Dream Interpretation

The Meaning of Dreams

Definition of dream

The dream is a production of the mind manifesting itself during sleep and totally escaping the control of awakened consciousness. The dream is considered as the door leading to the unconscious and, since the dawn of time, it represents the state of consciousness of mystics, poets, painters and musicians. Dreams are paramount and preventing them can cause psychic disorders. Ever since, men have been trying to interpret their dreams to better understand their life in a waking state.

Dreams in psychology

At the end of the nineteenth century, Sigmund Freud elaborated psychoanalysis: he thus created a systematic science leaning on the subconscious via dreams, in order to cure psychic failures or traumas. In addition to Freud's, there are many theories about dreams. The most recognized psychoanalysts who have studied this theme are Carl Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler and Erich Fromm. They distinguish between dreams of aggression, flight, compensation, daydreaming, nightmares and dreams of illusory fulfillment of desires. Regardless of the hidden meaning of the dream, it is always the projected representation of the subject's state of mind. Jung is particularly interested in the concept of archetype. These are the original images or representations that all people have shared genetically since the dawn of time and that are transmitted, like a genetic inheritance. Archetypes are an integral part of the collective unconscious, they reveal living symbols, present in all civilizations and at all times. They find their best expression in tales, myths, religion and art.

Dream history

For a long time, Western civilizations were convinced that the methodical interpretation of dreams was a Western practice that began with psychoanalysis. But ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, India, China, Tibet and the Indian cultures of America have always considered the interpretation of dreams as a noble art. Thus, men of all civilizations have been fascinated by the symbols of nocturnal images. Dreams and their contents were also considered from a prophetic or divinatory point of view. The distinction has always existed between these dreams and secular dreams, which only treat the personal conflicts of everyday life. They carry with them the solution to many problems, so that they are already a therapy in themselves and allow the dreamer to find himself and help himself.

Lucid dreaming

Modern research on dreaming is increasingly focused on studying the phenomenon of lucid dreaming, that is to say, the clear and transparent dream. The sleeping subject realizes suddenly that he is dreaming. It seems to him then that he wakes up in the middle of his dream, with his clear conscience, and asks himself the question of what is the truest, the most authentic, the dream or the reality.

In their myths, the Indian tribes of the Brazilian jungle have long suspected the illusion of reality behind the reality of lucid dreams. And they organize their mode of operation according to this representation.

This known knowledge which is an integral part of the secret teachings of shamans and sages has become an object of study for Western psychoanalysis. Because in lucid dreaming, it is the soul that expresses itself. It seems difficult, however, to decipher the coded language of lucid dreams through strictly scientific thought. Like the world of the first peoples, we must enter the dream world on the basis of intuition, otherwise the dream remains an impenetrable labyrinth.