Drømmenes væsen

Udkast til en mangedimensional teori

Abstract

In my book Dimensions of Dreams I scrutinized all major theories and practices of dream
interpretation and concluded that dreams reveal a multiplicity of meanings and fimetions.
As a consequence of this the present paper discusses the possibility of breaking up
original theoretical frameworks, laid out by Freud, Jung, and others, and to use the
empirical data, that still remain, to create a more complex and dynamic theory on the
nature of dreams.
The dream is conceived as fundamentally untranslatable and its contents are seen
as fluctuating patterns in an undivided stream of consciousness/unconsciousness.
Among the principles that are presumed to govern the dream process are psychic
intensity, essentiality, hypermnesia, artistic expression, time-space relativity, defense
mechanisms, and channelling processes.
Two new important ways of information processing in dreams are suggested to be
»holografic distribution« and »multidimensionality«. The latter is defined as a cognitive
principle (not a defense mechanism) that makes it possible for the dream process to
condense many experiental connotations in the same symbol or pattem within the dream,
as well as maintaining a graduated distribution and balancing of the different energetic charges related to each connotation.
The theory is claimed to be more in tune with contemporary thinking in the theory of science than the older theories.