Carl Jung's approach to dream analysis is becoming increasingly popular in modern culture. Jung believed that dreams held the key to personal wholeness, and could be interpreted not only from the patient's personal experience, but from a mythological perspective as well. Denounced by critics who considered his logic fuzzy and his theories mystical, Jung was subsequently overshadowed by his former mentor, Sigmund Freud. Today, even academics have begun to lend more credence to Jung and his unique blend of psychology and spirituality.
Born in 1875 in Switzerland, Jung experienced striking mythological dreams and visions even as a youth. Fascinated by death, nature, and philosophy, Jung was a solitary youth, who invented imaginary playmates. Although an avid reader, Jung found school boring and, as an adolescent, developed fainting spells, which kept him out of school for six months. Jung enjoyed his respite from school until he overheard his father's lament about the devastating effect the "incurable" spells were having on the family's financial status, which prompted an "instanteous" cure: "He resumed going to school and studied more diligently than he had ever thought possible. Jung says he really learned what a neurosis was from this experience" (Hall and Nordby 18). Jung's parents were a dysfunctional couple, and the youth reported terrifying dreamlike phenomena related to his mother, who suffered from emotional disorders and depression. Jung reported dreams in which he saw disembodied figures emerge from his mother's bedroom or baffling experiences that seemed to suggest occult forces (Hall and Nordby 21).
As a youth, Jung envisioned himself as being essentially two different entities: "Beside the world of the first personality, the schoolboy, there existed within Jung another world, the magical, mysterious realm of what he called the second self" (Staude 23). The reconciliation of these separate entities was t...