DREAM DICTIONARY

POWER OF RESOLUTION TECHNIQUE-Lucid Dreaming

For beginning lucid dreamers, the most relevant Tibetan technique is called "comprehending it by the power of resolution," which consists of "resolving to maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness" throughout both the waking and dream states. It involves both a day and night practice.

!. Day Practice
During the day, "under all conditions" think continuously that "all things are the substance of dreams"(that is, that your experience is a construction of your mind) and resolve that you will realize their true nature.

2. Night Practice

At night, when about to go to sleep, "firmly resolve" that you will comprehend the dream state-that is, realize that it is not real, but a dream. (Optional exercise:Pray to your guru that you will be able to comprehend the dream state. This option will probably need to be modified for most people.

If you have a guru, go ahead and pray. If you don't have a guru, but do pray, then pray as usual. You can also substitute a symbolic figure associated in your mind with lucid dreaming. If you neither pray nor have a guru, either skip the instruction or ask help from the wisest part of yourself.)

Commentary
Because we dream of things that have concerned us recently, it is likely that if you spend enough time thinking during the day that "everything is of the substance of dreams," then eventually you will entertain that thought while you are dreaming.

(adapted from Evans-Weniz.)

Reference: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming:Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold

The Dream Mechanism-2-Dream Psychology

The stuff of dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application. There must be one or more common factors.
The dream work proceeds like Francis galton with his family photographs. The different elements are put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other.

This process of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses uncertainty, as to either-or read and, taking each section of the apparent alternatives as a seperate outlet for a series of impressions. 

When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream work takes the trouble to create somethung, in order to make a common presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making such a change in the actual impressiosof one idea as will meet a slight responsive recasting in the form of the other idea.

The process is analogous to that of rhyme, when consonace supplies the desired common factor. A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give rise to them.

In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I struck upon the thought: I should like to have something for nothing. But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced by another one: "I should like to enjoy something free of cost." the word "kost" (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table D'hote; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the dream.

At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "just taste it." That the dream work should un hesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the occurence is quite usual.

Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's thought and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an inexaustable profusion.

Everyone knows such images in his /her own dreams; manifold are the origins. I can build up a person by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can visualize one person , but place him in a position which has occured to another.

There is a meaning in all these cases , when different persons are amalgamated into one sub stitute. Such cases denote an "and," a"just like," a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view, a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule, however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the "combined" person .

The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rule for its solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents, examples of which I need scarcely adduce.

Their strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember they represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination . Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says simply: All these things have an "X" in common. The decomposition of these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest wayto an interpretation of the dream.

Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with on e of my formaer un iversity tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a comnation of lecture-rrom and a moving staircase. I will not pursue the further result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on my lap an object shape like a top-hat,which, however was made of transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: "He who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land."

By a slight turn the glass hat reminded me of Auer's light, and I knew that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman,Dr. Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaing in Vienna. In the dream I was travelling with my invention, with the, it is true, rather akward glass top-hat.

The dream work is peculiarly adept at representing teo contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms resembling camellias ( contrast with chastiry: La dame aux Camelias).

Reference: Sigmund Freud.Dream Psychology

The Method Of Dream Interpretation - 9 -Freud

Trimethylamin: In the dream I see the chemical formula of this substance- which at all events is evidence of a great effort on the part of my memory-and the formula is even printed in heavy type, as though to distinguish it from the context as something of particular importance.

And where does trimethylamin, thus forced on my attention, lead me? To a conversation with another frien, who for two years has been familiar with all my germinating ideas, and I with his.

At that time he had just informed me of certain ideas concering a sexual chemistry, and had mentioned, among others, that he thought he had found in trimethylamin one of the products of sexual metabolism. Thus substance thus leads me to sexuality, the factor to which I attribute the greatest significane in respect of the origin of these nervous affections which I am trying to cure.

My patient Irma is a young widow; if I am required to excuse my failure to cure her, I shall do best to refer to this condition, which her admirers would be glad to terminate. But in what a singular fashion such a dream is fitted together! The friend who is in my dream becomes my patient in Irma's place is likewise a young widow.

I surmisewhy it is that the formula of trimethylamin is so insistent in the dream. So many important things are centred about this one word trimethylamin is an allusion, not merely to the all-important factor of sexuality, but also to a friend whose sympathy I remember with satisfaction whenever I feel isolated in my opinions.

And this friend, who plays such a large part in my life: will he not appear yet again in the concatenation of ideas peculiar to this dream? Of course; he has a special knowledge of the results of affections of the nose and sinuses, and has revealed to science several highly remarkable relations between the turbinal bones and the female sexual organs.

(The three curly formations in Irma's throat) I got him to examine Irma, in order to determine whether her gastric pains were of nasal origin. But he himself suffers from suppurative rhinitis, which gave me concern, and so to this perhaps there is an allusion in pyaemia, which hovers before me in the metastasis of the dream.

One doesn't give such injections so rashly. Here the approach of rashness is hurled directly at my friend Otto. I belive I had some such thought in the afternoon, whenhe seemd to indicate, by word and look, that he had taken sides against me. It was, perhaps: 'How easily, he is influenced; how irresponsibly he pronounces judgement.'

Further the above sentence points once more to my deceased friend, who so irresponsibly resorted to cocaine injections. As I have said, I had not intended that injection of the drug should be taken. I note that in reproaching Otto I once more touch upon the story of the unfortun ate Matilda, which was the pretext for the same reproach against me.Here, obviously, I am collecting examples of my conscientiousness, and also of the reverse.

Probably the syringe was not clean. Another reproach directed at Otto, but originating elsewhere. On the previous day I happen to meet the son of an old lady of eighty-two, to whom I am obliged to give two injections of morphia a daily. At present she is in the country, and I have heard that she is suffering from phlebitis.

I immediately thought that this might be a case of infiltration caused by a dirty syringe. It is my pride that in two years I have not given her a single infiltration; I am always careful, of course, to see that the syringe is perfectly clean. For I am conscientious.

From the phlebitis I return to my wife, who once suffered from thrombosis during a period of pregnancy , and now three related situations come to the surface in my memory, involving my wife, Irma, and the dead matilda, whose identity has apparently justified my puting these three persons in one another's places.

I have now completed the interpretation of the dream. In the course of this intrepation I have taken great pains to avoid all those notions which must have been suggested by a comparison of the dream-content.

Meanwhile the 'meaning' of the dream has dawned upon me. I have already noted an intention which is realised through the dream, and which must have been my motive in dreaming.

The dream fulfils several wishes, which were awakened within me by the events of the previous evening For the result of the dream is (Ptto's news, and the writing of the clinical history).for the result of the dream is, that it is not I who am to blame for the pain which Irma is still suffering, but that Otto is to blame for it. Otto has annoyed me by his remark aboyt Irma's imperfect cure;the dream avenges me upon him, in that it turns the reproach upon himself.

The dream acquits me of responsibility for Irma's condition, as it refers this condition to other causes (which do, indeed, furnish quite a number of explanations).The dream represents a certain state of affairs, such as I might wish to exist; the content of the dream is thus the fulfilment of a wish; its motive is a wish.

Reference:The Interpretation of Dreams: Freud

Memories, Dreams, Reflections - School Years-5-C.G.Jung

What had led me astray during the crisis was my passion for being alone, my delight in solitude. Nature seemed to me full of wonders, and I wanted to steep myself in them. Every stone, every plant, every single thing seemed alive andescribably marvelous. I immersed myself in nature, crawled as it were, into the very essence of nature and away from the whloe human world.
I had another important experience at about this time. I was taking the long road to school from Klein-Huningen, where we lived, to Basel, when sufddenly for a single moment I had the overwhelming impression of having just emerged from a dense cloud.

I knew all at once: now I am myself. It was as if a wall of mist were at my back, and behind that wall there was not yet an "I". But at this moment I came upon myself. Previously I had existed, too, but everything had merely happened to me.

Now I happened to myself. Now I knew: I am myself now, now I exist. Previously I had been willed to do this and that; now I willed. This experience seemed to me tremendously important and new: there was "authirity" in me. Curiously enough, at this time and also during the months of my fainting neurosis I had lost all memory of the treasures in the attic.Otherwise I would probably have realized even then the analogy between my feeling of authority and the feeling of value which the treasure inspired in me. But that was not so; All memory of the pencil case had vanished.

Around this time I was invited to spend the holidays with friends of the family who had a house on lake Lucerne. To my delight the house was situated right on the lake, and there was a boathouse and a row boat.
My host allowed his son and me to use the boat, although we were sternely warned not to be reckless. Unfortunately I also knew how to steer a Waidling ( a boat of the gondola type)-that is to say standing.At home we had such a punt, in which we had tried every imaginable trick.

The first thing I did, therefore was to take my stand on the stern seat and with one oar push into the lake. That was too much for the anxious master of the house. He whistled us back and gave me a first class dressing-down. I was thouroughly crest-fallen but had to admit that I had done exactly what he had said not to, and that his lecture was quite justified.
At the same time I was seized with rage that this fat , ignorant boor should dare to insult Me. This Me was not only grown up, but important, an authority, a person with office and dignity, an old man, and object of respect and awe.

Yet the contrast with reality was so grotesque that in the midst of my fury I suddenly stopped myself, for the question rose to my lips:" Who in the world are you, anyway? You are reacting as though you were the devil only knows how importent! And yet you know he is perfectly right. You are barely twelve years old, a schoolboy, and he is a father, and a rich powerful man besides, who owns two houses and several splendid horses,"

Then, to my intense confusion, it occured to me that I was actually two different persons. One of them was the schoolboy who could not grasp algebra and was far from sure of himself; the other was important a high authority, a man not to be trifled with, as powerful and influential as this manufacturer.The "other" was an old man who lived in the eighteenth century, wore buckled shoes and a white wig and went driving in a fly with high, concave rear wheels between which the box was suspended on spring and leather straps.

This notion sprang from a curious experience I had had . When we were living in Klein-Hunigen an ancient green carriage from the Black Forest drove past our house one day. It was truly an antique, looking exactly as if it had come straight out of the eighteenth century. When I saw it, I felt with great excitment :"That's it! sure enough, that comes from my times". It was as though I had recognized it because it was the same type as the one I had driven in myself.

Then came a curious sentiment ecoeurant, as though someone had stolen something from me, or as though I had been cheated-cheated out of my beloved past. The carriage was a relic of those times! I cannot describe what was happening in me or what it was that affected me so strongly:a longing, a nostalgia, or a recognitionthat kept saying, "yes, that's how it was! Yes that's how it was!" I had still another experience that harked back to the eighteenth century. At the home of one of my aunts, I had seen an eighteenth century statuette, and old terra-cota piece consisting of two painted figures. One of them was old Dr.Stuckelberger, a well-known personality. The other figue was a patient of his; she was depicted with closed eyes, sticking out her tongue.

The story went that dear old Stuckelberger was one day crossing the Rhine bridge when this annoying patient suddenly came up to him out of nowhere and babbled out a complaint . Old Stuckelberger said testily, "Yes , yes there must be something wrong with you. Put out your tongue and shut your eyes,". The woman did so, and Stuckelberger instantly ran off, and she remained standing there with her tongue stuck out, while the people laughted.

This statuette of the old doctor had buckled shoes which in a strange way I recognized as my oiwn. I was convinced that these were shoes I had worn. The conviction drove me wild with excitment. " Why, those must be my shoes!" I could still feel those shoes on my feet, and yet I could not explain where this crazy feeling came from. I could not understand this identity I felt with the eighteenth century. Often in thode days I would write the date 1786 instead of 1886, and each time this happened I was overcome by an inexplicable nostalgia.

Reference: Memories, Dreams Reflections: C.G.Jung