Lecture I

Dr Jung:

In this Seminar I intend to talk about dream symbolism
Dreams being the most important means we have of understanding the
unconscious. I have thought it worth our while to give some particular
attention to some of the problems they present. Moreover this is
a theme which should lead easily to discussion, and one which should
provoke many questions. As was the case two years ago in Polszeath
so again I do not wish to adhere to too strict a line, but would prefer
to have you interrupt me at appropriate places with any questions
which come into your mind. To day I have brought some material
which I will present to you, but later I hope that you will realise
your natural reaction and hand in written questions. I would prefer
to have these the day before the lecture if possible. The questions
need not be too closely associated with the subject we are discussing.
Of course I rather prefer questions to the point, so we can we
can make digressions too, so I hope you will not exclude questions
because you think them too far away from the scene. As I have said
I do not intend to stick too closely to dream symbolism, and any
questions having psychological significance will be relevant.

I would like first to give you a brief historical sketch of
dream interpretation as it has developed during the ages, for as you
know, dream interpretation has been apart of antique science. We
might say that in antiquity there were in all, four sciences; Medicine
Astrology, Alchemy and dream Interpretation, the latter being known as
Oneiro Critica. In very remote time even there were treatises on dream
psychology, one of the first being that of Heraclides Ponticus, a con
temporary of Plato. Despite the fact that the book is no longer in
existence, we have many passages from it. Even earlier is a book by a
man named Chrysippus, a Stoic living about 282 B.C., a contemporary
of Socrates. Then most important of all, is the famous book on dream
interpretation by Artemidorus of Daldias.

I will first give some examples of dreams from the various sources and then come back to the question of how it was that the interpreters arrived at the conclusions they drew. In Cicero's De Divinatione there are several very fine examples to be found. It is to be r

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remembered that the dreams cited by these authors are for the most part always the dreams of Tyrants, kings Queens etc. The dreams of ordinary people not being considered of sufficient importance to be interpreted. According to report then, the mother of Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, dreamed when she was pregnant, that she would give birth to a Satyr. The dream interpreters said this meant she would give birth to a famous man. It would be most interesting to know why they said this. Of course the people who comment on these dreams, such as Cicero, know nothing about dream interpretation, they simply record the fact and malvel over the astuteness of the interpreters, but we should do more, we should try to understand the reasons why the Ancients came to their conclusions. If we have no explanations from them, we can perhaps find one of our own later on.

Another dream concerning the birth of a child is reported by Herclides Ponticus, who says that the mother of Phallaris, a famous Tyrant of about 500 B C saw in a dream when she was pregnant, a strange scene among her Gods in her Sanctuary. Being a lady, she had such a private Sanctuary, where assembled her special Gods. She dreamed she was in this sanctuary, when suddenly, Hermes, the messenger of the Gods, who was there among others, began to move. Taking up a cup or bowl he began pouring blood out of it. It kept pouring forth from this bowl on an endless stream, until gradually the house, the garden, everything became inundated. From this dream the interpretors made out that her child would not only be a great man, but a terrible Tyrant who would kill many people. Such a person did the son in fact become.

A third I wish to present, is reported by Lucius Caeius, an historian of the Second Punic war, and concerned a dream of Hannibal before the undertaking of the war against Rome. Hannibal dreamed that he was in an assembly of the Gods themselves, not of there statues merely, and that Jupiter ardered him to undertake the war against Rome, and gave him as a guide a youth of superhuman powers, chosen from a among the devine gathering. This youth told Hannibal to follow his 1 lead, but on no account to look back as he went. However, being unable to over come his curiosity, Hannibal did look back and saw that what was following him was a most extraordinary monster, a sort of serpent, which wiping out of existence every thing they met, houses, gardens and woods. The interpreter said that this dream meant that

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he should risk the war, and then at the serpent stoop for the destruction of Italy.

In these three dreams we have a certain type of dream, that is they concern either the birth of a prominent man, or a task that is to be accomplished. We will try now to understand how the interpreters got at these dreams. We must not forget that all of these dreams may be of a legendary character, but that really does not matter since there so many hundreds of dreams of this sort interpreted by the Ancients. There are also many dreams of a highly individual character reported by them. The method of interpretation is obviously based on certain principles which were quite naturally assumed to be true by antiquity, but which would not be so assumed by us. Thus the Ancients took it for granted that the dream was always an anticipation of future events, an assumption that runs distinctly counter to the general trend of ideas to day. However, as a matter of fact, there is no reason to suppose that a dream may not be an indication of the trend of events just as our waking thoughts are often times. Many of your thoughts are now occupied with things of the future, and most of the things we plan for the future do come off, if not too fantastic, so it would not be too astonishing to find the unconscious occupied with thing connected with the future. More over, even, there are certain things that make it quite probable that the unconscious processes have a still greater chance of realising themselves in the future than the conscious ones. In as much as the conscious is with the scope of our will power we can coerce things to a certain extent, but there are more things in us that we can not reach in order to coerce than the other way around, so it is a question if the unconscious is not a more potent factor of the two. Consciousness is very one sided, for we are continually losing contact with certain potencies of our Psyche and some thing that has slipped into the unconscious we can not recover again unless it has energy enough to push through, or unless we can get it out by association processes. The conscious has no power over these things that has slipped out of its reach, nor over those too deeply buried, or too weakly endowed with energy to make themselves directly known, but unconscious on the other hand, is in possession of them all, and is therefore more likely to have a complete picture. The antique view is therefore far from being a stupid one, it is on the whole, rather more intelligent

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rather more intelligent than our own with respect to dreams.

There is something else we must mention with respect to the attitude of antiquity toward dreams. Not only did the dream interpreter of these times regard the dream as an important forecast of things to happen, as the shadow of the fourth coming event, but also it was to him the voice of the Gods. This attitude survives still among primitives. Thus it has been said by a certain African explorer, that dream is the true god of the primitive to day. Dreams are regularly taken by the primitive as manifestation of divine or demonical powers, and there fore they are given religious attention. Another explorer reports having had much trouble with his car riers because they would analyse their dreams every morning, and according as they were favorable or other wise, the march would proceed or come to a stand still: some times it took them a full half day to settle upon the meaning of the dreams they were discussing.

To sum up then, the antique dream is to be understood under that atmosphere of the semi-devine. The same is true of the Bible. Unfort unately as I have no Bible at hand, I will have to give a free trans lation from the German of the passages I quote. God is made to say, "If any of you is a Prophet of the Lord I will reveal my self in visions and talk with him". In Job occurs this passage, "The Lord op opens the eyes of people in visions of the night when sleep falls on people". In the Acts of the Apostles it is said, "The Elders will have dreams in which the Lord speaks". There are also passages warning a against dreams. Thus Jesus Sirach said, "only fools relie on dreams and who ever believes in dreams catches shadows". Again one prophet says, "dreams should not be obeyed. This same duality of attitude persists through antiquity; some times it is said that dreams must be obeyed or every thing will go wrong, and again it is said that no attention should be given them. Among primitives the attitude is consistently one of awe,

It is interesting to note in passing, that primitives have a very special way of handling their dreams, apparently in the case of ordinary dreams selecting certain things for consideration and rejecting others. For instance the Red Indians have quite a marked system of selection with respect to their dreams. They count as of especial value dreams coming during their initiation ceremonies when a great deal of fasting is done. A number of fasting periods occur with them