1590
in next paragraph.) This yields lots of ideas, perhaps some "leftovers" from
the day, some recent personal problem that may still be "on your mind,"
some childhood memory, some desire you are unaware of, some wish or
intention in the future, some conjecture about the element's symbolic
meaning, and so on (Jung, 1973). When a dreamer has an association to a
part of his/her dream or has an opinion about what it means, it may be
helpful for the dreamer to ask, "What part of me thinks this?" "Is it my logical
part?... my child?... my internal critic?" The "theater of the inner world" is
complex and so is the analyzer.
A dream from one of Bosnak's (1988, pp. 18-26) patients will illustrate
the association process: Stella's dream started, "I was a prisoner in a plane
with a glass bottom..." Note there are five elements here: I, prisoner, plane,
glass, and bottom. Also, note the dreamer felt no emotions, she was very
calm during the dream and while discussing it. To get started, Stella, her
therapist, and, in this case, her fellow group members freely associated to
each element...then to the elements shuffled in a different order...then to the
entire sentence or dream scene. So it was asked, "What do I associate with
being a prisoner?" Perhaps locked away or out of control or fears of
mistreatment or frustrations or introversion or self-restraint.... Do the same
with each of the other elements. Note that glass and bottom have several
interesting connotations, e.g. glass makes things visible but untouchable
"behind glass," glass can be beautiful but fragile, bottom can be the floor of
the plane or human buttocks and sexual parts and so on. There may be
hundreds of associations to these five elements--an upcoming plane trip,
feeling hemmed in by relatives, and real life circumstances, which for Stella
included a 10-year sexually active marriage until four years ago and social
isolation since then. Finally, a dream analyzer might speculate that the whole
scene symbolizes a person becoming especially scared by suddenly seeing
something very frightening in her life. Or, a person anxiously flying high
showing her beautiful buttocks. Or, a person uncomfortable with her sexuality
who wants to stay on a high "plane" away from the real world. (Note: these
speculations involve strong emotions in contrast to the calm dreamer.) All
kinds of conjecture could come from just five elements in this brief scene.
Then the dream analyzer has to gather evidence for each hunch. Finally, one
believes he/she understands parts of the dream or gives up.
The rest of Stella's dream involved crashing in a dirty, foul city of derelicts
where sex was rampant. She is repulsed by most of the pushy, obscene men
but finds a gentle doctor (a white knight) she is attracted to, is willing to have
sex with, and is hoping will save her from a filthy world. In fact, she becomes
very sexual but remains very aloof, cultured, sensitive and pure. All of these
objects and scenes would need to be "analyzed" too, just like the first scene.
7.
Analysts assume that two other major factors influence dreams: the wishes or
emotional needs and the defenses against recognizing those wishes. The
interaction of these two forces results in "latent" (the true but hidden desires)
and "manifest" (actual) content of a dream. In recent years dream
interpreters have focused more on the manifest content and on the defenses,
i.e. how each unique person censors or conceals his/her psychological needs.
One example of the "censor's" work would be denial, such as when a desire
("I'd like to kill him") is turned into a fear ("he will hurt me") or a fear ("I'm
