I am now at a different place in my life. While I still face many challenges, they seem to be of a different character—and no longer resemble an urban slum. As a result, I now, find this urban slum dream to be boring when it still occasionally appears in my dream: “Not this again. I thought that these issues resided in my past.” I usually just sit down on the curb in my dream and wait for this dream to end or for me to wake up. I suspect that I (and Carl Jung) are not alone in producing dreams about our tormented life—and hopefully are not alone in setting these dreams aside as boring remnants of the past when we grow older.
The Generative Power of Dreams
When first describing the remarkable dynamics of dreams, Freud (1900) proposed that dreams can not only operate at many levels, but also represent many different functions at the same time. While many of Freud’s specific interpretations regarding which functions are being served, his portrayal of dreams as highly generative products of the human mind and heart seems to hold up with further study of dreams. We must marvel at the capacity of the dream to bring together and creatively integrate vast amounts of available information
Peremptory Ideation
As I seek to make sense of this extraordinary power of dreams to be generative, I am reminded of the theory proposed by George Klein (1967) many years ago regarding a process he called Peremptory Ideation. In essence, Klein is proposing that in our internal world (psyche) we create a specific idea or image that begins to “travel” around our psyche (head and heart) picking up fragments of unconsciously held material (memories, feelings, thoughts). Much like an avalanche (and other forms of what chaos theorist often label “strange attractors’). This train of ideation becomes increasingly rich and emotionally powerful.
At some point, this ideation begins to pull in material from outside the psyche. External events suddenly take on greater saliency (more emotional power and vividness)—and it is because they are now connected to the internal ideation. Klein would suggest that the ideation now takes priority with regard to what is valued, attended to and remembered in the external world. It assumes a commanding (“peremptory”) presence. A positive (reinforcing) loop is created, with the external material now joining the interior material—all clustered around the original (often primitive) ideation.
The process of incubation that I introduced earlier in this essay relates directly to Klein’s theory of peremptory ideation. The problem we are addressing on the backburner is itself one of the “ideations” that moves around our unconscious mind, picking up bits and pieces of past history and old ideas – some of which are related to the problem and others which are seemingly unrelated. Yet, as this ideational “avalanche” grows in size and diversity, the potential for a new solution becomes increasingly possible.
