Dreams ought never to be analysed in isolation, as any one dream may be potentially arbitrary in its message. Rather Jung recommended comparing 20 to 100 dreams. In reading Jung's works, Jung sometimes analysed up to 400 dreams from one person. To an analytical psychotherapist, a dream is a specific expression of the unconscious. Dreams have a definite, purposeful structure indicating an underlying idea or intention.
Dreams serve to restore one's total psychic equilibrium.
Dreams also point to things that the client has forgotten or might be lost to the personality. In particular, dreams are considered a way to learn more about a client's complexes. In other words, dream analysis would allow the therapist to learn more about how the unconscious is dealing with and what it is doing with the client's complexes. Jung saw dream analysis as being far more beneficial than free association. Dreams are considered a way of pointing therapy in specific directions in such cases.