Thread: Oneironaut or cop out?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

People were telling me that I might be schizophrenic or something, that it isn't normal to hear voices in your head etc, but I suspected it's something some people are more sensitive to and others aren't aware of it.

About the internal dialogues, my informed understanding is that psychosis is when your internal dialogue or voices are perceived as coming from outside yourself, or as coming from a different entity. If you perceive your inner dialogue and "voices" to be coming from yourself, your mind, then that's just normal cognition. The people who told you you might be schizophrenic probably were taking the words "dialogue" and "voices" too literally, or didn't have the self-awareness to notice their own inner dialogues. When you say you hear voices in your head, you mean you have thoughts but they are not your opinions, you are just reflecting on the opinions of others so you assign the thoughts to someone that holds them. I think it's very common for people to run dialogues in their mind, what could have they replied to that person to be more clever?, How will they tell such person good news, etc...

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

On the imaginal dialogue, I tried something similar to your scenario, though it didn't occur to me to take the role of a king. I was more like a mediator or host at a round table and I would invite guests.

Yes! That's it. We are doing the same thing. And I too, in my King archetype, sometimes take the role of a host around a table with guests. But no kidding those people thought you sounded like the mad hatter!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Now I remember, Jung did say it's important not to enter into interpretation too soon after a dream - just write it down in detail along with any emotions and associations. Don't try to interpret it until some time later - probably several days later. A too-hasty interpretation can be very damaging because you think you understand it now and you won't explore it farther.

I generally enter into interpretation very quickly after a dream, throughout the day. For me, it's not a problem, because I only interpret dreams that are recurring themes. I interpret them in the context of the other dreams with that theme. That also means I don't have to worry about thinking I understood it and never coming back to it. See, I would not interpret a dream in which I ate chocolate chip cookies, was swallowed by a swan which wanted the cookies and reborn out of the womb of a grazing cow. That dream, I would just like because it was a weird experience.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Not only are dreams real, but they're compensatory - meaning they're corrections of wrong conscious attitudes. Jung discovered this - in fact it was a correction of Freud's wrong idea that dreams are wish fulfillments.

AND

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But it does in dream life, which in an important way is more real than the outer objective life. And of course active imagination is where you're accessing the unconscious - the part that creates dreams. You need to talk to it in it's own language, which is dream imagery.

I am not yet convinced that dreams are compensatory or that symbols are important in dreams. That's why I was never interested in Carl Jung before but now, I will give him a chance. Sure, any fancy headwear might be a symbol of power that we can quickly recognize, but if I have one dream with a crown in it, I don't care. What would be more interesting to me was if I had theme of often finding myself in a position of authority. Perhaps my inferiors usually resent me. Then, because I don't think dreams are compensatory, I would not interpret it to mean that people I lead in real life resent me, but instead, that I am a leader too afraid to displease them. Just to give an idea of how I do interpretation.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

It feels good to be right!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But it does in dream life, which in an important way is more real than the outer objective life. And of course active imagination is where you're accessing the unconscious - the part that creates dreams. You need to talk to it in it's own language, which is dream imagery.

I said that for when I interpreted dreams more literally. But even now, if I send love to a monster in order to solve our conflict, I need to understand the meaning. Maybe the source of some conflicts or social tensions in real life (the monster and more specifically the fear it induces) is caused or fuel by the fact that I don't give other people a chance, to look at their perspective and give them compassion. I just quickly see them as an enemy. A self-fulfilling prophecy. And then it makes a lot of sense to give love to the monster. If I don't understand it, I might think more superficially that positivity killed the negativity. Not bad. But I might not know how to consciously apply this wisdom to the real life scenarios that cause me the pain of that monster. The change will then maybe only be subconscious.

The important point is that during evolution, subconscious symbols expressed truths that "people" did not know how to clearly communicate. But they could talk of a god of war that might have been a symbol of leadership and maybe he was associated with an eye which meant a good leader was a good observer and had good judgement (Blue because paraphrasing Jordan). The advantage of being modern humans, is we have access to so much knowledge. We can study these patterns so efficiently and we can also clearly communicate many of the symbolic meanings. That's why, while non-hazardously addressing symbolic obstacles in dreams with unclear symbolic solutions might have an effect on our unconscious psychology, I think it is more useful to effect this change consciously. What is the use of consciousness if not to self-reflect and effect conscious change on our psychology?