D1

I. THE "WHOLE PERSON"

By Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

1. Who Am I?

Who am I?

Student A. You are Dr. Palmquist.

Am I? "Dr. Palmquist" is my name, but I didn't ask you if you know my name. I asked you who I am. Try again.

Student B. You are our teacher.

Yes, this is how students usually view me. I am paid to help you learn something about your own religious and philosophical self-understanding, and somehow to "grade" your learning achievement in these areas. People in this profession are normally called "teachers"; but again, I did not ask you what my profession is. I asked you who I am. Who am I on the inside? Any ideas?

Students. Hmm.

Don't be shy. Some of you are probably thinking: "That's silly, how does he expect us to know who he is at the very beginning of the first day of class?" But trust me. Take a few minutes here at the outset to attempt to answer this question and-

Student C. You are a philosopher.

Ah, now this is an interesting suggestion! But before we accept it too hastily, let's think about why you thought it would be a good answer. Didn't you take my Introduction to Philosophy course last semester? I thought I recognized you. Reading the textbook for that class, The Tree of Philosophy, may have made you think of me as a "philosopher".

Student C. Yes, it did. And it also made me think of myself as a philosopher. Your class really helped me learn to think more deeply.

I was afraid of that. I mean, I am happy, of course, that you benefited from the class and that you are now more interested in learning and doing philosophy. But what concerns me is when students leave that class thinking they have somehow "arrived". Instead of thinking of myself as a philosopher, I prefer to think of myself as becoming philosophic. That is, "philosopher" is more like an ideal I must perpetually approach than a goal I would claim to have already achieved. I hope you'll view yourself in the same way, always continuing to improve your thinking skills.

Student D. I thought this class was about psychology and religion, not philosophy. Philosophy seems too abstract and irrelevant to me, so I haven't taken any philosophy courses. Will this put me at a disadvantage?

I hope not. I shall try to teach this class without presupposing that students have attended my Introduction to Philosophy class, because I can see that many of you did not. However, I shall occasionally mention ideas from that course's textbook, referred to hereafter as The Tree (or TP). For instance, I like to use diagrams in my teaching, and most of these diagrams are carefully constructed according to one of several special logical patterns. Detailed explanations of these patterns can be found in Chapters 11 and 12 of The Tree. So if you are interested in understanding their logical basis (something I won't have time to explain in this class), then I suggest you read those chapters.

Most of the ideas we discuss in this class will appear to be less "abstract" than those normally discussed in philosophy classes. My goal is to present a philosophically-informed picture of psychology that gradually emerges as fitting hand-in-hand with healthy religion. Keep in mind, however, that philosophy, psychology and religion all share one goal in common: to promote self-understanding. The phrase "know thyself" was originally inscribed over the entry to the temple in Delphi as a religious exhortation; Socrates adopted it as the keystone of all philosophical inquiry; and many scientists in the 20th Century have regarded it as the main task of psychology. This goal is extremely difficult to achieve because it is very abstract and yet very concrete at the same time.

At the end of this hour I shall briefly review the main points raised in The Tree. That way those of you who have not studied philosophy will have a better idea of what I am talking about when I refer to philosophy in general and to that book in particular. For now, though, let's return to today's main question: Who am I? I believe our attempts to answer this question can help us clarify what we'll be studying in this course. So, does anyone else have any ideas? Try to think in more general terms for a moment about who I am-underneath all my surface characteristics.

Student E. I think you are nothing. I don't mean this as an insult. I just think your question is unanswerable. There is no single feature or characteristic that makes you who you are.

This way of understanding personal identity is sometimes defended by appealing to a well known Buddhist comparison between human nature and an onion. Just as an onion has many layers, so also we human beings have many different aspects to our personality. And just as each layer of onion is a real and legitimate part of the onion, so also we "are" all of these layers "put together". None of them is any more or less a part of the onion than the others. The common hope that as we come closer and closer to the centre of the onion we'll eventually reach a "seed"-the true "essence" of the onion-is regarded by Buddhists as misplaced. For just as peeling away the final layer of an onion leaves us empty-handed, so also there is simply nothing left of "me" when I look beyond all the different characteristics of my personality. The conclusion most often drawn from this analogy is that we are actually nothing at all: our sense of "I" is a mere illusion.

So, is it true to say that I am nothing other than my name plus my occupation, plus my many other characteristics and social roles? Or is this analogy misleading? Could "the real me" be more like an apple (with seeds, or perhaps a single seed, at the core) than an onion? We shall return to such questions at several points in this course. Any initial thoughts?

Student F. I disagree with that analogy. I'm a Christian, and I believe we each have a unique "spirit" that God has given us when we were born. I am that spirit. And you, Dr. Palmquist, are the spirit that God gave you.

Well said. This is the main alternative to the Buddhist notion that we are nothing. The two views appear to be mutually exclusive. But are they? Those of you who took my Introduction to Philosophy class may wish to ask yourselves whether or not we could use synthetic logic to find a way of treating both of these as aspects of the most complete answer to our question. We'll talk more about synthetic logic in Lecture 11.

While you're thinking about the conflict between the Buddhist and Christian views on self-identity, let me read you a well-known story from the ancient Chinese philosopher, Chuang Tzu. He was one of the inspirations behind what we now call "Taoism"-a religion that is significantly different in many respects from both Buddhism and Christianity. Here's the story (CTBW 45):

Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.

This story is so profoundly relevant to the central themes of this class (i.e., religion, psychology and personal growth) that we can treat it as a "myth" (i.e., a story conveying unquestionable truths) to guide our way at certain key points (see TP, Ch.2). Note that Chuang Tzu intentionally leaves unanswered the question as to whether the waking "I" or the dreaming "I" is the real me, presumably because both are real. Whereas Buddhism says there is no "true self" and Christians say there is one (given by God), this Taoist story suggests there may be (at least) two true selves! Am I, then, nothing, one thing, two things, or even more? Or could all these viewpoints contain an element of the truth?

Such questions cannot be properly answered without considering another obvious theme in this story: dreams. As we shall see, the discovery of the hidden power of dreams revolutionized psychology in the 20th Century. But this discovery is actually a rediscovery. For ancient people from virtually every culture had a profound respect for dreams. Next week I shall give some examples of how dreams are used in the Bible, as well as in several other ancient religious and philosophical traditions. For now, though, just keep in mind that this story suggests that in some important sense we are what we dream. (Here the word "dream" can refer metaphorically to our hopes and goals, as well as literally to the dreams we have when we sleep.) If I disregard or disrespect my dreams, ignoring them or treating them as meaningless illusions that do nothing but distract my attention from what is "really important" in life, then I shall never even come close to understanding who I really am, nor shall I have any hope of becoming a "whole person".

Probably the most significant part of the whole story is the concluding statement: "This is called 'the transformation of things'." For as we look deeply into ourselves in hopes of stimulating our own personal growth, transformation will be our ever-present goal. Its presence or absence enables us to distinguish healthy from unhealthy religion, good from bad psychology, and personal growth from personal stagnation. Chuang Tzu's story, unfortunately, does not provide much help in understanding what transformation is. It really just poses the question: When I dream of myself being transformed into another sort of being, which one is the real me? As we seek to understand how dreams work and to interpret our own dreams, we shall be looking for specific kinds of transformation that can contribute to our own personal growth.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Does anyone else have an idea about today's main question: Who am I?

Student G. You are obviously a dreamer!

I'll take that as a compliment. Those of you who took my Introduction to Philosophy class may recall that philosophers from Plato onwards (especially metaphysicians such as Descartes) have taken very seriously the possibility that the whole world might itself be a "dream" of some sort. Regardless of their views on this issue, most philosophers are "dreamers" in one sense or another. The difference between a good dreamer and a bad dreamer is that the former will wake up from time to time-at least long enough to interpret his or her dreams. This self-critical attitude then influences the next set of dreams, so that we can be "dreamers" without always being stuck in meaningless, unhealthy or unrealistic situations.

In fact, everyone who takes this course will be required to be a dreamer, at least temporarily! This is true in two ways. First, I would like you to be a "dreamer" in the sense of being someone who is willing to imagine new possibilities for yourself, even if they seem impossible or if the goal seems totally unreachable. The highest mountain can only be climbed one step at a time. And the energy to keep going requires us to remind ourselves over and over (to "dream") of the destination. Such dreams can be very useful if they energize us for the road ahead. They are harmful only if we become so engrossed in the dream that we forget where we actually are on the path of life.

The second sense in which you will need to be a dreamer for this course is more literal. The most important assignment you will have to complete during these twelve weeks is to record and interpret your own dreams in a "diary". The remainder of this week will be devoted to giving detailed suggestions and guidelines for writing a clear and intelligible dream diary. During these initial days you should begin developing the habit of remembering your dreams. By the second week you should begin writing down texts of all the dreams you can remember (or, if you are very good at remembering dreams, you can just write down the ones you choose to interpret), using the format I shall introduce in the next two lectures. You should stop recording new dreams about a week before the end of the course, and use that week to review all your dreams and improve your interpretations.

What's wrong? You look distressed. Do you have a problem with this assignment?

Student G. Yes. I never have dreams. I'm worried I might fail the class if you base the grade largely on our ability to remember dreams.

Actually, your grade will be based much more on how you interpret whatever dreams you have, than on how well you remember them or how many you remember. So try not to worry about the grade. That will only make the assignment more difficult. Ideally, this project (the dream diary) should be done as a completely voluntary exercise in self-exploration; as such, your success or failure cannot be accurately judged by anyone but yourself.

I'm sure you are not the only student here who believes you never (or only very rarely) have dreams; yet your impression is actually misleading. Psychologists have done studies proving that everyone has dreams virtually every night (assuming, of course, that we sleep!). In fact, during a normal night of sleep, most people have several different periods of dreaming. We know this because scientists have discovered that whenever we dream our brain waves change and our eyes begin to move around quickly (even though our eyelids remain closed). By monitoring the brain and looking for these characteristic "rapid eye movements", psychologists have been able to do many interesting tests to demonstrate just how dreaming works and how important it is for maintaining mental health (DD 251-275). For instance, a person who is deprived of dreams by being awakened each time a dream is about to begin will move much more quickly into the dream stage in the next period of sleep. Such dream deprivation will eventually lead to hallucinations (waking dreams?) and the person will begin dreaming as soon as sleep begins. This demonstrates that the body needs dreams in order to sleep properly.

The problem, then, is not that you have no dreams, but that you do not remember them. And this problem can be solved. Never in my ten years of teaching this class have I had a student who was unable to recall any dreams. If you have trouble remembering your dreams, then consider the following suggestions. This may sound trivial, but the most important factor in remembering dreams is wanting to remember them. You must prepare your mind (i.e., your attitude) beforehand, otherwise you will remember your dreams only in exceptional circumstances. At the beginning of the next hour I shall give several additional suggestions that might help you treat your dreams more seriously.

In the meantime, we have just enough time left in this first hour for me to give you a quick summary of the Introduction to Philosophy course and compare it with the present course. The textbook for that course, The Tree of Philosophy, is divided into four parts, each with seven chapters. Each part sets out to examine one of the main subdivisions of philosophy, and in each case its goal can be expressed in two words. This makes it possible to give a 12-word working definition of the term "philosophy", corresponding directly to the organization of the text, as shown below in Figure I.1. The book uses the structure of a tree as an analogy for the relationships between these four divisions: metaphysics is like the tree's roots, hidden beneath the "ground" of the philosopher's tradition, and serves the purpose of revealing our ignorance of ultimate reality; logic is like the trunk, providing the necessary pathway from ignorance (the roots) to knowledge (the branches), and consists of analytic and synthetic forms; science (i.e., knowledge) is like the branches,

Figure I.1: Four Main Subdivisions of Philosophy

spreading out in all directions and dividing into smaller and smaller organic wholes, thus requiring us wisely to identify the boundaries that limit our application of each type of knowledge; and ontology is like the leaves, crowning the tree with temporary beauty that eventually dies and becomes part of the tradition (soil) once again. Insights are likened to the fruit of the tree, inasmuch they represent the main purpose for doing philosophy and also provide us with the "seeds" for growing new trees.

In this course we shall make use of a similar analogy to guide our steps, based this time on the butterfly that appeared in Chuang Tzu's dream. The life cycle of a butterfly includes three metamorphoses (or "transformations"): from the egg the caterpillar is born; the caterpillar then spins itself into a cocoon; and from the cocoon emerges an adult butterfly. (A fourth transformation occurs when the butterfly lays eggs and the cycle begins again.) I shall not attempt to relate this analogy to our subject in as much detail as the tree analogy was related to philosophy (see TP, especially Ch.16). Instead, I would like us simply to keep in mind as we progress that the course itself is passing through a series of stages that, like the four seasons, mirrors the developmental pattern of all organic life. Thus, the four parts of this textbook are labeled in accordance with the butterfly's four life stages (see Figure I.2).

Several other parallels are also noteworthy. Insights are to philosophy what dreams are to psychology. And the analysis of insights corresponds to the interpretation of dreams. Moreover, just as today you have contributed some interesting answers to the question, "Who am I?"-answers that have enabled us to sketch a rough preview of the road ahead -so also students on the first day of my Introduction to Philosophy course struggled to answer the question "What is philosophy?" as a means

Figure I.2: A Butterfly's Life-Cycle (Course Outline)

of catching a glimpse of what philosophy involves. In such cases, the questioning serves as a catalyst to help us recognize our ignorance at the outset. Thus, today we have recognized how difficult it is to answer such an apparently simple question as "Who am I?"

There is also an important difference. This course, much more than the Introduction to Philosophy course, will focus not on improving our thinking skills, but in a sense on the very opposite: developing the ability to unthink what we thought we knew about ourselves. We'll do this by opening ourselves to the darker, hidden aspects of human nature in general and of our own personality in particular. Today's discussion of the "Who am I?" question has served as a mere foretaste of the difficult issues we'll need to confront. By the end of this course, as suggested above, I hope you will be able to see many complementary relations between philosophy and psychology (as well as religion). Taken together, both courses aim to promote the goal of educating the "whole person".

2. Recalling Dreams and Setting the Text

How many of you like to receive letters? Nearly everyone? I thought so. With that in mind, I'd like you to imagine something.

Imagine when you go home today, you discover a letter has arrived from someone you care deeply about, such as a close friend, a family member, or perhaps a sweetheart studying overseas. What will you do? Will you put it in your pocket and then forget about it? Maybe let it stay there until the next time your clothes are washed, and then just throw it away without a further thought? Certainly not! Will you carefully put it on your desk in an important place, and look at it each time you sit down to study, wondering what your loved one has to say? I doubt it!

When we find out that someone wants to communicate with us-consider, for instance, how you react when you discover someone has phoned you and asked you to return the call-most of us are almost irresistibly drawn to find out as soon as possible what that person wants to say. In the case of receiving a letter, most of us will find a quiet, private place as soon as we can, where we can open the letter, read it carefully, and perhaps even reread it, if it is especially good (or bad). Perhaps you have received letters that were so important that you read them over and over and over, squeezing every last drop of meaning out of them to be sure you do not miss, or misunderstand, anything. We do this because we believe what we are reading is somehow relevant to who we are.

Now I would like you to imagine that your dreams are letters. Imagine that each night when you fall asleep, a long lost part of you "wakes up" and begins writing you a letter. The letter "arrives" when you wake up. Every night this little "mystery person" sends you several letters, though he or she often hides them in places that are difficult to find. If you go to sleep at night not expecting to receive any letters and wake up in the morning without even thinking about "looking" for them, then of course, you are very unlikely to find them. For this reason many people nowadays have convinced themselves that this little person either does not exist or else just doesn't care anymore, since "I never have dreams".

One of the main purposes of this 12-week course will be to combat this tendency by encouraging you to find and read those "letters"-i.e., by treating your dreams seriously and pretending (if you cannot truly believe) they are meaningful communications from another "part" of yourself. I must warn you, however, that this is a risky business. The messages that come from our dreams can sometimes be overpowering, especially if we are not prepared to deal with them. For this reason, I shall be equipping you with ideas and methods that are intended to show you how to be a responsible "friend" by answering these letters.

How long would you consider a person to be your friend if that person never answered your letters, never returned your telephone calls, and never made any effort to communicate with you in any other way? If you are a very devoted friend, then perhaps you would always consider this person to remain your friend, even under such circumstances. But what if he or she began returning your letters unopened, with the words "YOU DO NOT EXIST" written in bold print across the envelope? Most of us would take the hint rather quickly, I suspect, and stop thinking of such a person as a true friend (though we may continue to love such a person in some other way that transcends friendship). Just as friendship requires mutual communication, so also befriending this little "dreamer" within you will require you not merely to read the "letters", but also (even more importantly) to respond. The point is that simply remembering and thinking about our dreams is not enough. We must actively reply to them. We do this in two ways: first, by interpreting our dreams in an intelligent and meaningful way; and second, by changing the way we live in accordance with the messages we believe our dreams are conveying to us.

This little imaginary way of thinking about our dreams is intended to assist you in wanting to remember and interpret your dreams. In addition, there are some very practical steps you can take to help stimulate your memory. Each night you should put a pencil (or a pen that can write at any angle) and a blank piece of paper on your bedside table or next to your pillow. Just before you go to sleep, think about how important dreams are, and tell yourself that you want to remember some of your dreams when you wake up. Then, as soon as you wake up in the morning-before you get out of bed-take a minute to ask yourself what dream images you can recall. Chances are that something will come to mind. Write it down immediately on the paper you prepared for that purpose. If you're in a hurry, just write down some key words and a rough outline of the dream's content. Then, as soon as possible (preferably later that same day), use those notes to write down the dream text in a more complete form in your dream diary.

Taking notes like this and transferring them later to your diary is a good idea for everyone to follow, not only those who have trouble remembering dreams. At the moment we wake up in the morning a dream often seems so clear that we think we'll never forget it. But that clear memory can sometimes be lost as soon as we begin interacting with other people or focusing our attention on some other task. Just a few notes, though, can easily jog the memory enough to remind us of the details at a later time, when we can record the entire dream text more conveniently. If you know you will not be able to write the dream into your dream diary soon after waking up, then it is a good idea to read over your notes to make sure they are legible and detailed enough to remind you of the main points.

Taking notes is especially important for dreams that occur during the middle of the night. When such a dream is powerful enough to wake me up, I often feel as if I could never forget its interesting content. But if I use this as an excuse for not jotting down some simple notes, the memory in most cases is completely wiped away when morning comes. In my experience, night dreams often prove to contain the deepest meanings, whereas the ones that occur shortly before I get up tend to be filled with less meaningful details that are more closely related to recent circumstances in my daily life (sometimes called "day residue"). So even though night dreams require extra effort to remember (e.g., you might need to turn on a light, if you have difficulty writing clearly in the dark), they are well worth the effort!

Another practical tip is to make good use of your alarm clock. Put it in a place where you can shut it off without getting out of bed. Set it for a few minutes earlier than when you actually need to be awake. Use the extra time to reflect on whatever dream material you can recall, and to write down notes for later processing. If your alarm has a "snooze" function, use it (in case you accidentally fall asleep again). If not, then you might want to set a second alarm for about 10 minutes later, just to be sure you don't oversleep.

I should warn you now that at the end of this 12-week dream diary project, you are likely to feel a bit more worn out than you normally do at the end of a typical semester. The reason for this is that most classes only require you to work while you are awake. But in this class, a significant part of your homework must be done while you are asleep! For many students this does not prove to be a problem; but for some it can be emotionally draining. If the latter turns out to be true for you, I suggest you find one or more friends with whom you can share your dreams on a regular basis. This should help to ease the burden of carrying around your night self (your "butterfly") with you all day long and your day self (your "Chuang Chou") all night.

Once you have overcome the initial problem of remembering your dreams, you will need to write down the text in a clear and orderly manner. This can be done in many ways. But for the sake of continuity, I shall describe here a fairly precise set of guidelines for how you should compose the text of your dreams. The text, you must keep in mind, is the basis of your interpretation, not merely your memory of the dream. Focusing in this way on the text helps us to be more objective in our interpretations and can often bring to light aspects of the dream that we had not noticed at first.

The remainder of this lecture will be devoted to giving four specific rules and several other guidelines concerning how to write a dream diary. (Non-student readers who do not plan to keep a dream diary may wish to skip to Lecture 3 at this point.) A dream diary is, quite simply, a record of your dreams, together with your interpretations and other reflections on their meaning. As I mentioned in the first hour, each student taking this course is required to record their dreams for ten weeks, beginning sometime during the second week. This first week can be used simply to develop the habit of remembering and thinking about dreams. Record the final texts in your dream diary regularly-preferably each day, but at least once a week. On days when you do not remember any dreams, you should still write the day and date in your diary, followed by something like "no dreams remembered". If there is a special reason you could not recall any dreams, explain this as well, since it could be significant later.

(1) The first rule to remember in recording your dreams is that details are important. For the sake of clarity, be sure the dream text as such is clearly distinguished from comments about the dream. Anything external to the dream should be either clearly separated from the main text, or else written in brackets (or both). For example, the day, date, and (approximate) time of day when you had a dream should all be written above each dream text. But if you happen to remember what day, date, or time it is in the dream, these details should be included in the text itself. Record as many details as you can about what happens within the dream: especially colors, smells, tastes, positions of objects, feelings, numbers, words, etc. Such minor details often turn out to be meaningful symbols that play a significant role in the subsequent interpretation. Moreover, trying to remember them can help clarify your memory of the main points of the dream. Sometimes a picture or diagram can also be a helpful way of clarifying the text.

Before beginning to compose the "official" version of your dream text, you should think carefully about the details of the dream. If possible, share the dream with someone else, and encourage that person to ask you questions about any missing details. (If nobody else is available, you should ask yourself these questions-though it is often not easy to recognize in your own dreams where the "gaps" lie.) Relevant questions might be: "Was that person male or female?" "Did you recognize the person?" "How many ... were there?" "What size was ...?" "What did you feel like at that point?" etc. When writing down your feelings, thoughts, etc., you should be sure to state (if it is not implied by the context) whether these refer to the "me" in the dream or to the "me" doing the dreaming. In other words, are you describing how you dreamt yourself to be feeling, or how you actually felt once you woke up? (Any comments relating your waking life to the dream should always be put in brackets if they appear in the dream text. Keep in mind, though, that they could also be included in a "Notes" section, after the dream text.)

(2) The second rule is that you should write the dream using the present tense. In other words, tell the dream as if it is happening to you right now. Thus, for example, instead of writing, "I was in a bus and suddenly the bus stopped for no reason ...", you should write, "I am in a bus. Suddenly the bus stops for no reason ...". This gives the dream a more dramatic flavor, and makes it less like a mere historical document. The past tense should be used only when describing something past in relation to the dream-e.g., "I am in a bus. Suddenly I remember that last time I was on a bus I missed my stop ...". In such cases you should explain, either in the Notes or in brackets as part of the dream text, whether or not this actually happened in your waking life. For example, if it did, your text might look like this: "... I missed my stop (actually, I did miss my stop when I was on the bus yesterday)."

(3) The third rule is that you should try to present the dream text in an orderly way. Usually, dreams have natural breaks created either by a change of scene or a memory failure. Likewise, the focus of attention in the dream, or the feelings associated with it, may suddenly change. Such changes should be highlighted in your account of the dream-e.g., by starting a new paragraph. For most dreams (anything but a short dream fragment), you should break the text into numbered sections. This gives you a simple way to refer to different parts of the dream in your interpretation. There are many ways to make such divisions; but the best I have found was suggested by Carl Jung, in his essay, "On the Nature of Dreams" (CJBW 376-377). Viewing the dream as a literary text, much like a novel or the script of a play (or television show), he suggests that a complete dream text should include each of the following four parts (see Figure I.3): the exposition describes the setting of the dream (i.e., the place, time, characters, etc.); the development outlines the basic plot (i.e., what is happening, or what problem is posed); the culmination describes the plot's climax (i.e., the most exciting or dramatic point of the dream); and the result proposes a solution to the problem (though often presented only in the form of a riddle or symbol of some sort).

When your dreams are incomplete (either from being interrupted or from your own inability to remember) and do not fit neatly into these four parts, you should never invent material just to fill in the gaps. Falsifying dream material merely to fulfill this third rule could defeat

Figure I.3: Jung's Four Steps to Setting the Text

the purpose of the whole dream diary project, since the parts of the dream we forget can be as significant as the parts we remember. Honesty is essential: if you cannot remember part of the dream, simply insert three dots (...) where you feel there is something missing, or else add a comment in parentheses, such as: "(the dream continued, but I forgot the rest)" or "(I forgot the culmination, but the result follows)" or "(at this point the alarm woke me up)". Although it is satisfying when we remember enough of a dream so that the text fits naturally into Jung's fourfold pattern-and we should aim to remember enough of our dreams to do this as often as possible-we should not have the unrealistic expectation that this will happen every time.

(4) The fourth rule is that you should clearly identify all the people (and possibly some of the places and objects) appearing in your dreams. This is best done by making a "Glossary" section at the back of your dream diary. Anything about a person, place or object that is obvious and significant to you should be included in this listing, even if it seems to be unrelated to the dream. (Be sure the sex of each person in the dream is clearly implied or stated, especially when the person's name can be used for either sex.) If you are at all worried about someone else reading your dreams, or if for any reason you want to keep secret the identity of anyone, it is a good idea to use initials or a false name in the text of your dreams; but the true name and an accurate description should still be given in the Glossary. (You could then keep your Glossary in a separate place until it is time to hand in the diary.) For example, imagine a female student who has dreamt about two people-let's call them "Ah Fai" and "Chris". If she called them "Mr. F" and "Miss C" in her dream texts, then she would include Glossary entries that might look like this:

Mr. F: Chan Kai Fai. A good friend of mine in secondary school. I have not seen or heard from "Ah Fai" (as I call him) in over a year, since he moved to Australia. He is short and fat, I used to think he was quite attractive. He is very generous.

Miss C: Chris Lee. My younger sister. We share the same bedroom. She is really a pest, because she always wakes me up before my dreams are finished. I think she's much prettier than I am.

If you do not want to write a Glossary, then such biographical details should be included in the Notes that appear after each dream text. But beware: this could become very repetitive if the same people appear in many of your dreams. Whichever method you choose, be sure to put a reference number next to a person's name the first time it appears in each dream; this number should correspond to the number of that person's listing in your Glossary (or Notes).

The goal of these four rules is to assist you in establishing an orderly text that objectively represents all the details available to your memory. For now we have not been concerned with the question of how to interpret the dream text. That will occupy our attention throughout roughly half of this course, starting in Week Three. (You may wish, however, to look ahead at Figure V.4; this figure outlines a simple, 12-step procedure for dream interpretation-a pattern that closely follows Jung's pattern for establishing the text [see Figure I.3].) At this point it will suffice merely to point out that you should always be sure to leave plenty of space for an "Interpretation" section after your dream. You may not end up interpreting every dream (though you should aim for a minimum of one or two interpretations per week); but even if the dream seems irrelevant at first, it may prove to be more meaningful before the course is finished. So allow space for adding an interpretation later.

The Interpretation section should include any insights you gain from reflecting on the dream, especially those that relate to the theories of dream interpretation we shall discuss during the course. You should use a different colored pen for this section, in order to make it easier to tell at a glance the difference between the dream text and its interpretation. As part of your interpretation, you should also give each dream (as well as any series of closely related dreams) a title, as a way of focusing on the main point you see in it. You can also include other comments in the Interpretation section, such as visions or other thoughts related to the dream that occur to you upon waking, or your feelings about the process of writing a dream diary, or anything else related to the course. But please keep such extra comments brief-you do not need to write a book for each dream!

One final point is that dreams can often be grouped into a recognizable series, wherein similar details spring up in different dreams, and the same theme or group of themes can be seen recurring. Once you have several dreams written down, you should begin trying to detect such patterns. Before completing your dream diary, you should be able to trace a development in the dreams that make up a given series (see Lecture 15). For this purpose you should number all the dreams and list the titles in a Table of Contents, thus making cross-references easier. (Of course, do not number the days when you remember no dreams.)

To give you an idea as to how these rules fit together, I shall conclude this lecture by showing you a quick sample from one of my past dream diaries. This is a dream fragment that came on the first day I started a new dream diary. Here's the entire text (with the dots on either side indicating my awareness that this fragment came in the middle of a longer dream):

1. Sleep

Tuesday, 12 Sept.

I awoke in the morning with the following dream fragment:

... I am saying to someone (or possibly someone is saying to me): "sleep has a structure" ...

This dream was obviously connected to the fact that I was just beginning a new semester of teaching this course; but there's no need to discuss the interpretation at this point. I'll quote another, longer sample dream at the beginning of the next lecture.

3. Some Common Questions on Dreams

In Lecture 2 I showed you a brief fragment from one of my previous dream diaries. Let's begin this hour with another sample of a more complete dream text that appears later in the same dream diary.

4. A Presidential Visit-At a Price

Thursday, 21 Sept.

This is the first of two dreams I remembered this morning. This one happened sometime before the alarm rang (at 7am):

I. I am driving in London, looking for a bank, because I need to make some change. I see a bank, so I pull the car into a driveway just to the left of the bank. I stop the car in front of an iron gate that leads to a large house on the other side of the driveway.

II. I go into the bank-a very large room with a high ceiling-to get some coins. But the lines are too long, so I decide to leave. When I get back to the car, a "meter maid" is putting a parking ticket on the windscreen. The fine is for HK$400 (roughly equivalent to US$50). She tells me I'm not allowed to park there, so I ask her where I should have parked. She walks with me around the large house to the left of the bank, and shows me a side street with available parking. Feeling silly for not noticing a place so close, I move the car.

III. We (Dorothy is now with me) decide to see who lives in the large house. It turns out to be Bill and Hillary Clinton's England home! They are friendly to us and invite us to come in.... In the evening I am sitting with Hillary on a sofa in the living room, talking. She begins to confide in me. Leaning toward me in a suggestive manner, she asks if I know that she and Bill are about to get a divorce. I tell her that everybody suspects that this will eventually happen to them.

(The scene changes.) I go into the kitchen, where Bill has been preparing a turkey dinner. He asks for my advice about how to cook the turkey. He's afraid it will be too dry. The turkey is very large. I think about suggesting that he cook it upside down (as Dorothy and I normally do, so that the juices collect in the breast meat). But I do not actually tell him this.

IV. Now I am outside of their house, admiring the good view they have of the London skyline. I set up my camera and tripod and take several photos, showing the tops of some famous buildings, such as St. Paul's Cathedral. Once the camera is properly set up for each shot, I use a remote control device to take the picture.

Notice the attention paid to details, the fourfold pattern of the overall dream text (corresponding to the pattern shown in Figure I.3), and the way brackets are used to make brief comments to clarify the dream's content. As you begin getting used to remembering your dreams this week, you should aim to recall them in about this much detail-though without neglecting dream fragments such as that given in the sample dream quoted at the end of the previous lecture.

When faced with the task of recalling, recording and interpreting your dreams, a whole range of interesting questions is likely to arise, relating to various aspects of dreamwork. Most of the questions typically asked by my students will be discussed in detail later on in the course. But several of them are sufficiently basic to be dealt with here in the first week. Today we shall consider, in turn, four such questions: (1) Why study dreams? (2) Are there any alternatives to dreams that can achieve the same goals? (3) Can we control our dreams? and (4) Does each dream have only one objectively "right" interpretation? Questions to be tackled in subsequent weeks relate to issues such as what dreams actually are, where they come from, how they function, what principles ought to be used for interpreting them, whether they can be used to tell the future, etc.

(1) Ever since the dawn of human history (and probably before that!) dreams have always been highly regarded as a meaningful part of human existence. Only since the development of science in the past four centuries has the importance of dreams been called into question. In this century the discipline of psychology has done much to revive mankind's perennial interest in dreams, only now from within the boundaries of science itself. Nevertheless, the average person today still feels the influence of science far more strongly through the technological advances it brings than through the discoveries of psychologists. As a result, most people still tend to ignore their dreams or treat them as meaningless illusions. Why, then, should we study dreams?

Psychologists tell us dreams are a more or less direct window onto our "unconscious" (a term to be defined in detail later). Most of the time, we focus our attention only on the conscious side of our personality; yet the unconscious controls what we do and who we are much more than most people realize. Since personal growth takes place only to the extent that the conscious and unconscious sides of ourselves work together, dreams serve the invaluable purpose of providing clues to the areas where we lack wholeness. Much of our attention in Weeks III-VII will therefore be devoted to an examination of how dream interpretation can help us to explore the unconscious more intelligently. By listening to our dreams and then responding with interpretations (along the lines of the letter-writing analogy given in the previous lecture), we can establish a "dialogue" with our unconscious that can develop into a much greater appreciation of who we are as whole persons.

(2) An important concern for students who find it difficult to remember dreams, even after applying the techniques I mentioned in the previous hour, is whether or not there are any alternatives to dreams that can also function as "windows" to the unconscious. The answer is undoubtedly "yes"-though dreams are almost universally recognized as clearer and more significant than any of these other windows. There are at least ten alternatives to dream interpretation which, if properly applied, can each provide insights into the unconscious side of our personality. Toward the middle of this course, you should ask yourself whether your dreams are providing enough material for you to establish an effective dialogue with the unconscious. If not-for instance, if you are not remembering at least one or two significant dreams each week, or if the dreams you are recording in your dream diary are too fragmented or confusing-then you should seriously consider supplementing your dreams with some or all of these additional methods and including the results in your dream diary. (Students who have a very strong resistance to dream interpretation may need to design a project that replaces the dream diary altogether, although this should be done only as a last resort.) If, on the other hand, your dreams are supplying you with plenty of unconscious stimuli for imaginative self-evaluation, then you may treat the following as purely optional extras, to be utilized or ignored, according to your preference.

1. Memories. Our earliest childhood memories are likely to be closely related to some of our unconscious character traits. Try to recall such memories, and relate them to your dreams and/or to your personality as you currently understand it.

2. Mannerisms. Our "body language" (i.e., what we do "automatically", without thinking about it) sometimes reflects or symbolizes aspects of our unconscious personality. Try to become more aware of your own unconscious behavior patterns. If necessary, ask a friend to observe your mannerisms over a period of time and help you interpret their meaning.

3. Doodling. Spontaneous drawing or writing can be a window to the unconscious, provided we do not plan ahead or consciously decide what to do next. Try drawing on a piece of paper without concentrating on what you are doing; just let your hand do what comes naturally, while your mind focuses on something else (such as a lecture). Later, analyze the drawings to find any unexpected patterns that might reveal the influence of your unconscious, and if possible, use them to gain new insights about the topic you were thinking about at the time.

4. Daydreams. When our mind wanders while we are awake, it can produce fantasies that carry messages from the unconscious in much the same way as ordinary night dreams. Record any spontaneous pictures or scenarios (not just thoughts or ideas) that pop into your mind during the day. Don't bother recording fantasies that you have purposefully controlled, since these are unlikely to tell you much about your unconscious. A genuinely spontaneous daydream, by contrast, can be interpreted using many of the same methods we shall learn for interpreting dreams.

5. Visions. Some people have such clear daydreams that the objects or persons involved seem to be-or actually are?-projected into the real world. If this happens to you, be sure to treat it as an important message from the unconscious: record it in your dream diary, along with any reflections you may have on its relevance to your personal growth.

6. Slips of the tongue. When we "accidentally" speak or write a different word than we intended to use, there may be a not-so-accidental explanation for the error. Take note of any time when this happens to you, and ask yourself whether the error might reflect some unconscious thought or wish. Such errors could be particularly relevant if they occur while you are writing the text of a dream into your dream diary.

7. Word association. Sometimes a word will have an unconscious "link" to another word or idea, perhaps because of some past experience that has been repressed. In order to find such links, have a friend prepare a list of about 20 words and read them to you one by one. After each word is read, say the first word that comes to your mind. Have your friend record that word. Afterwards, see if you can find any patterns that might reflect the unconscious reasons for your particular responses. (More will be said about this method in Lecture 7.)

8. Synchronicity. Events that appear at first to be mere coincidences can sometimes turn out to have an important effect on our life, and a meaning that is rooted in the unconscious. Pay attention whenever two or more apparently unrelated events suddenly happen to you in a "coincidental" way, or when something happens to you while a similar (but apparently unrelated) thing happens to a friend of yours. Any correspondence between events in your own life and events on a wider scale (e.g., in local or even world events) could also be included here. (We shall examine synchronicity in more detail in Lecture 12.)

9. Religious experiences. Deep but inexpressible experiences (including anything from seeing ghosts to a sense of mystical oneness with the world) can also be given psychological interpretations. For instance, we can ask: How were my conscious and unconscious interacting during that experience? Doing this does not take away from the validity of the experience, but merely provides a way of understanding it that can promote personal/spiritual growth. If you have such experiences while taking this course, or if any of your dreams remind you of such experiences you have had in the past, you can include them in your dream diary, along with any reflections on their unconscious roots. (We shall reflect further on the nature and implications of such experiences in Week XII.)

10. Fiction. Short stories, novels and films can be used to stimulate deep insights into our own personal growth. The point of such an exercise is not to critique the story-line from an objective point of view, but to identify with one or more of the characters in such a way that the entire story can be interpreted as if it were one of your dreams. By applying various methods of dream interpretation to the story, you should be able to relate it to your own situation, showing how it stimulates personal growth. (Some examples will be given in Lecture 20.)

Just as in dream interpretation, these ten alternative windows on the unconscious can be used as tools for gaining insights into how you can come closer to being a "whole" person. If you make use of any of these, do not merely describe the case in question (e.g., the daydream or the drawing), but interpret it! With a little imagination, many of the theories of dream interpretation to be discussed in this course can also be used to help interpret the ten alternatives to dreams summarized above.

(3) The third question relates to whether or not we can control our dreams. Most people find it quite easy to manipulate what happens in their daydreams, or in dreams that occur in what is sometimes called the "hypnagogic state" (i.e., the half-awake, half-asleep state that often occurs just as we are falling asleep or when we have not yet fully woken up). But recently scientists have studied this question in a laboratory setting, finding that most people do have this ability more than we might expect. By concentrating on a specific topic before we go to sleep, and telling ourselves we shall dream about it, we can often influence what happens in our dreams.

Personally, I do not like this idea. In my experience, dream manipulation (whether in daydreams, hypnagogic fantasies, or ordinary sleeping dreams) usually tells us far more about our conscious attitudes and desires than about the hidden, unconscious side of our personality. The most significant part of a dream that has been influenced by the dreamer's conscious manipulation is likely to be whatever surprises the dreamer-i.e., whatever jumps into the dream in spite of the dreamer's attempt to manipulate the content. If you are recording a dream you have partially "controlled" in this way, I suggest you focus your interpretation as much as possible on these expected details-the things that happened beyond your control.

(4) Finally, let us look today at the important question: Does each dream have only one correct interpretation? My answer to this is yes and no. If the question is taken to imply that only one type of interpretation is always the right type, then I would answer negatively. For as we shall see, psychologists have shown us many valuable ways of interpreting dreams. I do not believe any of these can be taken as exclusively correct. It is up to you to choose the methods of interpretation that are most suitable for each dream. Does this imply that one method will be more suitable than another for a given dream? Yes! I believe this is often true. In this sense, we can think of ourselves as searching for that one "right" interpretation for each dream.

How do we know when we have found the "right" way of interpreting a particular dream? This is a complex question with no easy answer. The first thing to keep in mind is that the interpretation that is "right" on the day you have a dream might prove to be inadequate several weeks later, when you relate the dream to other similar dreams. Just as scientists are always trying to find the best explanation for natural events and must often change their views on what is and is not "right" or "true", so also our search for the best interpretation is not incompatible with the recognition that we may later need to change our mind.

I suggest that you write down any interpretations you think could possibly be true or meaningful, even if they seem rather far-fetched at first. When doing this, pay attention to your physical response (see DW 44). If, as you come up with a new interpretation, your body has a strong reaction (e.g., shivers or tingling sensations, especially up and down your spine or focused around the navel), then take this as evidence (though not absolute proof) that the interpretation in question is particularly meaningful. Sometimes such physical responses will be subtle and difficult to detect. But at other times, the moment a new interpretation comes to mind, it affects the body almost like an electric shock. Although meaningful interpretations do not always stir up bodily sensations, when such obvious responses do occur, you can be confident you have found a good (perhaps even the "best") interpretation.

This has happened to me on numerous occasions. Once, for example, I dreamt of a teenage boy who was missing one of his fingers. I'll tell you more about this dream in Lecture 23. The point I want to make now is simply that, soon after waking up from that dream, the thought crossed my mind that this boy is me! My body had such an intense reaction of shock at the mere thought of this possibility that I knew this must be a key to the best interpretation. And as I shall explain later, that clue turned out to be an extremely important part of the interpretation.

This raises another, related issue, regarding whether dream interpretations can be objective. Several past students have asked me (usually in casual conversations after completing the course) whether or not I really believe dreams are as meaningful as psychologists say they are. Could it not be that we are just inventing the interpretations, and that the dreams on their own are basically meaningless? Once again, my answer to this question is yes and no. We have already seen that in a purely physiological sense, dreams definitely are not meaningless. Our bodies need dreams in order to maintain health. But some psychologists, as we shall see, believe dreams can fulfill this function even if we totally ignore them: their physiological meaning does not depend on our ability to interpret them. So in this sense, dreams do not have any single, fixed meaning, and psychotherapists who pretend to discover such a meaning could be doing more harm than good to their patients.

The deeper, psychologically-significant meanings we assign to our dreams do seem to be largely self-created; they are primarily a product of our own imagination. But this does not mean they are simply meaningless fantasies. From a philosophical point of view, I would argue that anything that is significant for our personal growth will have this imaginative, self-created character. Life's deepest meanings can all be classified as "analytic a posteriori" (see TP, pp.59-60). In other words, dream interpretations are meaningful only if (and precisely because) we hypothetically impose them onto our experiences (a posteriori) as conceptual constructs that define ahead of time (analytically) how we are to think or behave (cf. DA 16,18). This fact about their epistemological status should not be regarded as a reason for treating dreams less seriously, especially because the content of the dreams (coming, as it does, from our unconscious) is objective. So even though in one sense we create the "right" interpretation for any given dream, in another sense the material we have to interpret is fixed and limits the range of plausible interpretations to those that will promote our personal growth.

Recognizing the hypothetical (analytic a posteriori) status of all dream interpretations can help us to understand why Jung used to give the following advice to his psychotherapy students (MHS 42; see also MDR 194): "Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analyzing a dream." This does not mean we should completely ignore all the theories we learn in this course about how to interpret dreams. That would make education itself pointless! Rather, Jung is warning therapists not to let their preconceived theories be anything more than hypotheses; they should not determine our interpretations, as if they were logically necessary presuppositions (analytic a priori), but should always be used in such a way that our dreams can speak for themselves. The point is that the application of theories to dreams must be a posteriori: we can never know in advance what the "right" interpretation will be. After listening to the dream, we should still ask ourselves which methods can serve as the best hypothetical tools to bring out a meaning that will be conducive to our personal growth. But the therapist must always allow the dreamer's own imagination to decide which interpretation is best.

One of my main reasons for requiring you to write dream diaries as the major project for this course is to give each of you an opportunity to practice using your imagination to develop the skill of introspective self-evaluation. Learning more about the unconscious is one of the best ways to further our own personal growth. But we must remember that the meaning of a dream usually does not just pop up automatically. On the contrary, we must search for the symbols it conveys, contemplate their meaning, and analyze what they are trying to communicate to us. If you approach these difficult interpretive tasks in a conscientious way, the dream diary is bound to bring you closer to understanding what it means to be a "whole person".

QUESTIONS/TOPICS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

1. Why is the question "Who am I?" so difficult to answer?

2. What are the differences between waking experience and the way we experience things in our dreams?

3. Share the dream you remember most clearly from your childhood. Has it influenced your personality in any noticeable way?

4. Share a recent dream, and ask group members to question you about any missing details.