2: Dreams in the Time of Covid
May 13th, 2020 · 39 mins 37 secs
About this Episode
Dreams from this episode:
- Animated, surreal dream of a pigeon, a truck, a pelican/swan singing, “I like milkshakes and diabetes!”
- A dream of a husband in therapy and an emotional fight, and then he carves words into his chest and hugs his therapist instead of his wife
Themes from this episode:
The pandemic seems to be causing:
- More dreams (everyone is home and has more time to pay attention)
- More anxiety dreams
- More dreams about family dynamics
More positive dreams about transformation
Why would there be more feel-good dreams of transformation right now? Jung said dreams were compensatory, since the psyche is a self-regulating system that just wants balance. So if we are feeling particularly stuck or stagnant or depressed in quarantine, the unconscious sends us messages about the possibility of transformation to balance our more negative conscious state.
- So sometimes, dreams are very different from our conscious views because the unconscious thinks we are too one-sided and is trying to provide balance. But sometimes dreams are in sync with our conscious views, which means the unconscious is supporting us.
- Dreams can build us up or tear us down, depending on whether we are consciously feeling low or feeling inflated.
Because dreams aren’t logical, can be irrational and weird, some people think they are nonsense and dismiss them as stupid, meaningless, or worthless. But their weirdness is because they speak in symbols and metaphors as their native language. They aren’t TRYING to confuse us. They are coherent if we take the time to learn their language
The “you” in the dream usually represents your conscious ego, and the characters in the dream are other parts of you, parts that are less conscious or unconscious.
Dreams often pick symbols in order to elicit whatever emotion it is that the unconscious thinks we need to acknowledge.
Important Links:
Recommended dream interpretation books
Dream interpretation subreddit
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