Connections to the Source
The Use of Dreams and Symbolism in Homeopathic Practice
Jane Tara Cicchetti
First appeared in The American Homeopath – 2001
Around four billion years ago, the planet Earth was formed and a little later, Aries, the first prokaryotic cell emerged. Sixty million years ago, jellyfish and flat worms swam in the oceans. Later, insects and reptiles appeared on the land, and then the mammals. Finally, 2.6 million years ago the first humans walked the earth. In the 21st century, a human being with four billion years of cellular memory within her, sits before a homeopath and asks for relief from a particular form of suffering. The homeopath, according to classical training, must perceive what needs to be healed in this particular individual and must match what needs to be healed to the dynamized substance that is capable of healing it.
What an incredible task it is to perceive what needs to be healed in an individual who is the end product of so many billions of years of development! It doesn’t matter if the individual is nine or 90 years old; they are still the most recent development in a long and ancient lineage. Carl Jung’s reference to this aspect of human consciousness as the “thousand-year-old man within us,” may be an understatement, particularly in regards to homeopathy, which theoretically investigates the relationship between the dynamis of a human being and the dynamis of any one of all substances in existence.
Given this, the question is: How can we, in the short time allotted the homeopathic interview, come to understand enough about an individual to perceive what needs to be healed? It is amazing that this is accomplished at all. Many people under homeopathic treatment receive a remedy that creates a radical change in their health and their lives. I would like to suggest that this is possible, not only because a homeopath is capable of finding the solution, but also because the remedy has allowed itself to become known.
One of the major ways that the remedy can become known to us is through our understanding of dreams and symbols. However, there are other ways that the remedy may reveal itself to the homeopath and these methods must be mastered before any attempt is made to move into the use of
symptoms from the symbolic realm. Some obvious ways are the presence of clear pathology with modalities, sensations, and extensions as well as clear general and mental symptoms that indicate a particular remedy. In the subtler realm, there is the understanding of the individual remedy essences and substance categories such as the essence of a particular plant family or the placement of an element on the periodic table. The use of dreams and symbols is a complement to these methods of case analysis, helping us move from the more rational “knowing” approach to the realm of “unknowing” where connections and synchronicity abound.
Dreams and symbols are connections to the ancient realm of the collective unconscious and must be linked with more conscious information in a case in order to be useful, for no dream or symbol has meaning outside of the context of the anamnesis. The symbolic realm is not a shortcut to understanding the reality of life; it is a rich and complex way to delve deeply into the underlying structure of individual reality and into the timeless region of the collective unconscious. Dreams and symbols are the way that the unconscious communicates with us. It is continually sending messages. The job for us is to have ears to hear and eyes to see.
An Historical Perspective
Humanity has been using dreams to gain insight into health and healing for thousands of years. Dreams were thought to give clues as to what was going on in the body and to suggest the appropriate treatments. The fact that dreams are rarely considered worth looking into in modern medicine is symptomatic of our disconnection from the realm of myth, symbol and dreams. The pendulum has now swung away from humanity experiencing the world as an earth-oriented, magical place where trees, rocks and animals all have their own voices and stories, to a rational, scientific society that has little room for dreams and visions.
Our early ancestors (and some cultures that still function entirely from a symbolic perspective) saw nature as the manifestation of gods and goddesses. This was the only way that they could understand the world around them. Nature was beneficent and frightening at the same time. Thunderstorms, solar eclipses and even the movement of the celestial bodies were perceived as magical events, which needed to be worshipped for their great power. Humanity was clearly aware that they were at the mercy of weather patterns and of the presence or absence of food sources. Myths developed to explain these events, and rituals attempted to assuage the powers that be. In other words, men and women lived lives that were closely attuned to nature and attempted to understand her language. They understood that they were not separate, but intimately tied to all of the natural events of the earth.
This view of the world began to change around 1650 AD during the time of the Age of Reason. There was a natural reaction against the superstitious, which was a point of view entirely dependent on the forces of nature. In an attempt to overthrow the superstitious and magical thinking of an earlier age, institutions developed around ideas and concepts based on rational thinking. This allowed for clear thinking, detached from our inner psychic world of emotion, and lead to many of the great strides in the development of technology and science. With this came developments in transportation and improved methods of farming and technology, such as the development of the telescope, that helped extend the range of our senses. From this early development, the tendency towards rational, or so called scientific thinking, has continued to overshadow any connection with mythopoeic thinking up until the present time, when science has become the religion of the day.
Over the past few centuries, the pendulum has swung in this other direction. Now any attempt to look at the world from a different perspective is shot down with the claim of it being “unscientific.”
Living in a time when the rational view flourished, Hahnemann carefully left out references to alchemical texts and omitted the language of Paracelsus and others, whose work so closely paralleled homeopathic philosophy. This was necessary in order to maintain at least a modicum of credibility for his already radical work. As homeopathy moved into 20th century, this tradition increased with the climate of scientific, rational medicine. At one point, homeopaths were reluctant to even mention the concept of the vital force.
Now, however, we are moving into a critical time in which disease has moved to a depth indicating that a radical approach to healing is necessary. The strictly rational approach to health and healing no longer works.
When we rely solely on rational thought, our accomplishments often sever us from our psyche and body. The highly valued detachment that comes with rationality and the mechanistic approach to life has a dark side. That dark side can be dangerous to our health and the health of our planet.
This is not to suggest that it would be wise to return to the former way of thinking, to throw out the valuable developments of science and technology. The solution is not in regressing but in integrating the best of both worlds, to integrate our rational, technological skills with the rich symbolism that is our psychic heritage.
The Alchemy of Case Taking
To be able to perceive the essence of what an individual is communicating, we need to do what Hahnemann asks of us: that is, to be an unprejudiced observer, to have no preconceived idea about what is going on, and to allow the essence of the vital force to emerge from the individual’s conscious and unconscious Self to the receptive chalice of our awareness. What emerges, of course, is much more than the essence of the vital force. What we receive is the un-distilled substance or prima materia of the anamnesis, in need of alchemical transformation.
The transformation of the anamnesis into material that will finally lead to the simillimum is similar to the alchemical process of separatio, where the parts of a substance are separated by the alchemist in order to be put back together in a way that transforms the whole. The training, experience, and consciousness of the homeopath act as an alchemical vessel that separates the characteristic symptoms from the plethora of symptoms in the anamensis. These symptoms must then go through a second transformation, that of coniunctio, where the parts are put back together in a way that reveals the Imbegriff der symptome or “red thread” that runs through the case and, hopefully, leads to the simillimum. The simillimum, when taken by the patient, stimulates a similar alchemical process that begins with the initial aggravation.
Thus, in homeopathy, we have a triple process of potentization or alchemical transformation, each part having its own challenges. The first is the transformation of a substance into a dynamized remedy, a process that requires a tedious series of steps. The second is the challenge of receiving the essence of the case from the client and perceiving within that essence a substance that will cure. The third, perhaps the most difficult of all, is the process of healing that the client undertakes in order to transform themselves to a new level of health. Fortunately, we can assure the efficacy of remedies through the use of the excellent homeopathic pharmacies that are now available. We attempt to prepare the client for their quest through education, but ultimately their transformation to health is up to them. However, the burden of being able to receive and understand the essence, to perceive what needs to be healed, rests upon the homeopath.
Because the homeopath is the vessel in which the essence of the case is temporarily contained and transformed, they must be properly prepared, not only through knowledge but through conscious understanding of that which can stand in the way. The more the homeopath is a prisoner of their ego and complexes, the more interference there is and the less likelihood of finding the simillimum. Unconscious complexes and ego attachment filter the stream of information coming from the client to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the homeopath’s conscious awareness of the makeup of their own individual psyche. The more aware they are of their own psychic terrain, the less that terrain will interfere and the more knowledge and energy will be liberated for the benefit of the client. In The Alchemy of Healing, Edward Whitmont describes how the therapist’s awareness of complexes can benefit the healing process:
“Inevitably complexes corresponding or similar to those of the patient are activated in the healer…When the healer unconsciously acts out those complexes, they operate like poison and add to the patient’s disturbance. Conversely, when “potentized” into symbolic awareness by the healer, they help the healing process.”
We can see that the unprejudiced observer is an ideal state that can hardly ever be reached. But what is possible is an ongoing state of emerging from the primal ooze of unconsciousness into states of greater clarity and awareness.
Entering the Symbolic Realm of Dreams
As important as inner awareness is to the homeopath, there are times where the simillimum reveals itself in spite of our lack of inner clarity. Knowledge of materia medica and the presence of enough non-symbolic information in a case can over-ride the necessity for a deep connection with the client in order to find the remedy. However, in order to effectively work with dreams, it is essential that we be able to step out of the way as much as possible and allow the essence of the vital force to emerge in its fullest.
Working with dreams takes both the practitioner and the client out of the realm of ego and into the symbolic realm, to an arena that is bigger than each of them. The symbolic realm connects the individual or ego self with a more universal and timeless reality. Dream analysis, when done in a way that allows for intimate and personal exploration of the symbolic content, creates a broadening and deepening of the conscious mind that lets us think outside the box. In this expanded awareness, connections that can’t be seen with our literal minds become obvious.
The synchronicity of events in an individual’s life can be a surprise and delight. Sometimes it is so obvious that we have to laugh at it all. We can only laugh, of course, if our ego can get out of the way enough to realize that it’s not in charge of any of this.
The opening up of this realm can be so overwhelming that it is preferable to take a more linear-style case in the beginning, letting the person speak until they don’t have anything more to say, asking “What else?” until there is nothing else. After that, we can fill in the modalities and details of what they have mentioned, finally asking about generals, family history, etc. In other words, we get as complete a case as possible and do not leave anything out.
Then we can ask about dreams. Of course, dreams may appear earlier in a case if volunteered but it is best to wait until there is a fuller understanding of the case, so it is possible to see the way the dream fits into the whole picture. Often in dream analysis, another level of the individual’s reality emerges. A symbolic but parallel universe in a fourth dimension is revealed that fleshes out the first part of the case taking. After telling a dream, a person may begin to relate on a level that is much more personal and intimate. It is here that they may tell their deepest desires, especially if the dream has been one that has been remembered from childhood.
Dreams and visions remembered from childhood often contain some of the most useful symbolic information. Associations to these symbols may lead us to the remedy or to understand the individual more deeply after the first interview. Many times, however, the symbolic content from these early years is only understood much later in treatment and must be preserved in our notes in such a way that it can be used in the future. Such symbolism may actually be a blueprint for the unfolding of an individual’s life. In it, we can possibly see the unfulfilled potential that has been blocked by the miasm and, in understanding the symbolism in relationship to the anamnesis, find the remedy that can allow that potential to unfold.
Recurring dreams can also be a source of rich symbolic information that leads to the simillimum. It is important, however, to understand that the individual’s association to the dream is more important than our interpretation of the dream. When working with symbols, it is essential that we depend upon the dreamer’s association, because a true symbol, as opposed to a sign, has no fixed meaning and can
never be entirely understood by the rational mind. It is the articulation of an inner and unconscious experience that activates and groups material so that it can be expressed. The symbol remains alive as long as it is filled with meaning. Once it is seen only through its historical or rational significance, it has died as a symbol and becomes a sign.
This is the problem with most so-called dream interpretation books. They reduce the symbolic content of dreams to signs, that is, to something that can be known in a literal way and whose meaning is basically the same for everyone. Using symbols and dreams in this way is not at all helpful for the homeopath and can be compared to keynote prescribing in the worst sense of the word.
The Dreaming Body
Fortunately dreams lie outside our ability to manipulate them, so we cannot create a false reality in our dreams or influence them by our will. Mental states, that are hidden from consciousness, and physical symptoms, suppressed through medication or in a very early stage, are frequently expressed through the dream state. Because the dream is an attempt on the part of the organism to heal itself, when used and analyzed accurately, the resulting material can lead to some of the most reliable symptoms in a case. Although they seem ephemeral, dreams are actually objective facts about a person’s mental and physical state.
Carl Jung said that the most likely reality is that there is no such thing as body and mind but rather that they are the same life, subject to the same laws, and that what the body does, happens in the mind. This relationship is already quite clear to homeopaths on one level; however we often use dreams in a way that misses this connection. We use the dream as if it were a separate symptom out of context with the entirety of the case. We need techniques that will help us to use dreams in a way in which they enrich what Hahnemann called the “red thread that runs throughout the case.” When the dreamer’s associations to their dreams are seen as an integral part of the whole case, it is possible to see a symbolic representation of pathology on the physical as well as the mental and emotional levels.
Dreams can also be a rich source of information for prognosis. At some point during therapy what Jung referred to as an “initial dream” may appear, so-called because it indicates the beginning of deep change within the individual. It predicts a change that may come at any point during therapy: after a week, or five weeks, or many years of work. Whenever it comes, the initial dream indicates the beginning of deep healing and can be very helpful in determining that the correct remedy was given.
Dreaming Homeopathy
It has been said that the patient in therapy dreams a dream for the therapist. This means that the psyche of the client knows what symbolism the therapist will understand and when it is safe to dream it. An individual in Freudian therapy will have dreams a Freudian can understand; someone in Jungian analysis will have symbolic and archetypal dreams that are a part of that school; and a homeopathic client will have dreams that are related to homeopathic remedies and processes. The more the homeopath is in tune with dreams and symbols, the more likely that the client will share their most intimate dreams during the interview.
A helpful method of getting comfortable with the dream state is to keep a dream journal. It is interesting how having a dream journal alongside one’s bed, with the intention of recording dreams, will activate dreaming. Writing down a dream is similar to telling it to someone; it stimulates associations that can bring meaning and awareness to what the dream is trying to tell us. If it is possible to tell the dream to someone, the situation is even better.
A dream can have three parts: the dreaming, the telling of the dream, and the analysis. As long as our dreams are not analyzed they are incomplete and represent some part of us that remains unfulfilled. And that would be a great loss. What we would lose is best expressed in this quote from Carl Jung:
“The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness extends. For all ego consciousness is isolated; because it separates and discriminates, it knows only particulars, and it sees only those that can be related to the ego. Its essence is limitation, even though it reach to the farthest nebulae among the stars. All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral.”
References
Hansel, Jurgen. Inbegriff der Symptome-and Two Ways of Case Taking. Homoeopathic LINKS, 8(4) Winter 1995:17-18.
Jung, Carl Gustav. The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man. Civilization in Transition. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964. 134-56.
Von Franz, Marie-Louise. Projection and Re-collection in Jungian Psychology. Peru, Illinois: Open Court Publishing, 1995.
Whitmont, Edward C. The Alchemy of Healing. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1993.