Many authors and spiritual leaders encourage inner orientation as one of the strategies of transformative integration. Like Carl Jung, I like to think of every figure in a dream-whether a character or an object-as representing a part of the dreamer. The multifaceted intricacy of dream experiences includes a complex narrative, a somatic and energetic felt sense, verbal aspects, visual-spatial metaphors, prospective intuitions and insightful problem-solving. In Jung’s view, dreams are purposeful, and their goal is to synthesize experience into images in meaningful and creative ways. Dream images offer new perspectives to approach old problems. Dreams enhance learning. The flowing interplay between conscious and unconscious mind provide invaluable guidance in our transformative journeys.
Transpersonal dreaming concerns itself with studying experiences in which the dreamer recognizes a wider awareness behind the dream in which the sense of self extends beyond itself to encompass the wider humankind, psyche or cosmos (Stumbrys, 2018). According to Bogzaran & Deslauriers (2012) dreams reveal our personal developmental journey, and they respond to our political and environmental concerns as well, given that they exist at the edge where the self and the larger systems meet. Dreams offer cryptic visions of quandaries that tie self and society together in an evolutionary interplay and reflect our state of interdependence.
Bogzaran, F. & Deslauriers, D. (2012). Integral Dreaming: A holistic approach to dreams. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Stumbrys, T. (2018). Bridging lucid dream research and transpersonal psychology: Towards transpersonal studies of lucid dreams. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 2018, vol. 50, no. 2.
