[kreg]

The ferret and the rats as archtypes. yes the ferret is a symbol of a sneaky animal and the rat, well in the catalog of universal archtypes is nothing good.
But there are personal archetypes which may override the universal. So if you think of rats as fun and loving pets-same for the ferret, then these animals may have a personal meaning for you which would be expressed in your dreams.
In my original post I wondered what dreaming of a loving pet ferret meant. After reading up my new opinion is that in my dream it symbolized that I was up to something sneaky but that I loved doing it. The same for the loving pet rats. I may have been up to something 'ratty' -in the opinion of 'good' folks- but that too I took great enjoyment in. Won't go into what those things were. Nothing illegal but had the power to hurt someone if discovered.

[marvin_pa]

I'd say personal archetypes definitely override the universal, simply because dreams tend to be about organizing/re-enforcing the associations between memories. That's why I'm not sure that anyone other than yourself can really analyze your own dreams & then only if you can do so objectively & during/very soon after experiencing the dream. After a period of time, I've a feeling that over analysis starts to effect what the remembered dream could represent.

[kreg]

Jung said like you that dreams are entirely personal with each dream item having meaning only for the dreamer and could be different to different dreamers but that seems to conflict with the idea of universal archetypes. and if such things actually exist -concepts gotten over centuries of man's existence, then don't they have at least some influence on your dream-and mean to a degree the same thing to every person? In my dream the rats came running to me and were very loving. I wonder if they symbolized something ratty (no good- from the universal archetype) I was up to. But then maybe you have to overlay your own personal idea of rats over the universal idea of rats. In my case even though it was something rat like I was doing, I loved what it was.

[marvin_pa]

Originally Posted by kreg

Jung said like you that dreams are entirely personal with each dream item having meaning only for the dreamer and could be different to different dreamers but that seems to conflict with the idea of universal archetypes. and if such things actually exist -concepts gotten over centuries of man's existence, then don't they have at least some influence on your dream-and mean to a degree the same thing to every person? In my dream the rats came running to me and were very loving. I wonder if they symbolized something ratty (no good- from the universal archetype) I was up to. But then maybe you have to overlay your own personal idea of rats over the universal idea of rats. In my case even though it was something rat like I was doing, I loved what it was.

Universal archetypes obviously carry some weight in how an individual may analyze their remembered dreams, but I think the personal memory connections made through individual experience would, indeed, overlay associations formed from societal experience. That said, certain universal associations may be so deep seated that they can be passed down genetically - since these would be sub-consciously present your whole life, then these might prove to carry the most weight of all. I suspect that each individual's analysis hinges on the various weights each of these elements have for that individual.