There are still cases of "predictive" dreams where the dreamer may have a dream predicting the future. There have been a number of these dreams concerning the sinking of the Titanic. But unlike what we thought in the past not all dreams do this, it is rare. Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his own death in 1865. In his dream, he wandered around the White House, finding each room empty until he entered the East Room. There he saw a corpse laid out with its face covered wand wrapped in funeral vestments. He as a weeping mourner who was dead and was told, "the President, he was killed by an assassin." It was only days later that Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. To dream of the death of a loved one is called 'farewell" dreams, and they are more common.
The interpretations of dreams must start with understanding the structure of the mind's various levels:
The conscious mind is governed by the ego (the "I") which can act in the outside (waking) world, and has a will (capable of making choices). The conscious is the rational, self-aware part of the mind. This is us awake.
The pre-conscious contains material accessible to the conscious mind on demand, such as facts, memories, ideas, and motives.
The personal unconscious stores half-forgotten memories, repressed traumas, emotions, and unacknowledged motives and urges. (This is what Freud called the "id", which he saw as the primitive, instinctive side of ourselves, and which must be controlled by the ego.)
Unconscious denotes not being awake.
The collective unconscious is a genetically inherited level of the mind containing the "vast historical storehouse of the human race" that form the raw material of many of the world's myths, legends, and religious systems.
The first three were suggested by Freud, the last one by Carl Jung (pronounced like Young).
There are three main types of dreaming each related to the subconscious levels mentioned above. The conscious being us awake, the subconscious are all levels below consciousness.
Lesson Three
Dream Interpretation
Type B dreams deal with material from the personal unconscious, using mostly symbolic language, much of it specific to the dreamer, but is drawn from the richer parts of the unconscious with it's suppressed memories and emotions. The characters and settings of these dreams will be specific to the dreamer's experience, anxiety, revenge, and fear, which are nearly universal. Type B dreams are really the most interesting to interpret, for it is here that the unconscious does it's fanciest footwork to evade censorship and correspondingly, it is here that we found the real revelations about the hidden urges and forces in our character.
Type C dreams contain what Jung called "grand dreams". These deal with material from the "collective unconscious" operating only in symbols and "archetypes". These are rare, some people never have one. They have little to do with the dreamer's daily life. They are warnings or messages about where the dreamer is in the bigger picture in the journey of life. They are prophetic dreams, but don't tell the future, they tell the past. How can we tell if you had one of these they contain archetypes, and that we cover in lesson # 12.
True or False
1. Our sleep begins and ends with dream images.
2. There is no such thing as a predictive dream.
3. Farewell dreams are about the death of a loved one.
4. In Lincoln's dream, he asks the minister "who died?"
5. There are 5 levels in the mind's structure.
6. Freud suggested only the first two levels.
7. Type A dreams can be taken at face value.
8. Type B dreams mostly use symbolic language.
9. Type B dreams are the most interesting to interpret.
10. Type C dreams deal with material from the collective unconscious.
