Children's Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-40

by C.G. Jung, Tony Woolfson

In the 1930s C. G. Jung embarked upon a bold investigation into childhood dreams as remembered by adults to better understand their significance to the lives of the dreamers. Jung presented his findings in a four-year seminar series at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Children's Dreams marks their first publication in English, and fills a critical gap in Jung's collected works.


Here we witness Jung the clinician more vividly than ever before--and he is witty, impatient, sometimes authoritarian, always wise and intellectually daring, but also a teacher who, though brilliant, could be vulnerable, uncertain, and humbled by life's great mysteries. These seminars represent the most penetrating account of Jung's insights into children's dreams and the psychology of childhood. At the same time they offer the best example of group supervision by Jung, presenting his most detailed and thorough exposition of Jungian dream analysis and providing a picture of how he taught others to interpret dreams. Presented here in an inspired English translation commissioned by the Philemon Foundation, these seminars reveal Jung as an impassioned educator in dialogue with his students and developing the practice of analytical psychology.


An invaluable document of perhaps the most important psychologist of the twentieth century at work, this splendid volume is the fullest representation of Jung's views on the interpretation of children's dreams, and signals a new wave in the publication of Jung's collected works as well as a renaissance in contemporary Jung studies.

Genres: Psychology, Mythology

520 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2002

About the author

Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, has been developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.

Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.

Reviews

[All-1 · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my view Jung's own writing reveals a somehow derailed personality. If this seminar text, compared with his Memories reflect his being, then he seems to suffer from a serious lack of empathy and self-reflection.

A few examples from his Memories!

At early childhood, 3-4 years old, he has a remarkable dream which seems to have a strong and lasting effect. It is a close encounter with a one-eyed creature on a high throne underneath the ground of the earth - Jung's mother say it's the Man Eater. The dream as expressed by Jung bears all the signs, colors etc. belonging to the most evil entities in the lower astral or soul realms. The Asuras!
And Jung takes that creature as a reflection of "die herren" Jesus - the man in black - and the phallus, all in one. Jung think the green curtain at the entrance is symbolizing the green fields above - could be that green colors symbolizes the growth potential of the energy represented by the monster behind the green screen. The Man Eater! A clear hint to the eighth sphere, or as named in the bible: "twice dead, plucked up by the roots "
Jung keeps this dream as a secret, even to his own wife, until the age of 65. And that regardless of Jung's own statements in "Children Dreams", a seminar text, about the fate-fullness of such early children dreams.

Sick with pseudo-croup, accompanied by choking fit, head bent back over the bed rail, Jung saw glowing blue ring at the size of the full moon -was it the blue aura surrounding the old Saturn? among others; cf. Goethe's color teachings. - if there had been any kind of a Adam's Apple (the spirit in behold), he seemed to swallow it during those spasms, the result, a void empty of any spirit, (Samsara or the Matrix with no escape routes),only a spiritless soul - and of course then he became obsessed by fire, start playing with fire inside stone caves - the fire of Saturn.

At age 7-9 years old, for hours he starts identifying with a stone, again, a hint to some very dark heavy matter, homestead of powerful creatures from the realms of the corrupted Demiurges.

Then he starts mingling with voo doo - Jung creates a little black man in a black suit, with black hat and black boots, and put that doll in a yellow sarcophagus with some soul food, a 2 colored stone, probably also loaded with energy from Jung's lower parts of his abdomen (a stone Jung kept close to the lower parts of abdomen for a long period). This voo doo aggregate is then stored in a secret place up, high up under the roof. Every week or so Jung brings secret text to this "thing" - he never reveals the content of this writings.
And his father is so depressed!

And then, prepared and maybe even generated by his hidden black devil up, high up under the roof of his home, inevitably, he has his great vision of the enormous excrement falling and smashing the cathedral.
This is Jung's God!

And again, Jung according to his "Children Dreams" p. 119, a seminar text, despite its superficial understanding, do recognizes some symbolism relating to toilets and faecal material, don't use his knowledge on his own matters. Not capable in differentiate between right and wrong (the left) or, the etheric energy sustained in genitals and the energy in the faecal matter, the Left(over)- cf. p. 326 in Red Book, Jung, "Stop it! How should I know what the right and wrong places are".

On and on it goes, one long list of screwed scenes. The Memories shows a total lack of empathy when he as a toddler meet the death and strange evil behavior during the death of his father. As a young man, often aggressive, (according to his own writings), an ignoring adverse warning sign, (broken furniture/tools designed to meal/food) played with spiritualism, souls from the dead etc. This probably could have been a major driver to the early death of his cousin Helene , (by Jung called the Black Jude). Jung didn't respect the basic cosmic law: only perfect pure love is tolerable to interfere with the souls of the dead.

And he goes further. A remarkable event, doubtless not a final salute, at the age of 68, seriously ill and hospitalized, Jung manage during a treatment to be involved in a total soul exchange at the etheric level - Jung exchange his own etheric body with the etheric body of a young doctor, clearly symbolized by a chain of gold surrounding the picture of the young doctor, an expression of the superconductive mono atomic gold used by the corrupted demiurge in old Egypt, Jung never revealed his Jewish family, his grandfather Samuel Preiswerk was a assimilated Jew, and maybe even a secret Zaddik.
The young doctor dies within few weeks - and Jung stand up, revived. And now, according to his Memories, capable of entering the higher astral realm, the Higher Devachan - a psychic vampire?
____________
As with Jungs active imagination; every spiritual scripture warns against such an approach, even his hero Goethe reveals the catastrophic outcome of such means, the death of Faust: cf. Faust, part2 (v. 6305): Mephistopheles; “Strain with all your being: downward - Stamp to descend, stamp again to go upward. Then, a bit “happy ending”! Only The Penitent, formerly named Gretchen surrounded by Devine Love rescues Faust’s soul. Goethe is extreme serious in Faust, especially in part 2, but eventually, due to the common course of language we, in general, are no longer capable of distinguish between a comedy and tragedy.
It is obvious, John 14: 6, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”.

And his famous Red Book, no wonder he kept it in a closed vault. Here you will see a monster parade, a show of all creatures which truly belongs to times before the Atlantis. And his encounter with SATAN, please read the last pages in that Blood-Red Book.
From Liber Secundus.
p. 325. Jung hanging.. Salome; ... "you are hanging too high in the tree a life where I cannot reach. Can't you help yourself, you knower of the serpent wisdom."
Even Satan laugh at Jungs idea about the his "SELF". cf. p.326. Satan, "Reconciliation of the opposites. Equal right for all! Foolies!"
p. 327. Jung, "Not the power of the flesh, but the power of love shall be broken for the sake of life."
p. 330 (the End) Jung, "I remain silent in pain. No longer with God!"

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impressive as it is to see one of the leading figures in psychology in the lecture hall, as if one’s favourite athlete also happened to own a thriving health food store, there seems to be something a little off about the transcription of each lecture. Set during one of his most prolific periods in alchemical research, here he is chatting with students about the dreams reported decades later from childhood, in some cases from subjects no longer alive, and trying to pin down the symbols from the collective unconscious from which these youthful dreamers were drawing. Much like the metaphor Alan Watts wrote about trying to wrap up water in parcel paper, the students and their professor try to grasp meaning for visions that might not have been given a second thought by the subjects themselves, except for a haunting presence of something unresolved in each subject’s waking life. To the students’ credit, all of them literally accredited psychologists, they gave their best attempt at analysis and got firsthand feedback from a leading figure in the field, at a time of personal growth and continental turmoil. Readers of this book, however, may be mournful that courses like this never seem to be listed in their college’s course offerings, even at the most liberal of today’s art institutions.

[Amé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taking it in slowly in 'small doses' that I read and re-read before reading further. The process is fascinating as is the width and depth of references brought into it by the participants but above all by Jung himself. An awful lot to take in on every page but after all these are the notes of Jung's seminars on children's dreams that spread over four years. Only for the very dedicated Jungian layperson.