Do our dreams have meaning?
If the question has been raised since the dawn of time, since Freud they have been the “royal road” of access to our unconscious. Revealers of secrets hidden deep in our psyche or drafts of a future being written, they regulate our emotions and are a wonderful tool for self-knowledge. A universe specific to each one that we invite you to (re)discover.
Dreaminess, a whole story
In a society lacking direction, it is wise to look closely within yourself to find your way. The current craze for personal development is an illustration of this, and dreams are a major tool. Investigation into a world as mysterious as it is intriguing, which already fascinated Aristoteles.
The dream, this great classic, this cornerstone, this “royal road” of access to the unconscious, in the words of Sigmund Freud. It was in 1900, after fifteen years of research, that the father of psychoanalysis published the first version of The Interpretation of Dreams, giving it a special place within al cure. At the time, the work aroused very little interest. However, more than a century later, it remains a reference in our minds, and the dream, an essential – at least, at Psychologies.
A COMPLEX PHENOMENON
“Our contemporary interest in dreams is strongly marked by the cultural success of psychoanalysis,” observes Rémy Amouroux, professor of psychology and specialist in its history at Unil-University of Lausanne. This conception of dreams, as a camouflaged unconscious desire, has deeply penetrated our representations of this very diverse and complex phenomenon. Today, dreams are, for the general public, immediately linked to our intimacy, to a secret and authentic part of our psyche. »This is therefore a first reason to take it seriously.
“The current interest in dreams can also be seen as the consequence of a more global phenomenon,” he continues. I am thinking of the rise of individualism, of narcissism, of the psychologization of our culture that many sociologists describe, such as Philip Rieff’ or Alain Ehrenberg.
The renewed interest in dreams is one manifestation of this. » For us who love personal development, it is a key that would allow us to know ourselves better and, therefore, to move in the right direction.
A key that is all the more useful in a world lacking guidance. Let’s face it, we’re a little lost. Everything is going very quickly – some would say very badly -, and nothing has any meaning anymore. And like every time that rationality falters, man is tempted to turn to other points of support. The incredible current craze for esotericism bears witness to this: oracles, rituals… We look within ourselves for answers when what is happening outside is beyond us. “This interest in dreams speaks to our need for meaning,” notes Jacqueline Carroy, honorary director of studies at Ehess. Do dreams have them? The question has been around since the dawn of time and the answers have not always been the same. Today we need to understand. But the dream is a malleable material to which we can give all kinds of meanings. To decode it is to regain a little control over what seems to escape us.
A TIMELESS SUBJECT
The interpretation of dreams does not begin with Freud, far from it. Men and women of spirit, faith or science have always been intrigued by the dream world. Plato already mentions it in his Republic, Pierre Carrique teaches us. This philosophy professor, who studies dreams, tells France Culture that, for Plato, “the dream informs us about ourselves”, it is “the place in which we can touch the truth”, and learn “our possibilities, our limits, our impulses, our emerging horizons.” Since Antiquity, dreams have been suspected of being the theater of our impulses, our desires and, therefore, our inner conflicts.
But it was undoubtedly Aristotle who, before our era, was most interested in dreams by devoting three founding texts to them. “He wonders: is the dream a divine or diabolical message? or is it just a product of our imagination? relates Jacqueline Carroy. Aristotle was the first to sow doubt. After him, two currents will oppose each other throughout history: one considers that the dream is a “sign” from the outside; the other sees it as a natural phenomenon, created by the individual himself, depending on the context. »The controversy is launched.
Five hundred years later, the Syrian philosopher Artemidorus added his two cents. In 160, he wrote the first “key to dreams,” a name given over the centuries to our current “dictionaries” of dreams. Human beings begin to translate their nocturnal images. It will never stop. Certainly not in the Middle Ages, which marked the return of beliefs: divination, spiritism and astrology were inspiring.
It was not until the archaeologist and historian Alfred Maury that a “science of dreams” emerged in the middle of the 19th century: “This scientist carried out a series of experimental studies, sought to distance himself from superstitions and attempted to understand how dreams work, physiologically and psychologically,” continues Jacqueline Carroy. She recounts this moment when Maury sits down very seriously at his office to study his dream, remembers a pilgrimage, a meeting with a certain Mr. Pelletier and a shovel. “Here are three ideas, three main scenes, which seem to me linked together by three words [.] which were obviously associated [..] and were the links of an apparently incoherent dream,” he wrote. History does not say what he concluded.
AFTER FREUD
Freud was therefore largely inspired by these great thinkers to make dreams a foundation of psychoanalysis. Twenty years later, Jung enriched his theories by adding the dimension of the collective unconscious, then came Lacan, who focused more on what his patients said about their dreams rather than on what the dreams could really mean.
Following them, other psychologists and therapists, such as Robert Desoille, the originator of the “waking dream” technique, will use this very symbolic material to include it in their approach. If only by looking at the other definition of the dream, that is to say not only a psychic production occurring during sleep, but a representation, more or less ideal, of what we want to achieve, of what we desire deep within ourselves. And which is at the heart of any therapeutic work.
The biological mechanism of dreaming will also be further explored. “In 1961, Michel Jouvet discovered paradoxical sleep,” recalls Rémy Amouroux. Thanks to the birth of electroencephalography, the neurobiologist highlights this state during which the brain is very active, while the body remains immobile. It is also during this phase that we dream more. »
Closer to us in 2011, Tobie Nathan, professor of psychology and ethnopsychologist, published The New Interpretation of Dreams (Odile Jacob). For him, dreams do not speak of the past, but of the future: they “make a blueprint for tomorrow” by depicting potential future problems. Which could well explain the theory of premonitory dreams.
For more than two thousand years, we have wondered, without ever being able to decide, whether the dream carries messages or not, whether it comes from outside or whether it is a pure product of itself, whether it evokes yesterday or whether it describes our tomorrows. Have we said everything about him? Probably. But the opposite is not so obvious: our dreams have not said everything about us. Simply because we still dream, and every night at that. Because we are unique, and always evolving. Because the world is changing and the 21st century is different.