Theories Of Dreaming

A comparison of western and Islamic theories of dreaming (and reality)

Comparison of western and Islamic theories of dreaming (and reality)

One of the most vitally important topics in "Jungian Studies" is the psychological analysis of different cultures — and of cultural differences. I have previously argued that psychoanalysts need to become "culturally knowledgeable." I have emphasized that "the acquisition of sufficient cultural knowledge demands the most serious and meticulous study of specific cultures" (Adams 2001: 138). I have also noted that one of the most dynamic contemporary disciplines is "Cultural Studies" but that psychoanalysts, including Jungian psychoanalysts, have remained "more or less inattentive" to culture (Adams 2004: 134).

I have a special interest in the "cultural unconscious." Joseph L. Henderson introduced that term into Jungian discourse (1990). Henderson defined the cultural unconscious as a dimension between the collective unconscious and the personal unconscious. That definition dissatisfied me, for what is cultural is obviously collective. Subsequently, I redefined the cultural unconscious as a dimension of the collective unconscious (Adams 1996: 46-7; Adams 2001: 106-7; Adams 2004: 155-6). By that redefinition, the collective unconscious includes two dimensions. In addition to a dimension that comprises archetypes and archetypal images, the collective unconscious includes a dimension that comprises stereotypes and stereotypical images — and this is what I mean by the cultural unconscious.

Among the stereotypes and stereotypical images in the cultural unconscious are what Samuel L. Kimbles and Thomas Singer call "cultural complexes" (Kimbles 2000; Singer and Kimbles 2004). As I define a cultural complex, it is a set of values about which a culture is especially emotionally sensitive. (I should perhaps emphasize that, as I employ the term "complex," it has a strictly neutral, not a pejorative — and certainly not necessarily a pathological — connotation.)

One of the dominant cultural complexes is what I call the "Middle Eastern cultural complex." This cultural complex is a function of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Although there are important differences between these traditions, there are also important similarities. Among these similarities is a set of values about which these traditions are especially emotionally sensitive. What constitutes this set of values is a belief in one God to whom believers are obedient (in the Jewish and Christian traditions) or submissive (in the Islamic tradition). Obedience or submission to one God is the basis of the Middle Eastern cultural complex.

I also have a special interest in what I call the "Islamic cultural unconscious." I have delivered presentations on that topic in New York, London, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Fort Lauderdale. At the New School University in New York, I teach a course with the title "Psychoanalyzing Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Mythology." Students in that course analyze psychologically the Tanakh, the New Testament, and the Quran. While I was a psychoanalyst in training in New York, there were courses in the Jewish, Christian, Greek, Hindu, Buddhist, and other traditions but no course in the Islamic tradition. The omission of Islam seemed to me ...