A Dreamer's Notes: A Pint of Compensation

 

The compensatory function of dreams is featured in both Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis, and can be a useful concept. Central to the Jungian approach is the idea that dreams compensate for thoughts and desires that are repressed or denied by the daytime ego or simply fail to reach consciousness. Excluded from waking consciousness, they teem in the unconscious and surface in dreams, typically in a language of symbols.

Recognized and worked with, dreams of this kind can become a path to balance and  "individuation". Jung wrote that “the unconscious content contrasts strikingly with the conscious material, particularly when the conscious attitude tends too exclusively in a direction that would threaten the vital needs of the individual. The more one-sided his conscious attitude is, and the further it deviates from the optimum, the greater becomes the possibility that vivid dreams with a strongly contrasting but purposive content will appear.” 

This compensatory function of dreams can goad the psyche toward greater conscious achievements or shatter the delusions of the day. In Jungian terminology the former is known as the “prospective function” and the latter the “reductive function.”

All good stuff. However, the workings of dream compensation can be rather simple. You dream of living in a way you are not doing in ordinary reality, but wish to do. Think of the nun inn the movie Slumberland who dreams she is a wildly sexy tango dancer surrounded by eager men. Think of all the destination travel you may have done during the stay-at-home era of the pandemic.

I'm smiling over a small personal example of how this works. I'm nearing the end of a week on the wagon. I enjoy alcohol but take a few days or weeks off now and then to make sure I'm not dependent. I haven't noticed any cravings over the past week except a fleeting desire late one night for some cognac (my favorite spirit).

Alcohol hasn't featured in the dreams I recall either - though my dreams have been highly social - except for two brief scenes over the past two nights. In the first, towards the end of a busy night, I relax with a pint of best bitter - you know, room temperature English beer. You won't find me drinking this in ordinary reality except when I am in the UK. In the dream, I find it wonderfully comforting.

Then last night I was with several women, some family members, who all declared that they wanted some red wine. I thought in the dream that this was a good idea, and thought the same on waking. In the early hours, I was about to pour myself a glass of a decent red from Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert when I remembered that I'm still on the wagon....

Illustration: "Compensation" by RM with AI assistance