James Hillman – Dream’s Language

Dreams follow their own logic.

And the use of logic is a poor choice of words. Is there a beginning, middle and end? Or does our waking mind force the linear script onto the contents? Dreams often do not recognize time and therefore a linear story line is not the point. What is the point? What the dream thinks it is.

 The camera has been removed from our hands and we are just another actor in the play when indeed we can recognize which actor is the “I”. 

 What does a dream want? 

 Can we understand the dream using daylight consciousness – the logic we use when we are awake? 

 James Hillman thinks not. He thinks that we need to use the dream’s logic and language to discover what the dream is and normally the images of the dream are paramount, the words are created latter by daylight language so the image tells the story to be told. 

 Images are primary and come before language. 

 We spend perhaps a year or two on this earth before we give language some room for attention and analysis, when we have used images all along to structure our world. 

 For your next dream, use a form of meditation to focus on the image above all else and see what the image literally communicates – the color, line, forms, speed, story line, progression.

 This way of looking at dreams puts the dream in charge so to speak and dismantles the ego, the analyst, and linear thinking. It makes room for the poetics of language, of the image.