Re: Adler and Dreams

The following excerpt is from a journal article, On the Interpretation of Dreams, by Alfred Adler.

If we are really to discover the purpose of dreams, we must find what purpose is served by forgetting dreams or by not understanding them. This was the most vexing problem before me when I started, some quarter of a century ago, to try to find the meaning of dreams. It occurred to me one day that perhaps the real significance of a dream is that it is not to be understood; perhaps there is a dynamism of the mind working to baffle us. This idea furnished me with the first real clue to an adequate dream interpretation. Searching further, I asked myself, "For what purpose are we "fooling" ourselves?" In answer, another clue then came to me from ordinary social intercourse. We all know people, including ourselves, who purposely speak so as not to be understood for the purpose of concealing the truth, or they speak to themselves in a way which common sense would not allow. Here, then, is a very close analogy to dreams-in fact more than an analogy since it can be shown that they are both the product of the same mental dynamism. It is not in the thoughts that we "fool" ourselves, but in the emotions and feelings aroused by the thoughts and pictures of a dream. The purpose of the dream is achieved by the use of emotion and mood rather than reason and judgement. Reasoning alone could not purposely deceive us. Thoughts may give rise to errors in judgment, but this would be due to inadequate factual data. When our style of life comes into conflict with reality and common sense, we find it necessary, in order to preserve the style, to arouse feelings and emotions by means of the ideas and pictures of a dream which we do not understand.

For additional reading, check:

What Life Could Mean to You, by Alfred Adler, pages 86-106.
Understanding Life, by Alfred Adler, pages 86-99.
Social Interest, by Alfred Adler, pages 178-196.
In Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler, edited by Heinz and Rowena Ansbacher, pages 357-365.

For more information about Classical Adlerian psychology, visit the Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco web site at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/

Replies:

Thanks re info, by S.D. Johnson, 10/25/98

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