Views of Dreams †Carl G. Jung and Sigmund Freud Essay Example for Free

Views of Dreams Carl G. Jung and Sigmund Freud EssayAbstract The study of psychology has given dress up to many differing theories which pull up stakesd us with a deeper understanding and insight to ideates, and has long been viewed as mysterious and incomprehensible. However, no real consensus in the definition of dreams has been reached. In this essay, we will be exploring dream theories proposed by Sigmund Freud who asserted the importance of internal stimuli and dreams as a invent of wish fulfilment, and Carl G.Jungs system which suggested that dreams argon bridges that allow wiz to connect with the unconscious mind mind. As such(prenominal), a cross comparison will be also be done to explore the major confusableities and differences amidst these twain theories which remained influential in todays study of dreams. Views of Dreams Carl G. Jung and Sigmund Freud For centuries, dreams bind been a source of whodunit and regarded as divine. Dreams gain been interp reted as prophecies, predictions of the future, or even symbols of current affairs.These beliefs existed for centuries until modern psychology evolved and gave rise to many theories that wear attempted to give greater insight and understanding of how dreams work and how they pertain to our everyday lives. Dreams ar otherwise defined as mental experiences during Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep that have a story-like feature, include rich visual imagery, are often inexplicable, and perceived as real by the dreamer (Antrobus, 1993). There are many varying theories of dreams such as that posited by Antrobus, who suggests that dreams occur collectible to our brains expositions of external stimuli during sleep.Another theory uses a computer metaphor to account for dreams, wherein a dream serves to stumble unneeded trivialities from the memory much like clean-up operations in a computer in line of battle to refresh the mind to prepare for the next day (Evans modernman, 1964). Ho wever, for the purposes of this essay, we will be styleing at deuce theories of dreams from Carl G. Jung and his mentor, Sigmund Freud, whose kit and boodle remain influential in the modern day study of dreams. Aside from bringing frontward the emphasis of these two theories, this essay will also seek to identify similarities as well as differences between the two.A cross-comparison of these two theories will reveal how similar they are in terms of explaining dreams with regards to the unconscious mind, and yet, differ greatly in centre collect to the different assumptions and approaches taken. According to Jung, dreams are the undeviating, natural flavor of the present state of ones mental world (Jung, 1963). He believes while dreams are a dramatis somebodyae of communicating and acquainting yourself with the unconscious mind, they are not attempts to conceal your true feelings from the waking mind they are more of a window to your unconsciousness.Jung mentions that there ar e two major functions to dreams to compensate and to provide future images to the future. The imbalance of the dreamers idea is compensated with unconscious essenceeds that the conscious mind has overlook or even actively repressed. For example, a person who is overly intellectual contribute have dreams in which they have outbursts of rage, anger, or a mix of emotions. These dreams will attempt to restore the balance by fulfilling accredited impoverished areas of a dreamers consciousness. Greater psychological balance is achieved if the dreamer recognises and accepts these unconscious contents. alike to Freud, Jung considers past experiences to be a factor in dreams. However, he argues that dreams do not only look back to the past, but also forward to anticipate how the dreamers future will exhaust out specifically, that dreams do not hold predictions but are more of a suggestion as to what might happen. Although dreams are deemed personal, Jung (1993) theorises that they a re also part of a collective unconscious. He besides deconstructs this into several parts, where elements of our dreams often cover universal themes and symbols that are believed to be apparent in life, regardless of slipstream or culture.As identified by Jung, these characteristics are grouped into seven major archetypal characters The Persona, The Shadow, The Anima or Animus, The Divine Child, The Wise Old Man or Woman, The Great Mother, and The Trickster. Unique to Jungs theory, he believes that these archetypes salute a natural wisdom found deep within the human unconscious, and their presence in dreams flush toilet provide the dreamer with distinctive understanding and direction. Additionally, Jung (1974) argues that dreams are a projection of ones unconscious mind in apprisal to the external world.This is what Jung classifies as the objective level in relation to interpretation of dreams. Jung goes further by covering the subjective level, where the dream figures are an e mbodiment of who the dreamer sincerely is, based on their own thoughts and feelings. In his view, this is something that the conscious mind is unable to bring out. In Freuds sentiment, dreams are what can be embodied as guardians of sleep. Prior to sleep, one attempts to disconnect from reality by muting all external stimuli, switching off the lights and going to bed.During sleep, the sleeper is protected by the mind, which is further reacting to different disturbances and forming dreams in the process. Freuds main focus, however, is internal stimuli such as strong emotions, forbidden thoughts, and even unconscious desires. For one to be essentially asleep, undisturbed, these stimuli are disguised or censored in some form or another (Freud, 1900). Freuds theory also places strong emphasis on the notion that dreams are a form of fulfilment of suppressed wishes and unconscious desires.In accordance with Freuds (1900) theory, dreams comprise two parts the manifest content and the la tent content. Freuds manifest content can be interpreted as the main content of dreams, namely what the dreamer is able to recall of the dream. It also acts as a censor or a disguised representation of the true underlying thought such that the content appears as acceptable to the dreamer. Latent content can be understood as the decrypted culture that is acquired from the different images and content.Latent content often holds the true meaning the dreamforbidden thoughts and unconscious wishesand, mystic deep within the manifest content, is sometimes unrecognisable. There are also exceptional cases where some(prenominal) the latent and manifest content are indistinguishable Freud refers to these as Infantile Dreams. Freud then further investigates the connection between the latent and manifest content, giving rise to dream work that is the process by which the latent content is converted into the manifest content.Dream work can be differentiated into the following processes Conden sation, Displacement, Symbolism, and Secondary Revision. Firstly, latent content undergoes condensation where two or more latent thoughts are merged to form a manifest image or situation. Next, it goes through the displacement state where emotions or desires towards specific a person or object are then projected onto a remotely significant or vacuous object in the manifest dream. Following that, symbolism is employed, where ambiguous or complex notions are interpret as dream images.In this process, images of similar sounding words may be utilised or even that of a similar looking but more discreet item. Finally, the dream enters the last put of dream work, secondary revision, where the dream is transformed and reconstructed into a fluid scene, losing most of its irrationality and render logical according to the dreamers experiences of everyday life. One of the major similarities between both theories would be the focus on the unconscious mind. Both Freud and Jung believe that dr eams are the direct expressions of the unconscious mind (Davis, 2003 Domhoff, 2001 Freud, 1900 Jung, 1974).Jung mentions that dreams mirror ones unconscious desires and it is directly linked to ones conscious situation, projecting ones inner thoughts. Dreams, according to Freud, can never be instigated simply with just conscious wishes. It has to relate to an unconscious wish before emerging out as dreams. These views coincides that dreams are only formed when the unconscious and the conscious wish tallies (Davis, 2003 Freud, 1900 Jung, 1974 Weitz, 1976). In likeness, both theories agree that the function of dreams serves, mainly, as compensation to the imbalances in our psyche in everyday life (Freud, 1900 Jung, 1974 Davis, 2003).As mentioned earlier, Jung believes that dreams serve to make up for as well as to regulate ones inner conflicting psychical processes. Freuds wish fulfilment theory also has great emphasis on the satisfying of ones unconscious wants. This shows that dream s are whence compensating for the lack of realisation of ones desires during the conscious waking life. Freud also mentions that dreams are sometimes manifested due to biological impulses that arise in the night. For example, a dreamer who is experiencing hunger is likely to dream of eating, showing the compensating temper of dreams.According to these two theories, dreams are otherwise a psychological marker that flags out certain situations, be it in our mental or physiological state, that we should give attention to, rectifying them if possible. Both theorists also concluded that in order to decipher the meaning of dreams, the dreamers assistant is required. This is due to the multiple possibilities of the interpretation of dreams. except with knowledge of ones life, personality as well as past experiences that those images may be accurately decrypted, revealing the true underlying significance of the dream.Such a realisation by both Freud and Jung also brings forth the idea th at both of them agreed on the retrospective nature of dreams, whereby the dreamers experiences in the past do indeed have an impact on the present (Davis, 2003 Jung, 1974 Rodriguez, 2001). While Freud presumes that symbols have fixed and conventional meanings, Jung felt that all symbols are open to interpretation and finding the correct meaning is highly dependent on the dreamer (Beebe, Cambray, Kirsch, 2001 Davis, 2003 Lawson, 2008).This is possible due to the differences in Freuds causal perspective and Jungs final perspective, where causality tends towards the uniformity of meaning, leading to symbols with fixed significance. However, finality states that images in a dream each have their own fundamental values and as such, the range of representative interpretation has to be accepted (Jung, 1974 Jung, 1989). Another reason for the divergence of theories is their interpretations of the mechanism of dream formation.Freud emphasizes strongly on censors and disguises of the latent content via the help of dream work, relying on the dreamers experiences only for the transformation of the dream into one that is unobtrusive. Jung, on the other hand, believes that these contents can be understood only after taking into account the priming and past experiences of the dreamer. Jung also states that dreams are not only connected to the past but they also provide subtle suggestions and predictive images, preparing the dreamer for upcoming events (Jung, 1974).In conclusion, it is apparent that Freuds and Jungs theories are derivatives from the similar understandings of how dreams portray ones unconscious mind. These have led to them being similar as to how dreams have a compensatory function. However, differences in views have arisen from this rudimentary understanding. Henceforth, Freud and Jung have come to different conclusions about the interpretation of dreams. In my opinion, Jung has picked on several of the disparities within Freuds opinions, formulating with h is own concept.As such, there is a close relation between the theories presented by Freud and Jung. To date, dreams still remain a clouded branch, with no single theory that can fully ascertain and explain its intricacy. References Antrobus, J. (1993). Characteristics of dreams. In M. A. Carskadon (Ed. ), Encyclopaedia of sleep and dreaming. New York Macmillan Beebe, J. , Cambray, J. , Kirsch, T. B. (2001). What Freudians can learn from Jung. psychoanalytic Psychology, 18, 213-242. Davis, H. R. (2003). Jung, Freud, and Hillman three depth psychologies in context.Westport, Conn Prageger Domhoff, G. W. (2000). Moving Dream Theory beyond Freud and Jung. Paper presented to the symposium Beyond Freud and Jung? , Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 9/23/2000. Evans, C. Newman, E. (1964) Dreaming An analogy from computers. New Scientist, 419, 577-579. Freud, S. (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams (S. James, Trans. ). London Oxford University Press. Jung, C. G. (1963). Memories, D reams, Reflections. New York Pantheon. Jung, C. G. (1974). Dreams. (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.)Princeton Princeton University Press. Lawson, T. T. (2008). Archetypes and the collective unconscious. In Carl Jung, Darwin of The Mind (pp. 75-120). London Karnac. Rodriguez, L. S. (2001, January 1). The interpretation of dreams 1900. The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (pp. 396-401). London Hogarth and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis Weitz, L. J. (1976, April). Jungs and Freuds contributions to dream interpretation a comparison. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 30, 289-293.