It’s easiest to think of individuation as the mind’s quest for wholeness, or that quality of applied wisdom that separates elders from grumpy old men.

Instead, he suggested that dreams are doing the work of integrating our conscious and unconscious lives he called this the process of individuation. Because Jung rejected Freud’s theory of dream interpretation that dreams are designed to be secretive, he also did not believe dream formation is a product of discharging our tabooed sexual impulses.Īnd surprisingly enough, Jung did not believe that dreams need to be interpreted for them to perform their function.

They are a natural expression of our imagination and use the most straightforward language at our disposal: mythic narratives. The basic idea behind Jungian dream theory is that dreams reveal more than they conceal. Popular applications directly based on Jung’s research include the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, the polygraph (lie detector) test, and 12-step addiction recovery programs.

While depth psychology has fallen out of favor in neuroscience, Jung’s ideas are still thriving in contemporary psychoanalytic circles. Except for Dr Freud, no one has influenced modern dream studies more than Carl Jung.Ī psychoanalyst based in Zurich, Switzerland, Jung (1875 -1961) was a friend and follower of Freud but soon developed his own ideas about how dreams are formed.

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