The question of the unconscious phantasies

The Theory of Psychoanalysis by C. G. Jung, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VI

The Dream

After this digression we will return to the question of the unconscious phantasies which occupied us before. As we have seen, nobody can dispute their existence, just as nobody can assert their existence and their qualities forthwith. The question, however, is just this: Can effects be observed in the consciousness of unconscious origin, which can be described in conscious symbolic signs or expressions? Can there be found, in the conscious, effects which correspond with this expectation? The psychoanalytic school believes it has discovered such effects. Let me mention at once the principal phenomenon, the dream. Of this it may be said that it appears in the consciousness as a complex factor unconsciously constructed out of its elements. The origin of the images in certain reminiscences of the earlier or of the later past can be proved through the associations belonging to the single images of the dream. We ask: “Where did you see this?” or “Where did you hear that?” And through the usual way of association come the reminiscences that certain parts of the dream have been consciously experienced, some the day before, some on former occasions. So far there will be general agreement, for these things are well known. In so far, the dream represents in general an incomprehensible composition of certain elements not at first conscious, which are only recognized later on by their associations. It is not that all parts of the dream are recognizable, whence its conscious character could be deduced; on the contrary, they are often, and indeed mostly, unrecognizable at first. Only subsequently does it occur to us that we have experienced in consciousness this or that part of the dream. From this standpoint alone, we might regard the dream as an effect of unconscious origin.

The Method of Dream Analysis

The technique for the exploration of the unconscious origin is the one I mentioned before, used before Freud by every scientific man who attempted to arrive at a psychological understanding of dreams. We try simply to remember where the parts of the dream arose. The psychoanalytic technique for the interpretation of dreams is based on this very simple principle. It is a fact that certain parts of the dream originate in daily life, that is, in events which, on account of their slighter importance, would have fallen into oblivion, and indeed were on the way to become definitely unconscious. It is these parts of the dream that are the effect of unconscious images and representations. People have been shocked by this expression also. But we do not conceive these things so concretely, not to say crudely, as do the critics. Certainly this expression is nothing but a symbolism taken from conscious psychology—we were never in any doubt as to that. The expression is quite clear and answers very well as a symbol of an unknown psychic fact.

As we mentioned before, we can conceive the unconscious only by analogy with the conscious. We do not imagine that we understand a thing when we have discovered a beautiful and rather incomprehensible name. The principle of the psychoanalytic technique is, as you see, extraordinarily simple. The further procedure follows on in the same way. If we occupy ourselves long with a dream, a thing which, apart from psychoanalysis, naturally never happens, we are apt to find still more reminiscences to the various different parts of the dream. We are not however always successful in finding reminiscences to certain portions. We have to put aside these dreams, or parts of dreams, whether we will or no.

The collected reminiscences are called the “dream material.” We treat this material by a universally valid scientific method. If you ever have to work up experimental material, you compare the individual units and classify them according to similarities. You proceed exactly in the same way with dream-material; you look for the common traits either of a formal or a substantial nature.

Certain extremely common prejudices must be got rid of. I have always noticed that the beginner is looking for one trait or another and tries to make his material conform to his expectation. This condition I noticed especially among those colleagues who were formerly more or less passionate opponents of psychoanalysis, their opposition being based on well-known prejudices and misunderstandings. When I had the chance of analyzing them, whereby they obtained at last a real insight into the method, the first mistake generally made in their own psychoanalytic work was that they did violence to the material by their own preconceived opinion. They gave vent to their former prejudice against psychoanalysis in their attitude towards the material, which they could not estimate objectively, but only according to their subjective phantasies.

If one would have the courage to sift dream material, one must not recoil from any parallel. The dream material generally consists of very heterogeneous associations, out of which it is sometimes very difficult to deduce the tertium comparationis. I refrain from giving detailed examples, as it is quite impossible to handle in a lecture the voluminous material of a dream. I might call your attention to Rank’s[9] article in the Jahrbuch, “Ein Traum der sich selber deutet” (A dream interpreted by itself). There you will see what an extensive material must be taken into consideration for comparison.

Hence, for the interpretation of the unconscious we proceed in the same way as is universal when a conclusion is to be drawn by classifying material. The objection is very often heard: Why does the dream have an unconscious content at all? In my view, this objection is as unscientific as possible. Every actual psychological moment has its special history. Every sentence I pronounce has, beside the intended meaning known to me another historical meaning, and it is possible that its second meaning is entirely different from its conscious meaning. I express myself on purpose somewhat paradoxically. I do not mean that I could explain every individual sentence in its historical meaning. This is a thing easier to do in larger and more detailed contributions. It will be clear to everyone, that a poem is, apart from its manifest content, especially characteristic of the poet in regard to its form, its content, and its manner of origin. Although the poet, in his poem, gave expression to the mood of a moment, the literary historian will find things in it and behind it which the poet never foresaw. The analysis which the literary historian draws from the poet’s material is exactly the method of psychoanalysis.

The psychoanalytic method, generally speaking, can be compared with historical analysis and synthesis. Suppose, for instance, we did not understand the meaning of baptism as practised in our churches to-day. The priest tells us the baptism means the admission of the child into the Christian community. But this does not satisfy us. Why is the child sprinkled with water? To understand this ceremony, we must choose out of the history of rites, those human traditions which pertain to this subject, and thus we get material for comparison, to be considered from different standpoints.

I. The baptism means obviously an initiation ceremony, a consecration; therefore all the traditions containing initiation rites have to be consulted.

II. The baptism takes place with water. This special form requires another series of traditions, namely, those rites where water is used.

III. The person to be baptized is sprinkled with water. Here are to be consulted all those rites where the initiated is sprinkled or submerged, etc.

IV. All the reminiscences of folklore, the superstitious practices must be remembered, which in any way run parallel with the symbolism of the baptismal act.

In this way, we get a comparative scientific study of religion as regards baptism. We accordingly discover the different elements out of which the act of baptism has arisen. We ascertain further its original meaning, and we become at the same time acquainted with the rich world of myths that have contributed to the foundations of religions, and thus we are enabled to understand the manifold and profound meanings of baptism. The analyst proceeds in the same way with the dream. He collects the historical parallels to every part of the dream, even the remotest, and he tries to reconstruct the psychological history of the dream, with its fundamental meaning, exactly as in the analysis of the act of baptism. Thus, through the monographic treatment of the dream, we get a profound and beautiful insight into that mysterious, fine and ingenious network of unconscious determination. We get an insight, which as I said before, can only be compared with the historical understanding of any act which we had hitherto regarded in a superficial and one-sided way.

This digression on the psychoanalytic method has seemed to me to be unavoidable. I was obliged to give you an account of the method and its position in methodology, by reason of all the extensive misunderstandings which are constantly attempting to discredit it. I do not doubt that there are superficial and improper interpretations of the method. But an intelligent critic ought never to allow this to be a reproach to the method itself, any more than a bad surgeon should be urged as an objection to the common validity of surgery. I do not doubt that some inaccurate descriptions and conceptions of the psychoanalytic method have arisen on the part of the psychoanalytic school itself. But this is due to the fact that, because of their education in natural science it is difficult for medical men to attain a full grasp of historical or philological method, although they instinctively handle it rightly.

The method I have described to you, in this general way, is the method that I adopt and for which I assume the scientific responsibility.

In my opinion it is absolutely reprehensible and unscientific to question about dreams, or to try to interpret them directly. This is not a methodological, but an arbitrary proceeding, which is its own punishment, for it is as unproductive as every false method.

If I have made the attempt to demonstrate to you the principle of the psychoanalytic school by dream-analysis, it is because the dream is one of the clearest instances of those contents of the conscious, whose basis eludes any plain and direct understanding. When anyone knocks in a nail with a hammer, to hang something up, we can understand every detail of the action. But it is otherwise with the act of baptism, where every phase is problematic. We call these actions, of which the meaning and the aim is not directly evident, symbolic actions or symbols. On the basis of this reasoning, we call a dream symbolic, as a dream is a psychological formation, of which the origin, meaning and aim are obscure, inasmuch as it represents one of the purest products of unconscious constellation. As Freud strikingly says: “The dream is the via regia to the unconscious.” Besides the dream, we can note many effects of unconscious constellation. We have in the association-experiments a means for establishing exactly the influence of the unconscious. We find those effects in the disturbances of the experiment which I have called the “indicators of the complex.” The task which the association-experiment gives to the person experimented upon is so extraordinarily easy and simple that even children can accomplish it without difficulty. It is, therefore, very remarkable that so many disturbances of an intentional action should be noted in this experiment. The only reasons or causes of these disturbances which can usually be shown, are the partly conscious, partly not-conscious constellations, caused by the so-called complexes. In the greater number of these disturbances, we can without difficulty establish the relation to images of emotional complexes. We often need the psychoanalytic method to explain these relations, that is, we have to ask the person experimented upon or the patient, what associations he can give to the disturbed reactions. We thus gain the historical matter which serves as a basis for our judgment. The intelligent objection has already been made that the person experimented upon could say what he liked, in other words, any nonsense. This objection is made, I believe, in the unconscious supposition that the historian who collects the matter for his monograph is an idiot, incapable of distinguishing real parallels from apparent ones and true documents from crude falsifications. The professional man has means at his disposal by which clumsy mistakes can be avoided with certainty, and the slighter ones very probably. The mistrust of our opponents is here really delightful. For anyone who understands psychoanalytic work it is a well-known fact that it is not so very difficult to see where there is coherence, and where there is none. Moreover, in the first place these fraudulent declarations are very significant of the person experimented upon, and secondly, in general rather easily to be recognized as fraudulent.

In association-experiments, we are able to recognize the very intense effects produced by the unconscious in what are called complex-interventions. These mistakes made in the association-experiment are nothing but the prototypes of the mistakes made in everyday life, which are for the greater part to be considered as interventions. Freud brought together such material in his book, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.”

These include the so-called symptomatic actions, which from another point of view might equally as well be called “symbolic actions,” and the real failures to carry out actions, such as forgetting, slips of the tongue, etc. All these phenomena are the effect of unconscious constellations and therefore so many entrance-gates into the domain of the unconscious. When such errors are cumulative, they are designated as neurosis, which, from this aspect, looks like a defective action and therefore the effect of unconscious constellations or complex-interventions.

The association-experiment is thus not directly a means to unlock the unconscious, but rather a technique for obtaining a good selection of defective reactions, which can then be used by psychoanalysis. At least, this is its most reliable form of application at the present time. I may, however, mention that it is possible that it may furnish other especially valuable facts which would grant us some direct glimpses, but I do not consider this problem sufficiently ripe to speak about. Investigations in this direction are going on.

I hope that, through my explanation of our method, you may have gained somewhat more confidence in its scientific character, so that you will be by this time more inclined to agree that the phantasies which have been hitherto discovered by means of psychoanalytic work are not merely arbitrary suppositions and illusions of psychoanalysts. Perhaps you are even inclined to listen patiently to what those products of unconscious phantasies can tell us.

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. C. G. Jung (2021). The Theory of Psychoanalysis. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66041/pg66041-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.