THE VICISSITUDES OF THE THEME IN DREAM SERIES

A Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the

Center For Psychological Studies,

Albany, California

In partial fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

By

David Jenkins

May 2001

THE VICISSITUDES OF THE THEME IN DREAM SERIES

copyright © David Jenkins 2001

All Rights Reserved

Abstract

Are dreams connected? If I dream about a dog on Monday and again on Tuesday, is there anything to be learned by looking at the contrast between the two dreams? If, on Monday, the dog bites me and, on Tuesday, I manage to get away, does this represent any kind of improvement?

While groups of dreams are often studied and compared, the development of the theme is a largely neglected topic. This dissertation explores the vicissitudes of the dream theme. What happens to the theme in the course of a number of dreams? Does the theme show development? This dissertation reviews the treatment of dream themes in psychotherapy and dream research. Apart from Jung and his followers, the dream theme receives little attention although it is often used implicitly -- for example in the study of the nightmare. An examination of Jung's work shows how Jung utilized the dream theme. The dissertation uses the dream journal of Emanuel Swedenborg from 1743 to 1744 and examines series of dreams quoted in published papers from the perspective developed in the dissertation.

As your eye moves across the surface of a Canaletto, each area of the painting is a different time; it was done at a different moment. The hand making the marks moves through time and in viewing the picture you feel this, even though you might not be conscious of it.

David Hockney (1983)

 

 

 

 

They say that "Time assuages", -

Time never did assuage;

An actual suffering strengthens,

As sinews do, with Age.

Time is a Test of trouble,

But not a Remedy.

If such it prove, it prove too

There was no Malady.

Emily Dickinson, Fascicle 38, H 163, 942 (J 686)

 

Time and time again, in my professional work,

I have had to repeat the words:

"Let's get back to your dream. What does the dream say"

C. G. Jung. Man and His Symbols

 

Acknowledgments

My thanks go out to everyone who helped me. Mira Zussman pushed, cajoled, informed, taught me and held me to her high standards. Robert Fisher held up the light at the end of the tunnel; He provided support, insight and helped me stick with the process throughout it all. Meredith Sabini took on the task of following this work from the beginning to the end. She brought to it her expertise in Jungian dream work and her acute and remarkable wisdom.

The time has not passed without incident. My life has undergone several major transitions in this period. It began with a melancholy visit to England when a family member passed away. My household has changed as my children passed through important life gates -- Sally into college and Rachel out of it. A grand niece, Charlotte, the first of her generation, arrived on the scene.

It would be nice to include everyone who influenced me, who taught me how to appreciate and wonder at the beauty and creativity of dreaming, not limited to the many therapists who have listened to my own dreams. The distinction, which now seems indispensable, between the facts and the story was drummed into me by the Landmark forum [and my great coach, Deirdre Donovan]. Eric Greenleaf's course on hypnosis at the Center for Psychological Studies used a method of dream work that led me towards my "minimalist" approach to dream work as I would call it.

Margaret Barbee's support and patience was the vital glue that held the dissertation process together and Jeffrey Leroux's ability to recognize necessity in the midst of an abundance of choices was greatly appreciated.

My thanks to the very many people who shared their dreams with me. Thanks for their help in various ways to Dina Glouberman, Tana Lehr, Kerrie Hein, Margaret Warwas, Abbie Warwas and my children, Sally and Rachel. My thanks to Kate Partlan for her editing skills, Taun for her comments on narrative, D. W. Cooper for his painstaking work with the database of Swedenborg's dreams, my assistant Nancy Barba for her assiduous library research, to Michael Schlesinger for his help on 18^th century religious and scientific beliefs.

And the friends who simply listened to me! Saul Korduner followed the saga of this dissertation over coffee on Friday afternoons and Craig DelGaudio heard it at Point Isabel on Saturdays. My thanks to both of them.

Thanks to Joseph Henderson for our discussions of good and evil as I tried to understand Swedenborg. My thanks go to Wilson Van Dusen for his help and advice about Swedenborg's life.

Certain places are indelibly linked to the dissertation -- Rick [McMonagle] and Babette [Lightner]'s garden in River Falls, Wisconsin, the view from the window on the top floor of the Jung Institute, San Francisco. The view from the psychology library in Tolman Hall, and, of course, the view of Bancroft Way from the window by my computer with the teenagers from Berkeley High hurrying past in the morning and traipsing by in the afternoon.

There is some music that will forever be linked to the dissertation -- The Queen of the Night aria made me ponder the Anima as did Mazzy Star, Sandy Rogers and the incomparable Diamanda Galas. Three Dog Night, Norman Greenbaum, Ian Dury, Aaron Copeland, Bob Seger, Mick Jagger, Van Morrison, John Fogerty, Ewan MacColl, Nick Cave, Gene Vincent, Percy Sledge and the Righteous Brothers all added inspiration, humor, soothing or just a hard rocking beat in needed doses. My appreciation goes out to Napster.

In this age of information, the Oxford English Dictionary on CD ROM and Google.com stood out as my constant reference companions.

Contents

Abstract *

Acknowledgments *

Contents *

Chapter 1. Introduction *

The Vicissitudes of a Dream Series *

The Place of Dream Series in Dream Interpretation Systems *

The Dream Series as Subject *

Example of a Dream Series *

Personal Reasons for Studying Dream Series *

Rationale for the Study of Dream Series *

Dissertation thesis *

Chapter 2. Literature Review *

Freud’s Consideration of Dream Series *

Jung's Views on Dream Series *

Comparison of Freud and Jung's Views on Dream Series *

Von Franz: The Dream and Psychic Development as a General Principle *

Mary Ann Mattoon: Dream Series *

Jung's Application of Dream Series Techniques *

Hall's Content Analysis *

Domhoff's Typology of Recurrent Dreams *

Chapter 3. Discussion *

Hillman: How Can Dream Series be Researched? *

The Dream Ego *

The Initial Dream *

The Nightmare *

Chapter 4. Swedenborg's "Female Figure" Dreams *

A Biography of Emanuel Swedenborg and an Introduction to his Dream Journal *

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Swedenborg as a Subject *

William Blake's Assessment of Swedenborg *

Kristine Mann: Swedenborg's Self-Analysis *

Ekstrom's Analysis of Swedenborg's Dream journal *

Van Dusen: Commentary on Swedenborg's Dreams *

An Examination of Swedenborg's Anima Dreams *

Chapter 5: Conclusion *

Quod Erat Demonstratum *

Limits of the Study *

Dream Series as a Paradigmatic Change *

Relationship Between Dream Life and Waking Life *

Analysis of the Individual Dream in the Light of Dream Series *

The Nature of Continuity in Dreams *

Future Research *

References *

Appendix A: The Initial Dreams Discussed in Jung's Individual Dream Symbolism In Relation to Alchemy *

Appendix B: The Four Dreams From Psychology and Religion. *

Appendix C: Yazmajian's Patient's Dreams *

Appendix D. Frequency Count of Swedenborg's Dream Themes *

Appendix E. Swedenborg's Dreams About Female Figures *

Are dreams connected? If I dream about a dog on Monday and I dream about another dog on Tuesday, is there anything to be learned by looking at the contrast between the two dreams? If, on Monday, the dog bites me and, on Tuesday, I manage to get away, does this represent any kind of improvement? Can I expect that the transition, from being bitten to escaping, has significance? Can I expect that the theme of a dog will recur perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday? Is there anything to be gained from looking at the meaning of the "dog" symbol in my psyche? These questions can be extended from a pair of similar dreams to series that spans months and even years: If I sift out all my dreams about dogs, do they, when considered together, tell me anything that is not available from any one dog-dream?

Questions about dream series are not posed in most systems of dream interpretation. For most therapists who use dreams, the sole unit of analysis is the individual dream. In that case, the meaning of the dream relates to other matters in the dreamer's life, to their associations, to the day's residues, to their childhood, but not to their previous dreams. In most theories of dreams: Freud's, Gestalt, Object relations and others, there is no comfortable place for a theory of dream series. There are exceptions: In some fields of work and research, the comparison of one dream with a related dream is relevant. For instance, as will be dealt with in some detail, the study of trauma often focuses on the nightmare and the abatement of that nightmare. To that extent, since a change in the nightmare is a major task of the therapy, there is an implicit concern with dream series. In some somatic studies, the dream can perform a valuable role as an indicator of a condition.

For Jungians, the continuity between dreams is of considerable and explicit significance. Whether an interpretation is correct or not will be reflected in subsequent dreams. Dreams can and do contain archetypal material and a theme can be expected to develop and play out a drama over a period of time. Carl Jung would examine the myriad meanings of a motif from a dreamer and use that to deduce the meaning of the motif.

We have then two common approaches to meaning in dreams. First, the individual dream is the sole subject of study. It is an entity in itself and any similar dreams have no necessary bearing on the meaning of this dream. Second, the individual dream is still the subject of study but our understanding of the dream is enhanced by understanding related dreams.

I wish to propose a variation of the second view in which, instead of the dream series being viewed as background material, the dream series itself is the subject of the study and individual dreams are instances of the dream series. This transposition, apparently small and subtle, can be important. The dream series, I propose, will yield themes that are not available from the analysis of any single dream in the series. The transposition is something of a figure-ground phenomenon in Gestalt terminology . If we make the dream series the central figure, we can see different dynamics than when the individual dream is the foreground issue; the course of the dreams is the subject and we follow the dynamics of particular themes as they arise, develop and resolve themselves. When we consider a dream not so much for its internal meaning but rather as an instance of an unfolding process, the dream illuminates a different narrative from that suggested by the single dream.

When we analyze a dream, we are trying to find its meaning for the dreamer. We have taken into account the associations to the dream, considered its inner structure, utilized some tools of the trade and arrived at a meaning. The interpretation forms, as it were, an end point at which we say "The dream means X". When we take a series of dreams into consideration, the focus upon the meaning of the individual dream diminishes and attention is directed towards the ways in which the dream itself changes. The plasticity of some elements and the rigidity of others become highlighted by the differences between the dreams. This is readily apparent in the case of the nightmare where it is not the meaning as such of the nightmare but its rigidity that demands attention.

If we are to examine dream series, two particular questions stand out. Firstly, how do we compare two dreams and secondly, what can we see in a series of dreams? I propose to explicate a method of comparing dreams and then to use this method on published sets of dream including the dream journal of Emanuel Swedenborg to see what kind of answers emerge.

Here is an example of three dreams that can be considered as a sequence. They illustrate some of the dynamics that are apparent when we consider a dream series. Even a sequence of two dreams will show more, when taken together, than can be discerned from either dream individually. The first dream in this series was explained by the second dream. The second dream relates to a third dream and shows a theme in process.

The dreamer was a 40-year-old woman who had been divorced for four years (Anonymous personal communication, February - June 2000). At the time of the dreams, she shared a house with two male roommates. In the first dream, the woman is living on an exotic island. Nonetheless, she is in her own home, working in the kitchen. Her ex-husband and her father are sitting idly in the living room. There is a knock on the door. She is too busy and the men are too slothful to answer the door. They hear the knock several times, she asks the men to answer it but they do not move. Eventually, she puts her work down and goes to the door. The person has left. The dream ends with an argument as to who was to blame for not answering the call. The strongest interest of the dreamer was in the mysterious stranger: who knocked on the door, a man or a woman and what did they want? There is no "correct" answer to these questions.

This is a rich dream in that it encompasses many familiar elements of a psychological setting: a woman in a stereotypical role, in the kitchen, it invokes the two most important men in her life, it poses a clear question of an unknown fourth person and much more. There are numerous ways in which we can work with the woman and her dream. One could obtain her associations to the dream. A Gestalt psychotherapist or a Jungian using active imagination might have her go back into the dream and re-enter the scene to find an answer. The situation is certainly not unique. It is what Kate Marcus terms a "Stranger" dream (Marcus, 1956). We might be led, depending on her associations, to Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", John Donne's "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions" or to the prophet Elijah -- all offering different implications about the mysterious knock -- to inform us about this type of situation but we are still left with a mystery: who was that person at that door? The dream poses a direct question to the woman and any attempts to answer the question are guesswork.

Some weeks later, she had dreamed about the same island. This time she is outdoors, in a public place, with her roommates. The two men are approached by a monk who asks them to join the Church of Zen. They try to explain to the monk that there cannot be any such thing as a Church of Zen, that Zen is a state of mind. The monk ignores this and pressures them to sign up for the Church of Zen. Only the woman sees the humor of this situation; the two men treat it very seriously.

The two dreams are related because they take place in the same unusual location. Furthermore, the cast of characters is the same: the woman, two familiar males and a fourth person. There is an argument in both dreams. The one between her and two male figures from her past was bitter. She is not directly involved in the second dream's argument and she sees the humorous aspect. The mysterious person who knocked on the door and left -- so imbued with portent -- has made an appearance and cuts a comical figure. The second dream reverberated with the first one and changed the dreamer's assessment of it. The argument with her ex-husband and her father in the first dream no longer seemed so bitter; she saw a comical side to the situation and also re-assessed it as one in which she expected the men in her life to answer "her" door for her.

Some months later she had another, comparable, dream. Two strangers have suddenly appeared in her home. She asks them who they are but they ignore her. The woman is very uncomfortable and asks them to leave, they continue to ignore her. She is left feeling helpless and with a sense that her private space has been infringed. Again there is the theme of the stranger. This time the interaction is directly with the strangers and is unmediated by any male protectors. We can make an explanation of the three dreams -- for instance that we had the implication of a stranger, we have seen the stranger in an outside environment in which case the woman feels secure and we have seen strangers in her home in which case she feels very disturbed. Whatever we make of the three dreams should be tentative, as Jung so often emphasizes. The tension that is being acted out in these three dreams is clearly unresolved. One would expect more dreams about strangers until something occurred that could be identified as a resolution.

Any of these dreams could be analyzed and the stranger identified in some way. We could look at the woman's waking life and we would almost certainly discover correlates to the dreams. We can round up answers in all the usually suspect places: her childhood, yesterday's events, her free associations and so on but the situation remains that, in her 40s, this is an on-going inquiry in her dream life. A definitive statement as to what one of these dreams "means" will only detract from and tend to foreclose the process. Taken together, the dreams suggest that "strangerness" is a theme for the woman that she is working to comprehend. It seems to me that this theme is not identifiable from any individual dream.

The dreams show a process that we can expect to develop further; I would predict that the dream series will not end until the woman can meet with the stranger and feel comfortable. Perhaps the stranger will turn into someone familiar. We might see the argument progress to a point where people are more in agreement. It might get worse before it gets better. Another possibility is that the dreams are displaying different viewpoints of an argument and, rather than progress, we will see a number of different ways in which arguments can be handled.

It is this use of themes that I will examine in published material -- on initial dreams, nightmares -- and from Swedenborg's dream journal. I hope to show that themes will arise, some will be resolved in one or two dreams and others will take much longer.

Here is a dream of mine that presents insuperable difficulties if it is considered in isolation: "I am suddenly jerked around. I sense that I am in a tank. There is a 'letter box' kind of opening through which I could look but do not.". There is very little to go on in this dream. It is a type of dream we are particularly hampered by because there is no story attached to the dream; we would tend to call it a fragment rather then a complete dream. There are simply have three elements: a jerking around, a sensation of a tank and a letterbox. There is very little to go on: The jerk could quite well have been a physical movement -- the dream happened on a plane; I have a sensation of being in a metal tank but I cannot really tell whether this is a water tank or a military tank. It feels more like the latter, but without any sense of certainty; the letterbox makes me think of the new video format but mostly I am aware, in the aftermath of the dream, that I might have seen through the letterbox but did not. Of course, we could work with day residues or free associations and drift away from the dream into the significance of jerking, or tanks or letterboxes, but we would have lost any connection to the dream. Rather than try to analyze it, or accept it as unanalyzable, I would now tend to treat this as an opening dream. It initiates three elements. Several dreams down the line, the implications of these three elements will become clearer. But, and this is the crux of the matter, it is predictable that its meaning will only become clarified by later dreams. We need a sequence of dreams in order to understand this first one. In fact, the next two were about warfare and only then did the first dream make sense.

Personal Reasons for Studying Dream Series

I started to read Sigmund Freud's Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis when I was 28 at the suggestion of a close friend. My initial reaction was strongly hostile: I was sure this was nonsense but I also couldn't stop reading. At some point I started to write down my dreams. I was amazed and shocked to see a clear meaning in my dreams on the second night. The fact that meaning could be elicited from dreams was, to my non-psychologically oriented mind, a startling revelation that forever separated my life into a 'before' and an 'after' and dreams have been a lifelong passion ever since.

Much later, and quite gradually, my interest changed from thinking about "dreams" to thinking about "dreaming". I believe it stemmed from a frustration that I was not always able to understand or interpret a particular dream. Was this caused by resistance or lack of ability, I wondered? At some point, I began to realize that I simply was not able to analyze every dream. My free associations were not Prufrockian streets that led me to an overwhelming question; they often led me nowhere at all. Travelling along this line of thought, I realized that dreams are, so to speak, like buses: there will always be another one, even if you have to wait all night. To put it even more strongly, I came to the viewpoint that you cannot "miss" a dream; it will be waiting for you until you hear it. The dream comes, so to speak, through a messenger who may talk loudly or softly, but who will not go away until the message has been communicated. Of course, we would like to comprehend every dream but, in practice, that does not happen. Even Freud explains, in The Interpretation of Dreams, that it was only in retrospect that he had completely interpreted a group of dreams; he went back to the earlier ones after grasping the later ones (1900/1953 p. 521). But why is that? Why is it that the dream will not go away, and, what does that imply about dreaming?

The sense that the discarded, uncomprehended dreams were not failures but were paving stones along a path came later. Instead of focussing on "What does this dream mean?", it then becomes possible and fruitful to ask "Where will this dream theme go next?". Thus the continuity between dreams became more valuable to me than the explicit virtue of an interpretation. To put it another way: few dreams are complete -- that is why we talk about them. There is an assumption, or at least a hope, that the talking can complete the dream. My personal sense is that this is rarely the case, there is usually an incompleteness to the interpretation, that is the dream-conversation and, more typically, our dream life consists of one, or even several sagas, woven together and reaching a form of completion only after the working out of many different issues. The incompleteness of the dream and its interpretation rather than being some kind of failure became for me a source of fascination as I waited for the next dream.

There is, as I have said, a subtle shift between viewing the dream series as background information and viewing the dream series as foreground subject. From that perspective, the dream life has a continuity and validity of its own. The "I" who spends his day time in Berkeley, California has, as a companion, so to speak, a "dream-ego" (Hall, 1982) who spends his dream time in numerous locations and various pursuits, some of them hectic and hair-raising, some of them pleasant and funny. Although the most prevalent use of dreams is to elucidate problems in our waking life, I think that the dream life qualifies as an important part of our life in its own right.

Rationale for the Study of Dream Series

The dynamics of dream series, as we have argued, are a neglected aspect of dream research. William Domhoff (1996) has suggested that recurring dreams are the most important area of research. While the recurring dream, for example, the nightmare, has received a great deal of attention, the recurring elements of a dream are ubiquitous and a greater understanding of them can only increase our understanding of the dream processes.

It might be supposed that the position of a dream in the context of the dream series is of equal importance to all dream theorists. But there is a critical issue of how the theorist sees the relationship of the manifest dream, that is the dream as reported by the dreamer, and its meaning. Depending on this, the dream series can be seen as important or irrelevant. I divide dream theories into three categories: those that consider the manifest dream as void of meaning, those that make a correspondence between a dream aspect and its meaning and those that identify the dream with its meaning.

In the Freudian paradigm the manifest dream is traditionally a barrier to understanding. Freud distinguishes the dream from the real meaning of the dream, the latent content. The manifest dream, from this point of view hides the real meaning of the dream. Laplanche and Pontalis, in their authoritative dictionary of psychoanalytic terms, offer the following contrast: "The latent content means the complete and genuine translation of the dreamer's desire…as such it stands in opposition to the manifest content, which is both incomplete and mendacious" (1973 p. 235 under the definition of "Latent content"). Still animistic but less active is Joseph and Ann-Marie Sandler's characterization that the dream "deceives" (Sandler & Sandler, 1987, p. 280). Leo Rangell's view that is that dreams are "primitive systems of expression … similar to picture writing" and they are characterized by "indefiniteness and ambiguity" (1987, p.9). Inevitably, from any of these perspectives, the manifest dream has little value and therefore there could be no reason to compare dream reports. When Milton Rosenbaum informally surveyed his colleagues and asked if their patients ever dreamed about the analyst, a small number objected to the question on the grounds that there could be no significance to the manifest dream (1965, p. 435).

Not all Freudians would subscribe to such extreme views but they have dominated psychoanalytic theory for a long time and psychoanalytic proponents of the value of the manifest dream are on the defensive: Arnold Rothstein notes several psychoanalytic works that have resisted the devaluation of the manifest dream:(1987, p. xiv). Jacob Spanjaard suggested that Freud's views were not as one-sided as they are now portrayed and argued that there is in fact a lineage in the Freudian tradition for considering the manifest dream (1993 pp. 154-156).

There is another conception of the dream meaning that assumes a direct "translation" system from the manifest dream to its meaning. Angel Garma, a Freudian analyst, implicitly sees parts of the manifest dream as direct indicators in this interpretation: "The building where Martha and her friend go down the steps appears to symbolize the female genital organs" (Fosshage & Loew, p.49). In making an interpretation of a dream, John Padel, an object relations analyst, sees objects in the dream as standing for the meaningful objects. In a dream that involved a razor blade, Padel remarks that the razor blade "can stand for the gums and teeth of the infant, for the fingernails in infantile masturbation and for the vagina when intercourse is envisaged" (Fosshage & Loew, p.139). Theoretically, I think this methodology can accommodate dream series so that the next dream connects to the present dream and the next meaning connects to the present meaning.

Jung held to the view that the dream means what it says. He often cites the Talmudic view that "The dream is its own interpretation" (for example, Jung CW 11 para. 41). There is then no concealed content nor is the dream standing in place of its meaning, the interpretation brings us back to the dream not away from it. Context analysis, since it only concerns itself with the manifest dream also falls into this category.

These three approaches vary in the distance, so to speak, between the dream and its meaning: whether the dream is the meaning, the dream connects to the meaning or the dream is not the meaning. Concomitantly, the three approaches tend to be more or less receptive to the value of the dream series. The strict Freudian view offers no quarter to the manifest dream but the "translation" systems as I would term them, do not prevent the researcher from making use of the series and the dream-as-meaning systems would find it a natural extension.

When we conceptualize a dream series, we are making the assumption that manifest dreams are related. I have argued here that not all schools of dream-thought are equally receptive to the notion of dreams as series

This dissertation examines the dream without any kind of interpretation; Dreams are only compared to other dreams. The dream is taken to be a description of events that occurred to the person while they were asleep and, somewhat like Jung (CW 12) and Hillman (1979), I am taking the characters in the dream as ephemeral representations of on-going themes. For example, I make an assumption that the strangers in the previous dreams can be considered together or that the women in Swedenborg's dreams are manifestations of a common feminine character.

I will argue for making a distinction between the ego while awake and the ego during the dream. When dreams are compared to other dreams, there is only an observation of a change in the dream ego and hence no direct involvement with the waking ego.

The neglect of the dream series is not for lack of data. In the literature about dreams and dream analysis there is an abundance of published series of dreams. Typically, the writer reports several dreams from a client and examines each one individually but does not formally consider the dreams as a series and therefore does not consider the vicissitudes of the theme and what that might imply. There is thus an implicit assumption in much of the literature that there is no useful information to be gained from considering the dreams as a series. This dissertation hopes to show reasons why dream analysts should reconsider that assumption.

The most important reason for pursuing the dream series is the notion that the dream series offers us information that is not available from any one dream. This was illustrated in the example of the stranger dreams. I suggest that the interpretation of an individual dream may not be nearly as important as making the dreamer aware of the themes that are dominating their dream life.

This thesis of this dissertation is that a series of dreams with a common theme can provide meaningful information that is only accessible by considering the vicissitudes of the dream theme.

The neglect of this subject matter by most systems of dream analysis could be interpreted to imply that there is no meaningful information to be gained from an examination of the vicissitudes of the theme in a dream series.

Chapter 2. Literature Review

Sigmund Freud discusses dream series briefly in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900/1953). He was aware that a dream will often reproduce some aspect of a previous dream: "In the case of two consecutive dreams it can often be observed that one takes as its central point something that's only on the periphery of the other and vice versa, so that their interpretations too are mutually complementary." (p. 525). Like others, Freud accepts that dreams during the same night should be taken together: "I have already given instances which show that different dreams dreamt on the same night are, as a quite general rule, to be treated in their interpretation as a single whole.".

Freud proposes that a successive dream can act as confirmation of an interpretation. This is partly related to the concept of "overdetermination" by which Freud means that there are multiple layers of meaning and an interpretation, even a "complete" interpretation, one which "makes sense, is coherent and throws light upon every element of the dream’s content" (p. 525) generally uncovers only one of them:

Quite often an immediately succeeding dream allows us to confirm and carry further the interpretation we have tentatively adopted for its predecessor. A whole series of dreams, continuing over a period of weeks or months, is often based upon common ground and must accordingly be interpreted in connection with one another (p.525).

Thus there was, in this seminal work on dreams, a definite place assigned to the use of dream series. Perhaps the generally low esteem in which the manifest dream was held has contributed to the overall neglect of dream series amongst his followers.

Jung emphasized the relevance of the dream series to the understanding of any particular dream. He thought that a dream could not properly be understood except in the context of previous dreams. Indeed, interpretation was prone to error if it did not take them into account. For any dream, an interpretation made would be confirmed or disconfirmed by subsequent dreams. Typically Jung examined the dreams immediately before and after the dream in question and looked for dreams depicting the same motifs.

Although Jung emphasized the dream series more than any other dream theorist, he did not present a formal exposition of his views. In his writings, there are numerous explications of his ideas but there is no single place in which he presented these views. I will firstly examine what he said about dream series and then take examples from his writing to show how he used the methodology in practice.

Jung believed that there were intrinsic weaknesses in attempting to interpret a single dream. An individual interpretation is always speculative: "Every interpretation is an hypothesis; an attempt to read an unknown text. An obscure dream, taken in isolation, can hardly ever be interpreted with any certainty.". In consequence of this, he attached little importance to the interpretation of single dreams. Instead, the dream must be examined in context:

The dreams are comparable to obscure texts whose meaning can only be guessed at. With that analogy, the full meaning of any one dream is not properly available until the dream series has run its course:

The series is the context which the dreamer himself supplies. It is not as if one text but many lay before us, throwing light from all sides on the unknown terms, so that a reading of all the texts is sufficient to elucidate the difficult passages in each individual one. (CW 12 para. 45)

The tentative nature of dream interpretation remains even when the series is taken into consideration, but the overall understanding increases when it is supported by other dreams:

Of course, the interpretation of each individual passage is bound to be largely conjecture, but the series as a whole gives us all the clues we need to correct any possible errors in the preceding passages. (CW 12 para. 45)

For Jung, there is continuity in the unconscious and therefore dreams, so closely connected to the unconscious, tend to express the same concerns:

As a rule a dream belongs in a series. Since there is continuity of consciousness despite the fact that it is regularly interrupted by sleep, there is probably also a continuity of unconscious processes -- perhaps even more than with the events of consciousness….my experience is in favour of the probability that dreams are the visible links in a chain of unconscious events. (CW 16 para. 53)

The fact that the unconscious is largely the same from night to night coupled with the concept that the dream expresses the perspective of the unconscious means that we can expect successive dreams to express related meanings.

The dream series can be used as a means of verifying or correcting a dream interpretation. The interpretation affects the patient and it affects the next dream:

One explains dreams on a certain theory, and if the interpretation is absolutely wrong, the effect on the patient will show it, the unconscious will react in the next dream, and so the interpretation will be corrected. (1984 p. 18)

Furthermore, a dream series can be an indication that the work of a previous dream remains to be completed: "When a subsequent dream takes up the problem of the previous dream it means that the analysis of the previous dream has not been exhaustive" (1984 p. 99). When we examine any dream, its relationship to its predecessors is paramount: "In the interpretation of dreams it is always our first duty to link the dream up to the dream before." (1984 p. 128).

In Principles of Practical Psychotherapy, Jung suggested that continuity within the unconscious is represented by the continuity in dream themes: "The continuity is shown in the repetition of motifs. These may deal with people, animals, objects, or situations." (CW 16 para. 13). He then gave an example of a patient who dreamed about water in each of 26 dreams during a two-month period. Jung listed these instances and summarized his point by saying: "Through numerous comparisons one can find out to what the water-motif is really pointing". After the water motif, there appeared a new motif, that of "the unknown woman". (para. 16). He listed about 50 dream situations in which the unknown woman-motif occurred over a three month period. He then summarized by saying:

The unknown woman, therefore, has an exceedingly contradictory character and cannot be related to any normal woman. She represents some fabulous being, a kind of fairy; and indeed fairies have the most varied characters. (para. 17)

In other words, Jung saw a continuity between these dreams, and he believed that the dreams represented different aspects of the unknown woman's character.

The meaning of the motif can be determined by looking at numerous dream series in which that motif occurs: "the interpretation of motifs follows from a number of similar dream series. Thus the sea always signifies a collecting-place where all psychic life originates, i.e., the collective unconscious." (para. 12) . Jung used the dream series both to assert the continuity of unconscious contents and to identify the motif itself.

Dream Progression.

Sometimes Jung implied that the related dreams offer different views of the same subject, but often he asserted that later dreams in a series represented a clearer view of the dream. In The Practical Use of Dream-Analysis he compared two dreams and noted that "the two dreams make nearly identical statements but, as is usually the case, the second is more specific." (CW 16 para. 349). In another context, he remarked about a set of dreams: "they form a coherent series in the course of which the meaning gradually unfolds". (CW 12 para. 45).

Other statements suggested a neutral view to progression. In discussing the unknown-woman motif mentioned above, it is noteworthy that Jung simply listed the dream situations. This emphasizes them as empirical data and suggests to me that he did not place particular importance on their internal sequence (at least in the context in which he was writing). In Psychology and Religion Jung described two dreams of a woman patient that, he suggested, expressed opposite views of religion: "one could have aided her understanding by the simple device of prefacing her second dream with the words "'on the contrary'" (CW 11 para. 162). Again, there is no implication of a progression, simply of alternate views. At one point, in the Seminar On Dream Analysis, Jung summarized his patient's dream series in a way that does not suggest a progression. He described one dream as "one of the dreams on his way that shows him his lack or mistake." whereas the previous dream "showed him that he was not up to his goal." In comparing the dreams, Jung remarks "He has been in Africa, in the hot sun of the South; now he goes north." (1984 p. 316). In this instance, the patient experiences different views; he is literally and symbolically encompassing the problem.

Clearly then, some dream series show progression and some do not. However, even when a series of dreams does show a progression, that does not, by itself, indicate a change in consciousness. If consciousness fails to integrate the contents of the sequence then the dream series can becomes a cycle that will repeat. With an insane person, the dreams might show progress then deterioration and then repeat:

These dreams reach a certain summit and then begin to go down, all the symbols become destructive; and you see that everything is going dead wrong. If a normal person had such dreams you would say "This is very bad." But with the insane, after a while it begins over again. It is just a process of nature, with no intervention on the part of consciousness. (1984 p. 225)

This is evident in a paper discussed later; Sabini and Maffly (1981) comment about a set of dreams which the patient appeared not to integrate into consciousness: "Because the series shows a condensed but full circle of movement toward wholeness, we can see what kinds of changes that [the individuation] process would involve." (p.123).

While there are many differences between Freud and Jung on dreams, in regard to dream series, three observations seem worth making. Firstly, although Freud's description of dream series is sketchy, it is not, in substance, in disagreement with Jung's views. Second, Freud held that dream interpretation could be made with certainty whereas Jung maintained that the dream interpretation was tentative. The repercussions of this second difference are considerable for dream series, because, for Freud, the dream interpretation can stand alone and as I have already argued, the Freudian split between the manifest dream and its latent content is not conducive to studying dream series. Third, the difference between their views can be characterized as the difference between the causality and the intent of a dream:

The most important question Freud would ask himself when interpreting the dream is: What is the cause of this dream? On the other hand, Jung preferred questions such as: What is the purpose of this dream? What effect is it meant to have? (Remec 1998).

Subsequent dreams would have little bearing on the cause of the dream but they do shed light on the purpose; it is quite common for later dreams to clarify and explain in detail aspects of a dream that are puzzling .

For Jung, the dream interpretation must be consistent with previous and future dreams. For all the importance of the series, Jung nevertheless regarded the single dream as the meaningful unit and used dream series analysis as a tool to augment and verify the meaning of a particular dream. My thesis will emphasize a different aspect of the continuity by examining the dynamics of the on-going theme.

The perception of the dream as part of a series seems fundamental to a Jungian perspective and many, but not all, Jungian analysts use and comment upon it. For Marie Louise von Franz, it is virtually axiomatic that the unconscious develops and that these changes in the unconscious are observable in the world of dreams.

The view that dream life is interesting in itself is often remarked upon. While other methods of dream analysis value the dream as a tool to shed light upon our waking life, for Jungians, rather than the dream being seen as a moon-like body simply reflecting light upon reality, the life of the dream is seen as a valid, parallel process. "What is the purpose of the total dream life of the individual?" asks von Franz (1964 p.160). There is at issue here much more than the therapeutic utility of dream analysis: "What roles do dreams play, not only in the immediate psychic economy of the human being, but in his life as a whole?"

For von Franz, one of the most significant contributors to Jungian thought, dreams will show the psychological developments that happen in adulthood, known to Jungians as "individuation" although, she says, the process is not easy to see. There may not be an obvious and visible sequence of changes because "dreams produce different scenes and images every night" and therefore "people who are not careful observers will probably be unaware of any pattern." Nonetheless, development is present: "If one watches one's own dreams over a period of years and studies the entire sequence, one will see that certain contents emerge, disappear, and then turn up again." (pp. 160-161)

The dream series is where these changes make an appearance:

Many people even dream repeatedly of the same figures, landscapes, or situations; and if one follows these through a whole series, one will see that they change slowly but perceptibly. These changes can be accelerated if the dreamer's conscious attitude is influenced by appropriate interpretation of the dreams and their symbolic contents. (p.161)

Thus the continuity within our dream life is less visible than the continuities of our waking life:

Our dream life creates a meandering pattern in which individual strands or tendencies become visible, then vanish, then return again. If one watches this meandering design over a long period of time, one can observe a sort of hidden regulating or directing tendency at work, creating a slow, imperceptible process of psychic growth -- the process of individuation. (p.161)

Mary Ann Mattoon, in an overview of Jung's views on dream series, emphasized Jung's contention that each dream should be considered along with preceding dreams, especially if the other dreams have common motifs. Succeeding dreams would then act as a test of the interpretation of the dream, but she does not specify what would constitute a confirmation or disconfirmation of an interpretation. For Mattoon, series have value because fragments of dreams can be pieced together and amount to something interpretable where none of the fragments may make sense in isolation. For longer dream series, the series establishes which are the major motifs for the dreamer since these will stand out in the series.

While any group of successive dreams can be considered a series, Mattoon thinks that Jung was most interested in dreams with a common theme. There was no specific minimum number of dreams that were needed. She suggests that if someone remembers only a few dreams, all the dreams can be included in the series. If the dreamer is involved in an important transition, such as marriage or divorce, all the dreams of that period may be relevant. She notes that it is a common, if unproven assumption of many dream analysts that all the dreams from the same night are related: "This is a useful hypothesis in interpretation" (p. 82).

She points out that the dream series is not necessarily chronological. The dreams may be related by a common theme but they might "radiate out from a psychic center in a spiral or circular fashion." (p.83). The dreams may be commenting on a problem from different perspectives in the unconscious.

Mattoon sees the utility of twenty or more dreams as a kind of background resource to amplify those dreams examined in detail. However this has practical drawbacks in therapy since there may not be time to discuss or even remember all the connected dreams. She speculates that Hall & Van de Castle’s method of content analysis might be used to show the frequencies of specific categories and thus indicate psychological change.

She distinguishes three types of recurring dreams. One is described by Jung as a recurring dream of special importance for the integration of the psyche referring to "something that has been in existence for a long time and is particularly characteristic of the mental attitude of the individual’" (p.84). The second is a traumatic dream that will cease when the trauma has been assimilated. The third type may anticipate an important development in the dreamer’s psyche.

Mattoon thinks that most people have experienced a recurring dream or recurring motif during childhood: "Sometimes the major purpose of the repetition of a motif seems to be emphasis: the motif appears repeatedly in approximately the same context and with the same meaning for the dreamer" (p. 85). A dream that is at first incomprehensible may become clearer in the light of later dreams.

The meaning is amplified by the numerous views obtained from the different dreams. She quotes an example of two dreams that were used by Jung: "The dreamer is at a social gathering. On leaving he puts on a stranger’s hat instead of his own" and "An actor smashes his hat against the wall". It was not until Jung heard the second dream that he was able to give an interpretation. To summarize, both hats represent the self. When the hat/Self is considered from the viewpoint of the real owner, then the hat/self feels estranged; When the owner of the hat wears his own hat he feels he is playing a fictitious role. The attempt to smash the hat produces an even clearer expression of a mandala. In other words, we can look at the dreamer’s relationship to his hat/self either from the point of view of the dream-ego – in which case the hat feels strange, or from the point of view of the hat, in which case the ego is acting and would disown the hat.

What are the consequences when an interpretation is incorrect? Mattoon expects that any interpretation will have an effect upon subsequent dreams. An incorrect dream will elicit a dream that corrects the invalid interpretation although she does not say how or offer an example. It is worth asking what is the consequence of the ego’s correctly understanding a dream? How might a correct interpretation of a dream affect subsequent dreams?

The following are two examinations of how Jung actually utilized the dream series in his writings. In Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy, Jung considers a series of dreams and makes comparisons between the dreams and alchemical texts (CW 12). In Psychology and Religion, Jung uses four of these same dreams as a basis for analysis of the dreamer's unconscious understanding of religion (CW 11). The examples are taken from a ten-month series of dreams by Wolfgang Pauli, the scientist who was also a lapsed Catholic. Jung himself was the analyst during the latter part of this series, after about three hundred and fifty dreams. In the two papers he extracts different information from the dreams and points to a different perspective, but what is notable is that he utilizes the dream series as the tool for his analyses. From the point of view of this dissertation, the important issue is to show the techniques Jung uses as he examines a series of dreams.

In Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy, Jung tends to confine his remarks to simple comments on how particular dreams link together. In Psychology and Religion, he offers more complex comments. I will use his remarks in Individual Dream Symbolism in Relation to Alchemy as an introduction to the material, and then turn to Psychology and Religion.

Table 1 shows a summary of the salient dreams in the initial series, the first 22 dreams. I have provided Jung's detailed comments in Appendix A.

In Individual Dream Symbolism In Relation to Alchemy, Jung's intention is to show how the mandala is naturally expressed in the course of the dream series as the dreamer's individuation process develops. He tends to simply make comments about the particular dreams so that the references gather momentum by his repeatedly pointing out what they have in common . One value, to Jung, of examining a series of dreams is that the different forms of the symbol can all be considered. As we will see, the mandala can be expressed by a hat, the sun, a ball, a globe or any object that suggests wholeness and completeness. Circularity can be implied in other ways, for example, by a dreamer walking in a circle. In addition to the mandala, Jung notes the recurrence of the anima (the contrasexual archetype), the temenos (an enclosed space).

Table 1. Summary of the Initial 22 Dreams

In Psychology and Religion, Jung chose four of Pauli's dreams to illustrate what he called the "religious tendencies of the unconscious" (Jung CW 11 par. 39). The complete dreams are shown in Appendix B. Even though the dreamer had no conscious interest in religion, two of the dreams are manifestly about religion and this suggests to Jung that the unconscious has an opinion on the matter. As we have already seen in the initial dreams, the religious implications of these symbols, for example of the temenos, are considerable. Jung seems to be using this material to illustrate his own philosophical approach to religion.

In the first dream a group of people are in a square. A gibbon is to be "reconstructed".

The second dream (a long involved dream) has the dreamer and his friend go into a church. The dreamer defends the church. For complex reasons a woman protests and then vanishes. The scene in the church becomes convivial with wine and music.

The third dream is similar to the first. It is about "the magical transformation of animals into human beings".

The fourth dream happens in a strange, solemn house. The dreamer hears a voice say "What you are doing is dangerous. Religion is not a tax to be paid so that you can rid yourself of the woman's image, for this image cannot be got rid of."

Jung sees the first dream as a message that the dreamer needs to make some conscious changes because he has been neglecting his own instinctual personality (in the form of the gibbon). The second dream offers the dreamer another solution as to how to deal with his instinctuality: the dream represents "an attempt to seek refuge from this fear in the shelter of a church religion" (par. 56). The third dream is about transformation and, to Jung, "the patient has to undergo an important change through the reintegration of his hitherto split-off instinctuality and is thus to be made over into a new man" (par. 54). Thus we see here a series of three dreams unified by a common theme: how to integrate instinct into the psyche. The first and third point to important, magical transformations; the second dream, as we will see, indicates a compromise. The fourth dream, much later, revisits the issues in the compromise with a far preferable depiction of the problem in Jung's opinion.

Jung divides the second dream, the Church dream, into two parts. There is the part in which the dreamer defends the Catholic Church, and there is the later part in which a gregarious time is had in the church. Jung regards this as two statements: one in favor of the Catholic Church and therefore in favor of an ascetic approach to religion, and the other a view of religion as something to enjoy and not treat too seriously. Taking the dream as two statements about religion, he then judges both as though they were coherent, conscious statements. He sums up the dream with:

Thus the Catholic Church, though highly recommended, appears coupled with a strange pagan point of view which is irreconcilable with a fundamentally Christian attitude. The actual irreconciliability does not appear in the dream. It is hushed up, as it were, by a cosy ('gemütlich') atmosphere in which dangerous contrasts are blurred and blended (CW 11, par. 44).

Jung sees the dream as an argument in favor of making a compromise between Christian and pagan principles. "Spiritualization and sublimation are essentially Christian principles and any insistence upon the contrary would amount to blasphemous paganism" (para. 43). The anima, in the form of the woman who protests and disappears, represents the voice of dissent. "I must confess," says Jung, "I find myself in sympathy with the anima. Obviously the compromise is too cheap" (para. 51). I understand Jung to be saying that the first and third dreams indicate a need for an important transformation whereas the second dream suggests that the two conflicting views, spirituality and paganism, can comfortably co-exist without any major changes. It is noteworthy that Jung tends to judge the actions within the dream by standards similar to those by which one would judge everyday behavior.

Of the fourth dream, much later in the series, Jung says that it produced a "far-reaching change in his [the dreamer's] attitude to life and humanity" (para. 59). Jung draws parallels between this dream and the Church dream. The church has become the strange, solemn house. The references to the Catholic Church are gone, except for the burning candles, derived, possibly, from certain kinds of Mass. Jung argues that, in the fourth dream, the voice has taken the place of the anima in the Church dream. He reasons that, in the Church dream, the dreamer makes a "cheap compromise," and this meets with the disapproval of the anima, who protests and then vanishes. The disembodied voice also makes a protest, and therefore occupies the same position as the anima, but it makes "not a merely emotional protest but a masterful statement on two kinds of religion" (para. 71). He sums the dream up thus:

You try religion in order to escape from your unconscious. You use it as a substitute for a part of your soul's life. But religion is the fruit and culmination of the completeness of life, that is, of a life that contains both sides (par. 72).

So the fourth dream is a variation on the Church dream. The Church dream seems to suggest that there is no conflict between Christianity and what Jung terms paganism, but this logic occurs at the cost of losing the anima, whereas in this dream, the pagan "statement" is omitted and thereby the position of the anima/voice aspect is strengthened and elaborated.

Much of Jung's argument hinges on a structural comparison of these dreams rather than on the techniques of single-dream analysis:

Content analysis began with research by Calvin Hall, Robert Van de Castle and their associates (Hall & Van De Castle, 1966). In contrast to psychoanalysis in which the focus is on individual dreams and their interpretation, Hall examined large numbers of dreams, sometimes thousands. Eventually he had amassed a collection of over 50,000 dreams (Schneider & Domhoff, 1995). The focus of Content analysis is to find the statistical features that can be identified rather than the meaning of any particular theme or symbol.

Each dream is "scored" for content on a variety of measures, rather like an individual test. For example, the researcher computes the number of male and female characters, quantifies the friendliness of the interchange, notes whether the setting is indoors or outdoors and so on. Totals for the entire group of dreams can than be computed. After correcting for the length of the dream, the researcher adds up the number of occurrences of the variable, for example, the number men in the dreams, the number of occurrences of females and then calculates a ratio.

Content analysis has proved to be an excellent way to compare groups of people. For example, differences exist between the dreams of men and women: men dream mostly about men, women dream approximately evenly about men and women; men register more aggression in their dreams and so on. It is known that children dream proportionately more about animals than adults. In addition to comparing groups, longitudinal studies of individuals have proved fruitful: "Our analyses of lengthy dream journals reveal that there is an astonishing degree of consistency in what a person dreams about over several months or years, even 40 or 50 years" (Domhoff, 1966). This research suggests that the main characteristics in our dreams remain much the same over very long periods of time.

Content analysis has helped establish the relationship between dreams and daily life: "There are also striking continuities between our dream findings and waking life, making possible accurate predictions about the concerns and interests of the dreamers. These findings suggest that dreams have ‘meaning.’" (Schneider & Domhoff, 1999). To that extent, content analysis can be used to make predictions about the dreamer.

The problem of reconciling a meaning-oriented approach to dreams, for example that of Freud or Jung, and the statistically oriented approach of Content analysis is considerable. A mutual disrespect seems inevitable since the two approaches use the same data in very different ways and either approach could be interpreted as undermining the other. For example, content analysis typically rejects dream reports that are less than 30 words in length, a condition which is incomprehensible from a meaning-oriented approach. Content analysis focuses on making objective definitions for the purpose of rigorously quantifying data whereas a Jungian analysis, for example, will generally incorporate all data that is deemed relevant. Nonetheless, rather like the wave theory and the particle theory of light, both appear workable methodologies in their own context. Content analysis does offer some support for a meaning-oriented analysis since it shows that dreams reflect meaningful issues about the dreamer. Certain statistics, for example the gender differences, indicate the psychological importance of the empirical categories they are measuring.

Hall and Van De Castle were well aware of the criticisms leveled at content analysis by their contemporary opponents. They characterized the debate as "a seemingly endless dialogue between those who prefer words (qualitative description) and those who prefer numbers (quantitative description)" (1966 p.3) and dryly list the pros and cons of both approaches. Without trying to straddle this debate -- indeed, this study falls clearly within the qualitative sphere -- it seems valuable for qualitative research to be at least informed by the taxonomic landscape described by the quantitative research.

The Hall/Van De Castle system in effect treats a dream report as a story or play in which there are a cast of characters (animals, men and women, friends, strangers), a series of social interactions (aggression, friendliness, sexuality) and other dimensions that can be counted and assessed. Thus virtually any identifiable content of the manifest dream can be quantified and compared. The reliability of this system and its clarity and relative ease of use have made it a valuable research tool.

Within the constraint that the intent in content analysis is to produce meaning via numbers, content analysis has proved very informative. Partly this seems to hinge on the indisputable evidence it provides that dreams reflect daily concerns.

Starting from a quantitative analysis, William Domhoff (1996) examines dream themes under the rubric of "repetition". It is an "overlooked dimension, underlying much of our dreaming". (p.191). Domhoff divides "the repetition dimension" as he calls it into four categories: traumatic, recurrent, typical dreams and dreams with a repetitive themes. A traumatic dream will "reproduce overwhelmingly negative experiences…to the great discomfort of the dreamers"; A recurrent dreams will "puzzle or frighten many people"; A typical dream might include "flying or appearing inappropriately dressed in public"; A repetitive theme is simply one that in which "characters, interactions, activities and objects … appear in ordinary dreams consistently in long dream series " (pp. 191-192).

Domhoff's interest in this repetition dimension is that it "offers support for the idea that people dream about ongoing personal concerns and interests, whether pleasant or unpleasant, trivial or profound, past or future" and that this "makes dream life similar to much of waking cognition" (p.192). This is in contrast to Jung who saw dream life as a compensation for waking cognition. In much the same fashion as Jung, he argues that "no theory of dreams [should] be taken seriously if it cannot deal with the repetition dimension" (p 192).

For Domhoff, traumatic dreams are notable because they "tend to repeat the traumatic event in all its emotional detail and horror". Thus Domhoff's "trauma" dream appears to be a particular case of the nightmare in which a waking life event is re-experienced.

Domhoff suggests that trauma dreams have been neglected and that they are seen as "atypical and peripheral" (p.192). He notes that Freud "began his theoretical argument … by pointing to the most simple of dreams" (p. 193). The concept of wish fulfillment was the cornerstone of the Freudian method of dream analysis but trauma and nightmare dreams could not be viewed as wish fulfillments. Although Freud later modified this view, Domhoff says that trauma dreams were excluded from Freud's theory of dreams because Freud explained the trauma dream separately as an experience in which "a more basic mechanism aimed at mastering overwhelming stimuli took control of psychic functioning in rare situations".

In contrast to this "we should begin with the most difficult of dreams, traumatic dreams, and, search for a theory encompassing them as well as wish fulfillment dreams". Thus Domhoff rejects the notion that the traumatic dream is operating under a different mechanism from the "ordinary" dream. Domhoff notes, from Hartmann's research, that trauma dreams change slightly over time as the patient recovers. The fact that a trauma dream can gradually becomes an "ordinary" dream argues against Freud's idea of a separate explanation for trauma dreams.

Domhoff points to research that shows that 50-80% of college students report having had a recurrent dream at some point during their lifetime although this can take place over months or even decades and can occur weekly or only once or twice a year. A recurrent dream usually has a negative affect (60-70%). He quotes research that shows that the recurrent dream is more likely to involve only the dreamer and that the most frequent theme is of being chased or attacked. A recurrent dream tends to begin during a time of stress but not to reflect that situation directly.

Dreams such as the loss of teeth, flying, or finding money, crop up for most people. Typical dreams, even if remembered by most people are nevertheless not common occurrences. They do not constitute the majority of dreams. Domhoff quotes the Barrett study of deceased loved ones (discussed below) as one specific dream that appears to show a developmental sequence. As such it is of especial interest to this dissertation because it addresses the issue of the dynamics of dream series.

Other dream studies suggest a certain regularity within the dream that is predictive. For instance, in a study by Domhoff of students at Santa Cruz University, he observed that, if, in her dream, a woman is marrying a stranger, then there is more likelihood of something unfortunate happening during the dream.

Domhoff uses the analysis of especially long series of dreams to show that some themes are constant throughout the entire series. He quotes from a 17 year set of dreams from "Jason", a 53 year span from "Dorothea" and a 40 year series from "Marie". In addition, he considers the prolific "Engine Man" who wrote down 234 dreams in a 3 month period. Domhoff shows strong evidence that themes endure, core themes recur with statistical regularity throughout the entire set of dreams.

In Dorothea's dreams, food is a frequent theme. In roughly one out of every four dreams, she mentions food in some way: "Dorothea is eating, preparing to eat, preparing a meal, buying or seeing food, watching someone eat, or mentioning that she is hungry in 128 of the 600 dream reports" (p.148). She later sent in another 304 dreams of which 85 referred to food. Food is not usually such an important topic, Domhoff says her proportion of food dreams was three times higher than the female norm.

There is the loss of an object in about one in six of Dorothea's dreams. Other frequently occurring themes for her included: being in a small, disorderly room, being with her mother, trying to go to the toilet and being late.

These six themes together account for the content of about 75% of the Dorothea's dreams. Not only are these themes the preponderant ones but they recur throughout the entire series: the themes that are present in the first 100 dreams are also found in the last 100 dreams. Domhoff suggests that this repetition is reminiscent of the traumatic and recurrent dreams. Furthermore, these were not typical dream themes so that it might be suggested that all dreams contain these themes. Thus Domhoff forms the tentative conclusion that "at least some themes in dreams may be residues of difficult relationships or painful experiences, thereby linking repetitive dream themes with traumatic dreams and recurrent dreams" (p. 206).

The idea of a "constant" theme underscores this dissertation's question: what are the vicissitudes of the theme? Any theme is actually replete with variations and developments. I would speculate that, if we examined Dorothea's food dreams we would see dramatic tensions that would then unfold over the course of a number of dreams: Who does she eat with? Who does she eat with? How is the food? If we looked at her object loss dreams, they would not all be equal: How do the objects that are lost vary in importance? In there difficulty of retrieving them?

Often dream studies have, in effect, looked for a typology of dreams. For example, Kate Marcus considers The Stranger in Women's Dreams (1956) in which she examined the varieties of ways in which a male stranger makes an appearance in a woman's dream. The study is a classification of stranger dreams. Leone Terr (1980) examined child victims of a kidnapping and reported the most common dreams. She thought that most repeated dreams eventually become modified through new elaborations but that the modified dream "carries a traumatic nucleus", she distinguished "modified playback" dreams and "deeply disguised dreams" (p. 210). Other studies have used two populations and considered their dreams for example Latta compared premenarcheal and postmenarcheal girls (1998) and Smith-Marder compared the dreams of adolescent and mature women during menstruation (1978).

Deirdre Barrett (1991) studied dreams about a recently deceased loved one. She discerned four types of dreams about deceased loved ones: "back-to-life" dreams in which the dead person was still alive; "advice" dreams where the dead person offered advice; "leave-taking" or "resolution" dreams in which the deceased explained the circumstances of the death and assured the dreamer that everything was all right and finally, what might be called philosophical dreams in which the nature of death was discussed with the deceased. Barrett's study showed that the dreams often occurred in a prescribed sequence: "All of the series of dreams about a departed loved one began with disturbing dreams from the back-to-life category, usually progressed through advice dreams and then concluded with a leave-taking one" (p 105).

In the following remarkable example, the dreams acted as a direct indicator of a physical condition. Urticaria is the medical term for Hives, pale red swellings of skin weals; it is a symptom with both emotional and physiological components. Saul, a psychiatrist and Bernstein, an allergist (1940) worked with several urticaria patients and followed their dreams. In some cases, they discovered that an outbreak could be predicted by the previous night's dream. They quote an instance: "She awoke with hives from a dream that another girl's work was in a basket with the patient's and the patient could not tell which was which" (p. 356). In another incident: "The patient awoke with a few hives widely distributed. That night she had dreamed that Miss A. … had invited her to visit her and her father in a neighboring town.. The patient was very anxious to go but on the way to the station remembered an engagement with an elderly woman and at the very last minute did not go and the girl was angry" (p.357).

The dreams could predict the location of the urticaria. After dreaming that her father had slit her throat, the patient had urticarial swelling in her throat; Dream material about weeping and kissing was followed by urticaria of the eyes and lips. Frustration in the dream was linked to urticaria but not in a simple manner:

Of a total of 94 dreams during her analysis, the non-urticaria dreams were either not frustration dreams or else the frustration was not in just this status. She did not have a single reported dream of just this type which was not associated with either urticaria or weeping. Conversely, she never reported urticaria associated with a different type of dream. (p.360)

They continue "The critical point is the status of the frustration, if present, at the ending of the dream" (p.360).

E. Caroppo, G. G. Dimaggio, R. Popolo, G. Salvatore and G. Ruggeri, examined the development of themes in four patients in the course of psychotherapy, Caroppo and his colleagues detected a narrative in the way in which a dream theme, they use the term R.O.T. for Recurrent Oneiric Theme -- develops. For them, "the clinical interest in the analysis of these R.O.T. is … in investigating if there is an order, a figurative evolution of the themes in the progressive series of dreams" (p.276). They want to know if the progress of the theme at all parallels the progress of the treatment. They then describe, very briefly, the patients and the vicissitudes of their dream themes. One patient had recurring dreams about Vampires. They detected a change from very archaic, destructive Vampires to more humanized versions and eventually to Vampires with whom the dreamer can cooperate: "We consider these monsters as figurative representatives of levels of a substantially 'psychotic' quality … these levels undergo a progressive reduction of their …destroying capacity" (p.276). They offer three more studies, with themes of animals, earthquakes and tunnels in which they detect similar progressions. Unfortunately, the paper is only a brief overview of their work. It is not clear how many dreams were examined, over what period of time, nor do they offer any sample dreams to understand their method of assessment.

While Caroppo's ideas seem very close to those of this dissertation, their conclusions seems more definitive than can be justified from the published information. Whether Swedenborg's themes will show such clear progressions remains to be seem.

Chapter 3. Discussion

The problems of dream research are the subject of a brief but highly relevant paper by James Hillman, Methodological Problems in Dream Research (1975). Hillman discusses sleep research, dream research, and laments the influence of the Freudian paradigm. In the course of his paper, he makes some observations about dream research which are particularly relevant to this dissertation.

How can dreams be compared? The dream must first be classified in some way. Every person's dreams display certain elements and many of these will recur in other dreams. Hillman points out that we can look at specific dream elements, such as "river" or "older woman" or "gun". We can also create wider categories. "Rather than river we might use Water, Older Woman rather than mother, or weapon rather than Gun (p 201). In this way, we might eventually arrive at fundamental classes of dreams: 'parental dreams', 'aggression dreams', 'anxiety dreams'…" (p.201). But as we conceptualize categories, we move away from the raw data: "the move from 'gun' to 'Weapon' to 'aggression' is actually a move away from the specifics of the dream, its actual imagery, into concepts and categories". This might be acceptable in other fields but, if one accepts that the dream meaning is specific to this dreamer, then "in regard to dream images, this ordering may distort the fundamental reality of the dream, each one is a unique presentation" (p.201).

I understand Hillman to have two objections to this kind of classification. Firstly, it takes liberties with the dream; and secondly, we may be missing the point anyway. The transition from individual unit to larger category, for example, from "gun" to "weapon", is a conceptual product of the researcher's thoughts and predispositions, and might not be warranted. If, however, each dream is unique and its meaning is located in the time and place and person of the dreamer, then any classification may be meaningless. To a butcher, the meaning of "knife" may be quite different than the meaning of "gun" is to a soldier. An apple may mean one thing to a greengrocer and another thing to a child. This problem is inherent in the methodology; content analysis that compares different dreamers always runs this risk. Indeed, an apple in one dream might be quite different from an apple in another dream dreamed by the same person. Dream elements can, and usually do, have a layer of meaning that is quite specific to the individual dreamer.

Hillman then makes a point relevant to my research. Grouping dream elements may often make sense and may allow for a sense of the change in the dream. Any category can be expanded: we can generalize about weapons and then look at the change in weapons. If we consider "water" as the theme, we will encompass ponds, rivers oceans and more. .For Hillman, these categorizations "provide a framework within which to chart transformations". The following statement directly addresses the main points of this dissertation:

Within the class of Weapon, there might be – as therapeutic work proceeds – quantitative as well as qualitative changes. There might be an increase or decrease in the frequency of Weapon dreams in proportion to other dreams, or there might be changes within the sort of weapons: bare fists, medieval lances, H-Bombs.(p. 202)

By grouping particular elements of the dreams into categories, we can examine changes in the dream.

Hillman asks another question that is pertinent to this dissertation: what methods can be used to determine qualitative change? He suggests that the many rules of thumb used by practicing therapists might be formulated as hypotheses and then tested in dream research. The difficulties in this area are manifold. To suggest that a change in a dream element indicates a qualitative improvement inevitably raises the question of how improvement is judged: the therapist and the client need not agree that improvement has been made, researchers may have entirely different ideas of what constitutes improvement, and so on. The problem does not end even there. Would a change in a dream element or theme from less-valued to more-valued within a dream series always indicate improvement? Would it indicate the same improvement in the dreamer's waking life? This takes us back to the uniqueness of each individual dream. For Hillman, any element is always a symbol and therefore "since any element may take on symbolic significance, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to draw objective scales for content values from dream research" (p. 202).

Hillman makes two criticisms of any methodology that separates the elements of a dream from the dream as a whole/from each other: firstly, the dream is a Gestalt, and therefore inherently damaged by the separation of elements. Secondly, this methodology ignores dream meaning as a whole. While these criticisms appear to me to be valid vis-à-vis quantitative research, I hope to show that this research will proceed in a manner to which such criticisms would not apply.

In a complicated sentence, Hillman links dreams, drama and action together: "Jung's emphasis upon the dramatic structure of the dream points out that the dream, like a drama, is always an action, a dramatic performance" (p.204). Therefore, the action of the dream is a major focus; but action is not something easily analyzed. Again, context is paramount, and content analysis therefore difficult. "Action sequences are not reducible to simple actions like running, fighting, eating which some studies use as their categories for content analysis" (p. 204). He gives an example from a research project at the Jung Institute: "A classification of dreams according to animal images – dog dreams, tiger dreams, etc. – does not lead to understanding the actual processes taking place." I understand this to mean that, for example, tiger dreams cannot meaningfully be compared to lion dreams. In other words, any two elements of a set of dreams offer no particular information when simply contrasted.

He then goes on to say that "action sequences are best grasped as mythologems":

The task of dream research becomes one of extracting these motifs, comparing them among different dreamers in different analyses, or the same dreamer across a span of time, investigating the motifs to find if there is a sequential order or perhaps a development process (according to standards of qualitative change), relating them to age, sex, level of psychological culture, symptomatology, and the like, of the dreamer (p.205).

This leads Hillman to the conclusion that "The primary unit is not a static element. It is rather a mythological action sequence which is always meaningful.".

Consider these two early dreams of Swedenborg's: in the first dream, Swedenborg meets a woman who tells him that he smells. In the next dream, he meets a woman and is concerned because he is wearing rags. There is no action in the dream but there is a tension in both dreams that could be construed as a precursor to action.There is a shift in the locus of the tension between them from the woman to Swedenborg.

The number of similarities between the two dreams is considerable. Both involve obstacles to successful meetings with the woman (or women -- they may not be the same woman). The obstacles, "smelling" and "wearing rags," both pertain to the body. In both cases, they are attributes of Swedenborg, and serve to isolate him.

The important difference between the two dreams seems to be the question of who voices the concern. In the first dream, it is the woman; in the second dream, it is Swedenborg. We can hypothesize that this is an improvement in the sense that Swedenborg himself, or more precisely, his "dream-ego" (Hall, 1982) now takes responsibility for noticing some deficiency in interchanges between himself and women. We can imagine a therapist who considers it an improvement when a badly dressed and smelly client realizes this is an impediment to his relationship with women.

It is perhaps worth noting that every classification involves some conceptualization that moves away from the individual dreams. Even if we make a very small assumption, for example, that every stranger in a dream is the same stranger, this involves an imposition on each dream. I will assert that Swedenborg's dreams about women can all be grouped under the category of "Female figure" dreams. This is certainly in line with Jungian thinking. It is also in accord with content analysis of dreams, which finds consistent statistics about the occurrence of women in men's dreams, but it is nonetheless an imposition from outside the dream.

While my object of study is not identical to Hillman's, in other respects the methodology used in analyzing these two Swedenborg dreams avoids Hillmans major complaints. The two dreams were classified as belonging together because they both involve the same theme: an interaction with a woman. The idea of the dream as a Gestalt is kept in tact by comparing dreams rather than dream parts: the female characters were not prised out of their context, but instead considered in structurally similar dreams. This is a way of comparing dreams that, as we will show later, Jung uses frequently. We have made a value judgement that there is progress between the two dreams because, in the second dream, Swedenborg is aware of his own shortcomings. We have not said, or considered, whether the change in the dreams might represent any change in Swedenborg's consciousness or behavior.

The distinction between the ego in waking life and the ego in the dream is particularly important to this dissertation. When I take a series of dreams and examine the possible changes taking place in the theme, those changes typically involve the relationship between another dream figure and what is termed the "dream ego". For example, Swedenborg dreams about a dog biting him, a dog licking his face and a dog talking to him. From an examination of this, I might draw inferences about his dream ego's relationship with the "dog" symbol, but I am not, in this process, making any statements about Swedenborg's waking ego.

The two analysts who have considered the concept of the dream ego, Sonja Marjasch and James Hall, are both Jungians. Psychoanalysts do not distinguish between the waking and the dream ego. They tend to view the ego during a dream as the same ego of waking life working under different conditions, in particular the unconscious forces that are stronger during sleep. Ralph Greenson argues that the dream state "allows for a reduction and regression of conscious ego activities and of the censorship function of the superego" (1993, p. 66). Charles Brenner contends that there is a "regressive alteration in many of the functions of the ego during dreaming" (1993, p. 53). He lists the ego-functions that regress during the sleep state as including "reality testing, thinking, language, defenses, integrative ability, sensory perception and motor control" (p.55). Both Greenson, a supporter of the idea that dreams should occupy a privileged position in psychoanalysis and Brenner, an opponent, hold a clear position of the privileged position of the waking ego.

Jung had a completely different assessment of the relationship of dream life to waking life. He held the view that there was a wholeness to the human psyche and a natural inclination towards self-regulation. The unconscious tended to compensate for excesses of the conscious part of the psyche: "The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic balance" (Jung et al, 1964, p. 34). Rather than considering the dream situation as a distorted waking situation, the dream is an appropriate representation of a different situation: "the dream is a spontaneous self-portrayal, in symbolic form, of the actual situation in the unconscious" (CW 8, p. 505). While he did not, to my knowledge, use the term "dream-I", it is consistent with his outlook. We would, to extend Jung's thinking, conceive of the "dream-I" as a counterbalance to the waking ego, it is the ego in relationship to the internal unconscious where the waking ego confronts external reality.

Sonja Marjasch was apparently the first person to write specifically about the dream "I" (Hall, 1977, p.150). A patient once told her a dream and she noticed that there was simply a description of a scene of which the dreamer was an observer but there was no "I" in the dream report (1966). The dream was about a fight between pairs of birds, which the dreamer associated to a conflict with a woman friend of hers. The dream was about conflict, but what was the dreamer's connection to that conflict? That question led Marjasch to consider that there was, by its absence, a question of ambiguity about the position of the dream "I":

…the dream symbolizes universal human conflict, a particular portion of which belonged at that time to the dreamer. But what was she doing about it? Was she trying to avoid her modest share and thereby becoming more forcibly involved in the struggle? Or was it the other way: Did the universal image -- in which her personal problem was contained -- emerge first from the depths of the psyche, and did she now need to become conscious of her personal participation in it and her attitude toward it? (p. 61)

In addressing this conception of the "dream-I", Marjasch explored the issue of those dreams in which the ego encounters itself: looking in a mirror, for example. She argues that two possible positions should be considered: that the mirror image is an "inferior ego component"; or, that, like the wicked witch's mirror in the story of Snow White, "the magic mirror represents a higher consciousness: it knows more than the questioner consulting it." (p. 66).

She sees the relationship between the waking "I" and the "dream-I" as raising moral issues and offers St. Augustine's dreams as an example. After his religious conversion, St. Augustine had overtly sexual dreams which he took literally. He asked himself whether or not he was responsible for these acts. Marjasch quotes:

the false persuade me, when sleeping, to that which the true are not able when waking. Am I not myself at that time, O lord my God? And there is yet so much difference between myself and myself, in that instant when I pass back from waking to sleeping, or return from sleeping to waking! Where then is the reason which when waking resists such suggestions. (p. 72)

Marjasch sees in this two issues: what is the relationship of the waking ego to the dream ego ("myself to myself"), and what is the responsibility of the waking ego for the "acts" of the dream ego? She argues that the "dream-I" appears as inferior when certain tendencies, above all sexual and aggressive ones, are repressed by the dreamer and it is the repression for which he or she is responsible. Marjasch quotes an example of a young man, bullied at work, who dreams of murdering his boss. She considers that this occurred because he failed to stand up for himself in reality: "His bad conscience the following day does not refer to the dream act but to his own action". In general, she adds: "it is an advantage for the dreamer to assume whatever indirect responsibility he can" (p. 73).

Marjasch felt that we should only think of a "dream-I" as separate from the ego when a particular therapeutic situation demanded it. Her motivation was to preserve the sense of responsibility that the waking ego should feel for the actions of the ego in the dream. The term "dream-'I'" should therefore, according to Marjasch, be reserved for "those cases in which the dreamer's level of consciousness is transcended in the dream". In that context, the "dream-I" "refers essentially to a factor outside the scope of consciousness, its significance is symbolic" (p.75).

James Hall (1977) starts by considering the relativity of the ego. For example, in Chuang Tzu's classic Taoist tale of the man and the butterfly, the "I" is unsure of its position and considers both, is it a butterfly dreaming it is a person or a person dreaming it is a butterfly? If, to take another example, a person dreams of seeing themself lying in the gutter, the person can "be" either the observing ego or the one in the gutter. To Hall, the problem and importance of the relationship between the "dream-I" and the "waking-I" exists because we are totally dependent on the ego as our organ of consciousness. It is our point of reference for everything we know and yet, at the same time, the ego is not some absolute given but is itself in flux

With this in mind, Hall takes the term dream ego as a simple and direct description of the way the dream is experienced by the dream ego; it is the "phenomenological way to designate the point of view from which the dream is perceived" (p.151). This seems to be different, he acknowledges, from the meaning Marjasch intended in which the dream "I" is primarily identified with the waking "I" and only under certain circumstances should be distinguished from it.

Hall alludes to another conceptual dilemma that seems best managed with the use of the dream-ego: he points out that certain aspects of a dream bear a direct connection to aspects of the dreamer's waking life and, in that case, we can discuss their relationship to the waking ego. However, there are other aspects of the dream that have no clear connection to the waking ego and, in that case, what is their relationship to the waking I? His answer is complicated: "they would be taken, I believe, as representatives of the deeper part of his [the dreamer's] personality, the transpersonal not-I of the objective psyche." (p.145). That is a complex answer to a problem that is simplified when we accept the actuality of the dream ego. The dream ego clearly relates to the waking ego and it clearly relates to any and all the dream contents.

Hall's definition will be more useful to this dissertation in that we experience an "I" in the dream that, while seemingly identical to the waking "I", nevertheless finds itself in such different circumstances that a distinction is warranted. It is these circumstances that are followed in a dream series: I observe the changes that take place within the dream life but these changes are considered in relationship to the dream ego, not to the waking ego. They do not, of necessity, imply anything changed in the waking ego. This leaves Marjasch's issue of the responsibility of the waking ego for the dream ego to a separate examination.

The concept of the initial dream exists in both Freudian and Jungian theory. Simply put, it considers that there is a dream, early in the treatment that contains a quintessential description of the patient's issues. The dream might occur before, or just after, the first meeting; it might involve the therapist or some similar figure, but it depicts the patient's crucial issues and is therefore of diagnostic and therapeutic importance: "It frequently happens at the very beginning a treatment that a dream reveals to the doctor, in a wide perspective, the general direction in which the unconscious is moving" (Jung, translated and quoted in Marcus, 1954). Similarly, Wilhelm Stekel:

The first dream already contains the important secret around which the neurosis is crystallized, revealed in symbolic language. It is often impossible for us to understand this first dream, and only in the course of the analysis will it become clear to us what the analysand wanted to say with the first dream. (quoted by Rappaport: 1958, p.240)

Donald Winnicott takes a dream before the first meeting as important: "Often a child will dream of the psychiatrist the night before the day of the interview so that in fact the psychiatrist is fitting into the patient's preconceived notion." (1993 p. 96). Kate Marcus, a Jungian analyst, saw the initial dream as occurring at a pivotal moment and therefore as being a special attempt to communicate:

As the analysis starts, two persons who may never have met before are trying to find rapport from conscious to conscious mind and from unconscious to unconscious….What they [the patient] cannot verbalize or otherwise convey to the analyst may stimulate those creations of the unconscious sphere that we call initial dreams. In this way the initial dream compensates for the inability of the analysand to reveal what is happening to him. … It is bound to echo back from the unconscious, and it actually does so in the form of initial dreams and other manifestations of the unconscious. (1954, p.1)

Marcus remarks that initial dreams often picture a transition experience such as coming to a frontier or a bridge, arriving at a cross-roads or a street-intersection (p. 5).

The subsequent dreams that relate to the initial dream ought to be considered important. Jungians tend to follow this line of thought as a matter of course, while Freudians tend not to do so. Rovner (1992), in a survey of 96 Freudian psychoanalysts, found that the analysts were in close agreement that the initial dream was useful because it provides an indication of the patient's defenses and resistances. But Rovner makes no mention of successive dreams. However, in a dissertation on the initial dream in Jungian analysis, Roth (1994) commented that he had not found in Jung's writings how he used the initial dream after its first report, but he cites Freud as remarking that "'in the course of treatment the first dream returned in innumerable variations and new editions'" (p.28).

With the study of dream series in view, my approach is to consider the initial dream as the start of a theme: I would expect that future dreams would resonate with the initial dream. I take examples from Jungian and psychoanalytic case studies. The Jungian studies consider, to different extents, the further developments the initial dream undergoes. The psychoanalytic studies typically mention subsequent dreams but do not connect them to the initial dream.

Meredith Sabini and Valerie Hone Maffly (1981) discuss the dreams of two people with cancer. One set of dreams comes from And a time to die, the journal of Mark Pelgrin, who wrote it while he was dying of liver cancer. The other set of dreams comes from a patient of Maffly's who died of bowel cancer, David. The authors' purpose is to give an outline of a failed individuation process and tell us something about the place of illness in that process. They suggest that "we can see how an illness such as cancer is viewed by the unconscious, from dreams which directly address the idea of psychosomatic unity" (p.123). They pay particular attention to the dreams as series: "Because the series shows a condensed but full circle of movement toward wholeness, we can see what kinds of changes that process would involve" (p.123).

The initial dream of Maffly's patient, David, contains an argument about food and about the proper feeding of some children:

There were several people talking in a room. One was a woman about 35 (she appeared to be my eldest daughter who committed suicide by drug overdose). The action began with the woman asserting that her income would first be used to pay all expenses other than food. Whatever money remained would be used for food for the kids.

I was very dissatisfied with this approach. The conversation went round and round until I obtained an acknowledgement that proper feeding for the kids was an obligation… equal to that given anything else. (p.133)

They comment that "throughout the course of the therapy, David regularly had dreams of looking for food and not finding any; that image is the primary leitmotif of his inner life" (p.134).

Sabini and Maffly quote two other dreams about food: in one David actually finds food but is nevertheless thwarted in his attempts to eat:

I was served food in a public place: a restaurant where several men who were strangers sat in a circle about me. I acceded to the request of one or more of the men to give them some of the food items on my plate.

I sat and perhaps wistfully watched my gift being eaten! One of the men responded by asking what I would like. My reply was "Nothing better than some of your delicatessen. Whereupon my plate was filled with a great variety of meats. It looked beautiful. But most important, I had an inner flow of good feeling. The generosity displayed in what came back from my offering affected me greatly. I was contented. (p.137)

Sabini and Maffly observe that, in this dream, he manages to get the food back by indirect means.

In the third food dream, he obtains food for himself but is unable to eat it:

I was in a room with very large tables…I was helping my wife to set tablecloths and serve food. I recall this as unending; everyone had eaten except me.

Finally I prepared a special dish for myself. I think it looked like gruel but wasn't. I placed it on the table which was now completely empty of food and people. I left to get something. Upon returning the food was gone.

I was fit to be tied. I ranted and raved. I examined the kitchen but found no trace of it. I suspected someone had removed it purposely. I was very hungry. (p.137)

The authors interpret this as, in a sense, a psychological diagnosis: "Gruel is an ancient food….Thus, what he needs to be fed with is something timeless, basic to life, right out of mother earth". Unfortunately, he was not able to follow this: "But, sadly, he walks away from the meal and never finds it again" (p. 137). In David's case, he was never able to begin the psychological task of nourishing himself: "The healing process remained largely potential…. As we know, the unconscious continually and cyclically brings up material that may lead to growth even if the ego is unable to integrate it" (p.123). This restates Jung's view that the dream theme does not go away.

Two dreams show a theme becoming more insistent:

I am ready to play golf. I take a cart right up to the tee. My sunglasses fall on to the ground and break into pieces. I go back for them. I think, 'Thank God, this is silly, I haven't played in years'. On the way back to the tee, I get lost, go off the road.

Sabini and Maffly comment: "Psychologically this would refer to a useful defence against the bright light of consciousness -- the 'enlightenment' he received about his condition. That his sunglasses break suggests that the revelation was overwhelming and that his defences are breaking down". The theme of eyesight recurs even more forcefully in a later dream:

People around a pool at my house. My son F is there and some man called "The General' whom he doesn't like. The General just wants to eat with us.

I go to get my eyedrops but somehow use perfume instead. I start screaming -- I am in pain, in my eyes and need help. I go through the dining room to look for my wife and kids. People know I have cancer. I am hurting and need help but don't get any. (p.145)

The authors comment: "Not having sunglasses, he looks for something else to soothe his eyes -- to take away the pain of insight. But instead of medicine, he uses perfume".

Kate Marcus gives an example of an initial dream from a female patient:

I was standing by the side of a pool. Suddenly a naked baby fell in and went straight to the bottom. I dove right in after it realizing that I hardly knew how to swim downwards. But somehow I got it up to the surface and knew it was alive. (1954 p. 10)

Marcus makes an extensive examination of this dream and particularly the meaning of the motif of the child. She says about the dream that "The 'child' comes from somewhere above the water level. It then goes down to the bottom of the pool where water and earth are touching" (p.12).

After 3 1/2 months the patient had another dream:

I have a tiny plot of ground back of the house we live in. I am always trying to get something to grow in it. This time, I get it all fertilized and planted, but find a neighbor has sketched a plan, rearranged my plantings and added some of her own. Strangely, I do not feel resentful, but cooperative. One of the plants which I have to tend, turns out to be a baby. (p.17)

Marcus takes this as a positive sign and relates it to the first dream: "As in the initial dream, the ego is taking an active attitude towards the unconscious. She has finally… given enough fertilizer, i.e. psychic energy to the growing process" (p.17). "The symbol of the child reappears here. It is a plant now, earth-grown, root-bound in a nature setting" (p.18) She continues: "like the 'child' in the initial dream, this one is detached from a father-mother-background" (p.19). Without specifically seeing a dream series, Marcus notes that the child is now "rooted" 'It cannot run away'… Growth has to be awaited" (p. 19). This is in contrast to the child in the initial dream, in which the fact of its being rescued is the dominant matter.

Four months later she dreams:

I am at a Maestro's apartment and agree to sharing a lesson with my brother who is also there. Maestro has a long grey Chinaman's queue hanging down his back. There is a beautiful baby girl in the apartment. A discussion is going on as to who is going to take care of her. She does not belong to anyone, but at present is living with Maestro". (p.20)

Marcus comments explicitly on the dream as a progression: "The step from the earth-level of the second dream to the logos level is being taken…Then there is the child-theme again. This time the child is a girl" (p.20).

Renaldo Maduro's discussion of the initial dream centers on the beginning phase of analysis, hence he places little emphasis on the subsequent development of the elements in the initial dream (1987). The analysand's first dream is about mice and two rats, one black and one white. Maduro comments, without details, that many of her later dreams contain references to rat-droppings. After a year of analysis she dreams about a rat that was both black and white. Maduro considers this an indication that her split is no longer as extreme as it had been. Maduro then takes "the opportunity to refer back to her initial dream with therapeutic effect by remarking to her that we both might have to keep a close eye on her struggle with her 'good' white feelings and her 'bad' black feelings." (p.219). Thus, without specifically addressing the topic, Maduro is considering the consequences of the initial theme in the patient's dream life.

Paul Bradlow also examined the use of the manifest content of the initial dream as a predictor of analyzability (1987). Primarily he was looking for the presence of clear elements in the initial dream report that might predict a poor outcome for the analysis. Bradlow's material came from the Records Research Project at Columbia University, and included extensive case notes and intake interviews taken from nearly 400 cases.

Bradlow focused part of his research on those cases where the initial dream involved a murder, reasoning that a dream about murder is both rare and suggests overt sadism and is therefore likely to be a clear indicator of a poor prognosis. There were seven such cases: five of these seven patients were judged by Bradlow to have made no change during the analysis; the remaining two were deemed "partially analyzable" and developed the most favorable therapeutic outcomes of the group.

Of the two patients who showed improvement, Mrs. G. had made noticeable improvements after 508 sessions. The final summary from her case notes confirms that her dreams about murder continued: "The woman continued to experience conscious hatred toward her family and dreamt of people being killed and killing to the very end of the analysis" (p.161).

Bradlow also discusses three dreams of Mr. F., the other person to show improvement. The initial dream contains several attempts to murder his sister and himself. The murderer in the second murder dream is possibly his brother and the third dream involvs "illicit sexual acts with a woman murderer whom he betrayed while being watched by another man" (p.167).

Although Bradlow was specific that the purpose of his research was not to examine the dreams of murderers, from the point of view of my dissertation, the question arises whether there were any distinctions between the dreams. The quotes from Mrs. G.'s case notes show no indication that this was considered. Mr. F.'s dreams show definite signs of change: in the first dream, Mr. F. himself is the murderer. In the second dream, the murder still takes place within his family and in the third dream, the murderer is no longer a family member and indeed, the dreamer's issue seems to be betrayal of the murderer rather than murder itself. Thus there is a progression in which the murder is situated further away from the dreamer.

Ernest Rappaport addresses the view that an early dream about the analyst indicates a poor prognosis (1959). Such dreams suggest that the patient is unable, in their unconscious, to differentiate between the analyst and a significant person from the past yet the specific function of the analyst is to stand for that person and not to stand for himself or herself. In that situation, according to Blitzsten, whose work Rappaport is reviewing, the analysis is going to be erotized from the start. By "erotized", Blitzsten means that, rather than the patient seeing the analyst as if he or she were the parent, in the erotized transference, the patient believes the analyst is the parent.

In the case that Rappaport discusses in detail, and in which the patient shows numerous signs of behaving as though the analyst were the parent, he concludes that the patient could be analyzed. He quotes four of the patient's dreams in which the analyst appears. The first is the initial dream, the second and third occurred in the middle of the analysis and the last after a termination date was set.

The initial dream was:

You [the analyst] were swinging on some contraption and other people were also on it. Your head was down while the others had their heads up. I was watching you and laughing, but I did not want you to see me and turned my head away, though I had the feeling that you were looking at me, Then you got up and passed me by. (p. 242)

Rappaport interprets this as, in part, a compensation because the patient felt that Rappaport was laughing at him for his naiveté.

During the middle period of the analysis, the patient had two very similar dreams. In the first, "I [the analyst] sat at the foot of the couch and he at the head, and I asked him not to call me doctor"; in the second, "He [the patient] wanted to stop the analysis but I begged him not to stop it and invited him to sit on the couch with me to play pinochle" (p.243). Rappaport explains that the patient was very demanding at this stage, wanting to share the analyst's sandwich and to borrow his books.

The dream during the termination period was that "I [the analyst] was the commanding officer and had sent him on patrol to the front line. He returned and asked how he could find the way; I told him by the North Star and gave him a pocket watch" (p. 244).

Again, we can trace a development between the dreams. In the first dream, the patient is derogatory towards the analyst. In the middle period, his dreams show the patient in an unrealistically equal relationship, but in the final dream the relationship in the dream corresponds to their actual roles: the analyst, now in a commanding position, gives him a method for finding his own direction.

Richard Yazmajian's patient had some dreams that were similar to those of Rappaport's patient but Yazmajian reports a much larger number of dreams than any other psychoanalyst reviewed in this section (1964). The full text of all his patient's dreams is in Appendix C.

In the initial dream, the analyst appears as himself except that he speaks with a German accent. The dream-analyst has two sons who can only be seen in silhouette. There is no interaction between the dream-ego and the dream-analyst except that we know the analyst has spoken.

In the second set of dreams, they interact but not in their roles as patient and analyst. They meet on the street, where they say hello, and then she is in his office acting in a "bizarre and mocking manner" (p. 342).

In the next set of dreams, the analyst and patient are depicted more closely to their real relationship but never with complete accuracy. In the first part, Yazmajian was represented in a professional setting. In the second part, she is in the office advising him so that they are in the professional setting but with roles reversed. In the third part, she attends a lecture and thus sees him in a professional setting but not in his role as her analyst.

There follows another set of dreams with a realistic representation of both of them in their roles and the location is represented as shabby, dirty and muddy. The remaining dreams in this set involve a male in authority (a policeman) and then one lacking in social status.

After this set of dreams, she never again dreamed about the analyst. Yazmajian understands this to mean that "I had become a true transference object, the incest taboo prohibited dreaming of me directly" (p. 543). I see the series as one in which the theme of the analytic relationship begins with a unrealistic portrayal and can finally disappear when the analytic roles are properly acknowledged at the dream level (and the symbolic truth of a shabby, dirty, muddy situation can be addressed).

After the last dream about the analyst, the patient twice retold the initial dream to Yazmajian, altering the characters and situation each time. In the first reworking, the older man is replaced by photographs of her nude uncle and the analyst is replaced by an unrecognized psychiatrist. Thus the older man was reworked into something closer to the real -- her father -- and the analyst was reworked into something further from the real. In the second retelling, the two men are fused into the single figure of an old man with a long, gray beard. The old man tells her to lie down and he will remove a tick embedded in her skin.

While most of these studies focus on the initial dream as a prognosis tool, it seems natural to me to consider the initial dream against further dreams in the series. In every case in which a series of dreams is mentioned, there is a theme in the initial dream -- for example rats with Maduro's patient or the analyst in Rappaport's case -- that is played out in further dreams.

There is other evidence that also suggests we should consider the analyst-imago as a dream theme. Milton Rosenbaum made a clinical, statistical and anecdotal study of the occurrence of the analyst in patients' dreams. His survey showed that the frequency of dreaming about the analyst was constant throughout the analysis (1965, p. 432). That is exactly what one would expect of an important theme even if the extraordinary choice of the analyst as a theme merits special consideration,

From a psychological point of view, it seems to me that, if the initial dream is of such importance, the dreamer would wrestle with that theme during the course of the analysis. If the theme or themes in the initial dream never reappeared, what basis would there be for giving it such weight in the analysis? All these case studies make reference to subsequent dreams even though the psychoanalytic writers treat each dream as an isolated event.

Given that the theme of the initial dream is so important, one would expect it to continue even with a successful analysis. With Maduro's patient, the extreme of the black and white rats has moderated, but one would not be surprised to find that the patient dreamed about rats, or about black and white, for the rest of her life. Had Sabini and Maffly's patient managed to eat a hearty meal, one would not expect that the theme of food would then disappear from his dreams, but rather that his capacity to feel nourished could then be explored. Yazmajian's patient shows this kind of transition: During the analysis, she stops dreaming about the analyst and segues to a policeman in the following dream of that same night. Some months later, she recalls the initial dream substituting an old man with a gray beard for both male figures of the pristine dream. I would predict that a new theme, based on the old theme, will emerge. Rather like trauma dreams, Mr. G.'s murder dreams might also change: Not only might such dreams become less frequent but the quality of the violence could be reduced or that the dreamer would explore related themes, as signaled by the issue of betrayal.

While the nightmare, is a special case of the dream, not only is a nightmare different from an ordinary dream, but the study of nightmares exhibits important differences from the study of dreams. The dream is studied as a means to an end; the nightmare is an end in itself. It is expected that the dream will provide information about the dreamer's unconscious dynamics and offer novel views of their waking life. In contrast, the nightmare is treated as the identified problem, or else as a critical symptom, and its diminution or resolution is an implicit goal of the work. Consequently, almost all nightmare research and therapy is judged by the change in the nightmare. This has implications for research on dream series because most nightmare research treats dreams as existing in relation to one another, even if this is rarely made explicit. As will be discussed later, Hartmann (1998) is one nightmare researcher who has made this explicit.

When she had her "Done" dream, the woman does not report any external changes but she identifies the change in the dream as an event in itself. In other words, she identified a change in the dream as an achievement. Nightmare researchers will typically take a resolution of the nightmare to be either the goal or an indicator that the goal has been reached.

Harry Wilmer, a Jungian psychiatrist who worked with Vietnam veterans, describes the nightmare of one veteran (1986). The veteran relives an excruciating event in which he watched but was unable to help as his wounded comrades were executed. This dream had recurred "hundreds and hundreds of times" (p.48). Wilmer reports that, after two months of analytical psychotherapy, the client's nightmares began to change: "At last the loop of precise dream repetition was broken as I had hoped. He became in turn each of the people in the high drama: the executor, the executed, the soldier he killed to take his foxhole…" (p.48).

As with the woman who suffered sexual abuse, the change in the dream is a crucial matter, Wilmer does not specifically say why this is so important, presuming, I believe, that it is obvious; a "rule of thumb" in Hillman's words. Most therapists would understand it to be important because previously the veteran only had one perspective on the trauma. Now he has several available to him. It indicates that there has been a transition to a more flexible attitude in which other assessments of the trauma have become possible. The dream remained structurally identical, the story is substantially the same but the perspective varies.

Further changes in the dream content occurred as Wilmer himself and a nurse at the hospital make appearances in the nightmare. The changes culminated with both a change in the nightmare and a change in the client:

Finally the transformation and resolution occurred when after rescuing me he woke from his nightmare not drenched in sweat, trembling and panicky, as always before, but crying. At long last he would mourn his irretrievable losses … In his grief he could at last cry and begin that search for meaning which I characterize as The Healing Nightmare.

The nightly dreams no longer tormented him at infrequent intervals. He shrugged off his dream as "Oh, that damn thing again," and lost interest in discussing it with me.

This offers a insight into the problem of the nightmare. Wilmer's veteran still has substantially the same events in his dream but they no longer plague him. It is the torment of the nightmare that is the problem rather than the simple fact of an unpleasant dream

In both these cases, the end of the therapeutic work is marked by a "resolution" of the dream series. The theme of the dreams remains constant -- it is a re-living of the incident. The dream does not go away but it changes sufficiently to be characterized as a "resolution".

Ernest Hartmann is a leading researcher of nightmares (1998). In Dreams and Nightmares, he makes the specific case that dreams occur in series. Like Domhoff, he argues that nightmares offer a special insight into the nature of dreaming. A series of dreams that occur after a trauma can demonstrate this. His argument rests on the following points: A trauma is a demonstrable emotional event, hence the emotion or emotions engendered by the trauma are clearly present in the dreams. Secondly, the subsequent dreams show a gradual integration of the emotion of the trauma into the everyday dream life of the dreamer.

This argument is somewhat parallel to my own assertions about dreams. Both views say that the dream series will change, Hartmann says that, in the case of the nightmare this will be a measure of some change in the person.

Hartmann selects a specific type of trauma as the subject of research. He suggests that we can distinguish between two types of response to trauma: either the subject "freezes" and is unable to integrate the emotion or else the subject is able to integrate the emotion in which case there is a gradual process that will be demonstrable in the dream life. It is this second type of response that he suggests is "The Clearest Case" (p. 17):

If we want to approach the questions of the basic nature of dreaming -- what is really going on during dreaming -- and of the functions of dreaming -- what is dreaming doing for us …I believe the best place to start is with dreams after trauma, dreams during the period when a traumatic event is resolving. It is the best place because we know exactly what is on the dreamer's mind in an emotionally meaningful sense. (p.19)

Hartmann acknowledges that this is a different approach from the more usual one of collecting "say 50 dreams … from college students or perhaps 10 dreams from each of 10 college students, and then various analyses are applied" (p.19). For Hartmann, as for so many others, the problem with this methodology is that "it is very hard to make much sense of the individual dreams". He makes the telling point that it is generally difficult to correlate the dream with the everyday life of the dreamer. In particular, self-report is not reliable in normal, everyday circumstances such as the college student sample. While the dreamer may say that their chief concerns are "plans for the weekend, worries about money for next year" and similar immediate problems, Hartmann speculates that if, a few years later, the dreamer were asked what was their major concern at that time, they would say something quite different, perhaps "my main concern was to make a break with my parents".

In contrast, after a trauma, we have some independent evidence about the main concern in the dreamer's life whereas for the hypothetical student there is no evidence, there is no recent, well-defined emotional event and we cannot expect that the dream will correspond to the dreamer's own assessment. By selecting subjects who have endured a trauma but are not stuck in the trauma, we can observe the progress of a clear emotional event. This is Hartmann's "Clearest Case", dreams after trauma: "a relatively 'normal' (nonpathological) situation where the trauma appears to be resolving and the person is gradually 'getting over it.'" (p.20)

The trauma, in Hartmann's experience, is never reproduced exactly in the dream: "Although the trauma itself does occur in the dreams, dreams very seldom replay the trauma exactly as is occurred". This is always true: "Even in the cases of PTSD that I have studied in detail, the dream, though repetitive, is not usually a repetition of the trauma exactly as it happened, but involves at least one important change. The change is often in the direction of 'who was hurt' or 'who was killed, him or me?' In these cases, "an element of 'survivor guilt' appears" (p.20).

This is important for Hartmann, "the dreams obviously appeared to make connections between the trauma and other parts of the dreamer's life". Hartmann's emphasis is on the emotion of the trauma which is maintained even though the actual event is not: "the connections often involved not the detailed physical events of the trauma but the emotions experienced" (.21-22). He reasons that it is the emotion that is being processed in the dream because "It is … the emotion of terror and fear, not the actual event experienced, that is being portrayed when the fire victim dreams of being caught in a tidal wave or the rape victim dreams of an oncoming train" (p.22). Hartmann uses the word "contextualize" to designate this effect -- that the emotion is represented in the dream in varying contexts.

This applies to other emotions than just terror. In the grief of the loss of a loved mother, a man dreamed that "A mountain has split apart… I am supposed to make arrangements to take care of it" (p.23).

There is a progress of emotions:

In the earliest dreams after a traumatic event, terror and fear usually predominate. Sometimes these are followed by dreams of extreme vulnerability; the survival guilt surfaces. "Why am I alive, while he/she is dead or injured?"; I deserve to have died." … Various other emotions, such as grief and anger, sometimes come up too, either alone or mixed with the previous more usual emotions. Gradually, guided by the sequence of emotions, the traumatic event is connected up, woven in, placed within whatever contexts are available in the dreamer's memory systems. (p.25)

Hartmann's central thesis is that this progressive resolution of an emotion is a paradigm of the dream process. While acknowledging that this is "a big step", he suggests that "the same process occurs in all dreams." In everyday life the emotions are not as great or as well identified but there is a procedure of integrating an emotion which is initially distinct and separated by placing it in different and regular contexts:

I suggest that the pattern …after trauma is a paradigm, an illustration of what happens all the time, though often it may be less clearly visible. In other words, we can visualize our minds as always in some sort of emotional turmoil, though the emotions are usually less dramatic and less obvious than after trauma. And our dreams are always finding a picture context for (contextualizing) these emotional concerns (p. 34)

From the point of view of this dissertation, what is interesting about Hartmann's perspective is that he also conceptualizes in terms of dreams that occur in series. As we have said, this is implicit in virtually all nightmare research but Hartmann, makes it explicit: each dream is not a random event. On the contrary, we can examine successive dreams and expect to find common emotions. From our own point of view, we will argue that we can expect to find common structural elements within the dreams and these can be meaningfully examined over a series of dreams.

Chapter 4. Swedenborg's "Female Figure" Dreams

I will examine in detail a series of dreams that are taken from the dream journal of Emanuel Swedenborg. The dream journal is of profound psychological interest because it marks a major transition in a person's life and Swedenborg intentionally used his dreams to make this transition. His dream journal requires an extensive introduction since Swedenborg was certainly not an ordinary person and neither was the context in which the dream journal was written. I have also reviewed two psychological studies of Swedenborg's dream journal (Mann, 1940 and Ekstrom, 1972).

In 1858, a diary belonging to Emanuel Swedenborg came into the hands of the Royal Library in Stockholm. Written more than 100 years earlier, it was a journal of dreams from 1743-44 when Swedenborg, at the age of 55, underwent a profound crisis.

Swedenborg was both a scientist of note and a religious figure whose influence is discernable today in several fields. The dream journal was of great interest to both Swedenborg's admirers and his detractors. However, because of its intimacy and explicit accounts of sexual -- even homosexual -- dreams, this sensational new find caused problems for Swedenborg's followers. Several editions were published. In some, the sexual dreams were translated into Latin to somehow maintain their obscurity. In other editions, these dreams were excised. Only in 1974 was an unexpurgated English translation published. Recently, a version was published with a commentary by Wilson Van Dusen, a leading Swedenborgian scholar (1986).

The journal contains about one hundred and fifty dreams along with interpretations and other material (notably visions). It begins as a travel journal with notes of people and places. Within a few pages, a dream is described, much as a travelogue, with just brief notes. After that, the journal becomes a remarkable examination of Swedenborg's inner life. In it, Swedenborg wrestles with his "temptations", with his sexuality and the role that God had for decided upon for him. The dream journal period was pivotal in Swedenborg's life. Prior to this year, Swedenborg had been a noted scientist; after the dream journal he wrote mystical tracts that became the basis of the Swedenborgian Church.

For Swedenborgian scholars, the journal is of interest because it shows the beginnings of his religious philosophy. For psychologists and students of dreams, the intimacy, the honesty -- and the number of dreams -- make it an fascinating document to study.

The purpose of this brief biography is to provide the kind of background information that would be available if this were treated as a case conference. It will describe Swedenborg's family situation, his career prior to the dream journal and, because this is an historical inquiry, the social context of Swedenborg's life

Emanuel Swedenborg was born in 1688 in Stockholm, Sweden and died at the age of 84 in 1772. He was the third of nine children. He never married although he proposed, and was rejected, twice.

Swedenborg's own interests in engineering and religion were present in the father's generation The family had financial interests in the mining industry. His father, Jesper Swedberg/Swedenborg , was also a religious figure, a Lutheran clergyman with "a good deal of evangelical fire" (Dole, 1995). Brock (1988), one of Swedenborg's biographers, says that new mining techniques imported from abroad resuscitated the family fortunes. Jesper was then able to attend the University of Uppsala. After his ordination in 1683 Swedberg married Sarah Behm, a modest and religious woman, whose family's wealth was also derived from extensive mining interests. Swedberg became Bishop of Skara in 1702 and remained there until his death in 1735. Swedenborg, the father, had a reputation for a "'down to earth,' living, practical theology".

The father's appointment as a bishop came when Swedenborg was thirteen. Emanuel remained in Stockholm with his sister and her husband, Erik Benzelius while the rest of the family moved to Skara. Benzelius was the librarian at the university and a supporter of the new Cartesian revolution in science. Like Jesper, he later became a bishop. Biographers consider him a major influence on Emanuel.

Swedenborg's mother died in 1696 when he was seven or eight. His father remarried and the stepmother is presumed to have liked Swedenborg since she left him half of her considerable estate when she died.

The combination of a powerful, distant father and the early death of his mother is seen by some psychologists as a powerful formative influence on Swedenborg. His father occurs in the dreams but so does King Charles, perhaps representing an even more powerful and more distant father-figure. His mother occurs in only one dream.

The social context of Swedenborg's formative years is relevant because the conflict between science and religion was a theme in the society and in Swedenborg's own life. The scientific and philosophical revolution that deeply undermined the grip of the church on society had begun only a few generations earlier. In 1633, just fifty five years before Swedenborg was born, Galileo Galilei had been tried by the Italian Inquisition. Rene Descartes had died in 1650, as had Isaac Newton.

Swedenborg was a contemporary and acquaintance of the astronomers, Edmund Halley (1656-1742), discoverer of the comet, and John Flamsteed (1646-1719), the first British Astronomer Royal. In later life he corresponded with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and with Immanuel Kant who wrote to Swedenborg (Synnestvedt, 1977).

The beginning of the Eighteenth century was a period when the uneasy peace between science and religion, in Sweden between Cartesian Science and Lutheran Orthodoxy, was coming to an end: "This was a painful process, with clerics seeing the authority of the church undermined and scientists seeing the church as the primary obstacle to freedom of inquiry." (Dole, 1995). Psychologically, the conflict was much deeper than a power struggle about authority. The scientists themselves were plagued with unease about their conflicting loyalties. Even if the church was the visible obstacle, the role of God in their new-found sciences was something that was far from clear.

Swedenborg's inner conflict has been noted as an eloquent parallel to this external power struggle: What is the place of religion when science is continually undermining long-held beliefs?

After university, Swedenborg pursued a scientific career. He was financially independent but also held a post in the College of Mines. His accomplishments were considerable. He claimed fourteen inventions including "a submarine, an airplane, a mechanical carriage, a lock system for raising the height of ships" (letter of Swedenborg to Benzelius quoted by Williams-Hogan, 1985). He wrote a definitive work on metallurgy and worked as an assistant to Sweden's foremost inventor and engineer, Christopher Polhem. His engineering and scientific interests took him to England, Holland, France and Germany.

Not only were many of Swedenborg's endeavors highly practical, he showed adept social skills. He was on familiar terms with the King, was a member of the Swedish House of Nobles and campaigned for many years to be paid a salary for his position at the college of mines.

The journal period, beginning when Swedenborg was 55, is the crucial dividing line between Swedenborg's scientific, rationalist work and his later religious writings. After the dream-journal period, Swedenborg wrote numerous influential religious and mystical tracts. On the basis of his writings, the Swedenborgian church was founded. Even before he died, Swedenborg's views were influential and controversial. He was a major influence on such figures as the artist/poet William Blake, the poet Charles Baudelaire and Henry James, Senior, the father of William & Henry James.

Table 2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Swedenborg's Dreams

Swedenborg offers a particularly valuable set of dreams but there are both advantages and disadvantages to using his dreams (See Table 2).

The dream journal is honest and revealing: Swedenborg's honesty and his personal struggle with his inner life are revealed with a rare degree of integrity and courage. His grappling with his fears, his "temptations" and his concern for moral obligations make this journal a remarkable document.

There are an adequate number of dreams to examine: There are about 100 dreams in all. This provides an adequate supply so that themes with a dozen or more dreams can be examined. Modern dream studies (Domhoff, 1996) have shown that quantitative analysis needs about 100 dreams to offer statistically reliable results.

The dreams are free from modern influences: A comparable 20^th century subject would have interpretations that were influenced by a Freudian or other perspective. Swedenborg's own interpretations are literally, his own interpretations or at any rate from a different culture to our own.

The dreams are reported by a reliable source: Swedenborg's scientific credentials are impeccable. His powers of observation are clearly established by his earlier work.

Almost every dream is accompanied by Swedenborg's own interpretation: Typically, Swedenborg makes a one-statement interpretation of each dream. He was unfamiliar with the idea of free association and he offers no theory behind his interpretation.

The dream journal can be trusted because intensely difficult matters are discussed: The content is of a remarkably private nature with discussions of Swedenborg's sexuality and "temptations". These are matters that would have been very painful to disclose to others. He struggles with his inner demons in a way that simply is not intended for public inspection.

There is overwhelming evidence of change in Swedenborg's external life: Before the dream journal period, Swedenborg was an engineer. After the dream journal he devoted himself to religious writings. The dream journal makes it clear that, through his dreams, he is searching for perfection in his relationship with God. Because there is such a dramatic change in Swedenborg's external life, we hope to find major questions posed and resolved in the course of his dreams. The issue of whether to use normal or abnormal situations from which to judge dreaming occurs in Hartmann's discussion of nightmares where he argues similarly that the abnormal situation of a trauma gives us a bench mark with which to judge the dreamer's situation.

The fact that the dreams are read in translation would be a serious problem if my examination hinged upon the connotations of particular words. Rather than that, it depends upon the changes in the narrative matter of the dream and translated narrative can be examined with confidence. In the context of narrative studies, Hayden White quotes Roland Barthes, the narrativist scholar: "'narrative … is translatable without fundamental damage'" and adds "in a way that a lyric poem or a philosophical discourse is not" (1981 p.2).

Swedenborg has a religious view of dreams: Swedenborg's unusual beliefs go to the heart of the dream journal. For better and for worse, the dream journal is not a psychological inquiry, it is a religious one. Unlike a modern therapy or analysis where the orientation to dreams is typically "Who am I?", Swedenborg was in effect asking "How can I be a better Christian?".

Rather than a modernistic, ameliorating resolution of his opposites, Swedenborg's struggle between good and bad object, ego and shadow, accentuates the differences. He sees his goal as being to eradicate all badness. Mann (1940), in a paper that will be discussed in detail later, assesses the extent to which the dream journal concurs with modern analytic procedures and how it differs.

Swedenborg had no notion of the modern idea of association. He makes assessments of dreams -- interpretations -- but it is often hard for an outsider to see how the interpretation relates to the dream.

The subject cannot be questioned: The examination of the dreams can only take place as archival research since Swedenborg is not available to be questioned.

The dreams are not unambiguously identified: Since Swedenborg was writing the journal for himself, he makes no demarcation between the dream and his comments. It is up to the reader to decide exactly which portions of the journal are the dreams, which are visions and what is commentary. This creates some doubt but is not an insurmountable problem in this case because we will be examining numerous dreams rather than attempting to analyze particular dreams

Swedenborg was a controversial religious figure rather than a "normal" subject: Swedenborg's dreams cannot be judged as average data. Both his exceptional intellect and his unusual views make him an atypical subject. He was a Protestant mystic who had visions. He wrote accounts of his conversations with angels and his perceptions of Heaven and Hell. His ideas are far from mainstream.

A remark by William Blake presages the psychological analysis of Swedenborg by Katherine Mann that will be discussed next. The artist and poet was heavily influenced by Swedenborg. Blake (1757-1827) had been, at some point in his life, a follower of Swedenborg and a member of the London church, probably in his childhood. His concepts of Heaven, Hell, Angels and the New Jerusalem derive directly from Swedenborg. Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell contains a glowing reference to him: "And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb; his writings are the linen clothes folded up.". But in another quote from A Memorable Fancy, later in Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he comments, critically and even sarcastically of Swedenborg that: "He conversed with Angels who are all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable thro' his conceited notions." (1958, p.106). The quote is worth reporting because it addresses a major issue for Swedenborg: that he attempted to eliminate all that he found repugnant from his thoughts. This is a theme throughout his dream journal. For Blake, the task of eliminating the Devils is considered a "conceit". For Mann, the task of eliminating the shadow is a Christian approach that can only fail; a Jungian would attempt to integrate the shadow. I understand Blake to be saying this in his own way.

Kristine Mann, a Jungian analyst, examined Swedenborg's dream journal with a focus on the implications of self-analysis (1940). From her point of view, Swedenborg's attempt to grasp his dreams highlighted the difference between the Christian and the psychoanalytical approaches to inner knowledge. Like analysis, Christianity has an emphasis on inner spirituality; such phrases as "The kingdom of heaven is within you" and "First take out the beam in thine own eye" indicate this. In spite of this, Christianity places little concern for "the darkness of the heart -- the shadow side" (p.26). It is here that she argues that Swedenborg failed; not from a lack of courage but from a conception of Good and Evil that is so different from that within analytical psychology. On the one hand, Swedenborg went through a process that everyone who performs this inner examination must go through. But also she viewed Swedenborg's sharp distinction between good and evil as his critical issue, one that this prevented him from making the kind of changes that someone in a modern analysis might make.

Mann reviews Swedenborg's dream journal. She sees the journal as typical of the way people turn inward. Even if their life appears outwardly to be full of success, at some point, they became aware of an internal dissatisfaction: "The moment Swedenborg begin to look to his dreams, however, a realization of his utter weakness as a human being swept over him causing him intense distress and depression" (p.28).

She highlights one of Swedenborg's early dreams in which a machine is carrying him upwards, he made the interpretation "Perhaps I need to be kept further in the dilemma" as indicating his desire to see himself through this journey rather than to avoid it. She sees Swedenborg's trust that his sufferings are worth pursuing as part of his true greatness.

The core task of analysis is, for Mann, the discovery of the Self and the realization of one's shadow side is a shocking experience for most of us, leaving us with a sense of utter inferiority and worthlessness. She sees Swedenborg as going through these emotions, fighting against his shadow side, which for him is symbolized by "'voluptuousness, riches and vanity'" (p.32). She acknowledges that Swedenborg came into contact with a part of his shadow which was his lusts: "Swedenborg had become acutely sensitive to his sinfulness both on the ego and lust sides of his nature" (p.34).

In her review, Mann notes Swedenborg's animal dreams and his struggle between the opposites of flesh and spirit. She sees this as "expressed more strikingly than it would be likely to be in any modern statement and is a picture of the undervaluation of the body during the eighteenth century" (p.35). She believes that the later dreams indicated a more peaceful state of mind. She understands some of his later comments to mean that he was becoming aware of the Self rather than the ego. She quotes: "I ought to employ my time on what is higher and not write about worldly things, which are far beneath, but to write about that which concerns the very center of things -- that which concerns Christ" (p.38).

Swedenborg, she argues, deals with his conflicts on an intellectual level. They do not come back to his relationships with other people. He addresses a ceaseless struggle between "his thoughts (lusts of the body, egotism, pride, superiority) which came from the devil and the thoughts which came from God and the angels (love of God, love of neighbor)" (p.37). However, and because this is a self-analysis, it lacks the transference in which "as the contents of the unconscious arise, they are for the most part projected to the analyst and one becomes aware of God or Devil in a real person and not as figments of one's own thoughts" (p.37).

Mann sees Swedenborg as taking a courageous path by examining his own dreams. But she sees a fatal flaw in the fact that he did it alone: "he never really assimilated the unconscious side of the psyche, the weaker functions of sensation and feeling. In other words, he never really came to terms with the anima who was to him either an angel of light or a seductive demon" (p.49). She compares Swedenborg to "a monk solving his problem of good and evil in his solitary cell and striving single-heartedly toward the perfection of himself" (p 51). His solutions are not people-oriented: "He did not lie awake nights because he had treated his wife unkindly -- or a friend had cut him" (p.37). Thus, the angels and devils that became so important to him were, in Mann's view, a failure to relate to other people: "Since he was living a more or less hermit existence, he could not project his own angels and devils upon his fellow men" (p. 37). Blake, focussing on Swedenborg's later writings rather than the dream journal, raises similar issues when he questioned why Swedenborg would not talk to his devils, whether projected or internalized.

Soren Ekstrom, a Jungian analyst, examined Swedenborg's dream journal in an unpublished manuscript (1972). Overall, his comments are in agreement with those of Mann but he tends to have offer a more disparaging analysis of Swedenborg's dreams. He views the self-analysis as a failure to resolve Swedenborg's core issues:

The step from the skeptical and materialistic scientist to prophet-called might seem huge. No doubt it is a drastic change Swedenborg undergoes. Psychologically however, it has little to do with individuation, but rather a desperate way to live with a strong father complex and an unresolved shadow problem. Under these circumstances, the longed for redemption of the feminine in matter was an impossible task. (p. 135).

Ekstrom takes it as certain that Swedenborg had sexual problems. For example:

The only outlet his sexual passions seemed to have had was masturbation…he speaks in indirect, but unmistakable ways, of temptations or 'to let of what was of the Devil'. His compulsion to masturbate went deep, even though he tries to overcome it. (p.34)

Ekstrom is particularly interested in Swedenborg's theology. He is especially aware of the roles of the father and of God as "God the father" in Swedenborg's thinking.. Amongst his many observations, he comments that "The personal father is never mentioned in The Dreambook more than when writing down dreams in which he appears…. God the father is mentioned on almost every page, once or several times, after the Easter conversion" (pp. 112 -113). Ekstrom takes the fact that Swedenborg's father is never mentioned in a negative way to mean that "we have all reasons to assume that Swedenborg's unconscious contains the opposite with strong emotionality" (p. 113).

Echoing Mann's emphasis on the split between good and evil, he quotes from a later work of Swedenborg's: "To imagine that God created also evil is criminal" and that view "corresponds quite well with the conscious image throughout The Dreambook" (p.114). Ekstrom seems to argue that consciously, Swedenborg devalued the feminine but that his unconscious recognized its importance. He has this to say about Swedenborg's "sanctuarium" dream (in which Swedenborg first has sex with a woman):

… in the unconscious this identity [of the corporeal and the spiritual as two sides of the same thing] is at hand. The woman in the dream is the "sanctuarium", the altar his conscious attitude can only see in connection with good deeds, a merciful father, and a pure mind. (p. 111)

So, for Ekstrom, Swedenborg's consciousness identifies the father with the good and the pure but his unconscious is telling him that the body and the feminine can also represent these qualities.

Wilson Van Dusen wrote a commentary on Swedenborg's dream journal (1986). The dream journal is divided into paragraphs and each paragraph is followed by Van Dusen's commentary. Van Dusen, both a noted Swedenborgian scholar and a psychologist, tends to agree with Swedenborg's assessments of his dreams and to explicate the dreams from Swedenborg's point of view. At the same time he brings a somewhat Jungian interpretation to the dream, for example by considering the women in his dreams as anima. Van Dusen also performs two valuable ancillary tasks: firstly, he includes in his commentary, a wealth of information about the personae of Swedenborg's dreams, explaining who they were and their relationship to the Swedenborg family. Secondly, he makes reference to other translations of the dreams and notes variations in the text.

My examples so far have been taken, almost exclusively, from published case histories. The dream is then a dream during therapy and has been report to the therapist and discussed with him or her. Swedenborg's dreams, as we have outlined earlier, come from a private journal. There is no therapist intervening in the dreaming process. Not only are these dreams free of any "therapistic" effect, not only can we guarantee that they were intended only for Swedenborg himself but also we have here a much longer series of dreams -- about 150 in total. Out of those, I have extracted his dreams about women in order to examine a theme in more detail.

Swedenborg has 38 dreams involving women; this is more than any other theme in the dream journal (see Appendix D). There is a pivotal dream that naturally divides the series and I have divided the study of these "Female figure" or anima dreams into two parts around this dream. The first study considers the first 18 of Swedenborg's female figure dreams that begins in March 1744 and ends on April 25-26^th of the same year (see Table 3). I elected to end the first study with the 18^th dream because it seems to be a resolution of the issues raised in the first dream. The second study considers the remaining 20 dreams. They end in May of 1745. The last dream of this section can be seen as a further comment on the very first dream.

For a dream to be included in this study, there must be particular reference to a woman in the dream; either Swedenborg interacts with a woman or there is a detailed description of a woman or she has a definite place in the dream. In some dreams there is a general mention of "men and women" but no interaction with a woman. For example, in [176], the sentence "It seemed that women and men were set to go away in a ship" does not make this a dream about a woman; this reference is not specific enough to justify the dream’s inclusion..

The inquiry starts from a very general question: when these dreams about women are considered as a series, what do they tell us? The question is limited to the manifest content of the dreams. It does not take into account Swedenborg's own interpretations of the dreams. Although the dreams provide fertile material for many examinations, this study is not an attempt to discuss the meaning of the anima or the importance of the male-female union in psychological processes or the symbolic meaning of sexual union. It is solely an effort at bringing into focus the relationship between Swedenborg's dream ego and the women in his dreams.

Table 3. Anima dreams first half: Summary of Themes and Related Dreams

In the first dream, Swedenborg states a wish to know the woman (this is paragraph 17 of the dream journal): "a woman laid down by my side … I wished to know who it was". The wish is a very general one but the context is that he is lying down with a woman; as the dreams progress, his dream-interest in women is sexual. In the last, 18^th, dream, he makes love to a woman and deems this to be a marriage. My interpretation is that these dreams form a complete cycle that shows the developments Swedenborg's dream ego had to undergo in order to achieve union with a woman. Within the series, there is typically a discernible topic, in effect a mini-theme, that spans two or three dreams. The topic involves a problem that is presented with increasing clarity until it is resolved; the old topic then disappears and a new topic emerges.

When we view Swedenborg’s women-dreams in their entirety, we are able to see the long journey our subject makes from his initial desire to its fulfillment. At first, he dreams that he is unable or unwilling to make love. Then his dreams take on a combative tone: he wrestles with his shadow, his fears about, and anger at, women take center stage. It is only at the end, when his inhibitions and the prohibitions have been worked through that Swedenborg finally achieved the "conjunction oppositorum" which started as a wish in the initial dream.

Dream 17 : "… a woman laid down by my side... I wished to know who it was…She said that she was pure but that I smelled ill."

Swedenborg wishes to know a woman who is pure. She lies down beside him, an indication that she is willing to be known, and also that she will take the initiative. There is a problem however; he smells -- a sign of an intuitive objection on the part of the woman. The pure woman can tell that something is not well with him.

Dream 19: " Was in a garden …There was a person who picked away a number of invisible creeping things, and killed them; he said they were bugs which someone had dropped there and thrown in… I did not see them but saw another little creeping thing which I dropped on a white linen cloth beside a woman."

Dream 22/23: "…spoke with a lady who was a court attendant; she wished to tell me something…I went out for I was meanly dressed.… shabbily dressed, and having no wig"

The theme in these three dreams can be conceptualized as: Swedenborg wants to meet his feminine aspect but that this is a preparatory stage; Swedenborg is not yet ready for this encounter. In dream 17, the objection is voiced by the woman. In dream 22, the woman now approves of their meeting. Dream 19 represents an intermediary stage in which the objectionable aspect is neither in him nor in her. He is aware of an insect -- an unconscious objection -- and locates it next to her. Swedenborg's failing in dream 17 is that he is unaware that he smells; by dream 22, he is aware of his own failing: that of being meanly dressed. Not only has Swedenborg acknowledged the objection but the quality of the objection itself has also changed. It is no longer an intuition or an external, creeping thing, but rather, so to speak, an internal persona problem: Swedenborg is not presenting himself in a way he finds acceptable. He is not yet prepared to accept a communication from the anima.

Dream 27: "a number of women; one who was writing a letter. Took it but do not know where it went…"

Dream 28: "Saw a very lovely woman…beside a window…where a child was placing roses. She took me by the hand and led me"

In dream 27, the woman attempts to communicate with Swedenborg by letter, i.e. with words and thoughts. She is trying to tell him something, but Swedenborg, at this stage, loses the communication thereby showing his inability to receive whatever message she is trying to send. In dream 28, instead of using words, she touches him physically. A child, a rose, and a window come into the picture. The anima has switched from an abstract mode of communication to a physical one and directs him which way to go. The dream presents a picture of organic and human growth. Dream 28 announces the next theme: the anima intends to lead Swedenborg somewhere

Dream 83: "… a young woman in dark clothes…told me I ought to go to …Then there came at my back one that held me so fast … that I could not move"

Dream 94: "Came into a low room where there were many people; saw however only one woman, was in black but not evil; she walked a long way into a bedroom but I would not go with her. She waved to me at the door. Afterwards I went out and found myself detained several times by a specter which held me all down the back. At last it disappeared … it was a foul old man"

In dream 83, the anima is trying to direct Swedenborg to somewhere, but it is not clear where, and Swedenborg cannot go because he is caught up a struggle with something behind him, a shadow figure. In dream 94, the woman completes the instruction, mentioned in dream 28, and attempted in dream 83: she wants Swedenborg to go into the bedroom with her. There is no verbal interchange; she goes to the bedroom door and waves to him, but Swedenborg first will not follow, and then is detained. Swedenborg now has a clearer picture of who is detaining him -- it is a specter, a foul old man. Van Dusen interprets the woman's dark clothes as feelings, presumably somber ones.

Dream 106: "It seems that I saw my sister Caisa, who did something somewhat amiss and afterwards lay down and cried out. When our mother came she assumed a totally different mien and a different speech"

Dream 119: "…saw my sister Hedvig with whom I would have nothing to do … she said to her children: Go out and read …play … I believe it signified that there is nothing wrong or criminal when one does this…"

The anima is establishing a personal relationship with him. Dream 106 is the first instance in which the woman is not a stranger. Here are two dreams involving his family. The first brings in his mother and a sister whereas the second merges these two roles by showing Hedvig both as a sister, in which role he rejects her, and also as a mother, in which case he will defend her. In dream 106 something amiss was done and in dream 119, Swedenborg argues that this does not signify anything wrong or criminal. The image of the child recurs and the idea of play is introduced. Swedenborg appears to be someone who has to defend the idea of playing against the contention that it is wrong and criminal.

Dream 120: "Lay with one that was by no means pretty but still I liked her … I touched her there but found at the entrance it was set with teeth…"

Dream 126: "… Doctor Moraeus paid court to a pretty girl, obtained her consent … I joked with her"

Dream 129: "I climbed up a ladder … after me came women I knew. I stood still and frightened them on purpose …laid down side by side with … a young woman and one a little older. I kissed both their hands and did not know at all which I should have. It was my thoughts and my ouvrage d'esprit which at last came up with me; I regained and saluted them and received them"

In dream 120, the woman is neither dark nor lovely but likeable – the extremes have given way to something more moderate. Swedenborg would not, I think, want to have intercourse with an evil woman, nor would he wish to spoil a good one. The impediment to intercourse is no longer projected onto a third element, the shadow, but onto the woman herself, in the form of the teeth. A progression has taken place, in which the expressions of Swedenborg’s anxieties about women increase in definition. In the first four dreams, there are no negative qualities to any of the women. In dream 83, he notes that the woman is dressed in black. In dream 94, this idea progresses a step: He associates black with evil. In dream 119, he will have nothing to do with his sister. Now, his reservation about women is described quite specifically – they have teeth there.

Dream 126 unites the sexual and the personal. Sex is possible for Doctor Moraeus who is personally known to Swedenborg. Swedenborg is comfortable enough to joke with the woman when the sexual tension is occurring in someone else's life. In dream 129, Swedenborg takes an action: He deliberately frightens the women. Everything before this has been a reaction to others. Here he takes on an active role and instills fear in the women. In contrast, in the teeth dream, the woman, in a sense, shows herself to be a threat to him. Dream 129 is the first dream in which union is possible. Now that he can have sex, he also has a choice of women. There is no barrier other than his own willingness but his thinking function and his desire to perform spiritual work stop him and he regains himself.

Dream 131: "…was at home in my own house, many came to me. I knew I had hidden a pretty little woman and a boy, and I kept them hidden. … there were few provisions for such a company. But I was not yet willing to display my silver; before I had to entertain them; nor yet to conduct them into an inner magnificent apartment … "

The woman has been placed in a context. Swedenborg has a magnificent inner apartment, a pretty little woman and a boy that are, at the moment, kept hidden. Van Dusen sees this dream as foretelling Swedenborg's future role: "he spent the rest of his life setting forth 'the silver' and showing people the 'bedroom'". Because this is not a dream about sexual relations, it seems to connect to the dream about his sister, dream 131. In that dream, he will have nothing to do with the woman, while in this dream he keeps her hidden.

Dream 169: "… I fought with a woman in flight who drove me down into the lake and up; at last I struck her on the forehead as hard as possible…"

Dream 171: "…something holy was dictated to me, which ended with "sacrarium et sanctuarium" I found myself lying in bed with a woman and said "Had you not used the word sanctuarium, we would have done it." I turned away from her. She with her hand touched my member…it bent yet it went in…There was one beside the bed who lurked about afterwards but she went away first"

Dreams 169, and 171 are from the same night. In dream 169, Swedenborg is in a great struggle with the anima. Instead of merely frightening her or being intimidated by her, this is an overt struggle. She pushes him into a lake – a symbol of the unconscious – and he retaliates. In dream 171, he unites with the anima but this union has complications: There is another woman lurking about, "it bent", and Swedenborg also appears to be blaming the woman: she has used the word sanctuarium (claiming sanctuary perhaps), which he believes has prevented them from having intercourse.

Dream 177: "…how a woman that was married persecuted me but I was saved"

Dream 178: "A married woman wished to have me but my liking was for an unmarried. The former turned against me and persecuted me; but still I attained the unmarried one and was with her and loved her…"

Dream 179 "a woman who had a very fine property … and I was to marry her…. I went with her also, and loved her after the usual manner; which act appeared to stand for marriage."

A married woman is present in all three dreams. In dream 177, she persecutes him. In dream 178 he chooses an unmarried woman instead and in dream 179 the unmarried woman becomes the married one. In an earlier dream, dream 129, the choice was between an older woman and a younger one, and Swedenborg could not decide. Now the choice is clarified; it is between a married woman (who persecutes him) and an unmarried woman, and Swedenborg can make a decision. In dream 178 he makes love to the unmarried woman but there is still another woman in the dream. In dream 179 he is alone with one woman, to whom he makes love, and the fact of their union constitutes a kind of marriage. Finally, there are no complications between Swedenborg and the woman. They have reached a state of union.

In the course of these dreams, Swedenborg has made a long journey. He begins with the desire for intercourse but is not ready. When he and the anima are prepared to interact, the anima has to learn to communicate with him. He then has to wrestle with his shadow and his fears of women before he can eventually realize his desire for union.

Except when the woman is a family member, the woman is always, in these dreams, a person with little definition. She displays little personality and has no clear role other than that of a participant in the desired union.

It is noticeable that during this time, Swedenborg makes no mention of women in his everyday life. We might well expect that the impetus for processing his relationship to his anima would come from a wish to deal with particular issues in his life but, on the contrary, Swedenborg seems impelled to develop his inner life by some internal impetus. This has to some extent baffled psychologists and dismayed them. They have tended to see Swedenborg's developments as failures. For instance, when in dream 83, Swedenborg does not remember where the woman asks him to go, Ekstrom (1972) treats this as a repression and suggests that Swedenborg does not reveal his destination because it is a whorehouse. However, subsequent dreams do not bear this out. They suggest that his dream ego is eventually quite willing to know where he is going even if, at first, he cannot remember.

The first 18 dreams showed a gradual development in his relations with women that culminates in the marriage dream; the subsequent dreams suggest completion of several important themes but do not show such a clear sequential development.

Now that Swedenborg has achieved a "marriage", two more specific issues reach completion in the second half of the dreams. Firstly, the impediments disappear and Swedenborg is free to meet the queen. Secondly, Swedenborg's father and his sexual relations with women are juxtaposed in the same dream.

Other themes show changes: The theme of the letter expands as does the theme of the child. The more traumatic dreams of struggles, specters and persecution (dreams 27, 83, 94, 129, 169) disappear. There are dreams of betrayal and death (dreams 216 and 237) and Swedenborg is again involved with women he will not touch (dreams 184, 245, 264), and in one dream with a whore (231). This is summarized in table 4.

Table 4. Anima dreams, second part: Summary of Themes and Related Dreams

Dream 184: It seemed that I passed my water; a woman in the bed looked at me meanwhile; she was fat and red; I took her afterwards by the bosom; she withdrew herself somewhat; she showed me her secret parts and her obscenity; I declined to have any dealings with her.

After the marriage dream, he is again in a situation in which he refuses to have anything to do with a sexually forward woman.

Dream 195: There came to hand a little letter, for which I paid nine stivers. …. When I opened it there lay within it a great book… There sat a woman on the left hand; then she removed to the right and turned over the leaves, and then drawings or designs came forth…. The woman had a rather broad bust and on both sides down to the lower parts was quite bare; the skin, shining as if it were polished; and on the thumb a miniature painting.

The dream tells him how much he has paid. In dream 27 a woman writes him a letter, which he takes, but misplaces. In this dream he opens the letter. This is the most detailed description of a woman that Swedenborg gives.

Dream 200: " Still I could not at all keep myself under, or hinder myself from seeking after the sex; though I was far from having any intention of committing acts; so that I thought in my dream that it was not so much against God’s Ordinance, (I was in company with Prof Oelreich in certain places.) Of this I was never forewarned, as of other things I had committed

It is not clear what this dream is about but Oelreich occurs again in dream 283.

Dream 212: "Seemed to take leave of her with particular tenderness, kissing. When another appeared a short way off, the effect while I was awaking was as if I was in continual amorous desire."

The theme of a woman who has an effect but is not the focus of attention will develop further in later dreams.

Dream 215: "When I wanted to go away, I saw that the queen’s table was made ready. I was not clad as I ought to be; for now, as on other occasions, I had hastily put off my white jacket; and I wished to go up and put it on. Spoke with my father, who kissed me because I reminded him not to swear at all. With this, up came the queen with her attendants."

Previously in the same dream, Swedenborg has been talking to the king and then the princes. He tells them he is "timid in love and veneration". He then has this interaction around the queen. Again, he is not properly clad. There is no mention that Swedenborg interacts with the queen. Earlier, in dream 22 he has left the scene rather than meet the queen while "very meanly dressed …".

Dream 216: "Talked with Brita Behm, who it seemed gave birth to a son, but as the husband had long been dead, I wondered how this could be; the child however died. In its place were both Rosenadlers. She took me into a splendid and large carriage of surpassing magnificence and brought me to Count Horn;"

A dream about his family and death; the death of a husband will recur in dream 237

Dream 231: "Afterwards I had to do with a whore in Assessor Brenner’s presence; it seemed that I boasted of the fact that I was so strong."

A dream about a whore and boasting. The queen will later demonstrate an absence of pride.

Dream 234: I seemed to take a book from my father’s library. Sat afterwards in a ship. Sat with another where the helm usually is. On the right hand was another. When I stood up, another sat in my place; yes, and when I wished to resume it, he moved his seat higher up and gave me room. A woman sat on the left side; in front of me sat another. I rose up, and let her sit there. She sat down, but now there was no easy chair, but only a straight chair, and I was then in front.

Dream 234, like dream 195, is another dream about a book. We do not learn anything about the contents of the book but this time the book is specifically from his father's library. He is at the helm of a ship. Again, as in the letter dream, we have the issue of women -- and men -- taking their places.

Dream 237: "I perceived that Didron went away from his king, with whom he was in such high favor, and betook himself to the Danes, and there died; and that his wife, who was false, was the cause of this, and waited for his dead body."

Another dream about death. Instead of the baby, something personal and a family matter, this death relates to the king and affairs of state and is caused by a woman.

Dream 239: "Immediately after dinner, when I was asleep, a woman was presented to me, but I did not see her face; she was very stout; in very white clothes. I wanted to buy something of her to drink. She said she had nothing left; but there was one beside her who gave me his right to get a glass which she had hidden in her clothes. When she looked for it, I saw how very stout she was, like a woman with child. After looking in the folds of her sleeve, she recovered again what she had for a drink; thought it was chocolate; but it was wine. I did not want to have it as it was chocolate"

Swedenborg associates this dream with dream 171. He wonders "whether or not it was the woman I had when the word 'sanctuary' was mentioned; for I did not now see the face, and moreover she was with child".

Dream 245: "Afterwards I was with women but would not touch them as I had previously had to do with that which was holy"

This is another dream in which he will not have anything to do with a woman. In this instance, a specific reason is given: because he was previously doing something holy; There is something incompatible between holiness and touching a woman.

Dream 257: " I saw the kingdom of innocence. Saw below me the loveliest garden that could be seen. On every tree white roses were set in succession. Went afterwards into a long room. There were beautiful white dishes with milk and bread in them, so appetizing that nothing more appetizing could be imagined. I was in company with a woman whom I do not remember particularly."

Here the woman participates in the dream as a companion and is not the focus of the dream. The garden and the color white occurred in dream 19: "saw another little creeping thing which I dropped on a white linen cloth beside a woman". In this dream his attention is on the garden and on the food.

Dream 258: " A pretty innocent child came to me and told me that the woman had gone away without taking leave and begged me to buy her a book that she might take up; but showed me nothing."

A woman participates but indirectly. The book theme returns and the idea of a child.

Dream 262: "I was sent to a certain place with a letter. I could not find the way; but my sister Hedvig saw the letter; said it was to Ulrica Adlersteen who was found to have been longing for me for a considerable time."

The letter theme returns. He cannot find his way but his sister Hedvig helps him. Hedvig also appears in dream 119 where she sends her children out to play and Swedenborg comments "there is nothing wrong or criminal when one does this in the right way.". This is the only instance in which a woman who is sexually interested in Swedenborg is specifically named.

Dream 264: " Seemed as if I was in bed with a woman, but did not touch her. Came afterwards to a gentleman and asked if I could get into his service, because I had lost my post through the war; but he said, "No." They played a kind of basset; the coins went back and forth; I was however always with them. I asked my servant if he had said that I owned anything: he said, "No"; said that he should say nothing else."

Again, he will have nothing to do with a woman. Curiously the theme of a game, which came up indirectly in the previous dream, now occurs directly.

Dream 275: "Afterwards I saw the queen: then a chamberlain came and bowed; she likewise made equally deep reverence; there was no pride in her."

Now the queen is shown in an interaction but not with Swedenborg. The queen, although she occupies such an exalted position, is free of pride whereas Swedenborg is often concerned about his own pride and boastfulness (as in dreams 82, 134, and 231).

Dream 280: "When I went with my friend through a long passage, a pretty girl came and fell into his arms and as it were sobbed. I asked if she knew him. She did not answer. I took her from him and led her by the arm."

This is the only dream in which he even gives the appearance of being in competition with another man for woman.

Dream 283/284/285: "It seemed to me that I was with Oelreich and two women; he laid down; and afterwards it seemed he had been with a woman. He admitted it. It occurred to me, as I also stated, that I also had lain with one, and my father saw it, but went past, and said not a word about it. I walked away from Oelreich and on the way there was deep water, but at the side there was very little. I therefore took the path at the side and thought to myself that I ought not to go into the deep water. It seemed that a rocket burst over me spreading a number of sparkles of lovely fire."

Finally his father appears in conjunction with Swedenborg's life with women. I would regard this as a critical dream. No longer is Swedenborg's relationship with women something hidden from his relationship with his father.

If we imagine that Swedenborg's dream ego had entered therapy and was having the experiences described in the initial dreams -- problems such as being badly dressed, rejecting women, being rejected by them, feeling too insecure to meet the queen and so forth, we can see that, by the end of this dream series, he has made considerable progress. He has had a marriage of sorts, been able to meet women and to feel comfortable in the presence of the queen. He has not yet discussed his sexuality with his father but his father is now aware that he exists as a sexual being and has made no hostile comments. He continues to be rejecting towards women in many sexual situations and to show hostility towards them but not physical aggression. He is able to admire the beauty of a garden with a woman rather than dropping creepy crawling things on her there. He still cannot properly read the letters that tell him where to go but he has enlisted the help of his sister Hedvig. Very notably, he has also shown himself to be able to take control of a ship – though not without some confusion as to who belongs where.

I believe this imaginal account demonstrates the sense of the dynamic forces available to us when we look at dreams in series and that sense cannot be seen from any individual dreams because it is a change that takes place over time and therefore is not part of any one night's process. The dreams are samplings taken from a continuous unconscious process to use Donald Meltzer's formulation (1975). For example, there is a connection between the female figure and the letter/book. There is no obvious reason for this but the theme of a book only occurs in conjunction with the feminine. When Swedenborg watches the queen and the chamberlain and knowing that this takes place after the dreams of being improperly dressed, the changes that have been effected in his psyche -- at least to his dream ego -- are unmistakable. Again, we have a sense of a direction: It is now easy to notice that Swedenborg has yet to talk to the queen -- even though that was a request in the first of these dreams (dream 22) and that pride is in some way an issue here.

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This dissertation originated in observations I made about my own dreams and those of my friends. When I began the literature review I was not surprised to find that Jung had written extensively about dream series but I was surprised to find that he was almost alone. Freud's cursory references to dream series were not utilized by him and they were ignored or forgotten by most of his successors. Fortunately, the literature on dreams contained a wealth of examples unexplored but placed in plain view.

At the beginning, I thought that the only construct I needed was that of the theme, and that I was merely augmenting my dream analysis tool box with another tool. I would now argue that the task of seeing the dream in its place within a series requires some major changes. The dream ego became, for me, a pivotal matter and the concept of the theme had to adjust accordingly. The theme as an object within the dream became less of a concern than the structure around the theme and particularly the theme's relationship with the dream ego.

I set out to show that a series of dreams can be understood by considering the vicissitudes of the themes in the dreams. This was demonstrated in two ways: first by showing the development of themes in published material and second by taking Swedenborg's dream journal and selecting only those dreams about women. In this specific set of dreams, Swedenborg's relationship with women changed and those changes could be discerned from the series. The thesis of the dissertation would have failed if Swedenborg's anima dreams had proved to be a random collection of incidents with women that showed no clearly coherent connections. In some cases, for example in that of Yazmajian's patient or in the study of Swedenborg, I claim that the series showed trends that simply were not visible to people who examined the dreams individually.

While the dream series has been used with great insight by Jung and utilized, often unconsciously, by many others, I believe this is the first formal demonstration of the meaningfulness of dream series analysis. I have shown that the practice of following the dream series yields information that is either not available to the analyst of the individual dream or else can act as an independent confirmation -- or disconfirmation -- of interpretations from other sources.

As a result of this meta-analysis, I conclude that four types of dream theme have been identified:

Dream

In the first dream she was in the countryside with two men -- one, middle aged and the other, myself. …We both spoke with a German accent but I was represented physically without any modifications. Behind a screen she could see the silhouettes of two young, grown boys who were my sons.

In the first she met me in the street while on the way to my office and I said 'hello' to her, as had actually occurred on one occasion.
The second of the pair depicted my office and patients in a bizarre, mocking manner.

In the first she met me in the street while on the way to my office and I said 'hello' to her as had actually occurred on one occasion. The second of the pair depicted my office and patients in a bizarre, mocking manner.

They meet but firstly as strangers and secondly as a mockery of the analytic relationship.

I was directly represented in 'realistic' professional settings. In the second dream she was in my office, happily advising me on certain matters, but the dream ended with her finding cause to be angry with me. In the third dream she was attending my professional lecture and was aware of feeling deep admiration for me.

The analyst now acts as an analyst but without her presence. The roles are reversed: she gives him advice. He is in his role as an expert but she is not in her role as his patient.

The first part of a tripartite dream differed from others about me in that its setting was a shabby, dirty house, the floor covered with mud. Many people were about. She had come for a treatment session and anxiously inquired whether we should be alone. She noted how kind I was as I reassured her that we would be alone.
In the second part of the dream a policeman told her that she had done nothing wrong.
In the third, she insisted to a girl friend that the friend was wrong to think that some mutual male friend was listed in the social register.

Although she dreamed often during the remainder of the analytic year, I never again appeared in the dreams without disguise. … Since I had become a true transference object, the incest taboo prohibited dreaming of me directly.

The patient was reading a book and became embarrassed upon seeing photographs of her uncle completely nude. She then found herself in the presence of an unrecognized psychiatrist to whom she directed questions concerning premarital sexual activities which he refused to answer. At that point she was informed that an unmarried relative had become pregnant without having had intercourse and was carrying twins.

This is a retelling of initial dream: the unidentified middle aged man has become identified and the identified psychiatrist has become unidentified.

I'm in the country, and there are a lot of people about. There's an old man with a long, gray beard. His grown son is behind a screen and I can see his silhouetted body moving. This old man tells me to lie down and he will removed the tick embedded in my skin.

Theme

[17] How a woman laid down by my side, just as if I was waking. I wished to know who it was. She spoke slowly; said that she was pure, but that I smelled ill. It was my guardian angel, as I believe, for then began the temptation.

[19]. Was in a garden which had many divisions; pretty; of these I wished to possess one for myself but looked about to see if there was any way to get out. It appeared to me that I saw one, and thought of another. There was a person who picked away a number of invisible creeping things, and killed them; he said they were bugs, which someone had dropped there and thrown in, and which infested the people there. I did not see them, but saw another little creeping thing which I dropped on a white linen cloth beside a woman. It was the uncleanness which ought to be rooted out from me.

[22] Came into a magnificent room and spoke with a lady who was a court attendant; she wished to tell me something; then the queen entered, and went through into another apartment. It seemed to me it was the same that had represented our successor. I went out, for I was very meanly dressed, having just come off a journey; a long old overcoat without hat or wig. I wondered that she deigned to come after me. She said that a person had given to his mistress all the jewels; but he got them back in this manner; it was told to her that he had not given the best; then she threw the jewels away.

[23] She asked me to come in again; but I accused myself on the ground of being so shabbily dressed, and having no wig: I must first go home. She said it was of no consequence. It means that I should then write and begin the epilogue to the second part, to which I wished to put a prologue, but it is not needed. I did accordingly. What she related about the jewels means truths, which are revealed to a man, but are withdrawn again; for she was angry because she did not get all. I afterwards saw the jewels in hands, and a great ruby in the middle of them.

[27] Saw a number of women; one who was writing a letter. Took it; but do not know where it went. She was sitting, and a yellow man smote her upon the back; he wished that she should have more stripes; but this was enough. It concerns, so I believe, what

I am writing, and have written; our philosophy.

[28] Saw also a very lovely woman, as it were, beside a window there, where a child was placing roses. She took me by the hand and led me. It betokens what l am writing; also my torment, that would lead me; so I believe.

[83] Afterwards a young woman in dark clothes came in, and told me that I ought to go to... Then there came at my back one that held me so fast, the whole back with the hand and all, that I could not move. I besought one that was beside me for help, and he helped her away; but I had no power to move the army myself This was the temptation of the previous day and signifies that I am by no means capable of doing any good thing of myself Afterwards a whistling was heard as he went away, and I shuddered.

[94] Came into a low room where there were many people; saw however only one woman, was in black, but not evil; she walked a long way into a bedroom, but I would not go with her. She waved to me at the door. Afterwards I went out and found myself detained several times by a specter which held me all down the back. At last it disappeared.

[106] (3) It seems that I saw my sister Caisa, who did something somewhat amiss and afterwards lay down and cried out. When our mother came she assumed a totally different mien and a different speech, the sign 4ication of which shall be given hereafter.

[119 Thought how the grace of the Spirit the whole night worked with me. Saw my sister Hedvig, with whom I would have nothing to do; which signifies that I ought on no account to busy myself with the Oeconomia Regni Animalis but to leave it. Afterwards it seemed to me when time hung heavy, she first said to her children: Go out and read; afterwards, that we might play drafts, or cards, and they sat down to these to pass away the time. It seemed then I was at dinner. I believe it signifies that there is nothing wrong or criminal when one does this in the right way.

[120] Lay with one that was by no means pretty, but still I liked her. She was made like others; I touched her there, but found that at the entrance it was set with teeth. It seemed that it was Archenholtz in the guise of a woman. What it means I do not know; either that I am to have no commerce with women; or that in politics lies that which bites; or something else.

[126] It seemed to me that Doctor Moraeus paid court to a pretty girl, obtained her consent, and thus had the means of taking her where he chose. I joked with her about the readiness with which she said "Yes, " etc., etc. She was a pretty girl, and grew bigger and prettier. It meant that I should inform myself about the muscles and reflect upon them.

[129] It seemed that I climbed up a ladder out of a great deep; after me came... (women) whom I knew. I stood still and frightened them, on purpose, and then I went up. Came against a green wall, and lay down. The others came after. I saluted them. They were women. They laid down side by side with me; a young woman, and one a little older. I kissed both their hands and did not know at all which I should have. It was my thoughts and my ouvrage d’esprit, of two kinds, which at last came up with me:

I regained and saluted them, and received them.

[131] After I came home and was at home in my own house, many came to me. I knew I had hidden a pretty little woman and a boy, and I kept them hidden. For the rest there were few provisions for such a company. But I was not yet willing to display my silver, before I had to entertain them; nor yet to conduct them into an inner magnificent apartment which was finely embellished within. It signifies that I came home to myself again, and that I had won the knowledge that is now written down, and that in time I may be enabled to make use thereof and to set forth the silver, and to carry the people into the elegant bedroom.

[136] Hideous dreams: how the executioner roasted the head he had struck off and laid one roast head after the other in an empty oven that never got full. It was said that it was his meat. he was a great big woman; smiled; had a little girl with him.

[169] It seemed that I fought with a woman in flight, who drove me down into the lake, and up; at last, I struck her on the forehead as hard as possible with a plate and bore down upon her face, until she appeared to be got the better of It was my struggles and my combat with my thoughts which I had overcome.

[171] Afterwards during the whole night something holy was dictated to me, which ended with "sacrarium et sanctuarium." I found myself lying in bed with a woman, and said, "Had you not used the word sanctuarium, we would have done it." I turned away from her. She with her hand touched my member, and it grew large, larger than it ever had been. I turned round and applied myself it bent, yet it went in. She said it was long. I thought during the act that a child must come of it; and it succeeded en merveille. There was one beside the bed who lurked about afterwards; but she went away first.

[177] A beautiful and precious sleep, for about eleven hours, with various representations: how a woman that was married persecuted me, but I was saved. Signifies that the Lord saves me from temptations and persecutions.

[178] A married woman wished to have me; but my liking was for an unmarried. The former turned against me and persecuted me; but still I attained the unmarried one, and was with her and loved her. Perhaps it meant my thoughts.

[179] There was a woman who had a very fine property, which we walked round, and I was to marry her. She stood for piety and, I believe, wisdom; she who owned the riches. I went with her also, and loved her after the usual manner; which act appeared to stand for marriage.

[184] It seemed that I passed my water; a woman in the bed looked at me meanwhile; she was fat and red; I took her afterwards by the bosom; she withdrew herself somewhat; she showed me her secret parts and her obscenity; I declined to have any dealings with her.

[195] 3. There came to hand a little letter, for which I paid nine stivers. When I opened it there lay within it a great book containing clean blank paper, and among this a great many lovely drawings:

the rest, blank paper. There sat a woman on the left hand; then she removed to the right and turned over the leaves, and then drawings or designs came forth. I seemed that the meaning of the letter was that I should cause a number of such designs or patterns to be engraved in England. The woman had a rather broad bust and on both sides down to the lower parts was quite bare; the skin, shining as if it were polished; and on the thumb a miniature painting. This may perhaps mean that with God’s help while in England I shall be enabled to carry out a number of beautiful designs for my work; and that afterwards speculation may convert herself ad priora, which hitherto has been in posterioribus; as the alteration from the left to the right seems to suggest.

[212] Seemed to take leave of her with particular tenderness, kissing. When another appeared a short way offi the effect while I was awaking was as if I was in continual amorous desire. Yet it was said and as it were complained that it was not at all understood. Which signifies that an end has now come to what I have written on the senses in general, and the operation of the interior faculties, which, as it is projected, cannot be comprehended; and that I am now coming to the second part, on the cerebrum.

[215] Was with and conversed with the king, who was afterwards in a room; talked afterwards with his princes with whom I had become acquainted. They conversed among themselves about me. I told them that I am timid in love and veneration. When I wanted to go away, I saw that the queen’s table was made ready. I was not clad as I ought to be; for now, as on other occasions, I had hastily put off my white jacket; and I wished to go up and put it on. Spoke with my father, who kissed me because I reminded him not to swear at all. With this, up came the queen with her attendants. It signifies that I enter into acquaintanceship with God’s children; for the day before I selected another lodging.

[216] Talked with Brita Behm, who it seemed gave birth to a son, but as the husband had long been dead, I wondered how this could be; the child however died. In its place were both flosenadlers. She took me into a splendid and large carriage of surpassing magnificence and brought me to Count Horn;

[231] Afterwards I had to do with a whore in Assessor Brenner’s presence; it seemed that I boasted of the fact that I was so strong. Signifies, that I was wrong with my God, daily with thoughts that hung by me; and from which no man but God alone can help me; also that I had boasted to D. H. about my work. I planned the day after to go to God’s table, but found from this that no man, but God alone, can forgive sins. I therefore abstained. I thus have been given ground for observation on the subject of confession.

[234] I seemed to take a book from my father’s library. Sat afterwards in a ship. Sat with another where the helm usually is. On the right hand was another. When I stood up, another sat in my place; yes, and when I wished to resume it, he moved his seat higher up and gave me room. A woman sat on the left side; in front of me sat another. I rose up, and let her sit there. She sat down, but now there was no easy chair, but only a straight chair, and I was then in front.

[237 Afterwards it seemed I perceived that Didron went away from his king, with whom he was in such high favor, and betook himself to the Danes, and there died; and that his wife, who was false, was the cause of this, and waited for his dead body. Hear now at once, as he also inspired me, that I ought by no means to depart from the congregation of Christ;

and thither to take the Lord’s Supper; and that in this case I become spiritually dead again. I could not understand anything further; there is therefore a mystery underneath this. I refrained myself therefrom; was kindled by the Holy Spirit, as often happens when I dispose myself according to command.

[239] Immediately after dinner, when I was asleep, a woman was presented to me, but I did not see her face; she was very stout; in very white clothes. I wanted to buy something of her to drink. She said she had nothing left; but there was one beside her who gave me his right to get a glass which she had hidden in her clothes. When she looked for it, I saw how very stout she was, like a woman with child. After looking in the folds of her sleeve, she recovered again what she had for a drink; thought it was chocolate; but it was wine. I did not want to have it as it was chocolate; but just then I awoke. It seemed to me then as also on one or two occasions before that I had a pretty strong consciousness of the smell of wine. I wondered especially at her snowwhite clothes. I cannot well say what this means whether or not it was the woman I had when the word "sanctuary" was mentioned; for I did not now see the face, and moreover she was with child; which may signify that I am now in fact rightly writing and producing what I have in view. For that day I found myself greatly enlightened in those things that I had in hand.

[257] This night was the most delightful of all, because I saw the kingdom of innocence. Saw below me the loveliest garden that could be seen. On every tree white roses were set in succession. Went afterwards into a long room. There were beautiful white dishes with milk and bread in them, so appetizing that nothing more appetizing could be imagined. I was in company with a woman whom I do not remember particularly.

[258 Then I went back. A pretty innocent child came to me and told me that the woman had gone away without taking leave and begged me to buy her a book that she might take up; but showed me nothing. Wakened. Besides this it seemed I entertained on my own account a number of people in a house or palace standing by itself where there were some acquaintances: among them Senator Lagerberg; also, I think, Ehrenpreus and others. It was all at my expense. I realized it cost me much, but my thoughts went to and for about the expense. Meanwhile I did not care about it for I observed that all was maintained by the Lord, who owned the property or showed it me.

[262] When I wakened, I had completely decided to abandon this work; which also would have happened were it not that afterwards in sleep it seemed I was sent to a certain place with a letter. I could not find the way; but my sister Hedwig saw the letter; said it was to Ulrica Adlersteen who was found to have been longing for me for a considerable time. I came there; also saw Schonstrom. Afterwards continually I had the senses before me; how they go up to the cerebrum, and down. By this I was strengthened in continuing my work.

[264] Seemed as if I was in bed with a woman, but did not touch her. Came afterwards to a gentleman and asked lf I could get into his service, because I had lost my post through the war; but he said, "No." They played a kind of basset; the coins went back and forth; I was however always with them. I asked my servant if he had said that I owned anything: he said, "No"; said that he should say nothing else. Signifies the Moravian Church, my being there and not accepted; and my saying that I have no knowledge in religion but have lost it all; and those that play basset win here and there.

[275] Afterwards I saw the queen: then a chamberlain came and bowed; she likewise made equally deep reverence; there was no pride in her. Signifies that in Christ dwells not the least pride but that he makes himself equal with others although he is the greatest king; and does not trouble himself about that which is great; moreover, that he takes others’ burdens upon him. The queen, who is wisdom, is like this also and has no selflove and sees herself no higher in herself because she is queen.

[280] When I went with my friend through a long passage, a pretty girl came and fell into his arms and as it were sobbed. I asked if she knew him. She did not answer. I took her from him and led her by the arm. It was my other work to which she addressed herself and from which I took her in this way.

[283] It seemed to me that I was with Oelreich and two women; he laid down; and afterwards it seemed he had been with a woman. He admitted it. It occurred to me, as I also stated, that I also had lain with one, and my father saw it, but went past, and said not a word about it.

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Last modified: September 13, 2002