ABSTRACT
Carl Jung’s essential attitude was one of respect for the dream itself. Jung’s attitude to dreams linked back more to the tradition of the ancients, as he believed that the dream did offer a kind of special knowledge, but not one that came from a traditional “superior power” or “external source”. While for Sigmund Freud dreams were wish-fulfilments, for Jung they offered a compensatory picture to the dreamer’s conscious attitude. The chapter looks at one of Jung’s own dreams, which will also have the benefit of drawing attention to the fact that Jung described certain dreams as “archetypal” not only when they touch on universal, archetypal themes, but also when they are particularly powerful and important. Dreams can be understood to be particularly helpful in elucidating patterns of relationship and, therefore, reflect exactly the preoccupations of object relations theory regarding the importance of relationship.
