Kasia Gwilliam: Dreams
"Dreams are the guiding words of the Soul" - Carl Jung
Dreams. A word just bursting with resonance, meaning and perhaps even resistance and confusion.
So, what does it mean to dream? To have a dream? To engage with and understand your dreams?
The meaning of the world is two-fold. First taken in a literal sense, dreams are the events that occur during the REM cycle of sleep and we apparently all have around four every night - whether we remember or understand them or not is another matter! On the other hand, to have a dream is to have a deep longing, a wish, a sense of purpose and meaning. To have a dream is to seek to achieve something that is to become a paving stone on the path to the innate and sometimes unconscious desire that we all have as humans, the fulfilment of Self.
I want to acknowledge both of these definitions of what it means to dream, because I believe they both have a huge significance in our lives and can both assist us to understand what it means to be in integrity, aligned and in a space of allowing our truest nature to be embraced and embodied.
The dreams we have during sleep are a window to the unconscious. A pathway, a peek, a glimpse into our inner world that is not always accessible in our waking hours. Full of symbols, animals, events, relatives, lovers, phobias and sometimes totally bonkers going's-on, dreams speak to us in a voice only we can truly understand. The quote at the beginning of this piece, from Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology Carl Jung, calls this knowing into our awareness. According to those who subscribe to Jung's model of the psyche (I, myself, being one) we all have a conscious mind that we use to operate in the here and now as well as a personal unconscious that soaks up absolutely every little engagement, comment and interaction and that runs the show for most of the time. That comment from your teacher when you were 7 about your art skills? Yep, that's safely tucked away in your personal unconscious and may be the reason that you engage with art as you do - I hope for all of our sakes that it was a positive and encouraging comment! As well as these two personal aspects of the psyche we all are connected into the collective unconscious, made up of both inherited cultural and societal material and of all the ways in which humanity has sought to understand itself. The collective unconscious, while important in its role of passing specific cultural elements down through generations, also transcends space and time. It is innate and is shared by all regardless of gender, geographical location, socioeconomic status and the era in which we chose to incarnate here on earth. It is here, in this place, where we find archetypal figures, motifs, events, experiences and symbols populating this shared aspect of the collective psyche. All of those patterns, experiences and embodied ways of being hold significance and importance, connecting us as one.
Our dreams work by drawing up unconscious material, from both the personal and the collective unconscious. While it may be tempting to head to your nearest dream book or helpful internet search engine to figure out what that dream about getting a bad tattoo meant, or the one about the wolf, the river or high tower, in reality the only person who can truly decipher your dreams is you. Even Jung himself set out best practice when it came to dream analysis, stating the importance of reaching mutual agreement when it comes to meaning. The truth is, your unconscious chose the images to present to you in your dreams. Yes, as a collective we may all have a feeling about wasps, for example, being annoying, dangerous or pests, as well as being essential and integral parts of our ecosystem. Evolution made sure to give it black and yellow markings, striking on that unconscious knowing in us (and the rest of the animal kingdom) that these creatures can pack a figurative punch if required. But what do these creatures mean to you? It may be relevant to find out what the Native American meaning for wasps is, but how relevant is that to you personally? Chances are the interpretations of these symbols won't be a million miles away, but we start with us and our own associations to our dream images first - always. How can we possibly revoke our own personal responsibility when it comes to understanding these messages from our unconscious or seek another to provide a comforting blanket of understanding? No, first we must encounter our dream images head on, investigate our own associations to them and then observe how these dynamics play out in both our inner and outer worlds. Only then, can we approach interpretation with curiosity, compassion and an open but informed mind. Keeping a dream journal as a regular record is such an easy and helpful tool so that we can keep an up-to-date of these whispers from the unconscious may have to say. Jung urged us to take a dream series over one single dream and looking back over the dreams we’ve had can bring insight, revelations and allow us to see patterns that would perhaps otherwise be shrouded in mystery. Any engagement with the unconscious should be done so carefully, remembering that insights we do uncover that feel uncomfortable are not another excuse or tool with which to berate ourselves. As with any kind of inner work or deep enquiry, we can uncover gold, lightbulb and penny drop moments, as well as deeper insight to what it means to be in the world for us right now.
Our dreams show us important psychic meaning, for our benefit. They act as compensatory puzzle pieces, seeking to show us what we missed, what we don't know and what needs to be integrated. In short, our dreams choose us.
I believe this is also true for the other kinds of dreams that we engage with. With the dreams we have for our life, the things that we have a longing for, the things that will provide us with a sense of meaning being chosen not by us and our conscious mind, no, instead birthed from deep, unconscious material in relationship with our capital-S sense of Self. When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of having a dream, did he speak of something that he felt would be nice to have or that his conscious mind thought would be a pleasant vision for the future of humanity? Absolutely not! This kind of dream is so much more than that. This moving and powerful dream bellows its rallying cry and calls us to action moves from a deeper place. A place of purpose and truth. A place of integrity and meaning. A place of legacy, Self-actualization and individuation.
So, the dreams you have for the kind of world you want to live in and the life you wish to manifest for yourself, your loved ones and your community, I believe these are already planted inside of you. I believe these dreams have chosen you and they are nestled like seeds in the ground, waiting for the gift of your attention and loving cultivation. These dreams choose us not to give us something arbitrary to focus on as we walk the path through life, nor do they appear at random. No, our dreams unveil themselves to us, as inherent parts of the Self which is always seeking its own realization. They are important, they are whispers from the unconscious and messages from our soul.
Instagram: @kasiacacao