From this internal viewpoint, there is the matter of the lens and models used to capture the essence of the human psyche as it produces dreams. For the Jungian, the lens being applied is one that magnifies internal objects and events. As Marchiano, Stewart and Lee suggest, this lens is engaged to depict the dynamics operating in our inner world. It is also the kind of lens that one finds on a kaleidoscope. With a slight turn of the lens, one finds a completely different set of images. These diverse images are created by a set of mirrors located in the kaleidoscope. Carl Jung similarly talks about the mirrors to be found in dreams. He imagines us sitting around a fire, while he brings out a set of mirrors that provide us with different views of the fire. He asks us to look at what he’s trying to point at (Marchiano, Steward and Lee, 2024, p. 5):
“The unconscious—and the dreams that arise from it—lies outside the reach of reason, but when we approach it with an open heart, intuitive understanding builds.” (Marchiano, Steward and Lee, 2024, p. 5).
This potential diversity and irrational nature of prospectives (lens and mirrors) to be found in dreams is particularly important to keep in mind. While a Jungian dream is considered to be primarily a portrait of internal psychic life, it can, like the transactional dream, also provide guidance and even solutions to problems arising in waking life. Marchiano, Stewart and Lee (2024, p. 2) quote Carl Jung about this matter:
“According to Jung, ‘Every dream, in its own manner, carries a message. It not only tells you that something is amiss in the depths of your being, it also brings you a solution for getting out of the crisis’”.
What then about an appropriate model to engage when providing a Jungian analysis of a dream.
Dream as Victorian Mansion: A residency-based model is often used by Jungians. A Jungian dream (and more generally the Jungian psyche) can be portrayed as a house. However, this is no ordinary house. Unlike the cognitive-behavior house of dreams and the psyche, which is a one-story ranch house that allows for the meddling of dream content by the engagement of waking intentions, the Jungian house is a large three story Victorian home that has a basement, attic, rooms that are unknown (Marchiano, Stewart and Lee, 2024, pp. 6-7) and rooms from which voices can be heard (Capote, 1994). Contained in the many rooms of this home are the persona (located in the parlor), shadow (in a darkened room), Anima and Animus (in adjoining rooms), the collective unconscious (located in the basement) and the individuated Self (located in the attic).
The Jungian home is filled with Symbolic representations of specific aspects of the self. The symbols in this home serve a different function from the symbols in the traditional psychoanalytic home. As Emil Gutheil (Gutheil, 1951, p. 121) suggests, from a Freudian perspective, “symbols occur as an effect of amalgamation of two or more ideas. At least one of them, usually a wish, is opposed by other forces within the ego.” The Freudian symbols are typically meant to hide the actual, unacceptable forces and objects that operate in our psyche, whereas the Jungian symbols are typically meant to expand on these forces and objects, often linking them to deeper, historical archetypes.
