Jeremy Taylor published in 2009 an
updated and expanded edition of his classic work on dreams entitled The Wisdom of Your Dreams. It has an excellent, spare, annotated
bibliography and a few emphases that are new to me.
One of these emphases is on a technique
he calls the ''If it were my dream...” technique. Taylor likes to
work on dreams with small groups (about seven people) in which the
individuals each relate a dream and then each of the other members of the group say “If this were my own dream, it would mean this
or that.” It apparently works well and avoids the danger of having
another person violate the dream's true points. Taylor repeats many
times that the only true test of whether or not you've got the
correct interpretations of a dream is if you yourself have an “aha”
experience, if they “click” for you.
Another point he brings up that I
myself haven't seen much is that “The sacred texts of all the
world's religions proclaim the inherent and universal value of
dreaming, usually by saying simply that 'God speaks to us in our
dreams.'” I know that even the title of a new book I mentioned
recently, “Communing with the Gods,” speaks of this and perhaps I
just haven't been reading as much as I should in the literature on
dreams.
Taylor also mentions that there are now
courses about dreams at universities and private educational institutes, of which
I've known nothing.
His approach is very much based in Carl
Gustav Jung and he mentions Jung's concept of “archetypes” a lot,
but he clearly has read widely on other approaches to dreams. I get
the feeling on reading Taylor as I do so many other writers on the
human mind, that the theoretical parts are often eclectic, energetic
to even frenetic, earnest, brilliant, but not reaching philosophic
adequacy. For example, he surely is aware of the problem of
solipsism, of the need to make sure that what you're thinking is not
just what's in your own head. His great emphasis on group work, with
proper safeguards, helps deal with the problem on a practical level,
but the philosophic problem is still there and is important, at least
for me.
The word “love” comes to my mind
right now. You find that the speakers of the word “love” are
actually and usually using it with the underlying view that
love and every other human activity is a negotiation of some business
kind, of reward or punishment, pleasures or pains, or releases of
impulses deriving from heredity and environment – every
self-centered, solipsistic, false thing you can think of except truly
and actually putting yourself in the place of the other! And how very
central this is to understanding the wisdom of your dreams! Love just
happens to be in the middle of everything human, and as trite as that
sounds, it is of immense philosophic sophistication and depth and
implication.
Anyway, here are the ten basic
assumptions that Taylor uses and articulates, pp. 8 and 9, as result
of over forty years of study, teaching and practice in dream
interpretation:
- All dreams come in the service of health and wholeness.
- No dream comes just to tell the dreamer what he or she already knows.
- Only the dreamer can say with any certainty what meanings his or her dream may hold.
- The dreamer's aha of recognition is a function of previously unconscious memory and is the only reliable touchstone of dream work.
- There is no such thing as a dream with only one meaning.
- All dreams speak a universal language of metaphor and symbol.
- All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life's problems.
- All dreams reflect society as a whole, as well as the dreamer's relation to it.
- Working with dreams regularly improves relationships with friends, lovers, partners, parents, children, and others.
- Working with dreams in groups builds community, intimacy, and support and begins to impact on society as a whole.* * *
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