By engaging with unconscious images through dreams and imagination, Jungian analysis deepens one’s comfort with and understanding of the symbolic language of the unconscious. Dream analysis is one of the tools used to broaden one’s perspective and access what is seeking expression and acceptance. Jung believed that the dream is a natural product of the psyche, which speaks straightforwardly. However, it speaks in a language of images, not words or linear logic, so it takes special work to learn to understand this language.
Interpretation is a very individual matter. If two persons have the same dream, while the symbols might be universal, the meaning of the dream will be different for each person, depending on their stage of life, typology, and present situation. And more than a single dream, a series of dreams can present a clearer picture of what the psyche is trying to say. They can repeat a message over and over when a person is stuck, and transform as the message is understood and integrated.
Working with one’s dreams can be a very profound experience. Intensely personal, and yet partaking of the universal patterns of humankind.
