Facing The Shadow: A Freudian and Jungian Dream Interpretation

Essay by mfilippone7University, Bachelor'sA, October 2014

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Michael Filippone

Ms. Alicia Andrzejewski

Eng 110: Dreams

10 March 2014

Facing the Shadow: Jungian and Freudian Dream Interpretation

My initial reaction upon waking was not one of fear, anxiety, or fright (though they followed shortly after): but surprise, rather. The dream that I had just fallen out of so suddenly had shocked me, not because of what I experienced, but how I reacted to my surroundings. Though it is obvious that dreams are about as far away from reality as possible and virtually anything can happen, I still could hardly believe what I had done, even though it didn't actually take place. The urge to smoke cigarettes had never before come over me, but my dream would suggest that I very well may be a regular smoker. I have never felt the need or desire to disobey the law, especially right in front of a police officer, but if anyone else had seen my dream they might think otherwise.

Had Sigmund Freud been my therapist and analyzed my dream, he would hold to his theory that every dream works to fulfill a repressed wish or desire, probably going on to suggest that the disobedience I displayed in my dream simply brought to light my unconscious desire to lash out in the face of my superiors. On the other hand, however, theorist Carl Jung would argue that my actions in the dream were not representative of my own self, but my shadow archetype. Jung once said that, "Everyone carries a shadow, and the less embodied it is in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is" (qtd. in Arden "David Lynch: Shadows and the Destruction of Subconscious Fantasy"). The shadow archetype described in Jung's theories better explains why I acted the way I did than does Freud's explanation...