Jung And Alfred Jung's Theory Of Dreams

Jung believes there is no correct way to interpret dreams. The meaning of ones dreams is up to ones self to decide how it should be interpreted or how it is meaningful and significant. His theory on dreams is that they are a way to reveal more information about ones self or current situation in the waking life. He also believes dreams “can guide your personal growth and help in achieving your full potential” (Dream Moods).

Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor and psychologist who was known as the founder of individual psychology. Alder’s theory of individual psychology included four aspects: the development of personality, striving towards superiority, psychological health and the unity of personality. He worked with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud until Adler rejected Freud’s theories and continued to come up with different theories on his own. Alder believed that the unconscious and conscious worked in “union with another”, unlike Freud (Fisher). Alder also believed that dreams were problem solving devices and could help in mastering control by bringing dreams into the conscious mind and interpreting them. His theory was that there was a significant correlation between dreams and daily life. Adler believed the more dreams you had, the more often and likely you were to have problems in your daily life, and the less dreams you had, the less problems you would have in your daily life and you were likely to be psychologically healthy. Unlike Freud, Adler believes it is control, power and motivation that drives ones behavior instead of by sexual impulses. Adler also doesn’t believe that behaviors and actions are driven by the unconscious, as Freud believes. Adler believes the conscious and unconscious work the same way whether one...

... middle of paper ...

...n messages by design” and leans more towards the Jungian theory where “dreams reveal more than they conceal, and can be quite transparent in significance” (Hurd).

Hobson studied with a sleep and dream researcher named Robert McCarley, who is Chair and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the VA Boston Healthcare System. Hobson and McCarley believed that dreams did not have meaning and were just random neuronal fixings in the cortex of the brain. In December of 1977, Hobson and McCarley proposed a relatively new neurobiological theory of dreams, known as The Activation-Synthesis Theory of Dreams. The activation-synthesis hypothesis “renders dreams meaningless and removes any need to understand or interpret them” which answers all questions about the meaning of dreams while providing the simplest answer “there’s nothing there to interpret” (Mendham).