Alfred Adler on Dreams

Alfred Adler, an Austrian doctor with psychoanalytic theories (though he is known as the forefather of Cognitive Theory) and a great contributer to many realms of psychology is most well known for coining the phrase “inferiority complex.” While the bulk of his work involved self actualization as well as various methods of reaching goals (note that these goals are not simply career oriented, but any kind of goal unique to that person from buying those cute black heels to getting the promotion, to simply seeing someone smile), insecurity and superiority, survival (both literally and within social constructs), he was also very well established as a particularly philosophical dream analyst who looked carefully into the makeup of the unconscious vs the conscious reality and proposed new ideas and applications to dream analysis focusing equally on the individual as well as the social environment of the individual to create a more specialized and accurate approach to understanding dream languages.

Key Ideas to Adler’s approach on Dream Interpretation

• Mastering your life – Dreams clue the dreamer into the problems they face during waking life, both internally and externally. If the dreamer wishes to examine the dream for better understanding, they will find answers to many of their problems, and see where the focus is most needed in any sort of problematic situation.
  Bottom Line: Examining and learning from your dreams is important to problem solving.

• What Drives Human Behavior? – Freud is famous for his theories that sex drives human behavior. However, Adler looks at motivation and emotions as what drives humans to act the way they do as a person strives for self-actualization or “perfection” and alleviating anxiety in favor of feeling and being in control. Adler postulates that behavior in dreams is no different than behavior in waking life. Exaggerated, confused by symbolism, yes, but the same motivation that one may have to dream is the same motivation one has to achieve.
  Bottom Line: Dreams can help clue the dreamer into their motivations and goals.

• Dreaming and Emotions – Adler argued strongly that true feelings – the ones that some people do not allow themselves to face – are revealed through dreams. Dreams are a safe way to examine the extremes of the spectrum of emotions that the dreamer has. This is not to say that these dreams mean that the dreamer is that way, however it does point to the idea that the dreamer has either neglected those feelings, has not come to terms with those feelings or healed from them, or is so afraid of their feelings that they would rather not feel them in waking life and instead examine them in dreams (consciously or not).
  Bottom Line: A dream about a feeling that is exaggerated or something that simply is not you, according to Adler’s theory, these are the very emotions that you are uncomfortable with and least likely to act on in waking life. However, these feelings can help the dreamer become more in-tuned to their underlying feelings and come to understanding of them for healing and self awareness.

• Dreams and Insecurity – Adler placed a lot of focus on success vs failure, where a person falls on the spectrum of self esteem, and defense mechanisms (over compensation) commonly used for insecurity or the feeling or idea (whether true or false) that a person can not succeed in any given situation in waking life. Therefore, interpretation of dreams where superiority and inferiority come into play are either very literally looked at or are looked at as wish-fulfillment or a fantasy dream to turn an uncomfortable situation around. For Adler, to dream of paralysis indicates feeling hopeless and incapable. To dream of traveling indicates the dreamer’s travel through life. To dream of falling is to indicate loss or a social failing of any kind while dreaming of flying (according to Adler) signifies the dreamer’s certainty and happiness over reaching a goal, knowing they are capable, and knowing they have the ability to succeed.
  Bottom Line: Dreams can also be tools for glimpsing into our insecurities and our ability to complete tasks. How a dreamer reacts to these experiences can indicate how they are currently reacting to these things in waking life.

Alfred Adler and Self Betterment
The greatest part of Adler’s work was the examination of an individual to come to completion through self actualization or completing goals and feeling the rewards of those completions. A person can become “whole” through many methods: knowledge, setting reasonable goals for themselves, being who they are, through self-esteem boosting exercises, and by examining their dreams. Adler’s description of the insecure person (a person who has not yet “leveled up” through adulthood) is very close to today’s clinical definition of depression. While modern medicine and research can certainly debunk this by exploring chemical imbalances that cannot be helped, personal tragedies, and learned behavior (among many other reasons why a person my experience any sort of mood disorder), it is interesting to note that becoming complete is a universal expression of a person’s life. Perhaps self-actualization is not the key to happiness or lack of mood disorders, but it is a path by which some may choose to examine deeper to find relief from some of the symptoms a mood disorder or unhappiness brings.

Further Reading on Self Betterment:
Books by Alfred Adler
Self Discovery Workbooks

“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.” – Alfred Adler

– K. Kennedy

Freud on Dreams

Writing about Freud’s oddities and unusual approach to psychology would take up several articles and investigation not only on his own line of thinking, but the social response to him. So let us suspend any previously held beliefs about this character to see how he paved “the royal road to the understanding of unconscious mental processes,” which is how he described his ground breaking book on dream analysis.

Freudian Facts
Freud was among the first classically-trained psychologists to explore what we call the “unconscious”. He understood something that a lot of people hadn’t come to accept yet: as humans, there are parts of our beings that elude us. These parts not only hold a wealth of information about our psychological make up and why we do the things we do, but also is a key participant in the creation of our dreams. To understand basic Freudian theory on dreams, one must understand the backbone of his theories: the id, ego, and superego. The id is the child who wants another piece of cake, the superego is the mother who says, “You don’t want to ruin your dinner” and the ego is the meeting between those two things. The ego is the part of a person who does the decision making and is in most control. One idea is that while awake, the id can not be expressed because the superego keeps it at bay so dreams represent the motives behind the id, the true wants and desires. However, given that the ego is a meeting place between these two planes of thought and can communicate with each plane, it isn’t as simple as that. Actually, it’s much simpler. Freud proposes that during dream time, neither the id or superego are monitored by the ego and thus can run wild with desires or inhibitions.

The second Freudian fact to use while approaching your dreams with Freudian theory is the understanding of Defense Mechanisms. A defense mechanism is created so that a person can function in a high-anxiety environment (ie: the world). For the most part, defense mechanisms are involuntary. And, a bout of anxiety is often brought on my one or more of these mechanisms failing to do their job. Here are the most common defense mechanisms found in dreams and a brief explanation of them:

• Acting out: Doing something that a person knows intellectually is wrong without knowing what the emotional intentions are.
• Anticipation: Planning for the future with the focus being on the anxiety that the future brings.
• Denial: Inability to accept and live with the reality of a situation.
• Distortion: Rewriting the world to fit needs and desires.
• Displacement: A feeling is redirected to another person or object (punching a pillow, yelling at the dog when mad at the roommate).
• Humor: The truth of how a person thinks or feels is camouflaged by a joke, or uncomfortable issues are distracted by joking to change the subject.
• Hypochondriasis: Confusing negative thoughts and feelings about others with ones’ self, usually resulting in negative feelings or illness (or feeling responsible for other’s shortcomings).
• Idealization: Putting someone on a pedestal or in a place of power without that person having done anything to earn this placement.
• Identification: Adopting the behavior of someone else so that it becomes part of the personality. (while Introjection is a form of identification with ideas or objects)
• Intellectualization: Only looking at a situation from a thinking-oriented mindset (or, its opposite, looking at a situation from a feeling-oriented mindset).
• Passive aggression: Indirect expression of irritation, anger, disagreement.
• Projection: the paranoia that others feel about us what we feel about them (can be negative or positive) or ascribing one’s own feelings to others.
• Reaction Formation: Having an unhealthy desire and trying to “atone” for it by outwardly expressing the opposite of that desire.
• Regression: Looking at a situation in a child-like way.

While it is true that a lot of the dream symbology according to Freud did lead back to nothing but a bunch of symbols representing sex and penises, the bottom line of Freudian Theory looks at literal opposites of the dream symbol for the purpose of analysis. If a person is afraid of choking, then they may dream of fasting or starvation. If a person has constantly avoided speaking up about something that would be life altering, they may have a dream where they are mute.

Using Freud to understand your dreams
Breaking things down to be used for personal dream analysis is very simple. During the awake state, a person has to balance their needs with desires, their thoughts and feelings with the social norm (defense mechanisms) and often do things to avoid negativity. These behaviors are healthy and things that every person should be doing. Understanding that the “real world” even has these rules that a person needs to abide by brings understanding to the “dream world” where rules do not apply.

Use Freud to understand your dreams by becoming more aware of the decisions you make during awake time: were they out of obligation? Bullying? Habit?. Behavior in the dream world according to Freud may not only show what the true desire is, but might also show an alternate, even better way of dealing with the anxiety of the real world. Second, upon waking, the dreamer can explore which defense mechanisms broke down during the dream (which they will because what’s the use of a defense mechanism in a dream world without rules?). If one can pinpoint a defense mechanism and start to accept that defense mechanism might and most probably is in play during wake-time, one can use that knowledge for self-growth and understanding of how experiences have shaped their personality and the messages of their dreams.

Tips for exercises in self analysis:
Look to a recent dream in your dream diary or journal or simply just recall one from your experiences. Use Freud to understand the dream. 1, ask yourself if anything that happened in the dream is something you wished for before, but couldn’t get because of social norms or rules (these types of dreams are called “wish-fulfillment” dreams). 2, ask yourself if anything that happened in the dream shed light into various defense mechanisms. 3, practice using the literal opposite of dream symbols to explain their symbology. Some will resonate, some will not. (Examples: water may represent thirst or drought. Ice might represent warmth or heat. Black might represent white).

For further reading, The Ego and the Id (The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud), or for a more in-depth look at Freud’s theories on dream analysis, The Interpretation Of Dreams by Sigmund Freud was his first publication addressing dream analysis or for a more concise and accessible version, check out On Dreams also written by Sigmund Freud himself.

– K. Kennedy

Lucid Dreams: The basics

To anyone who has had a Lucid dream, the experience is an exceptional one. Traditionally, a lucid dream refers to a dreamer’s experience of  “waking up” in a dream with the freedom to do whatever they want, go where ever they want, and explore their dream world. Lucidity in dreams is a fascinating aspect not just for the dreamer, but also for psychologists, neurobiologists, and parapsychologists. The only “fact” of lucid dreaming that has been proven time and time again to be valid is that it takes both hemispheres of the brain to communicate with one another in order to achieve lucidity (usually just the right brain is at work during the dream state) during a dream.

So how does a casual dreamer get to a point of lucidity? It’s all about breaking it down, and also, learning not to try so hard. “Trying too hard” is one of the biggest hang-ups people will encounter with their mind whether they are wanting to induce a particular meditative state, wanting to calm down after a stressful day, wanting to fit into a social situation, or wanting to create a lucid dream experience. While Lucid Dreaming is going to be in the future a very hot topic of discussion (as well as astral projection and out of body experiences), for this article’s purpose, lets focus only on the basics on how to improve not only lucid dreaming, but any sort of conscious dreaming.

Step One: Take away its power

Lucidity in dreams is not unachievable – it’s even probable that you’ve already had one. Lucidity is another word for “conscious”, so any dream where you are conscious that you are dreaming, any point in time between the dream and awake state where you come to the realization that you were dreaming, even having a dream that solves a problem in your daily life – a very common form of dream – is in fact a lucid dream. In other words, at any point that you have control in waking life, you have control in your dreams. Even if it’s as simple as surrounding yourself with specific ideas by reading a novel before bed, if you dream about that novel, you have gained some form of control of what you’re dreaming about. If you have had any of those experiences then all your concern would be to focus on how to expand the control you already have on your dreams.

Step Two: Become more aware in your own life

Instead of spending so much time and energy in getting to a point of lucidity in dreams, put that energy into getting more connected with yourself. Connection with self will not only yield a better understanding of self which will lead to a better understanding of your personal dream language, but can also improve many areas of your life outside of the dream world. There are many resources on becoming more aware in your own life, but the main recommendations that will simultaneously lead to lucidity in your dreams would be the following:

• Invest in a self-empowering or guided journal. The Soul Catcher journal is a favorite of mine.
• Make a list of your beliefs
• Make a list of 10 things you really love and 10 things you really hate
• Take an online survey that pop up on places like Myspace and Facebook (You don’t have to tell anyone that you did it!)
• Make a list of your 10 greatest strengths and your 10 greatest weaknesses
• Short and Simple:

Before going to bed, go over your day in your mind and pick the best thing that happened to you and the worst thing that happened to you. This simple exercise can not only get you into contact with your feelings, but also can help with finding out what things in life you prioritize which are the very things that tend to make up our dreams.

Step Three: Become more aware of your surroundings

Putting energy into understanding yourself is one thing, but becoming more aware of your surroundings is one of the easiest paths to induce luciditity in dreaming (and one that is most covered in guides and books on how to induce lucid dreaming). The most conductive exercises are the following:

• Go to a favorite room of the house and sit in a familiar area. Set a timer (either internal or external) for 5-10 minutes. While sitting, notice everything you can about the objects you see, the sounds you hear, smells, even the texture of the room. Get as creative as possible at noticing the details. Once the timer goes off, take a blank piece of paper (or 5) and write as much of the things you recall about the room as possible. The first part of the exercises enhances awareness, the second part of the exercises reinforces that awareness with the added bonus of helping dream recall
• Turn your favorite music playing device on (radio, iTunes, iPod). If possible choose a “randomized” feature. Listen to three songs. The key to this is that during this time you’re not only listening to the songs, but you’re not doing anything else but listening. This active listening will not only enhance your appreciation of what you’re hearing, but will also enhance your ability to focus on one thing and sends the message that you are actively pursuing higher awareness in your surroundings. Apply this active consciousness to other things as well, such as eating for more results.
• Short and Simple:

Throughout your day ask yourself, “Is anything out of place here?” In most cases there won’t be. Dirty socks might be on the floor where they’re not supposed to be, but chances are they are there because you (or someone else) left them there. But in some cases there will be. Perhaps a person will be acting uncharacteristically, or you will discover something new about an aspect of your life that is “off” that you didn’t realize before. When you are constantly checking if something is out of place, you’re not only becoming more aware of patterns and “rules” of your environment, but you’re also training your mind to look for inconsistencies which will start to show up during your dreams.

Step Four: Practice Conscious Dreaming

Before going to bed, decide on what you would most like to dream about. Maybe you’d like a solution to a problem. Maybe you would like to have a talk with someone you know. Maybe you want to dream of going to the beach or sitting on top of a mountain. Or, maybe you might pray or ask for guidance according to your dogma. While this might not work at first, with practice, it will yield powerful messages as well as enhance your ability for lucid dreaming.

– K. Kennedy

Further tools:

The Self-Empowerment Journal is an excellent resource for self awareness as well as just about any Guided Journal.
The Books and Resources section of this site has excellent books about Lucid Dreaming while the Music and Meditation section has some guided meditation CDs to improve the occurrence of Lucid dreaming.

Become your own Dream Dictionary

While dream dictionaries are very useful tools, it is encouraged not to use them as a primary method of dream analysis, but rather a supplement on your journey to understanding the symbols and meanings in your dreams. While the goal is to come to clear conclusions with as much accuracy and resolve as possible, to reach that state, most have to start out small. In music, a virtuoso doesn’t usually become one by simply sitting down at a piano. Understanding the keys and chords, basic melodies and themes, putting them together into coherency; this is what shapes and molds a virtuoso (along with practice!).

Become a Dream Dictionary Champion by working out with these Exercises
Some of these exercises might not apply to interpreting your dream, but all dreams apply to the exercises.

1. Warming up

• a) What is the theme or category of the dream that I want to understand? While themes and categories will be explored here on a later date, a dream category or theme can be assessed using a simple metaphor: what genre of movie would your dream be listed under if you were looking for a recording of your dream in a movie store?
• b) What Kind of dream have I had? Was it a Nightmare? A wishful dream? A Rehearsal dream? About the Past? A possible answer to a problem? A Premonition?

2. Stretching exercises

• a) Association: Take a symbol from a dream that you want to understand (or a common one from repeated dreams, or just pick one at random) and write as many one-word to one-phrase associations you can for that specific symbol. For example, what’s the first thing you think of when you think of water? It could be ice, life, cup, or something completely unrelated. If it is life, then find out what the first thing is that you think of when you think of life? Keep going until you get stuck or pause for a long amount of time. Keep a running sheet of the words that you get “stuck” on. These can indicate areas of your life where you may have difficulty, and also potential symbols in dreams to look out for.
• b) Color Therapy: List the colors that you would find in an 8 pack of crayons or any group of colors you wish to explore. Next, attach a feeling to it, a few words that it reminds you of (orange might remind you of oranges, for example), and then let any other impressions come. Do you associate this color with a song? A memory? Was your husband or wife wearing a blue shirt on the day that you met? Is this the color of your favorite blanket or stuffed toy growing up? Write down as much as you feel comfortable with about each color. Keep at hand, or stick your findings in the back of your dream diary or journal so that you can quickly reference what colors mean to you in wakefulness.
• c) It’s all about the numbers: Numbers 1-20 are the most common that come up in dream symbols. After those, multiples of ten are also common. On a piece of notebook paper, write down numbers from 1-20, skipping a few lines in between. Next, write next to any number that strikes you what it means to you. Perhaps a certain number is lucky or particularly unlucky for you. Maybe one number is associated with your dogma. It’s as equally important to note what numbers don’t give you any impressions. In your dream-language a zero might be represented by an 8 if you don’t associate that with anything else. At the end of this, also make sure that you write down important number combinations. Suggestions are the address where you live, or your telephone number, maybe the number of your best friend or parent, your birth date, your numerology numbers, anything that has meaning to you.

3. Strength-Building

• a) Take a dream symbol and think of as many alternate meanings or puns as you can for that symbol. For example, the word “duck” can mean to watch out, could be a representation for a bird or flight, can signify the caring of a mother of her ducklings, can also be a reference to a toy in the bath. Apply the slang that you commonly use, and get as creative as possible. It is probably best to pick a dream symbol that doesn’t have a lot of weight, so that you can get in the habit of doing this with neutrally-charged words so that once you have come across a dream symbol this action would be automatic.
• b) Take an issue that you have been having troubles with. Imagine what that issue would be if it were an animal, a color, a sound, a character from a cartoon, a book, a superhero, an illness, a cure. Come up with as many things as you can think of to turn that problem into. This exercise can help get you in-tune with how you consciously in waking life conceive of your problems and can also give you an idea of what sorts of symbols might start turning up in your “problem-solving” dreams.

4. Aerobics

• a) Go all out. Pretend that the last 30 minutes of your life were a dream. What would the people you interacted with symbolize? What about the clothing that you were wearing? Your mood? The colors you came into contact with? The funniest thing that happened? The scariest thing that happened? Not only will this exercise get you thinking in dream-speak, it will also prepare you for better self-awareness which is one block of the foundation of lucid dreaming.
• b.) Analyze other non-dreams as if they were dreams. Suggestions: Your favorite or least favorite scene in a movie or TV show, What is in your fridge or pantry, the way your car runs, A recent evening out that you had, a list of 10 objects from your house. Or, you can go even further and analyze settings that you encounter. What would it mean to you if your dream happened in your bedroom? How would that differ from your living room or work environment?

5. Cooling Down
Go a head and get some rest for all of the hard work that you’ve done (just make sure you have your dream diary or journal near you).

To supplement your studies, you also might want to go a head and pick up a dream dictionary that resonates with you. There are some featured on our book recommendations page. But use a dream dictionary as a supplement to your studies for best understanding rather than a substitute for them. Besides, you wouldn’t want to get out of shape, would you?

– K. Kennedy