Working With Your Dreams

In this episode:
I discuss some of Jung's advice for working with dreams, and suggest some questions you can ask when working with your own.

Let's make this a conversation:
Do you have a comment or  question about this episode, or about something you would like me to address in a future episode? Please contact me on Facebook (facebook.com/jungiananalyst) or Twitter (@Jason_E_Smith).

For more on living a symbolic life:
Please check out my book, Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, available from Chiron Publications.

Sources for quotes and more:

1. “One would do well to treat every dream as though it were a totally unknown object. Look at it from all sides, take it in your hand, carry it about with you, let your imagination play round it, and talk about it with other people...." ~ C.G. Jung in The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man in 'Collected Works, vol. 10.'
2. Episode 25: Preparing to Work with Your Dreams
3. Discussion of "knowing through not-knowing" from 'Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life.'
4. “So difficult is it to understand a dream that for a long time I have made it a rule, when someone tells me a dream and asks for my opinion, to say first of all to myself: ‘I have no idea what this dream means’. After that I can begin to examine the dream.” ~ C.G. Jung in On the Nature of Dreams in 'Collected Works, vol. 8.'
5. "This feeling reflects the frustration of the rational mind, having to admit that it can’t figure things out—and thereby leaving space for nonrational faculties” ~ Robert Bosnak in 'Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming.'
6. Episode 21: Dreams and the Sacred
7. “Any approach to the symbolic dimension, hence, remains in the realm of felt intuition and calls for an artistic and spiritual sensitivity from dreamer and interpreter alike...." ~ Edward Whitmont & Sylvia Perera in 'Dreams: A Portal to the Source.'
8. “Attention consists of suspending our thought, leaving it detached, empty, and ready to be permeated by the object..." ~ Simone Weil in 'Waiting For God,'
9. “Who wants to understand the poem, must go to the land of poetry.” ~ Goethe from 'West-Eastern Divan.'
10. Dreams ~ a poem by Mary Oliver in 'Dream Work,'

Music:
"Dreaming Days," "Slow Vibing," and "The Return" by Ketsa are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0