Dream reflection

In 1909, Jung and Freud sailed to America together to give lectures, and spent the voyage analysing each other's dreams. One of Jung's was about a house: an elegant upper floor, an older ground floor, a cellar beneath, and below that a cave with ancient bones and broken pottery.

Freud read it as hiding a wish for someone's death. Jung felt it was a picture of the mind itself, with layers reaching down into what all humans share. The disagreement was one of many that drove them apart, and it shaped Jung's approach: the dreamer's own associations matter more than any fixed interpretation.

For Jung, dreams weren't coded messages to crack with a dictionary of symbols. They were the mind speaking in images, often about things we haven't yet put into words.

The practice is simple: recall a recent dream, notice which image stays with you, and ask what it brings to mind. Not "what does a snake mean?" but "what does this snake make me think of, and feel?"

Not every dream has a deep meaning. Modern sleep research suggests dreams often draw on the worries and feelings of waking life, so sometimes the feeling a dream leaves behind is the most useful part.

• Judaism

  The Talmud says that a dream not interpreted is like a letter not read (Berakhot 55a).

• Ancient Greece

  People slept in the temples of Asclepius, the god of healing, hoping for dreams that would guide their recovery.

Think of a recent dream, even a fragment.

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You dream of missing a train. What would Jungian dream reflection do?