Submitted by: Mehek Khan
Course Name: English Writing Skills
Submitted To: Miss Rida
Date: 30th September, 2014
Semester: BA I

Topic: Explain Why Dreams are called “A Royal Road to your Unconscious”.

Answer:
Many people believe dreams are created by the brain randomly throwing together memories and recently experienced material. From a psychological perspective, dreams are created by the soul or psyche as a way of communicating to the dreamer.
First, a little history…
Jung was Freud’s heir apparent, but broke his connection with Freud and psychoanalysis because he believed that there was a deeper level to the unconscious than Freud had imagined – a deeper, universal or collective unconscious level that held ancient emotional and symbolic content, and was animated by autonomous forces.
Jung believed that humans were often visited in dreams by such archetypal forces that were spiritual in nature, in addition to dreams containing the personal content that Freud focused on. From this more inclusive and universal position point, Jung discovered that when we remember a dream, the key to really getting the greatest understanding is to first focus in on the exact emotion we feel in the dream. If we feel fear, what dream figures or dream settings and situations evoke the fear in us as we sleep? What is the quality and intensity of the fear?
It was Sigmund Freud who stated, “Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.” Jung felt that, “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche.” However, what is the unconscious telling us and for what reason?
Dreams show qualities of our self to look at. These traits are shown to the dreamer through the actions of dream characters or dream animals. As a person takes ownership and begins to integrate these traits into daily life, personal growth occurs and new energy enters into his or her life. In this sense, dreams act in a self-regulating way.
Author June Singer noted, “The unconscious presents a point of view which enlarges, completes, or compensates the conscious attitude.” Dreams are a way in which our true self holds up a mirror to us and say, “This is my take on what’s really going on.”
In the book, Mindsight, author Daniel Siegel stated that dreaming is “one of the important ways we integrate memory and emotion,” with the dream serving as “a combination of memories in search of resolution.” Whether dealing with trauma, decision-making or life transitions, it is the feeling tone of the dream which is more important than the actual content of the dream.
Dreams use a symbolic and metaphoric language and this often frustrates people who want to work with their dreams. Be playful and curious with dreams rather than trying to ‘figure out’ what they mean. Use terms such as “it was as if’ or ‘it was like’ to describe vivid features. For example, ‘It was as if the whole wall was going to crumble.’ Ah, then we can move to, “What perspective or idea in me is ready or needs to fall apart?” Dreams are one way to gain insights into how you are journeying through life. James Hillman suggested, “The soul is ceaselessly talking about itself in ever-recurring motifs in ever-new variations, like music and it is immeasurable deep.” Where will your inner road lead you?
The clinical work of dream interpretation, therefore, involves three things.
First, the dream story must be put into language. It’s best if you write down the details of the dream immediately after you wake up from the dream. But sometimes it’s possible to remember the story of a dream—or a dream fragment—even if you don’t write it down. Really important dreams will stay with you even if you try to forget them.
Second, you have to describe thoroughly and understand your psychological associations to the various dream images. These associations must come from your personal life, not from a “dictionary” of fixed meanings. Essentially, this amounts to asking, “When you think of this particular dream image, what other things come to mind?” Dreaming of Mrs. Smith from your childhood, for example, doesn’t necessarily “mean” anything, but what you thought about Mrs. Smith when you were a child—in essence, what her life, behaviors, and values suggested to you then—might have something to say about the problems you struggle with today.
Third, you have to discover the links between all these associations. This process is a bit like those “connect the dots” puzzles that reveal a hidden picture. Psychologically, you simply need to understand what this net of associations from the dream is telling you specifically, at this precise time of your life, about your current problems and conflicts. Quite often, these associations are purely emotional; that is, you can take a particularly graphic dream image, examine your emotional reactions to it, look back into your past for times when you felt the same emotions, and then ask yourself in what way those situations from the past have any bearing on what is happening in your life now.
Research about dreams continues – on both physiological and psychological grounds. Unconscious is a relatively dormant fantasy of today’s psychology since time has seen a paradigm shift to more important methods and notions. But dreams have always been a bridge between ones conscious and unconscious, and they will still be read and analyzed by a major portion of the population.

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