Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part 1. The Responsibilities and Limitations of the Task - 5. The Care of Souls and the Unconscious - The Interpretation of Dreams - The Dream as a Mystery Play
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Sleep changes the quality of our consciousness, but a sleeping
person is not unconscious. His mind functions in a special way
that carries with it a kind of awareness for which the term
‘dream-consciousness’ is appropriate. Similar changes in the
quality of consciousness occur in conditions other than sleep:
for example, under the influence of narcotics, in trances and
hypnotic states, in cases of so-called ‘cleavage of personality’, in
certain states of physical derangement, and in connection with
rare and extraordinary religious or mystical experiences.
Moreover, in some people one meets a phenomenon that
can be described as a constitutional aptitude for swift changes
of adjustment from waking life to something akin to
dreamconsciousness, and vice versa, without falling into a condition
of sleep, in the usual sense of that term.
The psychic activity that goes on during sleep can provide a
good deal of information about what is going on in the depths
of the personality. Lindworsky goes so far as to say that the
dream can, under some conditions, reveal physical disturbances
and illnesses. Santa de Sanctis! believes that the dream-life can
give us the most valid description of human nature in its
conscious aspects—its thinking and desiring—as well as of its
subconscious motives and aspirations.
The Dream as a Mystery Play
The dramatic quality of a human life is reflected in the dream.
This is not only because the dream brings into expression and
gives pictorial content to the dreamer’s state of mind, but
because the dream-life both reveals what there is of harmony
or conflict between the several driving powers and tendencies
in the personality and at the same time shows the operation of
integrating forces that are continually striving to resolve the
conflicts and increase the harmony.
The dream play is not merely a description of what is
happening. It is constructive in character. It presents both the
problem and its solution. This purposefulness in dream activity
explains its great value in psychotherapeutic work. To follow
the dream play scene by scene is to have first-hand knowledge
of the process by which mental healing occurs.
1 Psychologie des Traumes (‘Handbuch der Vergleichenden Psychologie’, Bd. III),
München, 1922.
60
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
