Dreams On or On Dreams?

Dream time is the fantastical and sometimes phantasmagorical abstract world in which organized waking consciousness dissolves into autonomous adventures; do these adventures possess meaning beyond the byproducts of a neurological process? In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud was the first to establish empirical grounds for the study of dreams and their phenomenology. In Freud’s condensed description in On Dreams, he proposes three categorical functions of dreams: wish fulfillment, repressed desires, and compensation.

Jung appears to place greater emphasis on dreams as a compensatory expression of deficits or surpluses in conscious life. The psyche seeking equilibrium presents images during dream time to support psychological homeostasis. Although this may be true in many respects, it may be a bit limiting. Symbols that emerge in dream time may possess a multivalent capacity that may be beneficial to contemplate.

Jeanne Schul emphasizes the importance of tending to the dream with an intention toward “how we invite the dream in.” Realizing the dream's full revelatory potential may involve a psychosomatic connection that warrants attention not only to the images but also to the body in which these images are hosted.

Mindell further conceptualizes bodydreaming as a disciplined state beyond purely psychological dream phenomena. He makes a compelling case by synthesizing East and West approaches to long-held traditions that honor altered states involving the expressive body. It may be oxymoronic to use rationality to describe a non-rational symbol. Mindell proposes a fluid, emergent, embodied configuration of the dream as curative and developmental.

For me, my dreams are typically a tour de force that often blurs the distinction between what's real and what's dreaming. In dark times, I found myself crying in my dream, waking in real tears. Or dreams so vivid and viscerally intriguing that I intend to re-enter them upon waking. Dreams On!