Exploring C.G.Jung’s Concept of the “Big” Dream

 Lecture presented by Brenda Bunting, DTATI, MA, RP, Jungian Analyst

“Significant dreams, on the other hand, are often remembered for a lifetime and not infrequently prove to be the richest jewels in the treasure-house of psychic experience.” C.G Jung, CW 8, para. 554.

In contrast to our personal nightly dreams, “big” dreams appear at critical junctures in our lives and are, in Jung’s view, from a deeper, more collective level of the unconscious. In this talk we will explore how Jung described and understood the phenomenology of numinous, archetypal dreams. You will learn when and why “big” dreams tend to happen, and we will look at examples from Jung’s life as described in Memories, Dreams and Reflections. We will first locate the occurrence of “big” dreams within the idea of the dream series, see how dreams reflect changes in our attitudes over time, and look at current thinking from brain and dream research. Finally we will survey the understanding of numinous dreams from a cross-cultural historical perspective, as they figure in religions across the world well before psychoanalytic discoveries.

About the Speaker:

“Significant dreams, on the other hand, are often remembered for a lifetime and not infrequently prove to be the richest jewels in the treasure-house of psychic experience.” C.G Jung, CW 8, para. 554. In contrast to our personal nightly dreams, “big” dreams appear at critical junctures in our lives and are, in Jung’s view, from a deeper, more collective level of the unconscious. In this talk we will explore how Jung described and understood the phenomenology of numinous, archetypal dreams. You will learn when and why “big” dreams tend to happen, and we will look at examples from Jung’s life as described in Memories, Dreams and Reflections. We will first locate the occurrence of “big” dreams within the idea of the dream series, see how dreams reflect changes in our attitudes over time, and look at current thinking from brain and dream research. Finally we will survey the understanding of numinous dreams from a cross-cultural historical perspective, as they figure in religions across the world well before psychoanalytic discoveries.