Dream arguments occupy a place of honour in worldly philosophical argumentation, in particular in asserting scepticism. Since we all experience night dreaming, in which we are usually unaware that we are dreaming, it is a logically possible that we are dreaming at anytime. For example, I might just be dreaming now, I might not be typing these words, the typing fingers are not necessarily part of my body, my body is not necessarily "mine", and I might not necessarily exist in the physical sense. Rene Descartes, in his famous dream argument, concludes from a similar experience: cogito ergo sum! In other words, I doubt, I think, thus "I" exists in the mental sense, as a doubting thing. The dream argument is thus presented as setting a dichotomous distinction between the physical versus the mental, the becoming and ceasing as opposed to the eternal, the tangible and the conceptual. This important distinction gave birth to the greatest philosophical problem in modern times, namely, the mind and body problem, which ever since captivate some of the greatest minds in the modern Western world.

Had Zhuangzi lived in our days, for example, in Tel-Aviv, and had he written the above words, he would have probably be suspected in being mentally disturbed (or else, a post-modernist). Had he told a doctor that he might be either a person or a butterfly, he might had found himself hospitalized in some mental institute for losing touch with ground. Interestingly, Zhuangzi's dream does not bring him to losing ground or getting detached from the world he lives in. In fact, it is the other way round. Then, what does Zhuangzi wishes to say by means of his dream? First, the dreaming experience is an experience in life. The "factual status" of happening has nothing to do with one's experience. When Zhuangzi is a butterfly (in his dream) he is a butterfly. Either dreaming or in wakefulness, the experience exists as such. Thus the dream argument brings to a reaffirmation of the world rather than to doubting it and disconnecting from it. Second, when he wakes up he does know that he isn't dreaming. He knows it just in the way that you and I can distinguish between sleeping and wakefulness. However, after being a butterfly, he does not consider the distinction between mental states essential for understanding life. Namely, what we experience, either in day activity or in night dreaming activity is one in sense of its value. Third, the experience of being a butterfly is important for self understanding. A butterfly is connected with two main characteristics. First it associates with freedom. Second, a butterfly is the ultimate representation of transformation. Waking up a cocoon, in the evening already a caterpillar, then a butterfly - before she (or he) can even think of self definition she (or he) changes. Only when one forgets the distinction of "higher" and "lower" statuses of reality, one is more open to experience oneself as a transforming creature, perhaps similarly to Alice's caterpillar in Wonderland who is not bothered at all by the indetermination of the answer to "who am I", when in the midst of answering to Alice he transforms into a butterfly. Life is change and transformation. Language can't grasp it and is thus oriented to fixed notions and concepts, which distance us from our own experience.

On a different occasion, responding to a Confucian view, Zhuangzi says:

We would love to respond to Zhuangzi's invitation to having a word with him. In fact we would like to suggest a way to forget words, with a hope to reach deeper meanings, and then be able to exchange words in an analytical manner. So let us invite Zhuangzi from his wondering on the way to the analyst's couch.

Moving away from the field of ideas to the analytical field; "forgetting" was defined by Jung in "Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams" (written in 1961, shortly before his death), as a situation in which contents remain outside the range of vision, against one's will, through a deflection of attention.

Are we in an opposite standing to the philosophy of Dao when it claims that forgetting is freeing oneself from conceptualizations in order to be able to transform?

In our talk we discuss a dream, based on Jungian and on Dao understandings. Both systems highly value dreams, and look upon them as experiences of life. However while Zhuangzi refers to the dream, the dreamer, and the world from an epistemological perspective, the Jungian systems of thought attribute compensatory meanings to dreams. We believe that while Daoism in itself cannot become a therapeutic means, it can provide a new, richer and more creative perspective to the analytic process. We suggest here that forgetting may also be an active process, congruent with transformative needs and not just a casual event which takes place when interest turns elsewhere. We, therefore, suggest that it might be the tool one needs in order to liberate oneself from the vicious circle of patterns and complexes.

 

Let us refer to a second dream, this time taken from the psychiatric clinic:

A woman in her late thirties recounts this dream: "I am on the beach and begin to swim. I float and draw away from the beach .The waves swing me and the feeling is great. Suddenly I realize I am deep in the ocean and understand that unless I do something, I might not be able to return to shore. I see my husband, my mother and colleagues from work on the shore, they are scared, they wave at my direction and call me to wake up and return. I realize that if I don’t come to my senses the waves might carry me away and I might not be able to return. I am frightened … but the water is so good…"

The dreamer, a physician, is a woman held in the grip of a rigid and negative father complex which forces her into a life of unbearable competitiveness and ambitiousness. She finds herself in a long standing conflict between the continuous need for achievements in the professional and the inter-personal fields and a strong and regressive urge "to let go" and to not be. This conflict does not permit her to realize her potentials and it expresses itself mainly in feelings of worthlessness and incompetence, mixed with anxiety, avoiding behaviors, mood swings, suicidal ideations and occasional alcohol and drug binges. 

 

In his influential article "On the Psychogenesis of Schizophrenia", dated 1939, Jung elaborates on the similarities and differences between the dream making process and the symptoms of mental disease. Common to both processes is an "Abaissement du niveau mental", a notion borrowed from the famous French physician and co-founder of psychoanalysis Pierre Janet. "Abaissement du niveau mental" means annulment of the rule and control exercised by the ego-consciousness on the mental apparatus, thus liberating complexes that gain autonomy and flooding the consciousness of the dreamer (or the psychotic). This abaissement is attributed by Jung to a state of weakness, "Faiblesse de la Volonte", as will happen in normal sleep or in various pathological states.

We are not facing an easy process. Every neurotic, and actually all of us, are engaged in an ever present struggle to subdue the power of the unconscious to the ego-consciousness. To be aware. We all face the mighty temptation to stop fighting and to submit to the power, images and symbols flowing from the unconscious. We are dealing here with incest, in its analytical and symbolical meaning. This longing for incest changes its face and form according to the stages of development of the ego as is so beautifully described in Erich Neumann's treatise "Origins and History of Consciousness".

Here is the principal field in which psychoanalysis, and Jungian Analysis in particular, operates. We deal with memories and recollections. We deal with the intrapsychic dialogue which aims at integration of the internal contents and primordial images of the personal and collective unconscious.

It is on this background that the dream was discussed.

The dreamer tended to understand the dream as a warning originating from within. A warning against the lure of regression expressed as submission to the ocean, floating away and distancing from regular tasks and activities as were represented in the dream by mother, husband and colleagues. Particularly was the dreamer alarmed by the pleasure she had from floating on the ocean's waves and the wish to submit herself to it. She realized that unless she acts, exercises her willpower, i.e. swims to the shore, she might be swept away and drown. The ocean was obviously understood as representing the unconscious, and the wish to submit to it as an incestualwish to merge with it, in an uroboric incest that will annul (or maybe liberate her from) her duties as a professional, a wife, a daughter and a living and active member of human society.

 

But it is possible that even though this was the direction accessible to the dreamer from the start, the intention, of the dream was different.

 

It is possible that walking on this well known path, the call originating from ego-consciousness to go back to daily duties and obligations, brings the dreamer back to the grip of the suffocating and blocking complex. Perhaps an active process of forgetting is required. We are now dealing with an active and energetically loaded process of proceeding "Contra Natura", not with a passive process of denial or disregard. We are dealing with a purposeful forgetting of the objective reality, i.e. observing the shore and what it represents, and yet not swimming scared towards it. Instead it is a venturing at what the unconscious (the "Terra Incognita") may offer. Thus it will become possible for the dreamer to discover powers originating from within which invite her to take a new path.

It might be, that submitting to the ocean, as suggested by the dream, is submitting to the enriching power of the unconscious which might enlarge the behavioral and cognitive repertoire of the dreamer through integration of new images, contents and insights.

Very often, daily reality, complexes, duties and habits do not allow us to be in touch with the internal world, or with new materials originating from it. They are perceived as dangerous and alien and are repressed into the shadow.

Therefore an active process of forgetting is needed: forgetting, in the service of development, in the service of learning anew and eventually, for allowing transformation to occur.

Our dreamer is standing at a crossroad with two potential realities to choose from. The first one, well known, the old conflict under the shadow of her father complex: competitiveness and future failures as represented by the shore and those waiting, waving and calling her back. The second is new and unknown. A dangerous reality sprouts, swimming in unknown waters, relying on the fertile but also deceiving forces of the unconscious. An active forgetting of the other reality is therefore suggested. An attempt to liberate herself from the old ways in order to learn, to expose herself to "the new" stemming from within. This second path is a difficult one. Anchoring oneself in known patterns is soothing, relying on old ways makes us feel normal. One may drown in the ocean, or in a psychological understanding, lose ones sanity.

These new imageries or new living potentialities away from known complexes are not easily achieved. Adopting the second reality is a heroic choice.

 Prometheus the titan who stole fire from the gods (or in other words that part of the psyche which steals new consciousness from the self) pays with eternal painful memories.

Only the titan survives the wrath of the gods. 

Therefore only the heroes, only those who know how to swim will not lose their ways in the sea and will return richer, more developed and with a wider psychic repertoire.

Is our dreamer heroic enough?

The butterfly dream of Zhuangzi becomes more relevant than ever.

 

 

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