Customer Reviews

Dreams

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Carl Jung says he has analysed more than 2.000 dreams per year, a very impressive number by anyone's standards. In his Dreams book, which a very good collection of many of his dreams experiments, he is after demolishing some Freudian's dreams concepts, mainly the one which asserts that the purpose of dreams is to fulfill infantile sexual wishes repressed in the unconscious, which don't find adequate outlet trough conscious activities.
To add content to this dispute, one has only to have in mind that Jung was a very ardent disciple of Freud in the beginning of his career, but the relationship turned sour after 1914 in the figthing for prestige at the foundation of the Psychanalisys in the beginning of the 20th century.
In Jung's view, dreams are not only wish fulfillers, but they are also compensatory vis-a-vis our daily conscious life. So, the purpose of them is to balance our conscious and unconscious life. So, if life is good, dreams are bad and vice-versa. At the end of his life, Jung said in one of his testimonials that by means of a very representative dream he closed a circle, which meant he got a balanced mental life between unconscious and consciousness.

Also, dreams should be taken not as isolated entities, but rather as a series of concatenated manifestations of the unconscious, something which could be represented by the ancient mandalas (Sanscrit for circle) of many peoples from the ancient world (mayas, hindus, polinesians, etc...), where the ultimate end is to attain a balance mind. Jung's theory of the unconscious is, in my opinion, pretty much more attractive than Freud's, specially in what it regards the timelessness of the unconscious and the unconscious collective.

Reading "Dreams" after reading Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" is a magnificient experience and the winner is surely the reader, who gets the most of two of the most proeminent and polemical psychanalysts of all times.

About God, Jung said, I don't believe, I know.

As soon as you read 'Dreams', you will have a complete sense of his amazing insights, not only on the subject matter, but on the complete human pysche. And this includes, as I tried to hint at from the very beginning, the very meaning of our existence.

Perhaps there would not be a Jung today, if there had not been a Freud preceding him. But a completely ignorant educated man here says, having read them both, that Jung's proposal is far more clever, ellaborate, comprehensive and convincing.

Jung was a unique scholar, he had a very distinctive ability to blend a lot of knowledge from seemingly unrelated areas of science into pyschology. His biography is an essential starting point to understand how he managed to develop this quality, which I think was key to his original thinking.

'Dreams' is a book of rare brilliance. Thanks to Jung, for providing a 'basis' for all things.

This is an amazing text and I will not ruin the surprises inside its cover but its ability to bring to light the most prevalent of the West's archetypes in the subconscious is astounding. This is for the avid dreamer who wishes to begin to understand what all of your dreams represent. Do not expect a kind of glossary for dream symbolism such text is worthless in our Global Village. Expect however a firm footing in the patterns prevalent in dream. If new to Jung read Man and His Symbols first.

I'm fairly new to Jung but also quite hooked. This was my first read after working my way through the Viking Portable Jung (which has overlapping material), and I will continue, without question, working my way through his writings (his Collected Works, volumes 6 and 9a will be my next forays). Don't be mistaken into thinking this is any sort of manual of dream interpretation --in fact Jung seems to think that you couldn't do it on your own without at least some training by someone more experienced like an analyst, and a decent knowledge of world mythology. That said, it will be a worthwhile read for any one who is dedicated to thinking about dreams in relation to the self --with the humility of an open mind. Jung's work, or what little I've read, seems to have the capacity to pry one's mind wide open (assuming one is ready --I know I wouldn't have been 5 or 10 years ago, as a graduate student in philosophy at a very analytic program). Do Keep in mind that Jung is not an easy read --especially the wandering and discursive character of his work in alchemical symbols, but it has been, without question, rewarding for me, at least. The more I read of this guy, the more I want to.

This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in Jungian psychology, dream interpretation, the nature of the unconscious, alchemy, symbolism in dreams and all that fascinating stuff.
I didnt know anything about Jung or his theories until I found his memoirs Memories, Dreams, Reflections while trying to find books that discussed dreaming, and from there I was lead to this book. I will admit that some concepts are difficult to understand at times, but if you're open to thinking in new ways it will definately be an enlightening read for you, and it is set out in manageable chapters and sections so you can put it down to have a think (which you will definately need to do!) and return to it knowing exactly where you left off.

The book is quite dense and hard to read compared to other Jungian works such as 'Man and His Symbols', 'Aion' etc, and other works written for lay readers such as by Robert Johnson. This is a book of translated abstracts from Jung's professional work. Even though it is written for such an audience and was done almost a century ago (language changes) it is none-the-less still accessable to those interested. It has an index which is always handy for referencing quickly.

This is a good example of Dr. Jung's interperative technique in action, but you'll need to do alot of cross-referencing if you want to get a good grasp. Recommended for advanced psychoanalytic readers. Very fascinating.

I have only just received this book and have barely skimmed it. However, I can tell you that if you are accustomed to reading Jung it is fascinating, revelatory, and greatly illuminating in understanding the psychological differences in people so that one can better understand the bewildering problems of communication between people. Understanding your own psychological type helps you realize you don't constitute a "norm" for perception and understanding your mate's type enables you to understand where he's coming from.

For one who is not accustomed to educated and/or academic writing it might be a little daunting to plow through.

The Editorial Note to this volume states, "During his period of activity as a psychoanalyst, he published several papers on dreams, and two of these are included in the present selection. Each of the other papers reprinted here, first published between 1916 and 1945, is a significant statement on diverse aspects of Jung's dream psychology."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"I am aware that these observations are floating in a sea of uncertainties, but I think it would be wrong to suppress them, for luckier investigators may come after us who will be able to put them in right perspective..."
"Here the question might certainly be asked: of what use is this to the dreamer if he does not understand the dream? To this I must remark that understanding is not an exclusively intellectual process for, as experience shows, a man may be influenced, and indeed convinced in the most effective way, by innumerable things of which he has no intellectual understanding."
"Every advance, every conceptual achievement of mankind, has been connected with an advance in self-awareness: man differentiated himself from the object and faced Nature as something distinct from her."
"Unfortunately Freud's idea of sexuality is incredibly elastic and so vague that it can be made to include almost anything."
"(C)onsciously the dreamer had no inkling of all this. But in his unconscious he is immersed in this sea of historical associations, so that he behaves in his dreams as if he were fully cognizant of these curious excursions into the history of the human mind."
"People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls... Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come."
"Since we cannot possibly know the boundaries of something unknown to us, it follows that we are not in a position to set any bounds to the self."

Useful if you don't feel like poring over the Collected Works looking for some of Jung's theorizing on working a dream. You might also check out Jung's Dreams seminar.