“A dream is a piece of reality whose origin is personal but obscure, whose meaning is pregnant but uncertain and whose fate in the world of the waking-ego lies in our own hands.” – James Hall

One thing that sets depth-psychotherapists apart from other therapists is that they work with dreams. In fact, they take dreams very seriously. But why do we work with our dreams? Why should anyone take their dreams seriously?

It might be helpful to first recall the famous image and metaphor of the iceberg. It illustrates how the tiny tip above the water, our conscious mind, holds just a fraction of our thoughts, memories and feelings, etc. that influence our behavior while the dauntingly-large bottom 90-98% of the iceberg underneath, our unconscious mind, holds most of what makes up our character. Knowing that so much of ourselves lies under the surface, we may begin to wonder and ask ourselves, just what all is down there?

Sure, the daunting size of what’s underneath can make for a daunting task.

But if we are to gain a true sense of who we are, we must be open to taking an honest look at what lays under the surface of who we are. Afterall, as Jung said, the more unconscious material we make conscious, the richer and fuller our lives become. But in order to become whole, more integrated and complete humans, we must somehow come into connection with our unconscious.

And the easiest way to do this, is through our dreams—as Freud famously said, dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. Since dreams live in our unconscious, they, by definition hold unconscious information. In other words, dreams will always tell us something about ourselves that we do not already know. 

So, as a general rule, if you think to yourself that you already know what the dream is saying, then you have actually missed its meaning. Jung said that the unconscious part of ourselves would not even bother to construct a dream if it just told us something we already know. So, dreams encourage us to take a closer, more curious look at what is underneath.

We might ask ourselves: what do I not know yet? What is still a mystery? Where is the new nugget of information? In what way is my unconscious demanding that I take a new stance in life through this dream? If we do not remember this, we might simply use dreams to reinforce what has already happened and what we already believe. We will reinforce our stuck-ness.

More often than not, we come to therapy because we are stuck and have problems that require solving and demand solutions. But the therapist is not the source of your truth. You are. The therapist is merely a mirror, a sounding board to uncover and resonate with our own wisdom coming from within us. And our dreams hold this wisdom in its images, symbols, and metaphors. They are here for us when we are stuck, coming up against the same problems, blocks and issues without resolving them.

We can think of our dreams as the honest, real-time commentary on our conscious life issues and circumstances. And our unconscious will present us with reoccurring dreams in order to get our attention. In this way, a dream-series offers corrections to our mistaken interpretations by providing the additional clues for us to get a clearer understanding of the underlying meaning and root of the issue.

However, dreams might not repeat exactly. In fact, despite what Hollywood portrays, the exact symbols rarely occur. Instead, we must look for the themes in the related images that our unconscious so brilliantly presents to us. And when dreams are routinely incorporated into therapy, the therapist can help spot the patterns, which are all different perspectives of a similar complex or issue that wants to be worked through.

The inquisitive and attuned therapist catches signals from the dream metaphors and symbols regarding which issues are calling out to be addressed. Each dreams informs the therapist about the dreamer’s developmental patterns and psychological dynamics as well as to their relationship with Self and archetypal energies. If we are open, each dream can widen our awareness and serve as a corrective to a life course—a vehicle to drive home our psychological development, assist with problem solving, and deepen us spiritually.

We might hold back and not feel ready for change. Even the therapist may be unsure of the appropriate timing of an intervention or when to confront on an issue. But our dreams do not hesitate. They naturally guide the process by offering prognoses, diagnoses and the appropriate material for timely confrontation in addressing the dreamer’s psychological needs and current reality, and also compensate for both the dreamer’s and the therapist’s blind spots. Our unconscious is always confronting our consciousness, but our dreams tell us of our capacity and awareness to hold these confrontations and, in turn they show us the clinical developments we are making in our healing and further encourage the process.

It becomes important then to shift our attitude toward dreams to a state of curiosity and wonder. There’s a famous quote in the Talmud that goes something along the lines of: A dream that is not interpreted is like a letter that is unread. Especially in today’s digital age, an unopened letter provokes immense curiosity and desire to figure out just what the message is. And yet, this letter is not merely an offering nor invitation to new insights and perspectives. No, they are beckoning for our attention.

This is because our psyche wants nothing more for us than to heal and become whole. And each dream sent from our psyche is a little nudge in a direction towards the path of health, wholeness, balance—they move us toward the path of individuation. The psyche uses the dream landscape and events as an attempt to balance out the conscious attitude and restore harmony between the discordance of our inner and outer worlds. It becomes clear then, how this process is already innately known by some deep part within us. Our psyche uses dreams to try to inform us of this natural direction of our life and the formation of our personality. And so, another reason in which we work with dreams is to contribute to the development of the personality, to our connection with Self. And they are a primary way in which our psyche self-regulates, for they offer up what is missing and needed, providing compensation to our conscious mind and attitude.

This is why our dreams seem dramatic and overloaded with feeling—they are overstating, compensating, for the ways in which we hold back our authentic and instinctual nature in the public eye. For example, we might repress our anger in order to be agreeable in our waking lives but express a raging fury in our dreams. But when we can live in partnership with our unconscious rather than in war with it, we have a better chance at resolving our inexplicable experiences and conflicts. We can recognize when our conscious attitudes are at odds with our instinctual selves and ultimately face the unconscious material driving our lives.

Of course, these intense feelings and instincts may not always be welcomed by the conscious mind, our ego.  This is another reason why dreams are so valuable: they help build healthy ego strength.

In our avoidance of certain life experiences, tasks, and emotions, we are shifting away from our true path of health, individuation and wholeness. This is often due to a weak ego. And if we do not listen to our dreams and continue to repress these feelings, we become increasingly symptomatic and unwell, a breeding ground for dis-ease. It is in this way that we can consider our dreams as medicine, promoting not only psychic health, but physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health as well.

It is as if our conscious mind, our ego, thinks it is running the show, and then our dreams come along and tell us, “Hold on, there is more to the picture.” Sometimes we welcome it, sometimes we’re surprise, a lot of times we might reject it…. Regardless of how we receive the information, there it is. And this can feel very humbling for our mighty ego. And yet, furthering the metaphor of dreams as letters, James Hall (1983) wrote:

“Dreams are mysterious entities, like messages from an unknown friend who is caring but objective. The handwriting and the language are at times obscure, but there is never any doubt as to the underlying concern of our ultimate welfare” (p. 117).

Since dreams are loaded with feeling, wisdom, and meaning, can we trust they are not there to scare us but to guide and aid us? Can we trust they are showing us how there is more to us, more to life, and so much more happiness and health for us to enjoy? It becomes clear that, if we treat our dreams with respect and concern, they serve us in many ways. But will we meet our psyche’s efforts in integrating these feelings, images, and themes and work to build this relationship with our unconscious and learn the language of its symbols?

It becomes important to note here, however, that we not only pull symbols from our own personal unconscious, but from the collective unconscious as well. If the goal of our personal psyche is to continue incorporating our unconscious material until, finally, our conscious mind reflects the total, wholeness of the self, it is also true that the collective psyche, too, works to incorporate unconscious material until collective consciousness reflects a greater wholeness as well. In fact, Jung believed that every individual has their role to play in carrying the evolution of human consciousness forward. And so, perhaps a final point in which we must value our dreams is that they are proof we are all part of something greater than ourselves—we are part of a purposive, mysterious force, and we must work with our dreams because they are proof that our lives matter and have great transpersonal meaning.