A dialog in a dream

A dialog in a dream about dreams

Two eerily similar individuals sit across from each other in a nondescript room, the entire scenario is dreamlike and it is hard to say if it even happened at all. At one end of the room is the vague figure of a person that goes by the name Ziggy. Ziggy is a somewhat intelligent college student that has an overview understanding of Freudian psychoanalysis and has attended all of Dr. Capper’s class about Freudian theory. At the opposite extreme of the room is Chris, a similarly intelligent person that has a similar level of knowledge as Ziggy except focused on Christianity and dream healing.

Ziggy: The mind is like an iceberg in that most of it is hidden and cannot be easily seen or studied. The part of the mind that cannot be easily seen is the unconscious (Freud 14). Although unseen and not easily accessible it does exist and is worthy of study and also the study of the unconscious is along the lines of a natural science and the does follow certain cause and effect rules that ultimately boil down to something physical (Freud 14,15, 29).

Chris: There is the potential for something extra physical that goes on when one sleeps. Maimonides says that some dreams can serve as a type of prophecy (Kelsey 139, 151). For early Christians dreams played a large role in their faith as is evident by the fact that both the Pauline letters have accounts of Paul’s dream vision of Jesus as well as text “Sheperd of Hermas” has an account of a dream vision from its author (Kelsey 100, 90). Not all dreams are necessarily important however; some are just junk dreams (Kelsey 21).

It is however obvious that some dreams do not come from the self and come from God in some way or another. Joel 2:28 says, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions (NIV).” As it is also clear from the story of Joseph that the use of puns and hidden meanings in dreams is also important.

Ziggy: What a perfect lead in to wish fulfillment and the interpretation of dream symbolism. But first let us discuss why we are here: the healing power of dreams. Everything that we encounter we remember on an unconscious level. The mind is made up of three parts the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the oldest most fundamental part of the mind (Freud 15, 19). The id is composed of two basic instincts, the Eros instinct and the Death instinct (Freud 18). While contradictory these two instincts exist side by side and influences everything that we do. The other superego is responsible for enforcing all the learned norms society and our parents have placed upon us and the ego is responsible for mediating between the id, the superego, and what is feasible (Freud 14-16).

As you might imagine often the ego is not able to totally satisfy the id and the superego all the time. When this happens often things become repressed (Freud 36). The repressed can cause mental problems in an individual because although it is our nature to repress things repression causes one to lose touch with the reality of what their mind is actually think of. It is important, in Freudian theory, to not have any unknown repressions.

Things that are repressed and put into the unconscious want to be expressed, besides mental problems another medium for expression is dreams. When one dreams the unconscious mind takes control and the id mostly reigns supreme supplanting the normal roles and boundaries in a dream although it is possible for the ego to take control during a dream as well. The superego does not give up its attempt to impose order and norms on our mind willy-nilly however and impose some limited structure on dreams; the main avenue for this is the dream-distortion (Freud 39).

Dream-distortion causes images in our dreams to not be what they seem to be (Freud 39,40). The examples are endless: a cigar may be a penis; a window or the back of the nose may represent female genitalia and so on. However it is important to note that these associations are not hard and fast. As noted earlier when talking about the Eros and Death instincts, the id is capable of holding contradictory beliefs simultaneously and the id is constantly making wild associations between unrelated objects, not unlike the Aristotelian imagination (Freud 56). So it is difficult to interpret dreams without an in depth knowledge about the dreamer in question.

Back to wish fulfillment, despite being censored by the superego dreams are mostly about the id satisfying some desire by way of a dream (Freud 39). This relates to healing because if one is unaware of this process taking place one is ruled by it, to be healthy and free one must recognize the dynamics of their own mind and this acknowledgement and self knowledge will lead to good mental health (Freud 61-62).

Chris: In addition to the Jewish influences on Christian dream theories it is also important to note that Christianity owes a lot of its dream traditions to the ancient Greeks. Dreams could be part of shamanistic healing traditions involving soul travel; dreams in Platonic thought are accepted as important and also as a way for the gods to communicate with humans (Kelsey 62, 66). However Ziggy there were Greeks that agreed with you that dreams are physical entities that arises from the self and follow certain rules, Aristotle being one as you’ve mentioned. While Aristotelian thought has been unutterably important in the Occidental Christian tradition, western Christians have lost touch with their very rich pre-Aquinas dream tradition (Kelsey 152, 191).

These non-Jewish Greek dream traditions had a strong following in early Christianity. Macrobius an early 5^th century Christian theologian borrowed heavenly from the Pagan Dream manual of Artemidorus (Kelsey 139). A contemporary of Macrobius, Jerome was less keen on dreams and forbid them by translating Deuteronomy 18:10 as forbidding dream observation in the Vulgate (Kelsey 139).

About wish fulfillment why would somebody like Saul or Constantine dream about Jesus and Christians symbols before they ever converted?

Ziggy: For the sake or argument, assuming that these accounts are true, and using your own example of Artemidorus it would depend heavily on the context of that dream and who had that dream. As mentioned before often symbols in dreams are not self evident and may mean something other than what you assume they’d mean and also following in the Artemidorian thought and also early Hebrew Biblical thought dreams can often have a meaning that is the opposite of what their face value reading is. So my answer is that it is impossible for us to know, with certainty what these dreams may of actually meant. But from a Freudian point of view all religious beliefs are neurotic and hinder mental health.

Chris: Ah then how would you explain examples of people like Handsome Lake whom overcame alcoholism after a dream that he claimed was sent from God? Or how do you explain cases where people with little or no faith are dragged to Lourdes and get cured?

Ziggy: Well the answer absolutely cannot be that there is any merit in religion or ritual at all. Obviously they are displacing one neurosis with another. On some level or another some id satisfaction is going on, perhaps though some sort of cathexis where the id recognizes the dream or the Lourdes water as fulfilling some sort of need it has, but this is naturally wrong and will cause another neurosis and not take away the original neurosis in question. So it is bad business all around.

How do you go about curing yourself in the Christian dream tradition?

Chris: In both Aristotelian and Hippocratic circles dreams warn somebody of subtle changes in their body and alert the dreamer by way of an allegorical dream such as dreaming you’re on fire when your body detects a fever coming on (Kelsey 73). There are examples of people becoming healed after a dream vision such as Aquilinus’ healing after a dream (Kelsey 119). Ambrose, the late 4^th Milan Bishop, was told to repent in a dream and also was given the emotional comfort of seeing his brother after his death (Kelsey 132). You argued Ziggy that becoming aware of the inner workings of your mind and acknowledging these things to yourself can lead to good mental health. Say you what can be said about the value of repentance in the Freudian theory.

Ziggy: In psychoanalysis it is important to have a skilled therapist to counter and lead the way of psychoanalytic sessions. If one repents to God all sorts of things can go wrong! Transferences, when a patient projects qualities of their parental figures onto the therapist, must take place, be used masterfully, and be channeled properly in order for a patient to fully work though issues they have with their parents. The language is already in place for this kind of interaction to take place between a repenter and a priest and or God. In a protestant context, when one talks to God and uses God as an invisible therapist this natural transference can lead to issues plus there isn’t an actual trained psychoanalyst there to steer the session. If you transfer anger onto your therapist the therapist could help you work through that anger, put it into perspective, and ultimately dispel it. If one transfers upon God and gets mad at God, there is nobody present help this person work through this feeling and he or she is likely to develop a new neurosis because his or her superego will be telling him or her that it is unacceptable to feel mad at God.

Chris: You said previously that humans, by nature, are going to have neurosis. In a Christian context this idea fits in well with the idea that humans have an evil nature because of the Fall. It is only by living the teachings found in the New Testament that one can, through divine grace, over come this nature. On this journey of self-discovery dreams can be a valuable tool to gauge one’s spiritual health and even get messages from God.

Ziggy: Human beings are neurotic but there is no place for God in the path to personal enlightenment, as I have clearly pointed out any such belief is an example of neurosis in and of itself.

Chris: Thank you, before we go I’d like to reiterate that the Judeo-Christian tradition has a long history of dream theories. Christians today are rediscovering Christian takes on dream interpretation and I’m sure we owe that in large to Sigmund Freud and others that have paved the way for the importance of the self, self identity, and self reflection. In a world where it was not enough to be content with the idea that “I think therefore I am”, Freud makes us ponder the idea that: I know how I think there for I am less neurotic.

Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis. Trans. James Stachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1949.

Kelsey, Morton T. God, Dreams, and Revelation: a Christian Interpretation of Dreams. Revised and Expanded ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1991.