Dream Series 05 – A Goose That Returns to the Feeder

A Dream Interpretation

Watch the video on YouTube

Dream Interpretation

Step 1 – Write The Dream Down

A group of geese are eating triangle-shaped potato chips. One of the geese stops and comes back loyally to the center, where the man who is throwing the chips is standing.

Step 2 – Identify the Key Symbols and Provide Spontaneous Associations

potato chips ~ chips are addictive and unhealthy

goose < (amplification) the goose is the representation​ of an instinct which has the eros quality of ​focusing on the self, in opposition to an ​egocentric attitude. triangle-shaped < trinity; Three is the number for egohood, for the rhythm of individuation as experienced by the ego. the man who is throwing the chips < Christ at the Last Supper​; an image of the self

Step 3 – Provide the Personal Context

I was reading Jung’s essay on sacrifice (see previous video).

Step 4 – Feel into the Inner Dynamics of a Dream

Skipped

Step 5 – Find the Right Interpretation

Subjective interpretation: “Beautiful image of the ego-self axis. Describes the attitude that one should have: yes, there is food outside (it is addictive and unhealthy!) but the right attitude is to come back to the center, to the man throwing the chips.”​

Objective interpretation: The man throwing chips to the geese is an image of the self establishing a transpersonal connection with the ego.​ The triangle-shaped potato chips are the food, the numinous content that helps to develop the ego. Their addictive and unhealthy nature implies that, like the prima materia, they must be transformed.​ The goose that comes back to the center is the eros instinct that comes back to the self.​

Step 6 – Make the Dream Concrete With a Symbolic Act

Skipped

Sources

Articles

First Dream as Destiny

Working With Complexes – A Practical Alternative​



Books quoted

Marie-Lousie von Franz. ​C.G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time

Carl G. Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Ladson Hinton.​ “The Goose Girl” Puella and Transformation​

Edward F. Edinger. Ego and Archetype

Edward F. Edinger. The Christian Archetype

Carl G. Jung. C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950

Addendum

I recently found this quote that fits the end of the video

The alchemists seem to have perceived the danger that the work and its realization may get stuck in one of the conscious functions. Consequently they stress the importance of the theoria, i.e., intellectual understanding as opposed to the practica, which consisted merely of chemical experiments. We might say that the practica corresponds to pure perception, and that this must be supplemented by apperception. But this second stage still does not bring complete realization. What is still lacking is heart or feeling, which imparts an abiding value to anything we have understood. The books must therefore be “destroyed” lest thinking impair feeling and thus hinder the return of the soul.

These difficulties are familiar ground to the psychotherapist. It often happens that the patient is quite satisfied with merely registering a dream or fantasy, especially if he has pretensions to aestheticism. He will then fight against even intellectual understanding because it seems an affront to the reality of his psychic life. Others try to understand with their brains only, and want to skip the purely practical stage. And when they have understood, they think they have done their full share of realization. That they should also have a feeling-relationship to the contents of the unconscious seems strange to them or even ridiculous. Intellectual understanding and aestheticism both produce the deceptive, treacherous sense of liberation and superiority which is liable to collapse if feeling intervenes. Feeling always binds one to the reality and meaning of symbolic contents, and these in turn impose binding standards of ethical behaviour from which aestheticism and intellectualism are only too ready to emancipate themselves.

Carl Jung, The Psychology of Transference, CW 16, par 488-489

Please consider sharing this article or donating.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

Filter by Categories

Subscribe to the newsletter