A state of Armageddon might also take place in a dream at a very personal level. We are personally helpless. We are left like a child without any ability to correct an uncomfortable situation. This childlike state is often represented in our dreams by nakedness. Like the emperor we are without clothes and stand bare in front of other people—subject to laughter and scorn. We are embarrassed. Jungians might say that our shadow has ripped off our clothes and have shown us what we truly are when stripped of our pretenses and roles (our persona). This is a source of great terror that most of us have experienced in our dreams. Yet, there is another way in which to view our naked state. We can identify this state as one in which we are being honest. The dream may be reflecting back on itself (the process of meta-cognition to which I will soon turn).
Perhaps, the dream is saying (visualizing) that we have nothing to hide. We stand in front of other people as an open communicator who is to be trusted. We have set aside our persona and are allowing other people to see (at least in the dream) who we really are. Perhaps, at some level, we might even begin to appreciate this stance of clarity and honesty—if we can get past the anxiety.
It is much like how we chose to face a societal Armageddon. This dream-based vision can reveal something important about the state of the community and world in which we live. Once again, if we can overcome the anxiety, there might be something important to learn. The nightmare of destruction, chaos – and nudity—can become instead a source of learning. We might at this point even listen to Csikszentmihalyi and consider this to be an opportunity for dream-based “flow.”
Collective Dreams
There is also one other challenging view regarding these massive dream-based visions of the future. There are many examples of collective dreams regarding the future. This might relate to the conception of a social unconsciousness that exists in many societies that have a history of collective trauma (such as Israel, Japan, Singapore and Korea). (Hopper and Weinberg, 2019). There are many instances of similar dreams being reported by Jewish survivors of the World War II holocaust. I have personally witnessed the reporting of these similar dreams among residents of Israel. Understandably, these dreams often portray large-scale chaos and destruction. Remarkably, these same dreams are often reported by the next two generations of Israeli citizens. The trauma is carried over in the social unconscious and shows up in dreams.
As noted above, the trauma may be carried in the ideation of those citizens of Israel who survived the holocaust as well as those who know well the stories of holocaust survival and participate in profound commemorative ceremonies (and moments of collective silence). This ideation begins to recruit related emotions and thoughts (related to such matters as childhood fears of abandonment and accompanying senses of hopelessness and helplessness). These ideations can become peremptory – though they are often accompanied by denial and defense. As in Freud’s wish-fulfillment hypothesis, these peremptory ideations might find expression and portrayal only in dreams. There are collective dreams because there is collective ideation.
