The Dream State

            As shown in Figure 14, the dream state has a “normal” personal unconscious but not a “normal” consciousness (consciousness is negative). Consciousness here is focused within the personal unconscious, the region U_P in our phase space.

            Jung (1981) says the "dreams have a psychic structure which is unlike that of other contents of consciousness" (p. 237). He divided dreams into five major types or categories:  (1) those with a "compensating function" which appear to compensate the waking ego to help maintain psychic balance by bringing up repressed images, (2) those with a "prospective function" which serves as "an anticipatory combination of probabilities" (p. 255), (3) those with a "reductive function" that tend to disintegrate, demolish, destroy, or devalue images, (4) reaction dreams that replay past traumatic experiences, and (5) telepathic dreams that seem almost prophetic in nature and which come under the heading of synchronicities. These five categories form an entire dream spectrum.

            In dreams we tend to be self conscious even though our sense of identity may differ from that in our waking state. The angle of consciousness for the dream state is shown in Figure 35.

            Dreams seem like external experiences while dreaming. If we assume that all of the energy available to the ego is projected into the dream, then the equation C_S = X should hold for the most angles of the dream state. Substituting gives

            This is a basic equation that holds whenever the internal energy available to the ego is equal to that derived from the ego’s external experience or projection (i.e., when the ego is totally absorbed in an experience). This equation does not always hold because C does not always equal C_S. However, it does seem to be applicable at times to most, if not all, of the angles of consciousness throughout the four ego states. 

            The dream state is entirely one of psychic projection so that X_e = 0 as shown in Figure 28. The psychic mass of the ego can be canceled out from both sides of the equation. Jung (1981) noted that most dreams fail to obey our will so that E_WILL ÷ 0 (see Figure 30) which means that

                                                E_FUNCTIONS ÷ E_INSTINCTS/(N')²

and the basic equation reduces to

reducing further and rearranging for 2 gives

which says that the angle of consciousness in the dream state is directly proportional to the instincts and inversely proportional to psychic integrity. It also says that our self-image carries over into the dream state (but not the persona which only affects the waking state). For the normal dream condition where 2 = 45^o and tan2 = 1 we can say

                                                          N' = 2E_INSTINCTS

            This equation suggests that in normal dreams, the effect of psychic integrity is twice that of the instincts. Lucid dreaming, which overrides the instincts, requires a high psychic integrity, while autonomous deep dreams and nightmares can be caused by a low psychic integrity. When 2 decreases, the effect of instincts decreases and dreams become lucid. However, as 2 increases, the effect of the instincts also increases.  Actually, 2 in the dream state can change with E_WILL which never really goes to zero. At least some amount of E_WILL, for example, is always present in lucid dreaming.