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Carl Jung also worked as a psychiatrist and used dream interpretation with his patients. Somewhat younger than Freud, Jung had a close professional relationship with him, but eventually, as a result of some irreconcilable differences, they parted company and Jung struck out on his own to research dreams.
At the stage in his life where he had the following dreams he was in somewhat of a quandary for he was making a decision as to what subjects to study at university. Jung had many and varied interests including philosophy, mythology, archaeology, especially Egyptology, as well as a growing interest in science. He had to make a choice between science and the humanities. Lack of money meant that Jung’s choice was restricted for he could only afford to attend a local university (Basel) where there were no teachers for some of the subjects he was considering. In addition, although reluctant to do so, he had to consider his financial future and this further affected his choice. These two dreams caused him to make a firm decision for science.
DREAM 1:
Jung was in a dark wood situated along the banks of the Rhine. He came to a small hill which turned out to be a burial mound. He began to dig and eventually unearthed the bones of some prehistoric monsters. Jung goes on to say that unearthing these bones was significant in the dream, for it made him realise immediately that he had to get to know the natural world.
DREAM 2:
Jung was again in a wood that was ‘threaded with watercourses’, as he put it. He came across a circular pool in an area with dense undergrowth. In the pool, half submerged, he saw a very strange creature: a radiolarian. It was a round animal, ‘shimmering in opalescent hues’, made up of many little cells that could have been tentacles. Jung wondered at such a magnificent creature having lain there undisturbed in a hidden place. Seeing this animal made Jung yearn intensely for knowledge. This dream removed any doubts in his mind and Jung made a definite decision in favour of science as a career.
INTERPRETATION:
There are several themes running through these dreams. The first is that in both, Jung is in dark woods. Secondly, in one dream the wood lies beside a main watercourse, the Rhine, whereas in the other, small watercourses are found throughout the wood. It is important to this dream to know that the Rhine is a ‘working’ river in that it is a main artery of communication through Germany in particular, although the significance here is also that its source is in the Swiss Alps. Jung was a German speaking Swiss and lived in a vicarage above the Falls of the Rhine when he was a child. In the second dream the somewhat smaller watercourses were in the wood rather than beside it. Also, away from its source, the Rhine becomes very muddy and dirty whereas the pool containing the radiolarian had very clear, clean water. Thirdly, there is a connection with fossils. In the first dream Jung unearths fossil bones, whereas the second features a radiolarian. A radiolarian is a marine organism that is an animal component of plankton. It is a type of protozoa – a single celled organism – that grows an intricate mineral skeleton. It lives in colonies. It is also a common fossil and much of the limestone used for building the Egyptian pyramids, for example, was formed from deposits of radiolarians. Because they are so common, radiolarians are an important fossil group providing geologists and palaeontologists with a lot of information.
That both dreams take place in dark woods points to their function, which is that dreams offer guidance and advice. The dark woods in the dreams are also redolent of the world of fairy tales. The Rhine is rich in mythology and legends: the opening scenes of Wagner’s opera, Das Rheingold, take place in this river. Die Lorelei is another famous tale associated with the Rhine. Jung was brought up in the Swiss country side which was rich in myth, fairy story and legend. Such stories were part of everyday life for country dwellers but not so, Jung observed, with town dwellers or his fellow students who were extremely dismissive of such stuff. Jung had also been interested in dreams since a child and had some extremely vivid dreams from about 6 years old that he remembered all his life. So this world of folklore and myth and dream was present in Jung’s life from his earliest days. This is the reference in the first dream to the Rhine. The Rhine, a major waterway, represents the dominant, single-minded course that Jung had been following up until this point.
The dinosaur bones he unearths represent mythology. Latin is often referred to as a ‘dead’ language and in the same way, so is mythology and the world of fairy stories. That is why they are represented in the dream by the bones of extinct animals. By following his dominant interests Jung will gain an understanding of these, however, which is shown in the dream by him unearthing the bones, but only the ‘bare bones’ which is rather dull and uninteresting. In addition, the Rhine in its lower reaches is a dirty, muddy river and mythology has been dirtied by being tampered with over the centuries so this would not be an attractive option to someone such as Jung who was interested in the truth. (Notice the parallels here to Freud’s Irma dream and the dirty needle, the needle having been contaminated by associations with sex and money i.e. the meaning of dreams was being tampered with.)
Although Jung had no idea what this dream really meant, it brought forward his thinking and made him decide definitely that he needed to get to know the natural world. Taking a broad view of the ‘natural’ world, contrast that with the ‘taught’ world. The ‘natural’ world is the world of dreams and myths whereas the ‘taught’ world, as found in towns and in their universities, is one which Jung found was suspicious of such stuff and treated it with derision.
So, Jung is at the stage where he has decided on a career in science but he had to make another choice: which science? The second dream again brings forward his thinking.
One of the sciences Jung had been considering was zoology. However, this was not an attractive option for him as he saw in it a somewhat negative future as a schoolmaster or at best an employee in a zoo. That the wood in the second dream was ‘threaded with watercourses’ suggests that he did have many options and, furthermore, as a result of this dream, Jung is suddenly inspired to choose medicine because it is a broad subject ‘threaded’ with lots of courses. Jung realises that he can specialise later. That there are so many options is an advantage in Jung’s case in that it forced him to ‘think the matter though’ and decide what he wanted from life in a way that he had been unable to do before because of the dominance of his main interests (dream and mythology). That he had to reflect in this way is represented by the beautiful, opalescent hues of the radiolarian. The clean pool water in which the creature lies has quite the opposite meaning to the dirty waters of the Rhine. What Jung doesn’t see is that the dream is also telling him that far from abandoning his interest in dreams, whatever science he chooses will ultimately lead him back to dreams and mythology that he was so keen on and, what’s more, will bring them alive – which is, in fact, what happened. That is the reference to radiolarians being both important fossils and beautiful living animals. Again there is a connection in the dream with Jung’s beloved Egyptology in that fossil radiolarians formed the limestone from which the pyramids were made.
To summarise, Jung’s two dreams were offering him some insights, had he been able to interpret them, about the issues that were uppermost in his mind at the time: that is, his choice of career. They brought forward his thinking and inspired him to follow a career, medicine, which would ultimately lead him back to his main interests of dreams and mythology.
The following page describes the dreams I (Susan) had while working on Jung’s dreams.
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