This is a good example of Dr. Jung's interperative technique in action, but you'll need to do alot of cross-referencing if you want to get a good grasp. Recommended for advanced psychoanalytic readers. Very fascinating.

This is an amazing text and I will not ruin the surprises inside its cover but its ability to bring to light the most prevalent of the West's archetypes in the subconscious is astounding. This is for the avid dreamer who wishes to begin to understand what all of your dreams represent. Do not expect a kind of glossary for dream symbolism such text is worthless in our Global Village. Expect however a firm footing in the patterns prevalent in dream. If new to Jung read Man and His Symbols first.

Carl Jung says he has analysed more than 2.000 dreams per year, a very impressive number by anyone's standards. In his Dreams book, which a very good collection of many of his dreams experiments, he is after demolishing some Freudian's dreams concepts, mainly the one which asserts that the purpose of dreams is to fulfill infantile sexual wishes repressed in the unconscious, which don't find adequate outlet trough conscious activities.
To add content to this dispute, one has only to have in mind that Jung was a very ardent disciple of Freud in the beginning of his career, but the relationship turned sour after 1914 in the figthing for prestige at the foundation of the Psychanalisys in the beginning of the 20th century.
In Jung's view, dreams are not only wish fulfillers, but they are also compensatory vis-a-vis our daily conscious life. So, the purpose of them is to balance our conscious and unconscious life. So, if life is good, dreams are bad and vice-versa. At the end of his life, Jung said in one of his testimonials that by means of a very representative dream he closed a circle, which meant he got a balanced mental life between unconscious and consciousness.

Also, dreams should be taken not as isolated entities, but rather as a series of concatenated manifestations of the unconscious, something which could be represented by the ancient mandalas (Sanscrit for circle) of many peoples from the ancient world (mayas, hindus, polinesians, etc...), where the ultimate end is to attain a balance mind. Jung's theory of the unconscious is, in my opinion, pretty much more attractive than Freud's, specially in what it regards the timelessness of the unconscious and the unconscious collective.

Reading "Dreams" after reading Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" is a magnificient experience and the winner is surely the reader, who gets the most of two of the most proeminent and polemical psychanalysts of all times.

About God, Jung said, I don't believe, I know.

As soon as you read 'Dreams', you will have a complete sense of his amazing insights, not only on the subject matter, but on the complete human pysche. And this includes, as I tried to hint at from the very beginning, the very meaning of our existence.

Perhaps there would not be a Jung today, if there had not been a Freud preceding him. But a completely ignorant educated man here says, having read them both, that Jung's proposal is far more clever, ellaborate, comprehensive and convincing.

Jung was a unique scholar, he had a very distinctive ability to blend a lot of knowledge from seemingly unrelated areas of science into pyschology. His biography is an essential starting point to understand how he managed to develop this quality, which I think was key to his original thinking.

'Dreams' is a book of rare brilliance. Thanks to Jung, for providing a 'basis' for all things.

Useful if you don't feel like poring over the Collected Works looking for some of Jung's theorizing on working a dream. You might also check out Jung's Dreams seminar.

Sorry but this is Dutch.

In het boek dromen probeert Jung helderheid te verschaffen in de oorzaak en de bedoeling van de droom. Freud droomtheorie gaat er van uit dat een droom onstaat door een verdrongen wensgedachte. In feite is dit een causale beschouwingswijze. In het kort gezegd, Freud erkent alleen de oorzaak van de droom en niet het doel. Jung probeert te laten zien dat de droom (verborgen) informatie bevat over de psyche van de dromer en daarmee ook een doel heeft. De subject- objectniveau beschouwing gaat hier verder op in.

Zeer goed boek.