lost his head and subsequently his father, who was the head of the family, died. According to Artemidorus, the interpretation of symbols can be based on their similarity to something, and can also show the whole through its part ("for example, one person dreamed that he owned his sister's clothes and was wearing them. He inherited his sister's property").

Exploring his own dreams and the dreams of his patients, Freud identified two mechanisms by which the true content of a dream is processed into that which the dreamer will see - condensation and displacement. Concentration is seen in the fact that one and the same image is associated with very different thoughts. The result of the work of this mental mechanism can be easily seen if for a while one of the images of a dream is presented and the thoughts that arise are observed. Reflections on each image will cause several associative chains, when one thought smoothly flows into another. In each symbol of the dream, different meanings will necessarily be condensed.

The second mechanism - displacement - manifests itself in the fact that instead of an image associated with something significant, but alarming for a person, another image appears, remotely associated with it. Psychic energy has shifted from a meaningful image to an emotionally indifferent one. Something important and disturbing can be found in the same way by observing the flow of thoughts, repelled from the dream symbol. The more we are tolerant of the thoughts that arise in the head, the more likely the associative chain will lead to the original image from which the displacement occurred.

In the process of "creating" a dream, the psyche uses another important tool - the transformation of images into their opposite. There are no contradictions in the unconscious, and at the same time absolute opposite representations can coexist. Freud mentions how he learned from the work of K. Abel in 1884 "The opposite meaning of the first words" that in ancient languages one word was used to denote opposite actions or qualities ("strong weak, old-fashioned, distant, connect-divide") …

At this point, the question may arise: "Well, if all of the above is true, then is it necessary to try to get to the bottom of the hidden meaning of sleep, if it was carefully hidden by the psyche, which protects us from unpleasant experiences?"

Why meditate on your dreams?

If desires and conflicts can be expressed in a dream in a symbolic form, if it can "push" to make a decision or action, then, having understood this hidden content, you can learn more about your inner reality. What is the use of this? Expanding knowledge of one's own personality contributes to the acceptance of traits that seem unacceptable, which, in turn, helps to come to terms with oneself and become more tolerant of other people.

Let us recall "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy: the respect of his colleagues for Stepan Arkadyevich was based on his "extraordinary indulgence towards people, based in him on the consciousness of his shortcomings." Surprisingly, their own merits can also be rejected, traits, the realization of which can provide a sense of pride. As we know ourselves better, we begin to better understand the motives of others' actions and become more prone to empathy - the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another.

There are three features of working with dreams as a way of knowing oneself.

Firstly, you can choose your own pace and, analyzing the dream, stop where mental discomfort will overpower the need for knowledge.

Secondly, you can start thinking about the dream at any time; over time, it will not lose its hidden meanings, and associative chains will still lead in the right direction.

Third, it is easy to completely shift the responsibility for what is happening to oneself to the other side - to people, life circumstances, diseases, but with a dream it is more difficult to do this, because it is felt to a much greater extent as one's own, as something generated in the depths of the psyche.

The formats for working with dreams can be different. Freud analyzed his own dreams and helped his patients relate their dreaming experience to difficulties in everyday life. You can enlist the support of another person or group of people, or you can use diary practices for working with dreams.

Intuition is our inner tuning fork that allows us to evaluate the correctness of interpretation. When the words of another person (or our own assumptions) turn out to be in tune with what is happening inside us, this responds with a sense of the emerging meaning, linking previously incomprehensible fragments of the dream. Practice helps to develop intuition, paving new paths for it to consciousness. As the Italian psychoanalyst Antonino Ferro said, "… night dreams are a kind of visual poetics of the mind, a communication that should be comprehended intuitively, and not deciphered."