Royal Road to Unconscious
Those who compared our lives with a dream were right. We were sleeping awake and waking up asleep. – Montaigne
“ The earth is heavy and opaque without dreams,” wrote Anaïs Nin ( 1903-1977) in her diary. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) described dreams as the “ royal road to the knowledge of our unconscious activities,” in which our primitive self meets the civilized one, and where all memories are collected. The unconscious is the great guide to get to know oneself in entirety. Carl Jung (1875-1961) defined it as an invaluable resource :
The unconscious communicating through dreams is at least half of one’s being. It offers advice and guidance that could be obtained from no other source. Thus the interpretation of dreams, whether by the analyst or by the dreamer himself is an entirely personal business.
Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), the French mathematician marks on the phenomenal nature of dreams, and explains how dreams can inspire us. He recounts that upon waking up one night, he found the solution to a problem he had been dwelling upon. He figured that he was inspired the answer in his dream.
Freud, in his seminal work, The Interpretation of Dreams, emphasized that
Dreams have at their command memories which are inaccessible while awake.
The way knowledge is recollected in dreams shows that what we have mentally acquired or learned can never be lost entirely. Freud explains many episodes where memories are unconsciously registered without us being aware. Yet they would later pop up in dreams :
I have noticed myself from my own dreams and questioned the source of particular elements of a dream. Before completing this book, several times I dreamed a church tower of very simple design, which I could not remember ever having seen. Then I suddenly recognized it, with absolute certainty, at a small station on the line between Salzburg and Reichenhall. This was during the second half of 1890s. Yet the single time I had travelled on that line was in 1885.
He states that the primary psychic function of a dream is to represent the fulfillment of a wish. The representation may be direct or it may include personal symbols which the dreamer can decode himself with insight and attention. The dreamer’s wish unfolds free of physical restraints, of space and time. The virtual reality instantaneously becomes the only reality. Past, present and future are merged into one dimension, and all are captured in the present moment when the wish is fulfilled. He explains how:
Dreams give us knowledge of the past and they may also project the future. By picturing our wish as fulfilled, dream projects us to the future. But this future molded by the dreamer’s wish is lived as present…Nevertheless the ancient belief that dreams foretell the future is not wholly devoid of truth.
Regarding the reality feature of dreams, he states that dreams offer a guided tour to self-discovery:
In dreams is truth, through which we get to know ourselves because we are stripped out of disguises we wear to the world… Dreams have not shown me what I ought to think of a man; but I have occasionally learnt from a dream, greatly to my astonishment, what I do think of a man and how I feel towards him.
The valve to unconscious is open while we dream. It allows one to traverse the rich realm of the unconscious, and access deeper layers of knowledge. What we are not conscious of during the day – our thoughts, feelings, intentions and memories – reveals its presence without inhibition during the dream. Hidden parts of our true self can be unfolded. What we gather as useful knowledge for our development, we can be bring it up to use in the conscious dwellings of everyday life. It helps to align oneself with reality by integrating the unfamiliar parts of his being.
The renowned French philosopher Montaigne (1533-1592) marked the paradox of sleeping and being awake. He stated that our unconscious wakes up during sleep, the veils are lifted and our perception becomes sharper. Yet upon waking up, we forget it and slip back into the restraints and impositions of ordinary consciousness. Our perception of ourself and the external world is clipped. He resumed the state of the thinker-dreamer human being : “ Those who compared our lives with a dream were right. We were sleeping awake and waking up asleep.”
Duygu Bruce