The "Inner Other"

There's so much we can learn about ourselves from the people who appear in our dreams. In the Jungian way of looking at dreams, these women and men primarily represent aspects of ourselves. For a woman, the men in her dreams tell her about the 'masculine' aspects or energies that exist in her psyche, and for a man, the 'feminine'.

American Indian, Hyemeyohsts Storm, states a commonly held belief when he says, "Within every man there is the Reflection of a Woman, and within every woman there is a Reflection of a Man. Jung called these aspects 'anima' for a man and 'animus' for a woman. The anima personifies the feminine nature of a man's unconscious and the animus the masculine nature of a woman's unconscious.

To understand this concept, I have found it helpful to look at the masculine and feminine as principles. Jean Benedict Raffa expresses the differences between these principles in her book Dream Theatres of the Soul.

The feminine principle, she says, is focused on receptivity, relationship, & nurturance.  It manifests as an ability to 'be'... to contain, to wait, to hold. It's that part of us that is connected to our feelings and emotions and prefers to use mediation, compassion, harmony, and compromise in problem solving. Creativity is based on intuition, instinct, dreams, the imagination. 

 

A man's anima promotes the feminine principle of 'eros' (relationship, feeling) and helps a man reflect on his inner world. How this manifests in his life is dependent on his experience with the significant women in his life. If undeveloped or wounded, the anima can create much havoc in a man's life, making him oversensitive, moody, passive or wishy-washy.

The masculine principle is associated with activity... the ability to 'do'... acting on ideas, forging ahead, pursuing goals. It's that part of us that wants clear focus and rationality. It's an ability to create order, organization and structure from chaos. The creativity of the masculine principle is based on logic, thought, reason, theory and ideas.

The animus develops from a woman's inherited notions of maleness and through contact with all the significant men in her life. The animus helps a woman with decisiveness, discrimination, and bringing her creative impulses to fruition. If manifesting in a negative way, the animus can render a woman rigid, opinionated, critical and stubborn.

This is a really big topic in the world of dream interpretation, but even just knowing this much, helps us identify what energy or corner of our personality is being addressed by the different characters in our dreams.

You're probably asking at this point, "How does this actually show up in dreams?" A man's anima will be personified in a whole range of women, known or unknown, from child to wife to famous women. She may initially be young, troublesome or immature in dreams and eventually develop into sacred partner or guide. A woman's animus will show up as husband, baby, son, brother, friend or an unknown male. At first it might appear as threatening groups of men or mysterious stranger, and develop into her soulmate or spiritual guide.

Jung tells us that moving towards becoming 'whole persons' is dependent on bringing to consciousness these repressed aspects of our "inner other".... developing a relationship with them, allowing these aspects of our personality to work for us and help us evolve. This will also help us gravitate towards healthier relationships or improve difficult ones. I believe that the quickest and most effective way of recognizing our "inner other" is through our dreams.

Dream Recall

 One of the most common questions I hear is, "why is it so difficult to remember your dreams?" Some people recall long sagas from the night regularly, some seem to be left with a fragment or image, and some say they never remember a dream.

We know that everyone dreams off and on during the night. Studies tell us that people who sleep more than 8 1/2 hours have 50% more REM (dreaming) sleep than people who sleep less than 6 1/2 hours.

In one study, a relationship was shown between remembering dreams and creative or artistic tendencies. They saw a significantly higher proportion among art students. The lowest recall was among engineering students. The conclusion drawn was that the art students were using more right hemisphere processing (a good deal of the right brain is 'online' while we are dreaming) and had greater memory capability for visual images. The engineering students were more prone to the linear thought processing of the left brain.  Finally the study suggested that an openness to experience and a tolerance of ambiguity help. 

If you're not an artistic type, don't be too discouraged. Something I have experienced in the dream groups is that when a person really wants to remember a dream, the psyche will respond eventually. It seems that intention and an appreciation for what our dreams can offer us, is really key. And perhaps engaging your dream world will help your inner artist to step forward.

Emotionally embued images in dreams

 "I am looking out of the living room window... it's dark outside. I see an airplane plummeting nose down towards the building across the street (this building appears to be a flour mill a few stories high). The airplane is black. I can't believe what I am seeing! It crashes into the building and there is a tremendous explosion followed by thick plumes of grey smoke and fire. I see the black airplane in the midst of the flames. The building is burning and people are starting to arrive to battle the blaze. I feel panicked. I try to call my partner on the phone. I need to let him know what is happening." 

Wow, what a dream! I awake feeling startled and frightened.  

I am sharing this dream with you to illustrate how emotion is at the core of the language in dreams. Before falling asleep I had been very troubled about something important in my life, and wondering if I was heading for a crisis (a crash and burn). I could feel myself spiraling downwards into a depressed state... the image of the black plane plummeting downwards and the explosion a perfect image and mirror for this. The intensity of the image shows how fearful I was.

The plane crashes into a mill. I think about the process of grinding and separating that takes place in the making of flour... a place of transformation? These life struggles we go through can be 'grist for the mill' - made useful... we sometimes describe our hardships as 'going through the mill'.

 Jungian dream work tells us to look at the end of the dream and ask ourselves where the energy is leading. People arrive to deal with the fire - there is help! Yet I am in a panic and I realize I must let my partner know what is happening i.e. how I am feeling. The dream is telling me I don't need to go through this alone.

A dream such as this could leave one feeling very anxious. Working with this dream and understanding the metaphorical language showed me the import of my feelings and more importantly gave me some direction as to how to deal with them. Following the dream's guidance, I did 'contact' my partner and was met with empathy and support. I could greet the next day feeling stronger and not so much in the grip of my emotions.

Dream work works!

The dreaming mind

"O how I dreamt of things impossible." William Blake

If dreams are important messages from the psyche, why do they come with symbolic language and sometimes puzzling scenarios that we need to decipher? Dream science gives us some clues. Recent research shows that there is quite a bit of similarity between right brain processing and the dream state. You may know that the right brain processes non-verbal information & visual imagery, recognizes patterns, forms associations, is intuitive, and sees metaphors and analogies. The right brain takes us into the realm of the imagination, creativity, mystery and paradox.

A few years ago the Globe and Mail ran an article about capturing snapshots of the creative process through taking brain scans of jazz players while they were improvising. What they discovered is that being creative uses the same circuitry that has been measured during dreaming. With EEG, MRI and PET scans, scientists are able to see sections of the brain that activate or deactivate in the dream state. Some parts of the brain are on-line, others off-line. The fact that the logic center is inactive in the dream state helps to make dreams insightful rather than rational. The limbic center is highly active during dreaming. Among other things, this system recalls emotional memories and processes their unresolved impact. This would explain why there is often a central image in a dream imbued with the emotions of the dreamer. Some say that dreams and the arts come from the same source. The dream, like art is an emotionally filled communication given through the use of images and symbols.My feeling is, that working with dreams can not only provide vital information for living one's life more fully, it can also enhance one's capacity for experiencing and expressing that astonishing world of the imagination and creativity.

These are just a few tidbits of information from the tremendous amount of research that has been done on the brain and the dreaming mind. Thank you to Robert Hoss, a scientist and former researcher in the field of light energy, and on the faculty of the Haden Institute for Dream Training. He provides in-depth reading on the science of dreaming at his website www.dreamscience.org 

Yesterday I was asked by a reader if this blog was a venue for sharing dreams. That wasn't my original idea, but might be exciting. Dreams are very personal and tend to readily get at the core of one's issues. There would have to be an awareness of some of the principles of Jungian dreamwork and these I can share over the next few weeks. If you have a dream to share, let's start by brainstorming about the metaphors.

The Inside Scoop

Have you ever had dreams that tickle your funny bone? I had one this summer that I'd love to share with you.

"My partner D and I are getting on a bus. As I'm fumbling around looking for change, he is approached by a woman on a mission. She leads him to the back of the bus and is explaining what she would like him to do. I head back, sit down where the seats are facing the aisle, and hear the woman say to D, "It'll just take a few minutes..."  He gets up and joins a group of about six people who are facing me. They all have similar T-shirts on. They begin singing and D has the lead. "Don't be tired like me, eat hemp hearts... eat hemp hearts..." He turns sideways and making a move with his arms like train wheels turning, he says emphatically, "HEMP HEARTS" 


As I awaken, I am chuckling to myself. I turn to D and ask, "Do you know what hemp hearts are? He has no idea. I head down to my computer and google hemp hearts. Wow! There's such a thing and they are purported to be "the most concentrated and best balanced source of proteins, essential fats and vitamins in nature... you should expect sufficient energy to increase productivity and better enjoy life, and you will not need energy boosts from coffee and other stimulants." Now we're talking! 

Now, this is not an advertisement. I would like to use this dream to make a couple of points about the dreaming mind. It has a great sense of humour and it also knows much more than the conscious mind does about what is good for us. 

Although I had likely seen hemp hearts in a health food store or in a health magazine at some time, I knew nothing about them. The psyche (in Jungian thought it encompasses the ideas of soul, self, and mind) picks up all sorts of information that our waking self doesn't. D and I had been feeling very tired in the days prior to this dream. I had been feeling that I was drinking too much coffee. Voila! The dream not only brought key information to light, it delivered it in a most humorous way. And, no doubt I was in need of some humour at that time... I have that infliction of being too serious at times. I just love dreams!

So, expect 'to the point' creative and wise messages from your inner dream guide. 

This metaphorical language

Dream language is different from the language we use when we communicate in the outer world. When we speak or write, we usually explain things in a logical, linear, factual way.. unless you are a poet and naturally think in metaphors. Metaphor is a thing that is symbolic of something else (from the Greek "to transfer"). As in fairy tales, fables, and myths, the things that happen in dreams are symbolic representations of underlying truths about us. They are rarely meant to be taken literally. Here's an example... a line from a Zen koan: "Hide yourself in the middle of the flames."

We see this picture and, ...we don't smirk and say, 'who'd be dumb enough to hide in a fire?' We will understand that in some way we're being challenged to live passionately, perhaps to risk being 'burned'. The metaphorical images in your dreams, and the metaphor of the whole dream, are very personal and imbued with feelings and experiences from your life. So, don't think you can go to a dream dictionary and find the truth in the symbolism in your dreams.

I'll leave you with a quote by Jill Mellick, Jungian-oriented psychologist and artist, which is rich in symbolism...

"In the ocean of the unconscious, dreams are swells that rise and pause and break on the shores or personal consciousness, only to suck back, leaving precious flotsam and jetsam on the beach of waking awareness. We cannot influence the tides or currents, but we can ride the crest of the wave into shore and gather the treasures to us as we walk at dawn."

Reaching Out...

The sun has set on a gorgeous summer here in New Brunswick. Now that I am acquainted with my new environs, I am eager to reach out to like-minded, like-spirited people, who want to share dreams, keep learning about themselves & others, and become more conscious along the way.

Where do dreams come from?

Swiss psychiatrist and visionary Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) who worked with thousands of dreams with his colleague Marie-Louise von Franz, believed dreams were messages to the self from the Self. Simply put, the Self is that within us which knows us better than we know ourselves and encourages our wholeness.

Dreams are spontaneous revelations from the unconscious.They are messengers from another realm... that can disturb, amuse, intrigue and inspire... and best of all, they can guide you in your relationships and along your path. Working with your dreams requires learning the language of the unconscious... the language of metaphor.