I do really enjoy learning about dreams, I think they are very interesting and that they are far undervalued and too little understood in our society. However at the moment I'm still sticking with neurology. It's all interconnected anyways! If we learn more about the brain perhaps we'll find out where the dreams originate from and learn more about what they are. I'm reading some really interesting books on dreams at the moment and those have been helping me learn more too, and you have been teaching me all about symbols of course!

On the dream, it's sort of worrying to me how you keep saying I have to be careful not to let my issues from the past carry over to my future but how do I do that? I don't want to carry them with me, and I don't want to make the same mistakes my parents did, but is that something I will even be conscious of? It's troubling. I don't understand how I can understand unconscious negative drives :(

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Anna,
If neurology is what you are interested in go for it. You are correct about that science and dreams being connected. What I have interesting is that neuroscience has pretty much supported Jung's theories of the dream. This is reason Jungian psyche has endured whereas Freud has not.

As for my warning. I can not emphasis enough the great importance early life experiences and influences have on the rest of ones life. For instance. I went through my childhood, teens and early adult years {actually into my early 40s} unconsciously driven to do things that I would not have done if my early childhood had been different {I have seen this time and rime again and is pretty much a common sense thing to understand}. My father left my mother with four children and never was a part of our lives. No support emotionally or financially {my mother worked as a waitress supported us}. The lack of money was important because being poor I felt less than others. But the lack of emotional support of not having a father was just as important. What I did in my early adulthood was pretty much mimic my father {although I was never the SOB he was to my son/only child}. I was married three times {to three good women} and had numerous other relationships. That was my father. Unconsciously I was living a life that was predicated on what I had learned early in life. Those early life experiences/influences are imprinted on the psyche and unconsciously affect who we become as adults. Look at any person and then their childhood and you will see this. If it is allowed to unconsciously drive the person they become their parents. You have to break the cycle. I did that only after I discovered Jungian psyche {via Joseph Campbell}.

Add this to the archetypal forces that play on the psyche when their is an imbalance in a person's life and you have ingredients for a disastrous life {the archetypal forces are a deeper issue you will have to study to really understand}. And it doesn't have to be from the parents. The young boys {and girls} who were abused by Catholic priest all lived disastrous lives because they were betrayed by trusted adults. Once one came out and spoke about it thousands others did the same. They had kept it bottled up all their lives. Now we see the terrible results from those early life experiences. Usually it is at mid-life these things begin to come back to haunt us consciously. previously they haunted the people unconsciously, being driving forces that wrecked lives, caused failed marriages, alcohol and drug abuse and even suicide.

As for your life, the great emotional strain you have had to endure will in some way affect who you become. If you are aware of these emotions you can learn to control them. If not they can and will unconsciously control you. The fact you are dealing with these emotions so early in life is a great plus. Stay with that and if you ever get into a situation {relationships} where something goes wrong look to your childhood to see what influences from that may be at play.

Don't marry a man like your father since often the reason for doing so is unconsciously driven. The intent is to correct what the father lacked but that never works out. I have seen this pattern time and again with the person going from one failed relationship to another {as I did but in a different way} trying to recoup a lost childhood. Your father is probably a good man but the way he has lived his life {and circumstances beyond his control may have affected that} has left you and your siblings lacking. Just beware of those early life experiences and don't let them be a negative influence on the rest of your life.


Jerry

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