A rose is a rose…or is it?

by Richard Reeve on December 3, 2008

in AziMuth

Photograph of a rose.

[I requested that y'all (as a young friend of mine from Louisiana would say) submit post topics on Twitter last night and decided to start responding to this one from @tastememory.]

Dream symbolism is a difficult subject, mainly because of a widespread tendency to explain away the living content, the actual message of a dream, by relying on dream and symbol dictionaries to provide ready made answers.  Dream analysis is an art that relies on all of the ego’s capabilities: discernment through feeling and thinking, intuition and sensation.  An accurate assessment of a specific symbol in any given dream does not ensure an accurate analysis of the dream itself.

Jung taught a process of amplification, whereby the symbolic contents of a dream gets explored first through the dreamers personal associations, and then through cultural deposits of meaning found in myth, science, religion and art.  Through the process of amplification, the conscious mind is able to focus attention and energy toward the dream contents, thereby reveling both the depth and the force that the dream carries.  It’s important to mention that for Jung, amplification is not free association which tends to run off in its own direction leading away from the dream.  In amplification, symbolic elements are explored, but always with the aim of linking back to the original dream content; for the dream itself, and not the amplification, is the bearer of the message.

In The Symbols of Transformation (par. 344), Jung writes of the psyche’s development of symbols:

The symbols it creates are always grounded in the unconscious archetype, but their manifest forms are moulded by the ideas acquired by the conscious mind.  The archetypes are the numinous, structural elements of the psyche and possess a certain autonomy and specific energy which enables them to attract, out of the conscious mind, those contents which are best suited to themselves.”

In the end, while the language of dreams is symbolic, each dream attempts to transmit a specific message.  It is the context of the symbol, both in relationship to the unfolding drama of the dream and the unfolding drama of the dreamers life, that reveals the given meaning.  None the less, by the process of amplification, we can flesh out the meaning of a given dream symbol, much as a playwright attempts to render his characters for the stage.

(Image via Wikipedia)


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  • dream analysis as an art form? of course that makes sense.......as an art form the artist is blessed in varying ways with the gift to see ~

    great insight you wrote....
  • The importance of the series is huge, and I love the album analogy. Crucial to Jung's view of the interaction which gets established through this work is that both sides influence each other, it's a two way street (see: Answer to Job). Through the emerging dialogue, the ego and the unconscious in a sense clarify their positions. From this perspective, you need not "fear" a false interpretation as the following dreams will work to correct or clarify the unconscious position.

    Thanks for such an interesting comment.
  • I've never felt myself to be too great at dream analysis... but Jung also talked about collecting a mass of dreams, and through that learning the language of the dreamers dreams... and wasn't it Reich who pointed out that dreamers dream languages would often conform to the school of the analyst?

    But I am an artist.. and I do like to see a lot of an artists work... to peer into what's perhaps really going on in there work..

    It's maybe a little off topic but.. someone was posting some stuff about the death of the album.. the rise of the mash up, personal play lists, and all that.. anyway.. this was striking to me as I just finished making an album... and I'm not terribly in love with any of the individual tracks, but as a whole I really love it.. and I think that that has to do with... this sense of it being like a a collection of dreams in a sense..

    I'm not sure how this adds to the conversation here.. accept maybe thoughts on the collective consciousness of our times, un or other wise... Though it makes me think of of Freud more.. and the channels thoughts must travel to dawn on us, and the impact those channels have on the content of our thoughts.. which I suppose has everything to do with dream analysis and symbolism?
  • John Reddish Get Results
    I think I am starting to "get it," the association of panoramic (though frequently empty) landscapes, the fascination with the psyche and Jung's observations on it. Interesting stuff. Do you happen to know my friend Kathy Myers?
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