Here is an example of a case:
A 30-year-old woman has just experienced a conflict, and her inner world and external world have both collapsed. Although she has a beautiful family and job in the external world, she finds it difficult to experience growth in this environment. Looking at her work, which is based on rationality, she believes that she has developed the rational part of herself to a high degree, but there is still a part of her talent that has not been fully expressed, so she feels that her development is incomplete. Although she has been seeing a psychologist for some time, she has not achieved the desired results and feels that she still needs to seek change from within, so she starts recording her dreams.
Here are her four dreams:
In the first dream, she dreamt of a beautiful peacock being carried on a man's back, with the peacock's beak facing the man's neck.
On the second night, she dreamt that her shoes had a big hole in them.
In the third dream, she dreamt that a woman jumped in from outside the window in her dream and said to her, "The building is on fire, don't you know?" She replied that she didn't know because her room was calm.
In the last dream, she dreamt of sitting on a boat with a man who said, "We must go to the end of the lake, where there is a place where four valleys converge, and people will bring some flocks of sheep." When they arrived there, she found a pregnant lamb and an injured sheep in the flock. She brought these two sheep onto the boat and bandaged the injured lamb's wound. The man said, "These two sheep will definitely die." The visitor looked at the trembling lamb in her arms, pitifully, and bandaged them again.
In this series of dreams, many interesting symbols appear. In the first dream, the most obvious symbol is the peacock. When asked about her impression of peacocks, she said that the peacock's tail is very beautiful, and the pattern on the tail looks like eyes.
Although the dreams are simple, they have very rich meanings. Peacocks have very clear biological attributes: one is that their tails are very beautiful, and the other is that peacock feathers fall off in winter and grow back in spring, implying a sense of rebirth.
When discussing symbols, we should not only look at the symbols themselves but also discuss their dynamic changes. In addition, peacocks also have cultural and religious meanings. In early Christianity, peacocks also symbolized rebirth.
In the following dreams, the visitor first dreamt of shoes with holes. Shoes symbolize adaptation to unknown difficulties on the path of progress, and a hole in the shoes may mean that the adaptation system no longer works well and needs to be abandoned. However, she did not throw away the shoes, indicating that she did not change along with the events.
In the third dream, she dreamt that the house was on fire. The house symbolizes a larger adaptation system, which, although highly developed, needs to be abandoned because it is on fire, indicating that it no longer adapts to the new spiritual environment.
In the first three dreams, there is a need to create new adaptation systems and abandon old ones. Therefore, in the fourth dream, a dream that can be called a "big dream" appears. A male guide leads her to a place where four valleys converge, a place that seems to have spiritual power, and she has sheep in her arms.
In religion, sheep often symbolize "sacrifice," and the male figure tells her that the sheep will definitely die, indicating that the rational development she once had can no longer continue to serve her soul. She can no longer solve the current conflict with her existing attitude. She must reach the center of her life to be reborn.
I used an example of a visitor's dream to explain, but in fact, everyone can use myths, legends, and other stories to interpret their own dreams. In Jung's view, the theme of sacrifice is a necessary ritual for personality development to a new stage. In such myths or legends, the sacrifice is usually an animal, perhaps because animals represent a primitive attitude, an instinct, an unconsciousness. This sacrifice is a naive attitude towards the unknown and external exploration.
I have seen many dreams shared by everyone, and many dreams fit the themes provided by psychologists. However, it seems that everyone is eagerly seeking an answer, hoping that psychologists like us can provide an accurate answer. We are now in an anxious era, and it is not easy to cultivate the ability of self-awareness and self-exploration, to bear the anxiety of exploring the unknown.
We cannot provide convincing answers to everyone's questions. This requires you to use your ability of self-awareness and self-exploration. Just as mentioned in the previous dream, this requires going through a process of sacrifice, sacrificing your own value, which is the anxiety of the unknown, and enduring it. This is the most valuable part and the real answer obtained from the dream. Only by doing so can your personality develop better and become a more complete self.
"Sacrifice" is right in front of you.
The real answers in dreams are waiting for you to find them yourself.
What are you willing to do in exchange for a more complete self?