“I have no theory about dreams. I do not know how dreams arise. And I am not at all sure that my way of handling dreams even deserves the name of a ‘method.’ I share all your prejudices against dream interpretation as the quintessence of uncertainty and arbitrariness. On the other hand, I know that if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly, if we carry it around with us and turn it over and over, something almost always comes of it.”

Carl Jung, “The Aims of Psychotherapy (1931): The Practice of Psychiatry, p. 86

An Eclectic Approach to Dreams

I was shopping for hawthorn at my neighborhood herbal apothecary, when the proprietor and I began to talk about my dream therapy practice. “What is your approach?” she asked. “Are you a Jungian?”

I said that I was not a Jungian, nor do I think Jung would be one today.

What I mean is that whenever we add “-ian” or “-ist” to a word, thus creating a codified school of thought, we lose the vital energy from which the originator’s wisdom flowed.

What I most admire about Jung is the courage and audacity he used to delve into the deep strata of his own consciousness, and study his dreams and visions to find meaning.

Here’s my philosophy: Have a question about dreams? Ask the dream. Pay attention to your dreams and the ones other people tell you. That’s your primary textbook.

In addition, study mythology, religious texts, psychological tomes, and the latest articles about neuroscience and dreaming in scholarly journals.

Drawing from personal experience, and being informed by myth, science, psychology, and mysticism is the best approach to dreams I can come up with.

From now on one someone asks what school of dreamwork I come from, I think I’ll say I am from the “Yes-And School of Dreaming.” Meaning, I believe in Jungian approaches to dreams, AND Tibetan Buddhist approaches, shamanistic ones, AND Kabbalah-influenced approaches, as well as what neuroscience AND psychology have to offer.