Children's Dreams: Notes from the Seminar Given in 1936-1940 (Jung Seminars)

In the 1930s C. G. Jung embarked upon a bold investigation into childhood dreams as remembered by adults to better understand their significance to the lives of the dreamers. Jung presented his findings in a four-year seminar series at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Children's Dreams marks their first publication in English, and fills a critical gap in Jung's collected works.

Here we witness Jung the clinician more vividly than ever before--and he is witty, impatient, sometimes authoritarian, always wise and intellectually daring, but also a teacher who, though brilliant, could be vulnerable, uncertain, and humbled by life's great mysteries. These seminars represent the most penetrating account of Jung's insights into children's dreams and the psychology of childhood. At the same time they offer the best example of group supervision by Jung, presenting his most detailed and thorough exposition of Jungian dream analysis and providing a picture of how he taught others to interpret dreams. Presented here in an inspired English translation commissioned by the Philemon Foundation, these seminars reveal Jung as an impassioned educator in dialogue with his students and developing the practice of analytical psychology.

An invaluable document of perhaps the most important psychologist of the twentieth century at work, this splendid volume is the fullest representation of Jung's views on the interpretation of children's dreams, and signals a new wave in the publication of Jung's collected works as well as a renaissance in contemporary Jung studies.

"A fascinating offering. It is always a pleasure to watch Jung go to work on a dream, and this book gives an invaluable picture of how he taught others to interpret dreams as well as how he approached them himself. Here, the clinician comes forward, and the dreams and their likely significance for the life of the dreamer remain the focus throughout."--John Beebe, editor of Aspects of the Masculine

Here we witness Jung the clinician more vividly than ever before--and he is witty, impatient, sometimes authoritarian, always wise and intellectually daring, but also a teacher who, though brilliant, could be vulnerable, uncertain, and humbled by life's great mysteries. These seminars represent the most penetrating account of Jung's insights into children's dreams and the psychology of childhood. At the same time they offer the best example of group supervision by Jung, presenting his most detailed and thorough exposition of Jungian dream analysis and providing a picture of how he taught others to interpret dreams. Presented here in an inspired English translation commissioned by the Philemon Foundation, these seminars reveal Jung as an impassioned educator in dialogue with his students and developing the practice of analytical psychology.

An invaluable document of perhaps the most important psychologist of the twentieth century at work, this splendid volume is the fullest representation of Jung's views on the interpretation of children's dreams, and signals a new wave in the publication of Jung's collected works as well as a renaissance in contemporary Jung studies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

PREFACE xi

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITORS xiii

CHAPTER 1: On the Method of Dream Interpretation 1

CHAPTER 2: Seminar on Children's Dreams (Winter Term, 1936/37) 32

CHAPTER 3: Psychological Interpretation of Children's Dreams (Winter Term, 1938/39) 104

CHAPTER 4: Psychological Interpretation of Children's Dreams (Winter Term, 1939/40) 236

CHAPTER 5: Seminar on Children's Dreams (Winter Term, 1940/41) 379

APPENDIX: DREAM SERIES OF A BOY 469

BIBLIOGRAPHY 471

INDEX 479