Week 3 Jung's Man And His Symbols

[AfternoonTarot]

Greetings! 

 

This week we’ll be reading the 3rd Section of Chapter 1, The Function of Dreams, pp. 39 - 54.  As a reminder, feel free to post multiple time as we progress through the week.  

 

Optional Activity: Looking forward to next week when we’ll be reading the section entitled, The Analysis of Dreams, I’d like to invite you to create a spread for dream interpretation based on some of the things we’ve learned.  Share with us what questions we might be a able to answer for the sitter, how you designed the layout, and how you selected the position titles.  Let’s plan to share these toward the end of next week’s reading. 

 

Optional Discussion Questions: Which Tarot cards (or combination of cards) are most likely to suggest that we should pay attention to our dreams?  That our answer might be found in our unconscious?  Which Tarot suit(s) and cards do you feel most closely relate to the Conscious?  The Unconscious?

 

 

Some Ideas for Discussion: 

 

Your reflections on the reading.  What stood out to you?  What surprised you?  What did you disagree with?  What did you relate to?

 

Anything “quotable?”

 

In what ways does the reading relate to Tarot symbolism and Tarot practice?

 

Share examples of symbols from art, popular culture, cultural artifacts, dreams, etc.

 

Anything else you’d like to discuss.

 

 

Looking forward to continuing our exploration this week!

[Starlight]

2 hours ago, AfternoonTarot said:

Optional Discussion Questions: Which Tarot cards (or combination of cards) are most likely to suggest that we should pay attention to our dreams? That our answer might be found in our unconscious?

Four of Swords seems like a good card - there's a figure lying down and swords represents the mind. (Dreamers have to remember their dreams, so there has to be focus and intention involved!)

The Moon. Dreams, illusions. Links to water, emotions, unfathomable depths. 🙂 

Eight of Cups also - in the mythic tarot deck a figure is heading underground at night which seems relevant. Going deeper than the superficial layer. In the RWS the figure is heading away on a quest.

Perhaps the Knight of Cups also in connection with the Four of Swords?

The Star - beneath all the troubles lies hope (the Mythic Tarot uses the myth of Pandora). Maybe The Moon  and The Star together could suggest looking in our unconscious for the answers.

2 hours ago, AfternoonTarot said:

Which Tarot suit(s) and cards do you feel most closely relate to the Conscious?  The Unconscious?

The Conscious - The Magician - he's intentional about what he's doing.

The Unconscious - The Moon

I think for such big concepts, you really need the major arcana.

Swords and Cups are the suits I'd pick for the anything to do with the psyche. Swords, perhaps, for the Conscious; Cups for unconscious.

There are other cards I could choose as well, but I'm listing the ones that occurred to me straight away. 🙂

Edited September 1, 2019 by Starlight

[AfternoonTarot]

Hello - I’m running behind this week due to the long holiday weekend. I’m still digesting the reading, but wanted to share two quotes that resonated with me.

 

”Every concept in our conscious mind...has its own psychic associations.  While such associations vary in intensity...they are capable of changing the ‘normal’ character of that concept” (pp. 41 - 43).  In my mind, this is one of that ways in which Tarot functions. 

 

“One cannot afford to be naive when dealing with dreams.  They originate in a spirit that is not quite human, but is rather a breath of nature - a spirit of the beautiful and generous as well as of the cruel goddess” (p. 52).  Beautiful worded thought!  But interesting to me for the fact that unconscious is not quite human - if not human, then what?

[AfternoonTarot]

@Starlight Re: Eight of Cups - definitively, I think so too.  In this week’s reading, Jung spoke of resolving unconscious problems i.e. leaving them behind or abandoning them.

 

In the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot, there Eight of Cups shows a large moon close to the ground with a human face, looking away and unfocused into the distance - almost a dreamy stare - and the eight cups are floating in formation in the air, irrationally like things tend to do in dreams. This image seemed suggest that the answer may be found in the unconscious. 

[Mi-Shell]

On 9/1/2019 at 9:34 AM, AfternoonTarot said:

Optional Activity: Looking forward to next week when we’ll be reading the section entitled, The Analysis of Dreams, I’d like to invite you to create a spread for dream interpretation based on some of the things we’ve learned.  Share with us what questions we might be a able to answer for the sitter, how you designed the layout, and how you selected the position titles.  Let’s plan to share these toward the end of next week’s reading. 

 

This is absolutely NOT, how dream analysis works. 

You do NOT introduce ANY other  (here Tarot) symbol into the discussion/ verbal stream of the patient/ client!!!!!

You exclusively only work with the symbols the dream provides. 

You do NOT introduce any concepts from your knowledge-base into this!!

The client alone uncovers and offers images = HIS? HER images and HIS/ Her concepts into the session.

The analyst supports with open ended questions.

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by Mi-Shell

[BrightEye]

I would have to agree with Mi-Shell. Dreams already have their own symbolic language. Introducing another symbolic language - the Tarot in this case - only muddies the water. 

[AfternoonTarot]

Some takeaways for me this week - 

 

Dreams help to restore psychological balance.  This is an interesting statement to me because dreams sometimes leave me perplexed.  Perhaps having the dream is like getting something off your chest?  Perhaps it’s the interpreting of the dreams that helps to restore psychological balance?  And in this same vein, that the unconscious and conscious must be “integrally connected” (p. 52). For wholeness (wellness?), it seems we must do the work of connecting the unconscious content presented with the conscious content in a meaningful way.  As @Starlight said, we have to pay attention.

That dreams form a bridge between the unconscious and conscious, which ties into last week’s reading about unconscious contents having a past and a future.  It seems the unconscious is very fluid. I like this idea.  Our stream of consciousness is fluid, our emotions are fluid - why not the unconscious?  

 

 

@Mi-Shell & @BrightEye - The point that dream symbols stand on their own is well taken.  However, I still think there are some questions we could ask that wouldn’t necessarily conflict with the Tarot symbolism.  For example, How does this dream help to restore my psychological balance?  Why did I have this dream at this point in time?  And another question I like that came from Julie Gillentine’s book, Tarot and Dream Interpretation (Benebell Wen’s review here) - What is the suggested course of action? These answers might not be readily apparent just through an understanding the dream symbolism itself. 

[Starlight]

"The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium."

 

Jung also made the point that we are almost immune, so to speak, to our day-to-day happenings and imagery and that if we are to be motivated to make any personal transformations, our dream images have to be powerful enough to make us pay attention to them.

 

"One cannot afford to be naive when dealing with dreams."

 

Jung writes that dreams may appear to be precognitive. He says this is because our psyche, the Unconscious part, can see patterns unfolding and can therefore extrapolate a result of what we are doing and the choices we are making. Our dreams are a way for our Unconscious to communicate with our Conscious and to warn us of what lies ahead.

 

"No dream symbol can be separated from the individual who dreams it..." - which means that those dream interpretation guides are not very useful!

[Mi-Shell]

In Dream interpretation it is imperative to wrap our heads around the premise, that we, as “interpreters” know NOTHING!

We are only guides in the dark, our open ended questions help the client/ patient to illuminate and get glimpses of THEIR images, help THEM to bring these images forth – from the unconscious into the subconscious and into the refracting and defragmenting light of the conscious mind.

So, also the so very well known “dream interpretation books” telling smartly which symbol means what are pure poison to the true natur of the dream the client had.

However questions like the ones Afternoon Taro posed can be helpful, if turned around the other way - like:

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream tells me, that this is relevant for me today/ right now?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream point towards what/ which situation in my daily life right now?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream is recurring in / with different, maybe similar images?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream reminds me of another dream I had?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream shows me, that I may be out of equilibrium?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream points me towards what I understand as equilibrium/ psychological balance?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream may show me, that I need something different then what I thought, to achieve that balance?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream points me towards the thought, that maybe balance is not, what I need right now?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream points towards a course of action?

 

What symbol/ scene/ expression/ feeling in the dream points me towards what to avoid/ not to do?

 

..... well, you guys get the idea! ♥

 

[Starlight]

12 hours ago, Mi-Shell said:

In Dream interpretation it is imperative to wrap our heads around the premise, that we, as “interpreters” know NOTHING!

We are only guides in the dark, our open ended questions help the client/ patient to illuminate and get glimpses of THEIR images, help THEM to bring these images forth – from the unconscious into the subconscious and into the refracting and defragmenting light of the conscious mind.

Is it possible for someone who is not a Jungian analyst to interpret their own dreams, @Mi-Shell? And how does someone gauge when they have understood their own dream symbols correctly?

 

And thank you for the suggested questions to use in a spread.

 

I also have a few questions to ask, open to everyone here in the study group.

 

I used to dream all the time and remember those dreams. In the past few years, I do so very, very little, and usually remember just fragments. Which I forget as I'm yanked into my day.

 

What sort of things lead to less dreaming/dream-recall? Is there anything that can be done to remedy it? Or, linking to what we read in this section, is it simply that my Unconscious doesn't need to grab my attention too much these days, and so I don't recall my dreams?

Edited September 8, 2019 by Starlight

[Mi-Shell]

2 hours ago, Starlight said:

Is it possible for someone who is not a Jungian analyst to interpret their own dreams, @Mi-Shell? And how does someone gauge when they have understood their own dream symbols correctly?

 

And thank you for the suggested questions to use in a spread.

 

I also have a few questions to ask, open to everyone here in the study group.

 

I used to dream all the time and remember those dreams. In the past few years, I do so very, very little, and usually remember just fragments. Which I forget as I'm yanked into my day.

 

What sort of things lead to less dreaming/dream-recall? Is there anything that can be done to remedy it? Or, linking to what we read in this section, is it simply that my Unconscious doesn't need to grab my attention too much these days, and so I don't recall my dreams?

Sure, you can try to interpret your own dreams. Start by using the questions I suggested, or similar ones, to elicit the meanings of the images.

These questions are NOT meant for a spread of any kind, it is what you / we ask a client 

In this one you have to just stay away from any cards or books or other descriptions and - get back to the dream and its images only!

[Starlight]

3 hours ago, Mi-Shell said:

These questions are NOT meant for a spread of any kind, it is what you / we ask a client

Ah, thank you for clarifying that! :)

 

3 hours ago, Mi-Shell said:

In this one you have to just stay away from any cards or books or other descriptions and - get back to the dream and its images only!

I couldn't agree more. I've never had a dream dictionary. For some reason it all just seemed a bit too "pat" to look up a symbol to see what it meant. And I'm sure they don't all agree with one another, either. :)

 

3 hours ago, Mi-Shell said:

Sure, you can try to interpret your own dreams. Start by using the questions I suggested, or similar ones, to elicit the meanings of the images.

So, is that by way of journalling? Or would someone literally ask themselves that question aloud and then wait to see what images or thoughts they had as a result?

 

This is such a fascinating topic!

[Mi-Shell]

OK!

Write up a dream you had and I will lead you along the process to make some sense of it. 

Please read this sentence again!

It does NOT say I will interpret it for you

It also does not say we will interpret it together

It says only, that I can help you so YOU will get some clues as to what the dream may point towards.

 

The patient/ client leads, the Jungian analyst guides him/ her - (so that he/ she does not fall into a pot full of Tarot and Lenormand cards 😉 )

 

[Starlight]

OK, I'll give it a go. I'll look back through my dream journal and see what I can find. :)

This will be interesting! Thanks, @Mi-Shell.