The "Transformation of Things": how dreams reveal the meaning of our lives

Research shows that dreams are how we process emotions-- but that's just part of their deeper function.

“Many people ask themselves why they feel so depressed or unwell, disconnected and lonely. It is because this closed system slowly drains us of well-being, like a potted plant that is never given any fertilizer. In the Dreaming Way, the soul informs our choices, and we move into life from that soulfulness.”

―Toko-pa Turner, The Dreaming Way

The average person dreams about 4-6 times per night; 1,400 to 2,000 dreams per year. Most of these dreams are not remembered, because the mechanisms that would “record” them are offline. However, if we are able to remember them— and if we bring them into conscious awareness by writing them down, or sharing them with someone else— there is a literal world of meaning to explore.

Because dreams can be so difficult to remember, when a client says, “I had a dream last night,” I immediately know that their psyche has some information to share. As we re-enter the dream together, we have already dropped below the defenses of our ego consciousness into a layer of the psyche that is full of vitality and growth— an inner garden, wild and overgrown, or a mysterious desert with an oasis just over the dune. Here is where we can spot the hidden desires, the secret longings, the glimpsed path forward, that we so desperately need, but struggle to access in our waking lives.

Dreams are mysterious, and wonderful. They don’t always tell us what we think we need to know, but I find that even the act of revisiting them can be enough to bring fresh air into a stale or stuck attitude— the very thing so many of us need in times of despair and fear.

Layers of meaning, awake & asleep

“I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields”

-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mercy Seat

One of the thoughts I’ve been turning over and over recently is the idea that on some level, everything already has meaning— and that perhaps it is our ability to recognize that meaning that is most important when we have lost our way.

Pre-industrial cultures understood that all things— humans, animals, plants, minerals, weather, even abstract concepts— possess a spirit, soul, or conscious life force. In our dreams, we step into this animistic world, where we understand the deeper meaning of symbols.

In dreamtime, our brain enters what Ernest Hartmann calls "a hyper-associative state,” in which it makes connections that help us to make sense of our experiences by contextualizing them. Here, in the world of metaphor, we understand that our relationship is “on the rocks,” as we find ourselves in a leaky canoe, stranded with our partner on a desert island. We recall friends and neighbors from our childhood who remind us of the parts of ourselves we’ve forgotten, or cast aside. We try on new hats, or shoes, as we explore new roles in our lives. Or we find ourselves lost in our own homes, marveling at all the rooms that appear before us.

Henri Rousseau, The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897

Thinking in this way (or perhaps better said, feeling in this way) is an older, preverbal way of understanding the world. When we “begin to warm and chill,” like Nick Cave sings in The Mercy Seat, “to objects and their fields,” we are dropping into the animistic imagination that we don’t always let ourselves feel in our waking lives.

“In sleep, fantasy takes the form of dreams. But in waking life, too, we continue to dream beneath the threshold of consciousness, especially when under the influence of repressed or other unconscious complexes.”

—CG Jung, “Problems of Modern Psychotherapy”

It’s little wonder dreamwork struggles to achieve legitimacy in a materialistic world. Yet on some level, we all understand this language; we recognize the underlying meaning that is inherent in even the most mundane objects. That’s why we would choose not to wear a shirt that was worn by somebody we disliked, even if it’s been washed. Or, perhaps, why black cats are less likely to be adopted (at least in the US) than other color cats. No matter how enlightened we want to be consciously, some part of us is always making associations.

Jung’s statement is borne out by research that demonstrates that the same processes that are operating at night during dreams are also operating all day, behind the scenes, merely eclipsed by the brightness of our daytime thinking. In daydreams, fantasies, “Freudian slips,” in body language, in the movies and books we read, in all of our unconscious and semi-conscious processes, we glimpse that symbolic, metaphorical, imaginative world of our dreams.

The more time we spend working with our dreams, the better able we are to recognize the currents and pulls of our lives— and to understand where our own personal meaning lies.

The '“Transformation of Things”

“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chuang Tzu. Soon I awaked, and there lay Chuang Tzu on his bed. But whether I am really Chuang Tzu dreaming I am a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am Chuang Tzu — that I do not know. Between Chuang Tzu and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called the Transformation of Things.”

—The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, translated by Burton Watson

Zhuangzi’s dream, recorded in the 4th century BCE, asks the question: what is the dream, and what is reality? Millennia later, Jung recorded a similar dream in which he steps into a chapel, where a yogi sits in meditation:

“When I looked at him more closely, I realized that he had my face. I started in profound fright, and awoke with the thought: ‘Aha, so he is the one who is meditating me. He has a dream, and I am it.’”

—CG Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

We take the waking state as “reality,” and our dreams as delusions. But even waking “reality” is quite subjective; consider how different the world looks and feels, depending on your mood! As neuroscientist Anil Seth points out, perception itself is a kind of controlled hallucination — the brain's best guess about what's out there, filtered through expectation and memory. It's only when we agree on the hallucinations that we call it reality¹.

What is dream, and what is real? We each decide for ourselves, and in this way make meaning of our lives.

Dreams and Jung’s transcendent function

To dissolve the barrier between ourselves and the butterfly, as Zhuangzi says, is “the transformation of things.” This is a more poetic way to understand what Jung called “the transcendent function.”

It is through the transcendent function that we become more mature, whole humans by synthesizing the “opposites” in our lives. For example, when we face two seemingly irreconcilable truths (I want to leave/I’m terrified of being alone). Rather than choosing sides, or suppressing one of the truths, the transcendent function helps us to hold the two opposing ideas until a third position arises. Jung suggested that each of us is always striving to balance ourselves out; that if we appear to be too one-sided in any regard, there is undoubtedly a compensating side operating unconsciously.

The transcendent function operates in dreams by showing us a picture of our psyche just as it is, rather than the way our waking mind (what Jung would call our ego) prefers to think of itself. And often, through these images, the “transformation of things” begins to take place as we recognize the meaning of our experience.

In fact, research indicates strongly that through their metaphoric language, dreams allow us to process and integrate emotional content. As strange as they may be, dream images are the means by which we make sense of our lives by acting as a kind of emotional processing lab. There is a catch, however: the researchers found that these benefits only apply to those who remember their dreams. It is when we bring their images, their bizarre storylines, into our conscious awareness, that we retrieve the meaning they’re meant to convey.

In my work with my own dreams and those of my clients, I’m often astounded by the creative wisdom of our dreams:

X. calls me in to work on a weekend to do some kind of project. B. walks in and sees me. She gives me some cash for working, she even pulls out more when she feels it isn’t enough. I protest at first, and then take it.

In this dream, the dreamer recognizes “B” as their work supervisor who is overcompensating for mistreating the dreamer in other ways. The dreamer’s “protest” helped them recognize that in the past they would have said no to the “cash” out of habit. “As miserable as this work situation is,” they said, “It’s forced me to learn to make the most of a bad situation, to recognize where I can take advantage.” Their internal attitude is shifting; something that they had not recognized until we worked this dream. Not only did they feel more empowered, but they recognized the meaning in the suffering they’d been through.

A few thoughts on working with your own dreams

Working with a dream therapist or coach can be quite powerful, especially as dreams unfold over time. But you don’t need to pay someone to get benefit from your own dreams. Here are a few things you can do to begin to work with your dreams.

1. In the morning, immediately record anything you remember— even if it’s just an image. Writing down “red scarf” can lead to more images, either immediately or later on in the day. This is a skill you are sharpening— be patient.

2. Read the dream out loud to yourself, or to someone else. Ask yourself (or have them ask you) questions about the dreams. Notice especially what seems boring or unimportant— these are often details our conscious mind is “blind” to.

3. Try asking yourself, “Why did this dream come to me now, in my life?” and see what answer arises. You may be surprised.

Even if we don’t fully understand the dream (and I’m not sure that’s actually, completely ever possible), there is benefit in simply starting to unspool the thread of meaning that is there. We are honing our “hyperassociative” mechanism. Sometimes, a connection will flash into your mind later, or you’ll “recognize” a meaning unexpectedly. Remember that dream research tells us that by processing our dreams consciously, we are also processing our emotional experience— even if we don’t quite “get” it yet.

The meaning we need to live our lives fully is always present, both in dreams, and in waking life. By working with our dreams, we can begin to metabolize and live our soul’s purpose.

1. This is the essence of Tibetan Buddhist wisdom, in fact. Through a practice known as dream or sleep yoga, we can learn to practice lucid dreaming. As we learn to “wake up” in our dreams, eventually, they say, we will learn to “wake up” from reality. We can recognize our true nature; dissolving the barrier between ourselves and the butterfly, the dreamer and the yogi. This is the “Transformation of Things.”