Dreams- A work out of our psyche

I must say, one of my favorite classes and teachings in my masters of counseling psychology program, was dream psychology and dream interpretation. Dreams, in analytical psychology, can provide very valuable information about our psyche, both, our waking and nocturnal life. I have come to not only rely on my dreams, but trust the process of unraveling my dreams to try and understand what is at the core. How can I then, make it applicable to my daily life? That is the question. " It is on the whole probably that we continually dream, but that consciousness makes such a noise that we do not hear it." Carl Jung

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist, teaches that dreams can be both, of this world, (our physical reality), or about the other world,(The veil, the other side, heaven, parallel universe, or the collective unconscious.)The term" Collective Unconscious" is studied in analytical psychology. The" collective unconscious" depicts the highly personal functions like the nervous system that all human kind shares and the more deep unconscious circle of consciousness that is present in archetypes. We can use the example of the mother archetype. It is a strong, deep collective understanding deeply woven in all human kind. Dreams are one way of understanding not only the here and now, the physical reasons for dreams, but also the deeper more collective reason for why we dream and what we can learn.

I remember as I was studying Carl Jung and dream interpretation, I had a very surreal dream. I was walking in a cemetery. There was a lot of white marble, cement, pillars, it was bright. I knew I was in a cemetery, but it felt more like I was back in ancient Rome. I looked down as I strolled across the green grass. I gasped in disbelief and utter terror. I saw Jan Fadell, my ex boyfriends mom's name on the grave stone. I looked over, and their next to it was Billy's gravestone, Billy was my first love. He and I were soul mates. Jan was like a mother to me as Billy and I had dated on and off from high school into my college career and thereafter. This dream shook me to my core. I wanted to pawn it off as " just a dream", but deep in my heart, I knew this was what Carl Jung called " A Big Dream". A big dream can be assessed when the dreamer feels it was so real. It has a deep, throbbing emotional aftermath. I knew this was one of them.

One year later My dream became a reality. My ex boyfriend was killed by lightening, and his mother whom I had dreamt of in that cold white cemetery, was taken by cancer. I loved them so much.

You may ask me if this dream somehow helped me or hurt me. Why would I dream this and then watch it unfold before my eyes, in this lifetime, just one year later? I can look back now and understand that some deep part of me that dreamt this, helped prepare me for one of the hardest experiences of my life. Dreams do balance out our psyche and help us to work out issues in our psyche. The unconscious and conscious need to balance out.

© Laura Rogers Arne