What is the function of dreams?
Have you ever had a dream that completely altered how you felt when you woke up? Share it in a comment below.
Dreams have always been significant for humanity. Long before we had trends and data analytics, people in power like kings, emperors, and pharaohs turned to their dreams for guidance. Their dreams were often prophetic, announcing great floods or famine, or instructing them on when to attack their enemies. But they also corrected them when their attitudes were off-balance.
In Collected Works 8, Jung shares a documented dream of Nebuchadnezzar that the emperor had at the height of his power, which he mistakenly interprets by identifying with the archetype rather than relating to it. Here's the dream:
... I saw, and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height thereof was great.
The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth.
The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all: the beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all flesh was fed of it.
I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven;
He cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit: let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from his branches.
Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron and brass in the tender grass of the field; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth:
Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.
The dream, which appears in the Book of Daniel, aims to compensate for Nebuchadnezzar's megalomania. From the dream's exposition we see that the emperor identified himself with the tree, which grew so mighty that it reached all the way to heaven, the divine. The dream aims to show him his error and compensates for it through the warning that he will be cut down to earth and all life will be banished from him; even worse, he will be cursed with madness–being reduced to the level of beasts roaming the earth and losing his human heart. The dream is alerting him of psychosis, which, according to the story, is exactly what happened.
Two functions of dreams: compensatory and prospective
Jung observed that dreams generally have clear functions that have been present in dreamwork for as long as humans engaged with their dreams.
Dreams, in their compensatory function, act as the psyche's inner harmonisers, seeking to redress imbalances and bring equilibrium to our conscious lives. They function as the unconscious mind's nudges, highlighting aspects of ourselves or experiences that have been overlooked, neglected, or suppressed.
On the other hand, the prospective function of dreams propels us into the future, offering us a unique form of mental rehearsal and preparation. In this role, dreams become our inner mentors, guiding us through upcoming challenges, decisions, and emotions. Through this process, dreams help alleviate the anxieties and uncertainties associated with the future by providing a space for emotional processing and practical decision-making.
However, as you're about to see, these two functions aren't mutually exclusive. Dreams can serve both compensatory and prospective purposes simultaneously. For example, a dream may highlight a neglected aspect of your personality while also providing guidance on a forthcoming decision or challenge. Or, like in Nebuchadnezzar's example, a dream may show you that your conscious attitude is inflated and also warn you about a bad outcome if you don't change.
The main function of dreams: compensation
“As a general rule, if you already know what the dream seems to be saying, then you have missed its meaning.” - James A. Hall, Jungian Dream Interpretation
With this dream, we can see that the emperor's psyche was both compensating for his conscious attitude, while also anticipating his psychosis. Had he listened to the dream's message and corrected his attitude, perhaps things would've gone differently for him.
Jungians have found it most useful to think of dreams as compensatory. In Jung's view, the psyche, just like the body, is a self-regulating organism. If you lean too much one way in your conscious attitude, you risk missing out on other relevant information or points of view and become unbalanced. Therefore, the unconscious will compensate in dreams or, in some cases, through bodily symptoms or accidents–the more extreme and rigid the conscious attitude, the more extreme the dream emotions or images.
The compensatory function's purpose is to correct any overly rigid attitudes you have, make you aware of inner conflicts, and show you what you're not seeing.
For example, if you tend to put certain people on pedestals, the unconscious may compensate for that by giving you dreams where these people steal, behave immorally, or make mistakes. If you think of yourself as faultless and avoid responsibility for how you hurt people, your dreams may show you or other figures as criminals. And, if like our pal Nebuchadnezzar, you're on a grandiose power trip, but unaware of it or denying it, your dreams may show you flying too close to the sun, being cut down, humiliated, ostracised.
There's no simple recipe–the compensatory function doesn't always show the "exact" opposite attitude. If you're doubting yourself in everyday life, it doesn't mean that the dream will necessarily present you as over-confident. However, your dream will show you the other perspective that you're missing and that's unique to you.
“The more one-sided the conscious attitude is, and the further it deviates from the optimum, the greater becomes the possibility that vivid dreams with a strongly contrasting but purposive content will appear as an expression of the self-regulation of the psyche.”
Here are some helpful ways to work with the compensatory function of dreams:
Give up all preconceptions about the dream (if you think you know what it means right away, you're probably wrong).
Go through what happened the day before the dream. Don't look for anything out of the ordinary, just recount what you did, who you spoke to, what you thought about.
How does what happened in the dream relate to what happened in your waking life? What is the new perspective offered by the dream? How could the dream's perspective balance your conscious one?
How are the characters in the dream different to how you think of yourself? Could one of the other character's qualities benefit your current challenges?
How did you feel in the dream? How did you feel in waking life? Could the dream be correcting your feelings about a situation or person?
Remember that dreams aren't necessarily the truth. They compensate our conscious attitude in order to help us arrive to a healthy, middle ground. Use the insights you get from your dreams to enrich your current perspective, not to replace it.
The prospective function of dreams
Even though most of our dreams are compensatory, sometimes dreams warn us about events that will happen. These dreams feel prophetic and feel like a "preliminary exercise or sketch, or a plan roughed out in advance" (Carl Jung).
The prospective function of dreams, also known as the preparatory function, is another perspective on the purpose of dreams. This concept suggests that dreams can serve as a form of mental rehearsal or preparation for future challenges, decisions, or experiences. In this view, dreams help us anticipate and navigate upcoming events by simulating various scenarios and emotions during sleep.
What initially sounds like magical powers may actually be due to a developed intuitive function. Jung states that these dreams aren't so much prophecies–at least no more than a medical diagnosis is a prophecy. Instead, they are an anticipation of events derived from pattern-identification: you unconsciously pick up on behaviours and things for a while, which may or may not happen if things evolve in the same way.
A bit like sensing a storm coming when clouds gather, the sky darkens, and the wind blows in a certain way. The storm may indeed come, but it may also change direction and pass, allowing for beautiful blue skies.
However, dreams can often hint at future events and function as warnings.
Here are some tips on how to work with the prospective function of dreams:
A good way to investigate this is to see what happens in the lysis (ending) of the dream: is a solution or is it a catastrophe?
If it's a solution, compare it to your current conscious attitude and see if it makes sense and what you could do in waking life about it.
If it's a catastrophe, then examine if it's as bad as you feared. Is there any way you could make peace with the ending of the dream and support yourself through it?
Alternatively, you could look at the catastrophe as compensatory and a warning. In this case, what steps could you take now to course correct in your waking life?
A couple of things to keep in mind
Jung warns that focusing too much on seeing dreams as prophetic can destabilise us: indeed, if we're always looking out for patterns in our dreams about what's going to happen, we lose touch with waking life and our ability to act in the world.
Although the two functions differ, I have found it more useful to see both as ultimately compensatory and approach dreams with curiosity about how they may be trying to balance or complete my awareness. Ultimately, dreams aim to provide an objective, unknown perspective to our consciousness–our challenge is to hold both attitudes and find the third that unites them.Sometimes this is through interpretation–although many times dream correct our attitudes just through having experienced them.