What then would Carl Jung have to say about the dreams of late life? First, he would emphasize the role of ego integration during the last years of our life. For Jung, the dreams of old age often represent the process of individuation. And the fusion of conscious and unconscious elements in our psyche. We focus during these last years, not only on new experiences and new learning about self, but also on the way the various conscious and unconscious elements of self are related to one another. Dreams during late life, therefore, are often concerned with bringing together diverse elements of our psyche. We dream of a wedding between two psychic entities that represent specific aspects of ourselves. Our dream involves a journey through several different lands that exemplify certain features in our personality—in particular, our feminine (anima) and masculine (animus) features.
The dreams of old age for Jung may also portray aspirations regarding the ideal of aging. A wise wizard or elderly woman of worldly wisdom might be present in the dreams to guide the dreamer on their journey to individuation. While most psychologists and therapists with a psychodynamic inclination view fundamental psychic conflicts in life (such as independence vs. dependence) as essentially remaining unresolved throughout life, Jungians often consider these conflicts to be resolved or at least reframed via the deeply creative and growth-directed processes of the self. Much of this integration of conflicting processes might be taking place in our dreams, as well as in the ways we re-process and re-envision memories from throughout our lifetime. For Jung, this journey of re-processing and re-envisioning is not only the key developmental task of late life. It is also fundamentally spiritual in nature.
Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic States
The two semi-conscious states in which we dwell before (hypnagogic) and after (hypnopompic) episodes of sleep might play a more prominent role among older adult sleepers because they more frequently wake up and fall back to sleep during the night. Furthermore, the content of these two states might interplay with the rich memories and dreams of the older dreamer.
The peremptory ideational train might pass through the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states, picking up content from these states as well as adding content to the imagery and fantasies to be found in these two states. These states will often linger as we settle in for a long night of sleep and as we linger in bed before getting up in the morning. Some of the individuation that Carl Jung emphasizes might be taking place not just in our dreams but also in these twilight states—with the assistance of our ideational trains.
For instance, I am writing this essay in early December. My radio is awash with Christmas Carols. I recently fell asleep while listening to one of these carols. In my twilight/hypnagogic state, I began recalling events from my childhood that related to Christmas. Then, after I fell soundly asleep, I had a dream that related to my mother and her preparation of cookies for Christmas. My mother soon turned into a news broadcaster whom I admire. She was “serving up” some good news (which is rare today). I woke up after this dream and lingered for a while in a hypnopompic state. While in this state, I savored the positive feeling associated with my mother and with this broadcaster.
