Carl Gustav Jung

“ I cannot disguise the fact that in practice, especially at the beginning of an analysis, we do not in all cases make complete and ideal analyses of dreams, but that we more generally continue to gather together the dream associations until the problem which the patient hides from us becomes so clear that even he can recognize it. ”

“ The volitional meaning of the dream, which Freud calls the repressed desire, is, for me, essentially a means of expression. The activity of the consciousness, speaking biologically, represents the psychological effort which the individual makes in adapting himself to the conditions of life. His consciousness endeavours to adjust itself to the necessities of the moment, or, to put it differently: there are tasks ahead of the individual, which he must overcome. ”

“ To this timidity in regard to superstition, the opposition to dream analysis is in a large measure due; but analysis is in no wise to blame for this. We do not select the dream as our object because we pay it the homage of superstitious admiration, but because it is a psychic product that is independent of the patient’s consciousness. We ask for the patient’s free thoughts, but he gives us little, or nothing; or at best something forced or irrelevant. Dreams are free thoughts, free phantasies, they are not forced, and they are psychic phenomena just as much as thoughts are. ”

“ It may be said of the dream that it enters into the consciousness as a complex structure, the connection between the elements of which is not conscious. Only by afterwards joining associations to the separate pictures of the dream, can the origin of these pictures, in certain recollections of the near and more remote past, be proved. One asks oneself: “Where have I seen or heard that?” And by the same process of free association comes the memory that one has actually experienced certain parts of the dream, some of them yesterday, some at an earlier date. ”

“ But, whereas the neurosis and the complaints that accompany it are never followed by the delicious feeling of good work well done, of duty fearlessly performed, the suffering that comes from useful work, and from victory over real difficulties, brings with it those moments of peace and satisfaction which give the human being the priceless feeling that he has really lived his life. ”

“ In many cases the solution is unknown; and for this reason the consciousness always tries to find the solution by the way of analogous experience. We always try to grasp what is unknown and in the future, according to our mental understanding of what has gone before. Now we have no reasons for assuming that the unconscious follows other laws than those which apply to conscious thought. The unconscious, like the conscious, gathers itself about the biological problems and endeavours to find solutions for these by analogy with what has gone before, just as much as the conscious does. ”

“ In direct contrast with therapeutic suggestion, the psychoanalyst does not attempt to force anything upon his patient which the latter does not see himself, and find reasonable with his own understanding. Faced with the constant desire on the part of the neurotic patient to receive suggestions and advice, the analyst just as constantly endeavours to lead him away from this passive receptive attitude, and make him use his common sense and powers of criticism, that equipped with these he may become fitted to meet the problems of life independently. ”

“ For instance, it is quite incorrect to assume that the snake, when it appears in dreams, has a merely phallic meaning; just as incorrect as it is to deny that it may have a phallic meaning in some cases. Every symbol has more than one meaning. I can therefore not admit the correctness of exclusively sexual interpretations, such as appear in some psychoanalytic publications, for my experience has made me regard them as one-sided, and therefore insufficient. As an example of this I will tell you a very simple dream of a young patient of mine. ”

“ Every reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid down for the development of civilisation does nothing more than turn the human being into a crippled animal; it never makes a so-called natural man of him. ”

“ Finally the explanation of the conscious material reaches an end, in so far as neither the patient nor the doctor can add anything to it that is decisive in character. Under the most favourable circumstances the end comes with the formulation of the problem, which proves itself to be impossible of solution. Let us take, for instance, the case of a man who was once well, but who became a neurotic between the age of 35 and 40. His position in life is assured, and he has a wife and children. Parallel with his neurosis he developed an intense resistance towards his professional work. ”

“ The second prejudice, which is based, as a rule, upon a superficial knowledge of psychoanalytic literature, is that psychoanalysis is a method of suggestion, by which a faith or doctrine of living is imposed upon the patient, thereby effecting a cure in the manner of mental healing or Christian Science. Many analysts, especially those who have worked in psychoanalysis for a long time, previously used therapeutic suggestion, and are therefore familiar with its workings. They know that the psychoanalyst’s method of working is diametrically opposed to that of the hypnotist. ”

“ I do not doubt that good advice at the right time can produce good results; but I do not know whence one can obtain the belief that the psychoanalyst can always give the right advice at the right time. The neurotic conflict is frequently, indeed as a rule, of such a character that advice cannot possibly be given. Furthermore, it is well known that the patient only desires authoritative advice in order that he may cast aside the burden of responsibility, referring himself and others to the opinion of the higher authority. ”

“ This attitude is itself an achievement of civilization; it is a function that is exceedingly valuable from a biological point of view, for it gives rise to the incentives that force human beings to do creative work for the benefit of a future age, and, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the species. ”

“ If dream analysis at the beginning of the treatment shows that the dream has an undoubted sexual meaning, this meaning is to be taken realistically; that is, it is proved thereby that the sexual problem itself must be subjected to a careful revision. If, for instance, an incest phantasy is clearly shown to be a latent content of the dream, one must subject the patient’s infantile relations towards his parents and his brothers and sisters, as well as his relations towards other persons who are fitted to play the part of his father or mother in his mind, to a careful examination on this basis. ”

“ Thus the human being attains the same sense of unity and totality, the same confidence, the same capacity for self-sacrifice in his conscious existence that belongs unconsciously and instinctively to wild animals. ”

“ One only has to hear this material in order to understand at once that the patient’s dream is not so much the fulfilment of infantile desires, as it is the expression of biological duties which he has hitherto neglected because of his infantilism. Biological justice, which is inexorable, sometimes compels the human being to atone in his dreams for the duties which he has neglected in real life. ”

“ Whenever we wish to assimilate something that is unknown, we arrive at it by a process of comparison. A simple example of this is the well-known fact that, when America was discovered by the Spaniards, the Indians took the horses of the conquerors, which were strange to them, for large pigs, because pigs were familiar to their experience. This is the mental process which we always employ in recognising unknown things ”

“ Sometimes the resistances are of a more serious character. For instance, persons who cannot admit certain morally grave sides to their characters, project their deficiencies upon the doctor by calmly presuming that he is more or less deficient morally, and that for this reason they cannot communicate certain unpleasant things to him. If, then, a patient does not dream from the beginning, or ceases to dream, he retains material which is susceptible of conscious elaboration. Here the personal relation between the doctor and his patient may be regarded as the chief hindrance. ”

“ The patient’s salvation is not to be found by thrusting him back again into primitive sexuality; this would leave him on a low plane of civilisation whence he could never obtain freedom and complete restoration to health. Retrogression to a state of barbarism is no advantage at all for a civilised human being.
The above-mentioned formula, according to which the sexuality of a dream is a symbolic or analogous expression, naturally also holds good in the case of dreams occurring in the beginning of an analysis. ”

“ It is at once clear to the patient that his sister represents “love for woman.”
With the stairs he has this association: “Climbing upwards; getting to the top; making a success of life; being grown up; being great.” ”

“ Psychologists and doctors in general are by no means conversant with this particular branch of psychology, owing to the fact that its technical foundations are as yet comparatively unknown to them. Reason for this may be found in that the new method is exquisitely psychological, and therefore belongs neither to the realm of medicine nor to that of experimental psychology. The medical man has, as a rule, but little knowledge of psychology; and the psychologist has no medical knowledge. ”

“ A second expedient is dream analysis; this is the real instrument of psychoanalysis. We have already experienced so much opposition to dream analysis that a brief exposition of its principles is necessary. The interpretation of dreams, as well as the meaning given to them, is, as we know, in bad odour. It is not long since that oneirocritics were practised and believed in; nor is the time long past when even the most enlightened human beings were entirely under the ban of superstition. ”

“ The analyst must observe carefully what the patient says, and in the first instance, take due note thereof without attempting to force his own opinions upon him. Thus we observe that the patient whom I first mentioned begins by talking about his marriage, which we hitherto had reason to regard as normal. We now learn that he constantly has difficulties with his wife, and that he does not understand her in the least. This knowledge causes the physician to remark that the patient’s professional work is clearly not his only problem ”

“ I say that one must be sure of one’s self in such cases, for the opinions and unsparing criticisms to which one sometimes has to submit, can be excessively disturbing to one who is unprepared to meet them. ”

“ The principles according to which psychoanalysis solves dreams are therefore exceedingly simple, and have really been known for a long time. The further procedure follows the same path logically and consistently. If one spends considerable time over a dream, which really never happens outside psychoanalysis, one can succeed in finding more and more recollections for the separate dream parts. ”

“ The analysis which the literary critic makes of the subject-matter furnished by the poet may be compared with psychoanalysis in its method, even to the very errors which occur therein. The psychoanalytic method may be aptly compared with historical analysis and synthesis. Let us assume, for instance, that we do not understand the meaning of the rite of baptism as it is practised in our churches to-day. The priest tells us that baptism means the reception of the child into the Christian community. ”

“ According to Freud, the dream is in its essence a symbolic veil for repressed desires, which are in conflict with the ideals of the personality. I am obliged to regard the dream structure from a different point of view. The dream for me is, in the first instance, the subliminal picture of the psychological condition of the individual in his waking state. ”

“ This habit of not talking to the point by no means proves that patients consciously conceal their unpleasant contents, for such irrelevant speaking can occur quite unconsciously. In such cases it sometimes helps the patient if he is told that he must not force himself, that he must only seize upon the very first thoughts that present themselves, no matter how unimportant or ridiculous they may seem. In certain cases even these instructions are of no use, and then the doctor is obliged to have recourse to other expedients. ”

“ One simply tries to remember whence the dream parts come. Upon this most simple principle the psychoanalytic method of solving dreams is based. It is a fact that certain dream parts are derived from our waking life and, indeed, from experiences which, owing to their notorious lack of importance, would frequently have been consigned to certain oblivion, and were therefore well on their way towards becoming definitely subconscious. ”

“ I have always observed that the beginner expects to find some tendency or other according to which he endeavours to mould his material. I have noticed this particularly in the cases of colleagues who were previously more or less violent opponents of psychoanalysis, owing to their well-known prejudices and misunderstandings. ”