WELCOME TO Module 5

 

This Jungian Life @ www.thisjungianlife.com

 

          Lisa Marchiano, Jungian Analyst, Philadelphia, PennsylvaniA

Joseph Lee, Jungian Analyst, Virginia Beach, Virginia

          Deborah Stewart, Jungian Analyst, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

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              Module 5: Dramatic Structure of Dreams

THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL EDITED TRANSCRIPT

 Joseph: We are now going to approach dreams and their analysis by attending to the dramatic structure of the dream. This is a way of looking at a dream through the lens of ancient Greek theater, and it allows us to separate the action of the dream into specific components. Attending to the dramatic structure lets us notice what the dream maker hopes we will understand at the end of the play. But a fair question is, why should we superimpose a theatrical model on something that was generated spontaneously in our minds?

Lisa: Story is archetypal! We can’t avoid thinking in story. It makes perfect sense that our dreams would come to us in narratives–as little plays.

Joseph: There is something inherently human about integrating psychic material as a narrative.

Lisa: And dramatic structure frees us from focusing on dream elements in a static way. For instance, if we dream of an alligator, we might look at our associations, amplify the image, and walk around it–but what really matters is what that alligator is doing in the dream, and how things change from the beginning to the end of the dream. That matters a great deal. I find that when I’m not paying attention to dramatic structure, I’m more likely to get hooked on one particular dream element and might miss the point of the dream “story.”

Joseph: We have to keep in mind that there is a purpose to what’s happening.

Deb: Exactly–psyche is purposive. It’s going somewhere. It wants us to grow and move in a particular direction. Story is one of the primary ways in which our psyches are organized–images is the other. The dramatic structure of the dream brings both those things together in a way that has a dynamic arc, although not every dream has a clear narrative structure like a short story.

Lisa: They don’t. But when you come across a dream that doesn’t have a clear structure, that’s also information.

Joseph: This brings us to an old Greek idea that Aristotle put forward in his writings about telos, an ancient Greek word that means end point–the purpose or the goal. In Aristotelian philosophy, objects, people, and events were thought to have an inherent tendency to move purposefully with a view towards aims, arriving someplace in a definitive way. The human soul is part of this teleological, meaningful universe.

Lisa: And that idea is connected to the concept of individuation, one of Jung’s important ideas—it’s the goal of therapy and life. We are following a trajectory that is often mysterious to the conscious personality and is perhaps orchestrated by the Self.

Joseph: With that in mind, let’s talk about what dramatic structure in dreams actually is. It derives from the analysis of the structure of Greek and Roman plays and has been reproduced in most of our modern movies and literature. Interestingly, when elements of the play are missing, we feel unsettled. For example, you may see a popular movie in which the tension builds and suddenly ends with no real sense of conclusion. Is the monster going to eat her? What’s going to happen next? Without a conclusion, the audience leaves with a sense of confusion and distress. In a complete dramatic arc, we start with the exposition, the portion of the story that introduces background information to the audience. Perhaps the setting is a park, and just as in a movie, the setting begins the exposition. There might also be an inference about a backstory. The dreamer might say, I don’t know what happened before, but I felt like I’d been long hike and then the dream started in the middle of a park. There’s often a feeling of something people are carrying into the beginning of the dream.

Lisa: The setting of a dream is extremely important because it’s orienting. When I hear a dream, I’m like Jung, who claimed that upon hearing a dream, he said to himself, “I have no idea what this dream means.” We might doubt that, but it’s usually good to begin at the beginning, with the setting. It tells us what realm we’re in.

Deb: It also introduces the theme of the dream. You can feel the difference between being in a park versus in my parents’ home. Or visiting my daughter or in a hotel in Paris.

Lisa: The setting tells us where we are psychologically. I’m at the office clues us that the dream is probably about a person’s work life, whereas being in the childhood home tells us we are in the childhood or family complex. Being in the bedroom might be about a person’s sex life.

Deb: The setting literally sets the stage for the theme and the psychological situation as it is in the psyche; the office, childhood home, or on vacation in Paris.

Joseph: Another dramatic dream feature is the rise of action. There we are in the park or in the bedroom–and then something happens that kicks off the story. It’s important to notice the first thing that happens. That suggests where the libido initially gets activated. Perhaps I’m in the park and turn and see a bear. Now we’re off and running, in a process of rising energy and tension.

Deb: Yes–something has to happen, as in any good story. That’s the action part of the dramatic structure.

Joseph: We also notice when that doesn’t happen. For example, someone with a deep underlying depression might dream I was sitting in a room and it was dark. And I’m sitting there and it’s dark. I might ask if there is anything else, such as a spider on the wall. Is anything moving? Sometimes the only thing moving is the person breathing. Sometimes the rising action is tiny.

Lisa: Lack of action is information. I remember working with a dreamer whose whole dream was I was waiting in line at the post office. That was it. The lack of rising tension in the dream matched what was or was not happening in the dreamer’s psyche and life.

Joseph: The rising action or lack of it tells us where things are starting to heat up or not. As the tension in the journey rises, several things might happen. In some situations, there’s an event called peripeteia, which in Greek means to fall around or make a sudden change. This indicates a turning point in the drama after which the plot moves to its conclusion. This might be I’m in the park, I see a bear, and it starts running toward me. Suddenly a park ranger in a truck zooms out between me and the bear. This sudden kind of reversal of what looked like the trajectory is called the peripeteia…

Deb: …or the crisis or high point–the rising energy in the dream peaks: the park ranger appears in his truck with a gun! The resolution follows right after that, the lysis or catastrophe. The lysis in this fictional dream would be the park ranger shot the bear; the catastrophe would be the bear attacked.

Joseph: There would be no peripeteia if there was no park ranger and the bear mauled the dreamer. There would be no reversal. The peripeteia is the surprising turn of events in the story. In theatrical drama, there’s often something delightful about misleading the audience, which they often do in horror movies. As the heroine walks through the house, the music gets more ominous, the door swings open… and it’s mom with a plate of cookies! Everyone laughs nervously and exhales. That’s a peripeteia because it wasn’t where the action seemed to be going. Another phenomenon is anagnorisis, which is another Aristotelian word meaning a change from ignorance to knowledge, and it can provoke powerful feelings. For instance, I had a life changing dream many years ago. In the dream it was late at night and I was alone in the house. I heard a sound, went to the front door, and opened it. There was a hideous creature screaming at the top of its lungs. For a moment I froze, and then I started weeping because I realized it was roaring in pain. As I felt this sudden wave of compassion, the creature turned into an angelic man at the front door. To me, that’s a kind of anagnorisis or agony. A revelation moved me from ignorance to a state of knowledge that felt miraculous. Such occurrences in dreams are significant.

Another element we can consider in terms of dramatic structure is the climax. The Greek word means staircase or ladder, which conveys the idea of mounting upward toward a goal. It can be the turning point, but it’s the point of highest tension. In ancient drama, it would often change the protagonist’s fate by portending that something is going to be changed after the resolution. For example, I’m in a park. I see a bear running toward me. The park ranger’s truck races between the two of us–the peripeteia. The ranger has a rifle and aims at the bear as the bear is charging—but the trigger is jammed. He’s fumbling with it and I fall to my knees. The bear is just twelve inches away from me and the gun finally goes off. The bear is done for.  Everybody exhales and all the tension is released. We would think of that as a climax that was also changing fate, because it looked like he was going to get mauled by the bear.

Deb: However, it plays out, that is the lysis, or outcome. The crisis leads to the bear being killed and the man and the park ranger live. In some dreams and stories, it can also lead to catastrophe, for example if the gun doesn’t go off and the bear mauls the unwitting protagonist of the dream. One way or another, there is an outcome, an ending–the story is now over.

Joseph: After the climax, the moment of tension, here still has to be the ending, the lysis, when the dream feels complete. That is often where the telos was pointing.

Deb: There can be a sense of resolution to the impasse that’s posed in the dream, although not always.

Joseph: That’s really notable, because if the dream ends in the midst of the climactic tension, there’s a lot of energy locked up in the psyche, and how this is going to be resolved is unclear.

Deb: That happens all the time. The dreamer says, and then I woke up.

Lisa: It’s very common, I think, that a dream doesn’t resolve, or resolves in catastrophe. Something terrible happens at the end.

Joseph: And that is also a lysis, which comes from an ancient Greek word meaning loosening. The word is now most often used in biology. That means the cell wall has been ruptured, leading to a kind of decomposition. In some way, the lysis of the story is a kind of exhalation. Let’s say the bear is dealt with and the park ranger turns to the heroine. They hug each other and stare into each other’s eyes before the heroine walks slowly back to her little Ford Fiesta. Then the ranger settles back into his truck and drives off.

Deb: Dreams don’t follow a nice progression of narrative structure the way a short story or a movie would. I always go back to the beginning of the dream and pay attention to it. What is the situation? For example, I was in a park and saw a bear. A park is supposed to be a pleasant place for people to have recreation, picnics, and strolls. It’s wildlife, but wildlife that’s been carefully curated to be lovely and safe. A bear doesn’t belong in a park. I would be interested in what’s a park to you and what about a bear? What’s happening is an image of danger in an unexpected place–a part of the wild unconscious showing up in a nice ego place. It’s unexpected. All that could be right there at the outset of the dream, a picture of an inner situation in which something aggressive, instinctual and wild happens in an unexpected way. I would be curious to know where that is happening in the dreamer’s life.

Lisa: Tracking dramatic structure highlights the moving arc of the story: a clear setting with an exposition, rising tension, some kind of climax and a denouement. When we focus on dramatic structure it is also worthwhile to notice what isn’t there, which can be diagnostic. I think some listeners may feel it’s a little ominous to have a dream with a catastrophe at the end or a dream with no dramatic structure. There are plenty of those and it doesn’t mean something terrible. It tells us something about that particular psychic situation. Jung said that a dream is a snapshot of something that has already happened in the unconscious. So, a dream can just be today’s look at a situation in the unconscious.

Joseph: It’s as if you’re at a Broadway show, secretly picking up your camera and filming for about five minutes. Then you put the camera back in your pocket, you wake up, and all you’ve got is five minutes of the show.

Lisa: It says something. If we have a dream without a very firm structure or neat resolution, that might be a commentary on where we are in a process around whatever the issue is. We’re not yet at the point where we see an outcome, or the problem feels jumbled and doesn’t yet have defined structure in the psyche. It’s very normal to have these kinds of dreams.

Joseph: That might be accurate. It’s as if the psyche is saying, I’m in the middle of a tumult and it hasn’t yet ripened enough to declare what direction it’s moving in.

Deb: Nevertheless, feeling is embedded in dreams and that’s worth paying attention to. There will be an affect image that may not have developed into a full-blown story, but oftentimes there is a kind of cause and effect. The dream vignette of the park and the bear does this: If I’m in a park and an unexpected danger appears, one thing can lead to the next.

Lisa: As much as I love our bear in the park, let’s turn to a dream from a 76-year-old woman. I’m buying a number of things in a store. The clerk serving me tells me that she and her friends are excited about my presentation coming up on Friday. I’m surprised it is so soon. I thought it was next week and I had more time to prepare. I say, “I guess I had better start preparing.” I’m not too concerned, only a little surprised. She says there will be a lot more people there than when it was originally scheduled in the middle of the week. It was postponed because of low attendance. I seem to think there will be lots of people there as well. As she hands me the bag of my purchases, something drops to the floor and as I bend over, two more things drop to the floor. They are pennies, three pennies. I stoop to pick them up.

Joseph: The setting is a store. If you were at a play, you would recognize store as the curtain went up.

Lisa: And what about a store?

Joseph: A store is a public place–people go in and out. A store is transactional, a place of commerce, where things can be acquired. A store is a place where you can fulfill a need.

Lisa: And you go there with money. A store holds things we need or want that we can buy.

Joseph: You have resources.

Deb: This dream starts out with the dream ego buying a number of things in the store. There’s the image of the dreamer’s current psychic situation: acquiring things she has the resources for. It may be a life situation or something that happened over the past day or two. We don’t know yet.

Lisa: If we had this dreamer here, it would help us to know what things she is buying and what kind of store it was. That would allow us to understand these images more. But just tracking the structure of the dream, the exposition is that she’s buying some things in a store, and another person is there, the clerk.

Joseph: So as the curtain comes up, there’s activity. If you were in a theater, you could imagine several things had happened beforehand, but this is the place where the playwright wants us to become interested. I also note that the setting is not inert. It involves some vitality.

Deb: Exchange, and then more action. The clerk says that she and her friend are excited about the dreamer’s presentation on Friday.

Joseph: New information is introduced. Any of us might be surprised that a store clerk has intimate information about us, and is being even more intimate by sharing it.

Deb: It’s not a usual conversation at a checkout counter. It’s rather a surprise…

Lisa: …and the dream ego actually says, I’m surprised it is so soon. There’s a lot in the next action about the timing of this presentation and her need to prepare for it.

Joseph: New information arrives that begins to outline the crisis. She thought she had more time and now realizes she has less time. That might not seem like a huge crisis but now there’s awareness of a problem. The dream clerk has supplied the dream ego with missing information. We might imagine the clerk and her friend represent some part of her psyche that is tracking something that the dreamer had not been oriented to–time and obligations. Something slipped out of consciousness and someone’s ringing a bell.

Lisa: One of the things you can do with dramatic structure is see where the sticking point is–the impasse or problem–and whether it occurs toward the beginning of the dream or the end. That can be very diagnostic of a psychic situation. In this dream, the impasse is I don’t know when my presentation is. This happened before the dream and is resolved in the dream, which gives it a positive feeling.

Deb: What’s interesting about this conflict is that in real life, it wouldn’t make sense. If you’re going to give a public presentation, you know when it is and wouldn’t expect to hear about it from a clerk in a store. This is a clue to look at this conflict symbolically.

Joseph: And what’s interesting about this unusual situation is how she responds to the emergence of the crisis: I guess I better get started and I’m not too concerned.

Deb: She’s only a little surprised.

Lisa: This is important because it brings up the question of affect in the dream. You can imagine someone having this dream and being very upset about not being prepared. With this dreamer, it’s not a big deal. I think this delivers a lot of information about this dreamer’s psychic situation. Something’s in control here and this is not a big problem.

Joseph: It’s not a big problem for the dream ego but psyche thinks it’s enough of a problem to bring to her attention. My initial feeling is that the dream ego is being a little lackadaisical.

Deb: She seems to think that although the first presentation was postponed because of low attendance, this time a lot of people will be there. What I noticed is the disjunction between a big audience and the dreamer’s lack of concern about being on stage, where she will be exposed and evaluated.

Joseph: The dream ego isn’t worried about it, but the clerk is saying it’s important and to pay attention. Psyche is pointing out that she’s not getting energized.

Deb: So here is the peripeteia: As she hands me the bag of my purchases, something drops to the floor and as I bend over, two more things drop to the floor–they are three pennies. That’s the unexpected turning point.

Lisa: When I read the dream, I was really struck by the three pennies that come out of nowhere–a sudden change of direction. My initial emotional hit was it’s lucky to find a penny. They’re bright and shiny. And there are three of them, so something new and surprising has dropped into this dreamer’s life.

Joseph: I’m still caught up about something not impressing the dreamer. Although she realizes that now there will be more people attending, she doesn’t seem to take it seriously. Then the clerk hands her something and she can’t keep it in her hands. It falls and drops to the floor.

Lisa: It’s not the bag of purchases that falls, but something drops to the floor–she’s dropping things. And what might she be dropping in her waking life?

Deb: In the dream, pennies are dropped. That’s the peripeteia, the unexpected shift. At the very end, the resolution is that she stoops to pick them up. I think there might be important information here for the dreamer. What does it mean to stoop, to pick up three pennies? They are of inconsequential value but stooping is associated with humbling. She’s willing to bend low. Something has been given and she’s willing to accept it.

Lisa: It’s as if mana has dropped from heaven.

Deb: My association was to the song Pennies from Heaven.

Lisa: The feeling tone is like a kid seeing a nickel on the ground: he’s just found treasure. Something unexpected has happened that brings curiosity and a pleasant surprise.

Joseph: I have another perspective: she makes the purchase and now she’s handed the bag. One thing drops. She’s curious. As she goes to pick it up, two more pennies drop and she stoops to pick them up. I’m thinking like a New Yorker and what comes up is the phrase small change. The idea is that a big thing is coming up and she’s not attending to it. Instead, she’s spending energy picking up pennies–that’s become numinous while other things should have energy. The question the dream poses could be whether she’s paying attention to the right thing in the psychic environment. Is she prioritizing what is required of her and where the biggest payoffs are likely to be, or she’s settling for small change? Pennies can be related to the child attitude. And she tells us in the context that she’s experiencing a lot of feeling from early childhood and her therapy has been intense. At some point in therapy, a decision has to be made about whether the person is going to continue going back in time and gnawing at the bones of childhood, or go forward to meet the emerging responsibilities and opportunities. I think that could be a tension that’s being imaged in the dream.

Deb: Although we can’t know that without the dreamer here, we do know that the development of the drama, the story of this dream, progresses very nicely in an understandable, well-structured way. One thing leads to the next and the next, and then there is an ending.

Lisa: She says in her context that she’s feeling lost and uncertain about activities and relationships. Sometimes when you find money on the ground, it can feel like a sign. I wonder if the pennies are a little signpost of positivity in her life.

Joseph: From that perspective, finding some money on the ground can create a feeling of luck.

Lisa: That’s a good amplification—luck, and Lady Luck have an archetypal taproot.

Deb: Let’s try another dream to see if we can tease out the dramatic structure. I went back home. It’s the home I spent many of my adult years in and continue to, but it looked different. I don’t know why I was away or where I was, but I’d been gone for a long time. I was losing the home for some reason so I came back to get my things. When I stepped in, I was immediately in my bedroom. It was bright and light. The bed was big, beautiful and white. My late boyfriend Nick was there. I was so happy to see him after so long. We were smiling and excited. He was happy and calm. Although nothing was organized and things were strewn about, I was very surprised to see all of my things were still there so I could go through them. I was so shocked no one had gotten rid of my possessions. I was very pleased. Nick and I reached out to each other and he picked me up very happily to show me the French doors that replaced the whole wall and that opened beautifully to the outside. I was so happy. It’s what I had always wanted in my bedroom. There was no chaos. It was calm and I felt content and at ease. For context, the dreamer says that she was with Nick for seventeen years; he had died in a tragic accident about a year and a half ago. They had a very intense and passionate love but their lives were chaotic and fast, and she’s had a lot of anxiety learning to be without him. She’s always been with someone and now it’s jut her and her ten-year-old daughter.

Lisa: Let’s try to follow the structure. The setting is home. It’s the particular home where she spent many of her adult years, and it seems she still lives here.

Deb: The psychic situation is about home. What’s home? It’s the place where we are most ourselves, we’re comfortable, we feel whole—hopefully—though there are all kinds of homes.

Lisa: It’s a little unclear to me if it’s actually the home in which she currently resides, but it represents her life situation at the moment. Home is where we spend a good portion of our time. It’s a locus of our waking life.

Joseph: I feel confusion in it as well. She’s going back home and realizes that’s where she continues to live. She doesn’t know why she’s been away. She just knows she’s been gone a long time. There’s a kind of lapse in the exposition in terms of the backstory–between her leaving  and continuing to live there. I can feel the way my psyche almost wants to fill in the blanks, because it’s a bit jarring.

Deb: The next piece of action is that she’s losing the home so she went back to get her things. And when she stepped in, she was in her bedroom.

Joseph: So, the inciting incident in the drama is I was losing the home. And that perhaps sets in motion her return to the home to get her things. Fear of loss is an important piece of psychological energy.

Deb: And she is the bedroom. She could be in the kitchen or the living room, but she’s in the bedroom, which is bright and light, and the bed is big, beautiful and white. Her deceased boyfriend Nick was there.

Joseph: She was going to lose the home and comes back to retrieve something meaningful–her possessions. In retrieving them, she finds her deceased boyfriend, Nick, one of the precious “objects” she’s going to collect before she loses the home. Here, we’re in the midst of the rising action, the inciting incident. I’m looking for the climax as the next part of the story.

Lisa: It’s important to track who is and is not present in a dream—the cast of characters. Here, they are the dreamer and her deceased boyfriend–a male and a female.

Joseph: She says of her the late boyfriend, Nick, I was so happy to see him after so long. it may be the peripeteia, the new and unexpected turn of events. She goes home thinking she’s going to get a box of stuff from her bedroom and all of a sudden new energy comes in: OMG, Nick’s here. We have a shift of energy and rising feeling and tension…

Lisa: …that’s doubled, because she’s also shocked to see that all of her possessions are there. She thought certain things were gone, and Nick was gone, but she returns and she finds them. There’s a regression, going back to the way things were. This is often something we do when we’ve lost someone. We need to go back psychically and revisit who we were before we lost that person. It’s part of the mourning process.

Joseph: It could correspond to this idea of the anagnorisis, where she moves from ignorance to knowledge. She was very surprised to see that everything was there, and that no one had gotten rid of her possessions. She came in with one expectation and is now having to reorient. This enlightenment is part of the dream, and it is euphoric.

Deb: So far, the action keeps on rising. Everything is good and beautiful: she finds Nick, her possessions are there, and she’s very pleased. The climax is when she and Nick embrace and he picks her up to show her the French doors that replaced a whole wall. It opens beautifully to the outside and is what she had always wanted.

Lisa: Yes, this is the “big reveal,” the “big money” moment.

Deb: This is something new in the action of the dream as it’s portrayed in psyche…

Joseph: …that there’s been a renovation of the home…

Deb: …an opening to the outside. There’s a connection between the wall of the house and the natural beauty of the world. You can see through the French doors.

Joseph: Nick is present in the psyche–what he represents is still active despite his being deceased. And it’s active even when the ego is not paying attention. Her waking mind may not track how things are being sorted out, but reconstructions and improvements and healing are going on. She’s surprised, and blessedly, as Lisa said, there’s a “big reveal”: things are better than I would’ve thought–they are here in my soul.

Deb: I’m moved by this dream and the power of story to move us. Something new and wonderful has taken place: there has been a renovation and a restoration and a new opening after a period of great loss and grief.

Joseph: There’s no chaos. She’s calm, content and at ease—but as an “audience member,” I still feel a little threat of tension. Has everybody forgotten she’s going to lose the house?

Lisa: And of course, Nick isn’t really there. Grief dreams are a whole category unto themselves. It’s not at all unusual to be visited by a deceased loved one in a dream, and much has been written about that. Although the dreamer is so happy to see the deceased in the dream, she wakes up and has to remember he’s gone.

Deb: It’s also possible that something has happened internally in the psyche–a connection has been made between the boyfriend / lover and the opening to the outdoors. You could awaken from a dream like this realizing that something new has taken place.

Lisa: It might be bittersweet, but yes.

Joseph: If we can adopt a symbolic attitude, which might be very hard in this circumstance, she could come to believe that her animus is clothed in the beautiful form of Nick. The animus is with her despite the loss, and is creating a reconstruction of her psyche. She gets to keep animus Nick, and that’s heartening despite the loss of Nick in her outer world.

Deb: That goes back to what we said in an earlier module: the subjective view of this dream is that Nick is now part of her own animus image. She has a new connection with an internal part of herself that’s represented as Nick.

Joseph: That’s a very satisfying lysis, or denouement, in the dream. We might imagine the telos as returning her to her home because the psyche is pointing her like a compass to animus Nick from the beginning of the dream. Everything was nudging forward to that goal, a restoration of her feelings, the sense of safety, and a reconnection to a part of her soul. Often when a lover dies, particularly if it’s unexpected, like in the Orpheus myth, we can lose touch with the animus or the anima. It goes into the underworld without us, and we feel fractured because we can’t imagine that part of our soul being sustained internally.

Lisa: This dream had a really beautiful lysis and sense of completion, which not every dream has.

Lisa: I have another dream for us to consider very briefly. It’s very short and feels incomplete at the end. I was at work and telling coworkers that I was going to Paris to the Madame Tussauds Museum to get something and bring it back to work. It seemed like a big responsibility and was important. As I started my journey, I was walking through a large empty field ringed by trees. A large wind came up and kept pushing me back. In my sleep, I could actually feel the wind picking me up off my feet. We again start off with the dream setting: work.

Deb: She’s up in the air…

Joseph: …and we’re left at the crisis…

Lisa: …with no resolution.

Joseph: She wants to be able to get to the museum but the wind interferes. What is wind archetypally, and what is wind in her personal mythology? It is more powerful than her ego determination?

Deb: To summarize this module, we wanted to name and illustrate the components of the dramatic structure of dreams. We started with the setting, then the development of the plot, the peripeteia or turning point, and the ending–and what that might point to, the telos. Dreams are not tidy short stories and do not always include all these steps, but dreams can be quite well structured and have a dramatic arc. We can pay attention to where a dream is located, who is the dreamer with, what is happening, and how it ends. Those things can help us orient and find our way through a dream.

Lisa: The dramatic structure of a dream can help us follow the energy.

Joseph: And not get stuck, but track what’s moving forward.

Lisa: Yes–in the last dream I read, if we got really interested in Madame Tussauds and wondered about a wax museum, we could spend all our time there and miss the important thing: that she had something she needed to do but was being held back by the wind.

 © This Jungian Life 2021 all rights reserved throughout the universe in perpetuity, in any and all media now known or hereinafter devised.

 

 

 By Joseph Lee

“We know, of course, that what happens in the dream is a drama taking place on one’s own interior stage, where the dreamer is the actors, the libretto, the theatre, and the public rolled into one.”           

Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume I, 1906-1950 – Page 355

I fell in love with the theater as a teen. I found the stage magnetic and terrifying, and subjected myself to the excruciating scrutiny of directors and audiences. I persevered, earned a BFA in acting, and soon changed careers with a sigh of relief. I have thought about the value of that education and its tender indignities for many years, and now reflect on the organizing frames of the ritual of drama.

I didn’t know it then, but we motley teens were reenacting ancient performative rites going back to Dionysus. By 600 BC, Athens had achieved prominence, and the Festival of Dionysia was well established. The god was honored through plays drawn from the even more ancient art of storytelling. Three hundred years later, the progressive ordering of collective Greek fantasy was described in Aristotle’s Poetics, the precursor to contemporary dramatic structure. Aristotle wrote that the play should imitate the complexity of a whole action demonstrating complication and unraveling (interpretation and understanding).

The structure of the play ordered the collective psyche of the ancient Greeks, shaping their religious imagination by enriched staging and “unraveling” meanings. The impact of dramatic form increased through incremental additions of costume, music, oration, dance, and song. Plays also became more symbolic, capable of drawing audiences into heightened, shared, and sometimes numinous experience.

The same depth and form of theater unfolds inside us. Every night the Self leans close and tells us stories about our innermost nature. We awake with fragments of that experience and try to make sense of it. Just as Aristotle noticed the archetypal structure of storytelling and theater, Jung recognized it in dreams, and he used it to understand the dramatic arc of our inner plays.

Let’s explore Jung’s writings on the dream as drama. “Coming now to the form of dreams, we find everything from lightning impressions to endlessly spun-out dream-narrative. Nevertheless there are a great many ‘average’ dreams in which a definite structure can be perceived, not unlike that of a drama. For instance, the dream begins with a STATEMENT OF PLACE, such as, ‘I was in a street, it was an avenue’ (1), or, ‘I was in a large building like a hotel’ (2). Next comes a statement about the PROTAGONISTS, for instance, ‘I was walking with my friend X in a city park. At a crossing we suddenly ran into Mrs. Y’ (3), or, ‘I was sitting with Father and Mother in a train compartment’ (4), or, ‘I was in uniform with many of my comrades’ (5). Statements of time are rarer. I call this phase of the dream the EXPOSITION. It indicates the scene of action, the people involved, and often the initial situation of the dreamer.

C.G. Jung, CW 8, para. 561

The exposition of the inner drama is the framework within which the dream will unfold. Almost every analysand senses this and begins dream-telling with phrases like “I was walking into my high school gym.” Let’s follow a dream that begins: I was in my childhood home. The dream setting often reflects the internal landscape of the dreamer and indicates the complex featured in the “production.” Dreams set in the childhood home suggest that the guiding Self is addressing an activated aspect of the familial complex.

The next section introduces the “cast of characters”: I was in my childhood home with my mother. The addition of inner figures helps to clarify the complexes pressing upon the dream ego, pictured here as the mother. Details about a dream figure, like dress and age, can provide additional information. The dynamic between the dream ego and the mother hints at the stress points of the complex: I was in my childhood home with my mother. She is trying to describe an intricate medical procedure and I keep falling asleep.

As the exposition progresses, we sense that the dreamer has regressed to an earlier level of functioning: she is in her childhood home and the mother (complex) depicts the dream ego going from passive (listening) to losing consciousness (sleep). This implies that historic attitudes have been activated. We might guess that under stress the dreamer is vulnerable to abaissement du niveau mental, a term Jung used to describe a lowering of ego consciousness. Abaissement results in listlessness and insufficient psychic “muscle” to cope with a difficulty.

“In the second phase comes the DEVELOPMENT of the plot. For instance: ‘I was in a street, it was an avenue. In the distance a car appeared, which approached rapidly. It was being driven very unsteadily, and I thought the driver must be drunk’ (1). Or: ‘Mrs. Y seemed to be very excited and wanted to whisper something to me hurriedly, which my friend X was obviously not intended to hear’ (3). The situation is somehow becoming complicated, and a definite tension develops because one does not know what will happen.

C.G. Jung, CW 8, para. 562

 The development, or rising action, reveals the tension between the waking personality (usually the dream ego’s role) and split-off unconscious content: Just as I’m drifting off I feel my mother grab my arm and pull me into a baby crib. As I struggle to focus, I notice she has cuffed my wrist to the bars of the crib. I hear her say, “You’re so silly. You’re in no condition to drive.” I want to be angry but I’m afraid. The inner mother easily subdues the dream ego’s autonomy. The complex activates in response to an anxiety-producing situation by offering intricate procedural responses, infantilizing and immobilizing the dream ego under the guise of caretaking. The inner conflict is then depicted: I want to be angry but I am afraid. It is unclear if the ego will accede to stasis or struggle to gain new ground.

“The third phase brings the CULMINATION or peripeteia. Here something decisive happens or something changes completely: ‘Suddenly I was in the car and seemed to be…this drunken driver. Only I was not drunk, but strangely insecure and as if without a steering wheel. I could no longer control the fast-moving car and crashed into a wall’ (1). Or: ‘Suddenly Mrs. Y turned deathly pale and fell to the ground.’”

C.G. Jung, CW 8, para. 563

 The culmination, crisis, or climax refers to the moment of maximum dramatic tension, which leads to a liberation of emotional-spiritual forces and unexpected reversal of the situation. Under ideal circumstances, this constitutes catharsis, a Greek word meaning purification, clarification, or cleansing. We often remember the impact of cathartic scenes: in the movie E.T., boys have befriended an extra-terrestrial. They are trying to escape federal officers while E.T. hides in a bicycle basket. At the moment of imminent capture, with audience members braced for disaster, E.T. causes the boys’ bicycles to become air-born. Audiences gasped, wept and cheered at this surprising catharsis, or climax.

In our sample dream, catharsis looks like this: My anger at my mother builds and I tear at the cuff. I break the bars of the crib and stride back into the kitchen indignant over what my mother has done. The dream ego accesses the aggression needed to liberate herself from her regressive mother complex. Like the audience in E.T., we cheer–and then wonder how this dream drama will resolve.

“The fourth and last phase is the lysis, the SOLUTION or RESULT produced by the dream-work. (There are certain dreams in which the fourth phase is lacking, and this can present a special problem, not to be discussed here.) Examples: ‘I saw that the front part of the car was smashed. It was a strange car that I did not know. I myself was unhurt. I thought with some uneasiness of my responsibility’ (1). ‘We thought Mrs. Y was dead, but it was evidently only a faint. My friend X cried out: ‘I must fetch a doctor’ (3). The last phase shows the final situation, which is at the same time the solution ‘sought’ by the dreamer. In dream 1 a new reflectiveness has supervened after a kind of rudderless confusion, or rather, should supervene, since the dream is compensatory. The upshot of dream 3 is the thought that the help of a competent third person is indicated.”

C.G. Jung, CW 8, para. 564

 The fourth dramatic action Jung cites is lysis, or solution. This Greek word has a biological referent: the breaking down of a cell membrane–a kind of death, or as Aristotle wrote, an unraveling. Plato’s literary character, Lysis, discussed the nature of love and friendship. Thereafter, his name was associated with dialogue that explains and enlightens. This section of the dream–sometimes missing–helps us understand if or how the psychic situation is resolving or “unraveling.” It can explain the crisis, and change or enlighten the dreamer, much like Lysis did.

Not all dreams resolve with a definite lysis as our dream does: I storm into the kitchen and see my mother standing in a surgical suite. There are various nurses and equipment around her. Everyone is waiting to begin. I look down and see I am also wearing scrubs. My mother motions for me to come to stand by her. I feel bewildered and walk over. She places the scalpel in my hand and says, “You’re ready to make the cut.” I realize I’ve been waiting for this for a long time and calmly start the incision. We feel relief. The dream ego’s willingness to confront the regressive tendencies of her mother complex have earned her victory: she takes the lead as the surgeon. Her willingness to “make the cut” suggests substantial new capacity to self-regulate and act decisively.

Applying dramatic structure to a dream acts as an archetypal organizing force that helps us identify dream components and make meaning. We can string dream images into the recognizable form of drama and story, starting with an image of a psychic situation, following the “plot,” and—hopefully—culminating in a pivotal turning point that suggests how to move forward or change course. The dramas our dream maker creates each night help us achieve a conscious relationship with the unconscious and the Self. We can then bring more awareness to our waking lives, the choices we make, and become more whole.

Copyright © 2021 This Jungian Life.  All rights reserved in all domains.

Using the following dreams, practice identifying the setting, development, conflict, and resolution. Bear in mind that not all of these may be present.

Dream 1.

I am in a hotel room. I think it is morning. There are dead flies on the floor and in a cupboard. I am trying to clean all the flies away. Either by sweeping or vacuming (not sure, at least I am upright moving around the room). I notice there are more flies in the bed. When I lift the bedcover I find a big cylinder shaped form, bigger than a person made of banana pulp, twigs and dead wasps and flies, mostly just wasps. I think too myself: This is too much, I can never clean this up myselft. How did this get here? I also think: I have to fetch someone from the hotel and ask them to clean it up. And that someone must have planted all this mess on purpose to sabotage me.

Dream 2.

I’m in my mother’s back yard (childhood home). In this dream, I kept a garden there. I went to check up on the plants and was disturbed and disgusted to find several beetles, snakes, and a couple crocodiles in the garden. The beetles were large and were the kind with horns. The snakes were larger than native snakes and were black, white, or yellow. The crocodiles weren’t moving at all, but were still alarming. None of these animals are native. The snakes and beetles were scurrying around quickly. I noticed the plants were fine despite the infestation. I tried convincing myself that everything was “ok” and that it was a wonderful thriving ecosystem. The dream feelings stayed the same, I was disgusted and concerned. As I was walking around the outside of the garden, the snakes continually lunged at my legs to bite me. I tried to dodge them and lost my balance a few times. I felt a very light sting when they bit me, much less than a bee sting.

Dream 3.

I was walking along the beach in Kitty Hawk, NC and I saw Jesus walking ahead of me. I wanted to follow him and reach him. No matter how fast a walked, I couldn’t catch up to him (although I never ran or shouted for him). It was pleasant weather and I believe it was sunrise. I followed him until he reached a beach front cottage (it was small, plain cottage typical of the Outer Banks). He went up the stairs, inside and shut the door. I sat the bottom of the stairs waiting for him to come out. I woke up before he came out. I do not know if he saw me or not but I felt honored and pleased to follow him nonetheless.

I was walking with my father in the countryside, when we met a lady with her husband. She looked like my literature teacher in the high school: she was tall, blonde and had a snobbish attitude, but she was kind to me. The couple invited us to their house. I sat in a room with my teacher. She told me that she was an art teacher, and that her mother, who was dead, was a very competent psychoanalyst, obsessed by whales. Her mother used to organize dangerous trips into the open sea, just to study whales in detail and once she had also been swallowed by a whale.

Main Feelings in the dream: Admiration for the figure of the psychoanalyst

Context and Associations: At the time of the dream I was deciding whether to take on a PhD/university career or to study psychoanalysis. It wasn’t specified whether the mother survived or not after being swallowed by the whale.