The prevailing idea is that sleep is an unpacking of waking state experiences akin to data consolidation. A more interesting proposal takes dreams as synthetic data generation, a mechanism that prevents the mind from overfitting to its waking inputs. To me, neither framing quite fits. A model that overfits doesn't regress into psychosis. A sleep-deprived human does.
Dreams appear to be a third thing. Synthetically generated, yes, but with a specific purpose: to reveal to the center of consciousness exactly where it needs to grow. This was Jung's core insight. Dreams are not noise, replay, nor regularization. They are the highest-leverage fulcrum available for furthering the individuation process.
In my dreams I see a mirror that borrows context from memory to reveal exactly what my conscious, ego-centered mind ignores: areas for growth. These lessons are not delivered as clear proverbs. They arrive as stories that need to be analyzed to extract signal from noise.
My framework of choice for this analysis is Jung’s. What stands out to me about his work is that it straddles the edge between objective & subjective. Through decades of patient analysis, Jung synthesized common archetypes & motifs that over the course of his career evolved into a complete psychoanalytical framework, one that was built from the patterns of thousands of individual and irreducibly personal dreams.
And so where I find myself every morning: unpacking a self-generated narrative arc. Taken at face value & lacking context of my life, any given dream may read as a fable—somewhere between delivering a specific lesson & encoding exactly the lesson one needs to hear at the time of reading. Taken by me, the dream encodes exactly what I need to become aware of that I am neglecting or failing to be conscious of.
An example, written so that personal context is obfuscated but symbols remain:
There is a decaying part of me that here represents instinct. It limps inside my innermost self, creating messes & problems that my ego-centric self needs to clean up & tend to. Part of me sees this as a burden. Another part, a pity. In both cases there is a wish for this to end & yet an inherent reluctance to take it into my own hands before its time is over.
At this thought the dream shifts, as if I am Ebenezer Scrooge & my current spirit guide is whisking me to the next scene I need to observe to progress my character development.
In this reformed scene I am in the back of a crowded auditorium. On stage before all is my authoritative & resolute self, next to my quiet & shy anima—in agreement with what my authoritative self is prepared to speak to, but letting “him” do the talking for “her.” Her presence stills the abrasion this performance would carry if not for her. Across this grand audience I witness my authoritative self proclaim that we must not put down our instincts without our instincts’ consent—whatever that means.
With this, the dreamscape shifts again. There is a pattern I’ve noticed recurrently across seven years of dream analysis: when my witnessing self breaks from focus on the events playing out around “me” in order to surface a unique thought or observation, the scene changes. That is what happens here.
Back to the narrative arc: my center of observation is now above & to the side, looking down at the same scene below. I am compelled to wail but cannot bring myself to do it. I can feel my face muscles tensing up & the ball in my throat—but there is no emotion beneath the physical outburst—& so it is stalled.
Centered once more, the thought comes to bear that I am compelled to inject because I have been ignoring my own instincts. I may know they are there & even what action they imply I should take, but rarely do I act in accordance with this. When I do, it is not without thorough post-rationalization that has become a prerequisite for action.
Remove the friction, I conclude. With this I can feel the emotional outburst that has been held at bay just about to storm out—& it is at this very moment that I am “awake” once more.
-Benjamin Anderson