Dream Interpretation for Self-Knowledge

By Jeremy Spiegel, MD

Dreams, said Carl Jung, are “letters we send to ourselves.” Properly interpreted, dreams are an invaluable tool for self-knowledge.

Scientists have proposed many reasons for why we dream. Sigmund Freud, over one hundred years ago, concluded that dreams display the dreamer’s deep unconscious wishes seeking fulfillment in the theater of the mind. Decades later Jung found that the meanings of dream elements exist on multiple levels, often linked to universal patterns, or archetypes. More recently, the late Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, suggested that dreams help clear the brain of “obsolete data files,” making room for the storage of more current, practical information. All these scientists agreed that “downloading” the content of dreams and interpreting their often-mysterious symbolism is enlightening.

When interpreting a dream, first look at how it unfolds, noting its contents. You will likely discover some of the intrapsychic special effects Freud describes in Interpretation of Dreams, especially condensation, displacement, repetition, and wish fulfillment.

Condensation is a distillation of two or more beings or ideas from waking life into one image, frequently manifesting as a composite human being. For example, suppose you dream of someone who combines the qualities of a belligerent client you treated and your boyfriend of five years. In the dream, the client-boyfriend creeps up from behind you and bites your neck. You reach to touch the wound but feel nothing. Even so, your colleagues surround your assailant and force him into five-point restraints, whereupon he explodes with rage, unleashes a volley of expletives, and is dragged away kicking and screaming. Later, you learn he has died from a stroke. You experience horror, which rapidly gives way to a welcome feeling of liberation. Focusing on the condensation, you uncover the dream’s meaning: you must free yourself from your controlling boyfriend, whose emotional manipulation has had an injurious effect on you, preventing you from effectively caring for your clients and yourself.

Displacement occurs when dream content involves a feature or action unrelated to the dreamer’s waking focus or life circumstances. For example, say you dream about antique wallpaper even though in reality all your walls are painted. The wallpaper is peeling and impossible to patch. The more the wallpaper separates from the wall and the more you try to smooth it back on, the more holes are revealed in the surface behind it. Reflecting later, you realize the peeling ancient wallpaper represents your increasingly desperate attempts to cover up the “holes” in your life. Perhaps for many years you’ve been in denial about the need for a “repair” in your “home”—that is, in displacement-speak, a need for healing in your psyche and your life.

Repetition involves the reappearance of a dream element, either in the same dream or in recurring ones, and often in different formats, such as imagery, language, and wordplay. For example, suppose an empty bag of saline solution keeps showing up in your dreams. First you see it between the cushions of a love seat, then next to the milk carton in the refrigerator, and later dangling from the rearview mirror of your car—which, you notice, is running on empty. Upon later reflection, you suspect that the bag’s recurrence in your dream symbolizes the depletion of your resources and an unexpressed wish to quench your emotional dehydration. It also occurs to you there might be wordplay at work: the solution is to refuel yourself.

Wish fulfillment discloses a desire the dreamer may or not be aware of and provides the satisfaction of that desire in dreamtime. For example, say you are a local branch manager recently promoted to regional sales director. The first week on the job you dream you are overseas struggling with a foreign language and discouraged about your inability to communicate. Then you pull a red button from your pocket and press it. Feeling something “click” in your head, you suddenly unleash a stream of clear communication in the heretofore unfamiliar language. Your dream expresses—and satisfies—your desire to master your new job responsibilities.

If ignored or left uninterpreted, the dream elements of condensation, displacement, repetition, and wish fulfillment can leave you in psychic tumult, awash in disturbing sensations long after waking from your dream. Over time, unintegrated dreams can lead to self-defeating attitudes or actions.

By contrast, the more you practice dream interpretation, the greater your self-awareness and the better your ability to function mindful of, rather than ruled by, the hidden agendas of your unconscious. Interpreting your dreams can help you access and reinforce your true self. Ultimately, you can learn to dispel the tension and anxiety found in disturbing dreams and use the passion of exhilarating dreams to enhance your waking energy. You can decide which elements, themes, and resulting insights you want to hold on to in your waking life—which shells from your psychic sea you wish to keep.

Releasing Nightmares
Just as you can keep positive aspects from your dreams, so you can dispense with dream elements that undermine or frighten you. The “nightmare rehearsal technique” originated with patients “rehearsing” trauma-related dreams in front of a therapist, and gained popularity after British psychiatrist Isaac Marks used it in 1978 to successfully relieve a woman’s fourteen-year recurrent nightmare.

For example, suppose you have a recurring nightmare of your car careening out of control, smashing into another automobile and killing a mother and her two small children. To release this nightmare, revise it in your imagination. Go back in time to the moment when you began losing control of the car. See yourself regaining control and bringing your vehicle to a smooth stop. In your mind’s eye, watch as the mother and her two children serenely drive by your car, completely unharmed. Picture yourself driving on to your destination, safe, calm, and in complete control.

After revising the dream in your imagination, “rehearse” the revised dream sequence before bed. As a result, the nightmare will cease because the new, emotionally nourishing content reflects your conscious wish fulfillment, simultaneously decreasing your anxiety and enabling confidence to spring from your true self.

At-a-Glance Guidelines for Dream Interpretation
• Place pen and paper near bed.
• Write down your dream content.
• List the people, objects, and actions appearing in the dream.
• Note the intrapsychic special effects appearing in the dream.
• Free associate to your dream.
• Select the insights worth keeping.
• If your dream is a nightmare, revise it and rehearse the new rendition.

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Jeremy Spiegel, MD, practices general adult psychiatry in Portland, Maine, where he lives with his wife and three children. A graduate of Princeton University and Dartmouth Medical School, Dr. Spiegel treats patients in his private practice, as well as in a mental health center where he works with the homeless and consults for the Maine Department of Human Services.
This article was excerpted and adapted from the forthcoming book, The Mindful Medical Student: A Psychiatrist’s Guide to Staying Who You Are While Becoming Who You Want to Be, by Jeremy Spiegel, MD. For more information, contact Elizabeth Wolf, Blessingway Authors’ Services, ewolf@blessingway.com.