Is Jung Correct

My Jungian friends say dreams are filled with meaning. The scientist in me tells me that dreams are random neuronal firings when the executive function is removed during sleep. Who is correct? They get mad when I argue this point with them!

I don't think there's any one answer to that, since there's really no way of proving it either way. Some people find their dreams meaningful, and other people don't. I think both can be equally valid. Meaning is what we make of it, in this situation.

I don't go along with the idea that dreams are symbolic. I think the brain takes the memories that get stimulated during sleep and makes a story out of them. If we keep dreaming the same theme/story, then it does suggest that it is something our brain is sort of dwelling on, though.

I find that dreams may not have meaning, like as in they won't tell you the future or something along the metaphysical meaning. However, i disagree that its random firings. I approach dreams from more of a psychological view; the subconscious can influence dreams. This means, for example, that something that has been worrying you can pop up in dreams in unique ways. I have had personal experience where my dreams highlighted conscious worries, fears, hopes...
Regardless, science may be the most logical but it will be the first to admit how little it knows. We barely scratch the surface on the information; there's so much we have yet to learn. I would not be so quick to jump in your friends, because one day science may change it's theory as we learn more. Also, inn order to be most scientific, you must consider all possible theories (your theory sounds to stem directly from biochemistry, but psychology is another science that has formed theories. They can work together to give you a better understanding of dreams.)

I love Jung and do quite a bit of dream analysis for myself and friends. I think both points of view represent truths about dreams. I use Jung as my guide, not Freud or any of the modern day works on dream analysis.

It's pretty clear some dreams are meaningless neuronal firings representing the brain working to sort out and store events of the day, including things we've learned. Interestingly, there's some intriguing research that says if people who've experienced a trauma can be kept awake instead of being sedated or allowed to go sleep soon after the event the memories will have a much less traumatic effect. I've tried staying awake for 24 hours after something bad happens and I'm finding the research seems to be true in my isolated case.

I thoroughly believe that other dreams have great meaning, often in symbolic form, and have much to do with conflicts we're having trouble processing in our waking lives. I belonged to a dream group for a while that met weekly. I was the only one who had read Jung. The others were using a dream book by a current author on the best-seller list.

Before we sat down to analyze dreams I'd chat up each member a little to find out what was going on in their lives, maybe something as simple as, OMG, it was a horrible day at work. IMO, unless one has a clue about what's going on in someone's life, it's impossible to discuss a meaningful dream in a meaningful way. Dream books that say larks mean that and green onions mean this don't work for me, largely because the meaning of most of our dreams tend toward our local culture and our own idiosyncratic lives.

Sometimes people reported dreams that came right out of movies showing locally that week. I'd ask if they'd seen the movie and they'd be amazed. I doubt those dreams have much meaning, other than a view into how our brain processes information and adds our own unconscious twist. By looking at the unconscious twist, such a non-meaningful dream can give a small glimpse into the inner workings of someone's mind, and then become meaningful in the process.

Then there are certain dreams that can only be called archetypal. These are rare. It can be confusing through. A dream of being crucified can be either archetypal or personal, and that's why it's important to know what's going on in a person's life.

I've had dreams that pulled me up short, made me realize something I'd been avoiding or denying in my waking life. I've solved problems in my dreams that were beyond me in waking life. But most of my dreams are probably of the random neuronal firing variety.

I love Jung, but I've never considered him infallible, especially about dreams. I have a friend who spent over $10,000 on about 9 months worth of Jungian analysis that consisted mostly of dream analysis. He called it a complete waste of his time and money.

Reading the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell can help one understand the symbolic and archetypal meaning of dreams. I also enjoyed Jung most when I read work written by Jung's approved disciples who had English as their first language. The grammar and syntax made it easier for me to understand. These books were reviewed and edited by Jung so they represent accurate explanations of his views.

I use Jung for creative work and for self-improvement and self-awareness. I'd never consider using Jungian analysis for a serious mental health issue, even though I love his work.

English majors on campus carry around Joseph Campbell's books by the dozens, which may mean that dreams are mythology, or to use Jung's term, archetypes. But I completely disagree with Jung if he says that dreams are hard wired into a collective unconscious at birth. No one can prove this either way. We should talk more about Jung. What about the fact that he had a major religious theme to his work?

In a nutshell, that just about sums up a lot of Jung and Campbell. That was pretty darn good! Not all dreams are archetypal. Most dreams are personal, our brain sorting out things we saw, touched, tasted, felt, learned, glimpsed sublimally during the day and putting it into some sort of order with our own personal twists. The archetypal dreams states are much rarer.

Jung talked about the archetypes of the collective unconscious coming out in dream, trance, meditation drug intoxication and seizure states and becoming the basis of religions around the world.

The impulse to create religions or sacred beliefs seems to be innate in human beings, with similar themes appearing throughout time in different cultures and different parts of the world. Part of this can be due to the environment -- storms, the Milky Way, meteor showers, eclipses, volcanoes -- before people had any sort of natural or scientific explanation for how and why these things happened. Part may be the borrowing of religious ideas -- the way Christianity borrowed pagan rites around the Spring and Winter Soltices and combined them in Easter and Christmas rites.

But cultures widely separated by geography and time have created religious ideas and rituals that have strikingly similar themes. Jung credited this to the archetypes of the collective unconscious.

I halfway buy it and halfway don't. Neuroscientists have actually located places in the human brain that create sensations and visions of god and other standard religious images and transcendent sensations. It's not one particular spot, but the recruitment of many parts of the brain to create these visions and sensations. That visions, feelings and sensations are the collective unconscious that Jung was talking about. It's not like mind-reading or ESP. It's a physical reaction that comes out as religious visions and sensations when certain parts of the brain are stimulated.

Jung based his theories on observation of peoples and cultures around the world. He interpreted through the lens of his belief system. As neuro-science progresses, we will no longer have to rely on belief. God is being found within the human brain. I find that enormously exciting. As Campbell and Jung said, all the gods and goddesses, angels and demons, heavens and hell are inside of us.

Campbell also said, “Myth is what we call other people's religion.” That caused quite a stir because, naturally, people think of their own religions as being true and mythology as being stories. But our religion can be another people's myth. Religious groups still decry the books and teachings of Joseph Campbell many years after his death.

I think all those English majors are carrying around Joseph Campbell books because they want to write. George Lucas credited Campbell's work, especially the Hero Cycle in The Hero With A Thousand Faces with motivating him to finish the first Star Wars trilogy. That became something of a road map for books and movies and I just hate it because the plots become so transparent if you know the Hero Cycle.

Screenwriters have worked it to death. Fiction writers are running close behind. This explains it a bit. Campbell's concept of the monomyth is based on archetypes of the collective unconscious. Naturally, there's a lot of disagreement on whether Campbell was right or wrong, but the Hero Cycle has formed the basis of many a plot. For example, Lord of the Rings. The books. Tolkien understood the whole thing well all on his own back in the early 20th Century.

The Hero's Journey - Mythic Structure of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth

My college, California State University, San Bernardino, has a course in the catalogue on mythology but they never actually offer it because no one is apparently qualified to teach it. On the other hand, I notice that many English professors incorporate myths into their courses.