Stages of life Dream Meanings

In his 1930 essay ‘Stages of Life’, Jung postulated four stages of life— childhood, youth, middle age and old age—based on his own clinical observations.

He viewed youth as a period of expanding consciousness, middle age as a period of questioning long-held convictions, and old age as a period of increased introspection and preoccupation with self-evaluation. According to Jung, dreams are important tools of self-discovery for you, whatever your age or life stage.

This is because in every stage of your life you will face many challenges: emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical. These challenges can trigger fascinating dreams, some of which can help you to meet those challenges and pass on to the next phase of your development.

Jung believed that what prevents people from becoming independent, fulfilled and ultimately happy is their refusal to open themselves to change or to new and unfamiliar experiences that potentially threaten their sense of self. His approach to finding balance in every stage of life was through the analysis of dreams and a process he called ‘individuation’. Dreams are a powerful tool for self-discovery and individuation is a self-analysis, a self-discovery, a way of analysing your own reactions and responses at every life stage so you can discover what truths lie underneath your conscious and egocentric personality.

In this chapter you will explore dreams that are believed to be typical of distinct life stages; some dream analysts refer to them as ‘developmental dreams’. This is because they seem particularly to reflect the typical stresses, questions and issues you may face at specific times in your life. This makes sense as you would expect the dreams you had when you were fifteen to reflect the concerns of your life as a teenager, just as you would expect the dreams you have now to have evolved into a mirror of your current situation and age group. Bear in mind, however, that how the stresses and challenges of your current life stage is represented in the dream world depends upon your personal circumstances, your sleep patterns and your ability to remember your dreams.

Bear in mind, too, that it is possible to have any one of these dreams even if you don’t fit the life-stage profile that coincides with it.

Dreams of death will also be explored in this chapter, as death is the final stage or change that comes to us all. Although dreams of death may explore your feelings about death or represent potential you may have missed or not expressed in general, dream analysts believe that such dreams represent the ending of one phase so a new one can begin. They reveal forthcoming finalities such as the end of a relationship or career and should not be interpreted literally. Because in the past we were terrified at the idea of death, it also represents upheaval, calamity and the sense that things will never be the same again. It was something that could only be endured but never be understood. Today, as our attitudes towards death have changed, death in a dream represents a challenge that cannot be avoided and which must be confronted if progress is to be made in waking life.

The message is that some approach or attitude to life needs to be changed or adjusted; if you can find the courage to make that adjustment successfully, there can be a fresh start or a new beginning.

For dreams concerning childhood, see BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.

See also LOSS AND FRUSTRATION; NIGHTMARES; SPIRITS AND GHOSTS.