Whether disturbing, distressing or even pleasant, dreams often leave us speechless when we wake up. What are they for ? How to interpret them? Do they have a connection with our own life? Answers.

Even though many theorists and scientists have looked into the question, the mystery still hovers around the usefulness and meaning of dreams.

For the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the dream is the manifestation of repressed desires that appear pictorially. A message from our unconscious.

Psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung went further in this track of the unconscious by asserting that dreams allow us to “discuss” with different aspects of ourselves, especially those we do not know. A dialogue which, according to him, helps us to progress in life thanks to a better knowledge of our inner core.

The scientists are more pragmatic on the theme of dreams. They put forward several hypotheses:

• Dreaming is a state of the brain, just like sleeping and waking up. It would be the consequence of neurological reprogramming to preserve the personality of individuals.
• Dreaming is essential to help us deal with the emotions experienced during the day. It would therefore be a regulator of our emotional balance. Without it, we would be overwhelmed by our emotions.
• Dreaming is a voluntary act that would be a way to solve our problems or heal our psychic wounds. This theory gives pride of place to “lucid dreaming”, that is to say that we can control.
• Dreaming is a random activation of neurons in our brain. Indeed, at night, our brain continues to function: it processes the information received during the day and also reacts to external stimuli during sleep. But given that he is not completely alert, the scenarios that run through our heads are not always consistent.

You will understand that giving meaning to our dreams is not a sensible step for scientists. On the other hand, specialists in psychology Freud and Jung, have studied the most common dreams and have offered some clues concerning their interpretation. Be careful, these explanations should be taken with a grain of salt because each dream depends on the individual who experiences it. These very general meanings are only hypotheses.

Dreaming about losing a tooth

According to Freud, dreaming of losing one or more teeth means that the person suppresses their deepest sexual desires and feels ashamed of them. He goes further by asserting that this shame pushes the person to refrain from masturbation in real life. This self-repression of masturbatory urges manifests itself in the dream by having one’s teeth pulled out. The latter being in fact the penis or the clitoris that we would be afraid to be removed. Freud also speaks of a fear of change or of the loss of an important thing (a person, an object, a job…), to explain the occurrence of this dream.

For Jung, dreaming of losing his teeth marks a new stage in the dreamer’s life. It is the sign of a change, of a marked evolution in. We lose things but we discover new ones.

Dreaming about falling

To dream of falling into the void is very scary because it involves loss of control and ultimately death. Freud sees in this dream a repressed desire to let go. The person having this dream would like to be less in control and learn to let go but he does not succeed because a feeling of insecurity invades him. It must therefore make choices to achieve this.

For Jung, this dream means that the individual relies on the void, which is in fact his unconscious, to finally accept himself as he is. He allows himself to let go to finally get to know himself better and to go and meet all the aspects of his personality.

Dream of death

Either we dream that we are dying or that we are dead, or we dream that a person around us has died. Freud sees in this dream a conflict between what we are in life and our repressed impulses which we do not wish to show to anyone. Death would be an escape route from facing these intense impulses. Or, these urges are so guilty that death is the only way to end them.

For Jung, death in a dream marks a revival in real life. We put an end to bad habits that are detrimental to our well-being, to instead institute practices that contribute to our happiness.

Dreaming about being pregnant

According to Freud, when a woman dreams that she is pregnant, it is an Oedipal fantasy experienced during childhood and which resurfaces in adulthood. She would like to have a child from her father. The same goes for a man who dreams of having a child. It would be a way for him to get closer to his mother, to understand her better. Beyond the Oedipal dimension, Freud sees in this kind of dream a questioning of our origins.

Jung sees pregnancy in dreams as the building of our psyche. It is still in gestation and feeds on everything we experience during the day.

Dreaming about being chased

For Freud, people who dream that they are being chased are very anxious in life and are afraid of their desires and impulses. The hunter would in fact be their repressed impulses which return like a boomerang, as if our unconscious asked us to confront them and to assume them.

For Jung, the explanation is similar. According to him, chasing him is a part of ourselves that we refuse to accept and which nevertheless helps us to evolve. 

Dreaming about infidelity

Infidelity in dreams is characterized by having sex with someone other than their spouse or with a stranger (we do not remember their face but certain parts of their body). Freud sees in the dream of infidelity a sexual dissatisfaction and a repressed desire for stronger intimate sensations. He also sees in it a desire for lightness, as if to escape an overly stifling love affair.

For Jung, when you cheat in a dream, you are actually unfaithful to yourself. This dream is a message that tells the person that they are not in tune with themselves. You have to stop pretending to finally let your needs express themselves. The time for change has come.