Jung’s estimated analysis of 20,000 dreams is quite an achievement, but to what level of analysis, and more importantly, understanding, can be had with so many?  Perhaps if a patient wanted to talk about something other than dreams, Jung would cut him off, saying “Good god woman! Back to your dreams, give me another dream and quickly.  I’m only at 18, 241 and need to break 18,500 by end of the week!”

It seems a thousand dreams, or perhaps a hundred dreams, might provide a more appropriate number.  In this section, an analysis of many dreams will be made.   This material is the essence of this publication, and allows the reader to move forward with their own practice.

Imagine Peace Light in Iceland, Yoko Lennon

The process is composed of a number of steps; the preliminary stages have already been discussed.  It is straigtforward and with practice becomes natural, with conscious delineation of the steps not required.

• Preparation for sleep
• Intent for the night
• Meditation
• Sleep
• Dream
• If lightly awake, recall, sleep
• Day awake, recall
• Write notes
• Return to sleep, thinking of dream
• Awake, complete the note taking
• Check for legibility of notes, rewriting for clarity
• Preliminary analysis: relevance, benefit
• Relative analysis: in the context of other dreams.
• Deep analysis and Dream therapy

The most important part of all of this is to resist the urge for a too simplistic understanding of one’s dreams.  This is precious material, your dreams, unique and personal, and not something to be lightly applied to a dictionary of symbols.

Examining a simple “dream dictionary” is the worst thing one can do.  It is very counter productive, and could easily lead to casting off potentially life saving analysis and thearpy.  If one’s subconscious is reduced to a comparison to a symbol chart, or matching to the closest definition, and likely one first seen, in a dream dictionary, then it is very unlikely progress can be made.  

It is not realistic to think the understanding of one’s dreams, occurring perhaps over several hours, and certainly not the answers for ones life, can be had in just a few minutes

Too much information is lost.  First, in reducing a description of a dream, perhaps a lucid and detailed rememberance, to a symbol, or a few symbols.  Then, in proceeding with any analysis, having lost the primary and most important information, that is unique and personal to the dreamer, which relies more on the opinion of the other person who developed the symbol chart or dream dictionary.  At that point, it is no different than using tarot cards, where you look though a selection of cards, and latch onto one, thinking, yes, of these 15 cards I see, this is the one most resembling my dream.  Perhaps there is value if at this point, if one personally reflects on this card or symbol, drawing from one’s unique dream and relating them within the context of their own understanding of dreams and the subconscious.  However, if one simply reads in the little booklet coming with the tarot deck sometlike like “Cups 5, this means you want to drink wine with someone,” what good will that do?

What this section strives for as a result is that the reader will have a reliable and powerful method with which to understand their dreams and their subconscious, at a level much higher than what can be obtained through use of symbol charts, card decks, and dream dictionaries.  It does not strive to be a replacement for what may likely be the most powerful method of analysis and interpretation, which falls in the realm of medical psychoanalysis or doctoral level psychotherapy.  

There is a rather large gap between a 5-30 minute analysis, and 7 years of 50 minute weekly sessions. And not just in time of course, but money.  Some people will need the medical attention, and this text must encourage them to seek that out, particularly when there are thoughts of harm to self or others involved.  Just as there will be others, whose attention span is only going to be 5-30 minutes, and if an answer can’t be found quickly, and regardless of whether correct or not, it’s just not fast enough for them.  By this point, I think we have succesfully weeded out those with the 5 minute attention span!  So let’s begin.

(balance is in preparation; much more material on its way)