MAN THE UNKNOWN

 

DREAMS’ PSYCHOLOGY:

 

 Psychologists and psychoanalysts have made deep strides into the dream world and unravelled the nature and causes of dreams to a gre extent. Such analyses of dreams have made Freud, Adler and Jung in the West to conclude that dreams are due to certain complexes in the human personality. Freud attributed these complexes to sex, Adler to inferiority feelings and Jung to a general urge for growth and harmony between the extrovert and introvert nature of human personality (Swami Krishnānanda, Mandukya Upanishad, The Divine Life Society, p.80). These opinions however provide a partial picture only, although the information revealed by them is very valuable and worth learning. These studies do not expose the spiritual foundation of dreams. Human beings are bundles of complexes caused by the unfulfilled desires during their waking world of existence. The reasons for the unfulfilment of desires are probably what the psychoanalysts call the ‘the reality principle:’ the reality of the society, the reality of the world outside, which operate as opposing forces against the successful fulfilment of desires. These opposing forces compel individuals to repress and suppress their many genuine desires in order to be in harmony with the social, political, ethical and moral fabric of the society. (The psychological complexes thus developed may often result in the manifestation of physical and psychological illnesses). However, the subtle desires repressed within the mental apparatus are manifested in dreams. In the dream world as there is no ‘reality principle’ operative to oppose the desires they find full expression. Hence the manifestation of the desires is quite instinctive and not under the “will” of the human personality.