Dream Journaling
Creating a consistent a Dream Journal has many benefits for our clinical work together. As we get to know each other, trust builds within the therapeutic container. Within this, dreams begin to convey messages from the unconscious. Dreams communicate:
“The psychological reality and blind spots of consciousness are addressed because every dream points to an unconscious complex and to the archetypal dynamism behind the complex’s emotionally charged layers.”
-Edward Whitman & Sylvia Brinton Perera (1989). Dreams, A Portal to the Source, p. 7
In plainer language: Dreams communicate to the Jungian-trained therapist vital material that the patient is struggling with, parts of which are held in the unconscious. Jungian Therapists are uniquely trained in the symbolic language of dreams—which sets us apart from therapists trained exclusively in the popular Cognitive Behavioral (CBT) realm. If you’re not exploring your dreams in therapy, you are missing out on important communications that can help guide the healing process and future growth.
“Indeed, there is much evidence to suggest that dreams are manifestations of the guiding and ordering center of the personality, the Self, in Jungian terms. Both dreams and outer events can be fruitfully related to as symbolic messages coming from a source that sustains and directs the individuation process throughout the dreamer’s life.”
-Edward Whitman & Sylvia Brinton Perera (1989). Dreams, A Portal to the Source, p. 8
I am going to give an example now to illustrate how dreams can interact with clinical material for greater patient awareness and growth.
Staghorn Fern
This image was painted by the artist many years before our clinical work together during a time of turmoil in her life. One night, she pulled a Tarot card from the deck before sleep, as was her custom. She pulled the 4 of Wands from this special Tarot deck, based upon the artist Salvadore Dali’s paintings.
She read the Tarot card resource guide, mentioning the “typical Dali crutches” (the 2 red “wands” in the foreground of the card) and the following warning, “Our human merriments are small and go around in circles unless we take the higher dimension of our being into consideration.” -Fiebig (2019). Dali Tarot .
Her Dream:
I am back in the bathroom of my childhood home and my mother is in there with me. I notice a mama scorpion arched around her many tiny newly-born scorplings. I watch many times as the tiny scorplings mill around, but then by some mysterious cue, suddenly come together in a perfectly synchronized configuration. Beginning with clustering around their mama, they at once move to become concealed underneath the skirt mama scorpion is wearing. It is an automatic and exacting mechanism, like a lock and key or a jar and lid, where once the last scorplings are in place, the configuration snaps into place. It is fascinating and I cannot get enough of it. I tell mom about what I see several times but her eyes are too old and she cannot see them. I notice that she remains perfectly upright, and does not try to move at all to even attempt to see what I do.
Here's the brilliance of the dream: It contains both a warning and a solution
The patient’s unconscious stitched together the memory of the previously painted Staghorn Fern image with an added message from the unconscious when she pulled the tarot card. The Tarot card warning from the resource guide: “Our human merriments are small and go around in circles unless we take the higher dimension of our being into consideration,” became wound up (so to speak), in the circling motion in the Staghorn Fern drawing. The warning of the dream was: beware of old patterns “going around in circles.”
Looking at the closeups in these 2 photos. We can see how my patient’s psyche made the association between the images. The central upward appearance of the Staghorn Fern leaves (left) were mirrored by the Dali Crutches in the Tarot card (right) with the added hitch that the crutches look like scorpion claws! Ergo, psyche created a scorpion mama wearing a skirt like the central part of the Staghorn Fern, to symbolize the message!.
The Solution expressed in the dream…
explains the “lock and key mechanism” of the scorplings’ behavior with their mother. To explain, I need to dive into a bit of attachment theory. The hope for human infants is for them to develop a secure attachment with their caregiver shortly after birth. This congeals over time as the caregiver is able to respond appropriately to the infant’s needs. The caregiver response does not need to be perfect—as this is humanly impossible, just “good enough.” The secure attachment is something the child carries with them throughout the remainder of their lives, becoming a template for future relationships. It facilitates the ability to feel safety and trust in relationship with another human being.
The symbology of the “lock and key mechanism” in the dream is communicating secure attachment dynamics. It is a practiced mechanism which keeps the child safe, moving towards the attuned caregiver, and in the dream keeping the scorplings safe. The message from psyche is never simple or singular in any dream, but in this case it involves maintaining safety in relationships, whether that means allowing for attachment with safe others, or staying wary of unsafe others.
