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I (Susan) had the following dream the night before starting the above write-up of Jung’s two dreams. I had planned the day before to do the write-up so it was on my mind before having the dream. My dream was also in two parts.
DREAM:
In the first part of my dream, I was in my real living room. I saw a German campervan reversing towards the patio doors. I managed to get the driver to stop the van before it reversed into and broke the glass of the patio doors.
There followed a period where I was aware of dreaming, as if I was working something out, but for which there are no concrete images.
In the second part of the dream, I am in a caravan looking for a shower. I do not live there but live close by in temporary accommodation. I find a shower and use it. It is in one of the bedrooms. I am then offered this caravan as a place to live and am delighted because on exploring it, I find that there are many more rooms than I imagined and it is quite spacious. Many of these extra rooms are bedrooms. In order to live in this caravan, I have to get permission from two female councillors.
INTERPRETATION:
This dream is actually explaining Jung’s dreams to me. This is the first time I have been aware of such a thing happening: of dreams explaining dreams. That is just one reason why being able to interpret our dreams is so important. My dream, like all others, is extremely dense and rich in metaphor and to unpack it in full would result in quite a few more paragraphs of type. In addition, many of the concepts contained within it are too advanced for anyone who does not know how to interpret dreams. A brief summary of the interpretation must therefore suffice.
My dream shows how Jung’s two dreams were working for him. Like Jung’s, my dream was in two parts separated by a period of ‘working things out’ in my head. Unlike his, my dreams occurred over the course of one night (otherwise I might not have seen the connection with Jung). Jung’s first dream gave him some food for thought, allowed him to work out a few things, which then readied his mind for the next instalment, the second dream, that inspired him with ideas that enabled him to make an important decision.
The councillors in my dream represent a bit of confusion in my own mind between the function of ‘councillors’ and ‘counsellors’. Dreams are like counsellors in that they generally offer advice and insight but they do not necessarily tell the dreamer what to do. The dreamer must think through the advice given and choose their own path.
The reference to a shower is something that often appears in my dreams, that is, in real life I often focus on negatives instead of positives. (Think here of the meaning of ‘a shower’ as used by the likes of the actor Terry Thomas in those old Ealing comedies!) Jung was also inclined to do this. An example was his focussing on the negatives of a potential career in zoology. Seeing the negatives rather than the positives makes one go backwards rather than forwards and this is the reference in my dream to the reversing campervan. Seeing negatives breaks the glass of windows of opportunity as the campervan was about to do to the sliding glass patio doors of the living room.
In Jung’s second dream, the wood was threaded with watercourses all, ultimately, leading to the same end: dreams and mythology. There were many options all leading to the same outcome. The caravan I was offered as accommodation in my dream also turned out to have many more rooms than I realised meaning that I see many more options than I realised. That the extra rooms were bedrooms – rooms in which we dream - means that any of the options will ultimately lead me to my main dream. Furthermore, the caravan in my dream highlights the idea that any decision one makes does not have to be considered as permanent. So Jung’s decision to study medicine was not an all or nothing decision but temporary and was a means to an end.
My own dream therefore gave me further insights not only into interpreting Jung’s dreams but also into the function of dreams in general. Fascinating.
To compare Freud and Jung, I have interpreted samples of their dreams. Another comparison which must be made is: which of these men is better known and more widely read today. There is no doubt that Freud has the ascendancy over Jung. Yet how can this be? Freud’s dreams expose him as a con man who, far from interpreting dreams, merely injected them with meaning, whereas, in contrast, Jung’s attempts to understand and interpret dreams were authentic.
This takes me back to my assertion that most works in libraries are written by con men, frauds or charlatans. The entire canon, like the waters of the Rhine, might have started out as clear, clean spring water but quickly became muddy and dirty and contaminated like Freud’s needle by being tampered with. It is not the truth that is important, but who is best at selling their ideas. Freud has the ascendancy over Jung because not only was he a good salesman, but also, in a world where con-men and charlatans rule, then like chooses like because it suits their purposes. That is why Freud is considered more important than Jung. And that is why the contents of our libraries are in such a mess. That is also why it is important to be able to interpret dreams. They access “truths that lie too deep for taint” and if people could interpret dreams then Freud and his ilk wouldn’t get away with their confidence tricks and their games.
This takes me on to why people are afraid of snakes: it is because of their connection to dreams.
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