A Dream Interpretation

This is how a Jungian therapist interpretes a lady's dream:

Let's call this 52 year old dreamer Anna. In her dream Anna was 5 years old and her mother had brought her to school. She was frightened, cried and wanted to go home. She refused to let her mum leave. Her mum said she would come back shortly but Anna watched her leaving in a car. A girl who was sitting next to her smiled when Anna told her her name. Anna then woke up.

As the dream is about Anna being a child and not something which is physically possible, it is interpreted from a "subjective" stance. This means all the persons in the dream represent different parts of Anna's psyche. Hence it is an intra-psyche commentary. (This differs from an "objective" stance which is interpreted as a inter-psyche commentary between the dreamer and other people in a dream. An objective stance is applied when the situation in the dream is physically possible).

From a "subjective" stance, the mother in Anna's dream represents Anna's Mother complex. ( A mother complex is a potentially active component of everyone's psyche, informed first of all by experience of the personal mother, then by significant contact with other women and by collective assumptions). The little girl in the dream represents Anna's Shadow, a positive one as we shall soon see. (The positive shadow is the inner psyche which sets boundaries and is in control of a person's connection with the world).

The analyst first asked how Anna felt in the dream. In the dream Anna felt powerless and frightened. The analyst then went on to ask about her conscious attitude prior to her dream, meaning event or situation which preoccupies her. Anna shared that she was in a dilemma whether to place her mum who is suffering from dementia in a nursing home. Anna is a single mother and her mum had provided great support over the years in bringing up Anna's kids. However mum's current condition has deteriorated so much that Anna can not leave the old lady alone at home whilst she is out working. In fact Anna often has to resort to various tricks to get the old lady to perform her daily routine. Anna reckoned that she might have to trick her mum into agreeing to stay at the nursing home.

Next the analyst developed associations to the objects and experiences in the dream. First of all the analyst asked Anna to recall what went on when she was 5.
Anna's own parents divorced when she was 5. Her mother then brought her to live in another city. Anna's mother could not afford to put her in day care and had no choice but to put Anna in a school even before Anna was ready for it. Anna remembered being frightened of the bigger kids at school and was miserable for one whole year. Anna also recalled that her mum used to trick her and often left her at someone's home for a long time even though she promised to be back shortly. When she was older, Anna appreciated the dire circumstances they were in then and that her mum had not much choice. The little girl in the dream was her only friend in school.

The Jungian analyst describes the dream as an intra psyche commentary. Anna's inner psyche is sending her a powerful message that the situation which she is now facing is a mirror of the situation that her mum faced when Anna was 5. The positive Shadow and her Mother complex condone a little trickery and tell Anna that though she is sad she has no choice and that it is the best she could do for her mum under these circumstances.

As C.G.Jung once said:
"The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends."