Post on 07-Feb-2023
Running head: HEALING NIGHTMARES
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Healing Nightmares: An Experiential Process
Drew Smith
1730 Bedford Square Dr. #103
Rochester Hills, MI 48306
drew.smith@my.pacifica.edu
Dreamwork—DJA – 825
Track ZZ, Year Two
Dr. Nancy Galindo
Running head: HEALING NIGHTMARES
Only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the "treasure hard to attain" (Jung, 1956/1977, p. 531).
I am standing in the middle of a room of slick white tiles,
steam rising off my body, sunlight streaming in through a frosted
window, as water trickles over me and rinses down the drain; I am
clean. Refreshed. I'm in my college dorm, washing myself in the
communal shower. I have showered here countless times, always
alone. But this time, as the warm water flowed, I was not alone.
A banded serpent, red and black and white and yellow, slithers up
out of the drain. This chthonic figure rises to meet my face. I
stand there, mouth agape, frozen in fear, this sight too horrific
to comprehend, as its tongue darts in and out at me. This serpent
strikes at my face, and with lightning speed, it enters my open
mouth and tries to slither down into my throat. I start gagging!
In terror, I grip it, forcefully tugging at it, trying to pull it
out of me. It forces its way in deeper, my eyes are watering, I
can't breathe, and I think I might die. And then I wake up.
Dreams are elusive creatures. They flow in and out of our
nighttime, affecting our quality of sleep, our memories,
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affecting our moods the next day. Sometimes they stay with us for
hours after we wake, just hanging out like a familiar friend.
Other times they play ephemeral and are whisked away just we open
our eyes, like a whisper we didn't quite hear. And then, there
are those unnerving dreams that choose to linger behind and
crouch in the dark corners of our mind; the horrible ones that
lie waiting just below the surface, that refuse to leave no
matter how vehemently we demand they go. These are the
nightmares. And their residual effects can disturb us for years.
In my case, this vivid serpentine image has haunted me for over
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While most of us run away in terror from these tormentors,
there is great power bound up within them. According to Stephen
Aizenstat (2011), there are "inherent healing properties" within
dream images (p. 189). But does this include the nightmare? And
if so, what do my nightmares want to heal within me?
Aizenstat, a deeply insightful and gifted dream-tender,
offers us a completely new set of tools when it comes to looking
at dreams. His approach is not in trying to interpret the dream,
but instead to "tend" it. Rather than seeking the singular
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meaning behind a particular dream, which we may call
"interpreting" the dream, he opens the dream up and explores, or
tends, all of its multidimensional possibilities. One might say
dream interpreting is when you figure out what the dream means;
dream tending is when the dream figures out what you mean.
No one knows for sure what nightmares actually are, other
than terrifying. They affect all of us, regardless of age, race,
gender, or religious affiliation. There is no definitive answer
as to where they come from or why we have them. Of course, there
is much speculation as to the root causes, with guesses ranging
from anxiety to slow metabolism to taking medications to pre-
bedtime media (Meredith, 2014). So, to rid ourselves of them we
employ diversion tactics: Ambien, alcohol, more caffeine, more
melatonin. Anything we can do to keep the nightmares at bay. Yet
I would argue that nightmares are our psyche's way (our soul's
way) of alerting us to an imbalance, or a wounding, within the
unconscious—an imbalance that needs to be remedied as quickly as
possible. And psyche chooses such jolting and horrific images in
order to illicit in us action, or to motivate us into re-action.
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James Hillman's approach to the dream image is to see it in
relation to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, the god of
death, the god of the invisible darkness, the god of depth.
Hillman (1979) says that, "to know the psyche at its basic
depths, for a true depth psychology, one must go to the
underworld" (p. 46). But the journey into the underworld is
accompanied by an overwhelming, violating, deeply disturbing
fear. We feel invaded, assaulted, ripped apart, even raped (p.
49) by Hell itself.
This sounds just like a nightmare, no? And this deep fear
(depth fear) is something we tend to shy away from, or even run
away from, within our contemporary culture. Our modern idea of
Psychology (entomology: from the Greek word "psukhē" meaning
"breath, spirit, soul" and -λογία, "the study of") has very
little to do with getting to know the Psyche. Instead, we have
created Pop Psychology (Pop Psyche?), which are "optimistic
therapies that focus on peaks, freedom, cures, and creativity" as
a hyper-manic defense against this painfully uncomfortable
underworld experience (Hillman, 1979, p. 48). And God knows we
are a culture who does not like to be made painfully
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uncomfortable. We prefer the Dr. Phil and Oprah-esque style of
Psychology, the kind that gives us formulaic answers and miracle
self-help book titles, all in tidy little bite-sized 10-minute,
commercially interrupted chunks; big enough to make us hungry for
more, but small enough so we are never truly satisfied.
These terrifying images, these nighttime assaults where we
are trapped in the dreamworld and therefore forced into seeing
such horrific living pictures, is Psyche's way of bringing the
chthonic underworld up to us—to meet us on our level. However,
Psyche does not do this so we'll run away in terror. She is
forcing her way in the door, to make our acquaintance, coercing
us to get to know her, to study her, to Psyche-ologize her. Once
we are willing to endure the suffering and really see the
dreadful images, we begin a journey into the underworld to
experience them, by going deep enough to meet her, Psyche. We
must be willing to go down into the deep dark, to the depths, and
see what Psyche discloses for us there.
Aizenstat (2011) employs a six-step process for working with
nightmares (p. 64ff). There is intrinsic value in this, of
course, and it is a protected way to engage with terrifying
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images. Yet these steps are meant to bring the dreamer into a
safer relationship with the monster, and encourage an
imaginational relation with them. Again, very valuable in
context. However, I would like to take this a bit further. I am
more intrigued by his ideas that dream images are potent with
medicinal qualities.
In this context, he refers to "wounded" dream images as
being linked to healing of physical disorders, and that our
"attitude of healing is informed by our relationship to our own
mortality" (Aizenstat, 2011, p.191). While Aizenstat references
healing the physical body through dream tending, I believe there
is also healing for the soul-body through dream tending. After
all, a healthy body with an unhealthy soul is still not
completely healthy. If we are indeed dealing with our own
relationship to mortality, per Aizenstat, we are, in essence,
dealing with a journey into the underworld, the land of the dead.
We are experiencing a death, and ultimately a re-birth, through
the crossing down and in. I would argue these "wounded" images
Aizenstat speaks of are the same images that come to us from the
underworld: the nightmares themselves. They are the wounded ones.
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Chiron, half-man half-horse, an immortal Centaur from Greek
mythology, was wounded by an arrow dipped in the venom of a
Hydra, a nine-headed water serpent. Knowing this wound to be
incurable, and its suffering immeasurable, Chiron relinquished
his immortality and volunteered to descend to the underworld by
death. Yet instead of being relegated to Hades, as happens with
all who make the descent, he was lifted by Zeus into the starry
heavens and is still present today as the constellation
Sagittarius (Atsma, n.d.).
Chiron suffered a great and painful wounding, an assault, an
invasion (a "violent raping") he did not ask for. He was granted
the option of living eternally crippled and in immense pain, or
give up immortality to be free of it completely. By making the
conscious choice to fall into the underworld rather than resist,
he was rewarded with the transformation and re-birth into
immortal starry light. It seems this venom from a poison water
snake (this imagery is quite meaningful in relation to my own
dream), was the impetus for his transformation, and subsequent
healing. Chiron himself is closely associated with restoration,
medicine, and surgery, and he brought great healing to many
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wounded heroes, or so the myths tell us. Yet he could not heal
himself from this wound. He could only achieve healing through
death.
If we can consider the wounding that Chiron experienced to
be parallel to the assault of the nightmare, we would be wise to
follow his council and seek healing by going through the agony of
such a painful affront, rather than "live with it" or try to
ignore or pacify it. We must recognize this wounding (wounded)
nightmare will not leave us alone—it will torment us for eternity
—unless we psychologically descend into the underworld on our own
accord.
The choice to descend seems to hold much power, especially
when applied to the psychological realm. We see after Chiron's
descent, he was exalted to the heavens and reborn as stars in the
sky. Similarly, the Christian story tells us of Jesus who chose
to endure the cross, a weapon of wounding and pain, and face
death. Yet, we are told, he became a conqueror of death after
three days time and is now seated at God's right hand. This
Christ offers the same conquering power to his followers, as
well. When viewed through a lens intent on healing the soul, to
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heal psyche, this "going down" must happen in order to receive
the healings inherent therein.
This myth of Chiron resonates within me personally, not only
for the correlation to the Christ story, but also for the latent
figure found in the shadow of both myths: the serpent. My
"Serpent in the shower" dream has been haunting me for a very
long time. The image of this snake trying to choke its way down
my throat will surface intermittently through my waking day,
often seemingly unprompted and jarring, and it always leaves me
with an uneasy feeling. When I had the dream over 20 years ago, I
remember violently waking up from it and wanting to immediately
vomit.
Snakes have always held a dark spot for me. Growing up
within the Christian tradition, the snake has always been equated
to evil, to deceit, to the Devil. Of course, there are other
instances of snakes within the Bible, and not all of them within
an evil context. For example, in an Old Testament story in
Numbers 21 (New International Version), God sent a plague of
poisonous snakes to punish the Israelites for their groaning and
complaining. As they cried out for mercy, God told Moses to make
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a snake and put it on a pole. Anyone who was bitten by these
snakes could look upon this elevated serpent and be saved.
Christian scholars have always equated this healing snake on a
pole as a type and shadow of Christ, who is also a healer, and
was also lifted up on a pole (cross). While it's an unusual
story, it runs in symbolic tandem with that of Asclepius, the
Greek god of medicine. He holds up a similar rod entwined with a
single serpent (Atsma, n.d.). The snake was not only a symbol of
evil, but also of healing.
Yet for years, I had only associated this serpent with the
shadowy, wicked, chthonic and demonic aspect of the image. The
healing side of this image was far, far removed from
consciousness. No, this dream-snake must be malevolent to its
core, and this is what I would tell myself every time the image
reappeared in my mind's eye. I perpetually interpreted this dream
based on a very limited understanding of symbols. The snake is
demonic; the snake is destructive; the snake is pure evil.
But now I'm not so sure. Given what has been argued thus
far, it seems that this serpent in the shower has something
vital, even healing, to say to me. This poisonous snake has come
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forth, as if a wounded Psyche herself were bringing me a message
from beyond, below, from beneath my own consciousness. And the
snake brought along healing within it.
Until recently, I had lived in a world of dream
interpretation. But I conclude now that I, or we, need to resist
the urge to find/make an interpretation for the dream, or
nightmare, and refuse to say "This is that" or "That means this."
Such interpretation can deaden a dream image, and lock it into a
singular meaning, such as, "This snake is demonic." Interpreting
this way can be ego-driven and, while valuable at times, is not
our goal here.
Instead, we want to tend to the dream, as one tends to a
garden. We will work with the image. Patiently, gently, we will
give the image space to be, to express, to heal. We want to
amplify the image, permit it to speak, say what it wants, and
allow it room to breathe. To do this, we will employ the process
of active imagination.
The Western tradition of active imagination was made widely
known through the work of renown psychoanalyst, C.G. Jung. As
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Sonu Shamdasani (2009) writes in the introduction to Jung's
magnum opus, The Red Book, Jung began "deliberately evoking a
fantasy in a waking state, and then entering into it as into a
drama" (p. 23). This is a basic and bare-bones explanation of
active imagination, yet it's exactly what transpires when
engaging in it. There is no premeditation or planning as to what
will transpire when one engages with an image; that would be
allowing ego to direct the drama. The purpose of active
imagination is to transcend the ego, move beyond its control, and
allow the images themselves to dictate what plays out in the
drama.
Jung (1989) recognized that, "below the threshold of
consciousness everything was seething with life" (p. 178). This
inspired revelation opened a door for Jung, allowing him to see
images as fully autonomous figures living within the unconscious
itself. The trick, of course, is to allow these images a chance
to breathe on their own. He goes on to say, "In order to grasp
the fantasies which were stirring in me 'underground,' I knew
that I had to let myself plummet down into them… I felt not only
violent resistance to this, but a distinct fear" (p. 178). Jung
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is employing words that sound much like a personal choice to
descend into the underworld, including the natural resistance and
dread toward such a movement. Jung began returning to the fantasy
by engaging in active imagination with his dreams and images from
the dreams. Always the academic, he struggled to understand
exactly what he was doing, and finding any credibility within it.
As he says, "I once asked myself, "What am I really doing?
Certainly this has nothing to do with science. But then what is
it? Whereupon a [woman's] voice within me said, "It is art." I
was astonished… She had become a living figure within my mind"
(p. 185). Thus the anima was born, an independent feminine entity
living within him.
As Jung (1989) engaged in dialogue with these
voices/figures/images (one of which happened to be a snake), he
found it essential to differentiate between himself and the
unconscious content that visited him. He did this through a
personification of the images; he allowed them their own voice
(p. 187). But in doing so, he is also implying that what these
characters verbalize is autonomously spoken of their own will.
These images took on a life of their own, and spoke words to him
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that were beyond the scope of logic and reason. As he began to
recognize these dream/fantasy figures as actually alive, he
realized that oftentimes this recognition is the very thing we
neglect to do. When we do not seek to understand them, but merely
"wonder" about them, then the unconscious has no option but to
conjure up its own negative effects (p. 192). I would regard this
"negative effect" as another expression for "nightmare."
To model ourselves after Jung and engage in active
imagination, we must be willing to move beyond the resistance and
fear. Just as Chiron moved beyond the pain and suffering, just as
Hillman moved beyond the goody-feely pop psychology, and just as
Aizenstat moved beyond the horrifying monster, we must move
beyond our own trepidations and re-engage with those images that
come up out of the sewers and scare us awake. Jung (1989) notes
that on December 12, 1913, he made such a decisive step, and let
himself drop into the underworld (p. 179).
And so, on August 13, 2014, I dropped too.
I am in the shower again—naked, wet, alone—except for this writhing serpent in my right hand. It's straining to get into my mouth still. I am repulsed and want to throw it to the floor. But I cannot. My hand and its
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body are fused together somehow; we are One. It thrashes wildly and I wait for it to stop."I am your core—I am your spine, your root and your grounding." Her skin is soft, not scaly. She does not struggle anymore. "Your anima."
"But why are you a snake?" I ask.
"Because you wouldn't feel comfortable with that. You have sought after your animus for so long, you have left me defenseless. I am surviving—in survival mode. Ineed to return home—to have a voice. You have seen me as an enemy—but I do not fight against you. I fight foryou."
I open my mouth and let her slide down my throat…and itis warm.There is no struggle.
I feel her down my esophagus. Now throughout my body. She fills the void. She is a snake—the shape shifter, the shedder of skins, and she returns home. She is the illusion of danger and fear, of poison, yet she is not poisonous. She is healing. She milks her fangs into my spine. The fluid runs up and down me. This milky white substance is nourishing.
"This is where I belong," she says. "You abandoned me, in searching for another. But you should not push me out, or away. You pushed me deep, into the sewers, as if I were dirty. You relegated me to the slime. The darkness. But that is not where I belong. I am not fromthe underworld. But because you have pushed me down, I now rise with greater power, with greater understanding. I bring back from the depths a wisdom not known. I bring a new perspective. You shoved me away for a time, but now, I return. I reclaim my rightful spot in your soul—in your voice. I run the gamut of your being—up and down, connecting soul with
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body. You are now clean, internally as well as externally. You bathe the outside, yet I bathe the inside. I make a home here, I tend to the inner gardens, I fertilize them with my milk. I nurture and cultivate. I am returning to you now. Into you. We werenot meant to be apart. I needed to come to you at your most vulnerable, your most naked. Your most pure. This is how I can come in, this is when I return."
I feel her within me now, the presence ascends and descends, like an angel climbing Jacob's Ladder. The showers are sanctified. And purified. There is holinesshere—holy water. A cleansing without and within. This snake's name is Hope—she spoke it to me. She is my soul, she is my constant, my center. She is my anima—and she will be present within me. Her voice is mine—wespeak in harmony, our tones mixing together—the waves of sound like the waves of a snake gliding back and forth across wet tiles. (Author's Personal Journal, August 13, 2014)
I must take pause here to reflect on what I just witnessed
and heard. The depth of insight, wisdom, and genuineness is
almost too much for me to handle. I am awestruck by the words
that came forth from this image, from Serpent, from Hope. The
experience itself, of allowing a dream snake to slide into my
mouth, seems on the surface so horrifically disturbing, yet the
experience, the initiation through active imagination, was
completely calming and centering. This snake named Hope offered
me healing, rather than death.
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During my college years, when the original dream took place,
I was seeking answers about my own sexual identity. Struggling
between sexual desires and spiritual conviction, I wrestled with
who I was. Having been raised with an absent father left me
wondering what it meant to be a man, to be manly, or to exert
masculinity. College was a time of trial-and-error for me and I
was overly conscious of cultivating my own masculinity. It was
during that time in my life when this dream surfaced.
Were I to have interpreted this dream through a Freudian
approach, the meaning would be traced to erotic desires and
unfulfilled fantasies (Freud, 1914/2001, p.41). I would have
taken it back into the actuality of day, and have seen it as an
expression of latent homosexual desires, with a longing to have a
strong phallus enter my mouth. A Jungian analyst may begin to ask
me about my associations with snakes, with its colors, with my
college experiences, with water and showering, focusing on
context and symbolism. We would likely spend a great deal of time
interpreting these images, looking through their appearances in
myth and history, and settle on one primary meaning for the
dream. But through the process of active imagination, the
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interpretation isn't even a necessity. The dream image itself
tells me what I need to hear.
The words that came from her mouth were not my own. Yes,
the image originated within my head/mind/dream, or so I had
always told myself, but the insights that were expressed and
spoken to me were not mine. They were not from within me, nor
could I conjure them up on my own accord. No, this image had
autonomous wisdom. Perhaps if this snake's spoken wisdom is
autonomous, the snake, too, is autonomous. Perhaps this image
didn't originate within my head/mind/dream, but from some place
otherworldly/underworldly. And perhaps this snake visits others
too, at their most naked. Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole
and inhabiting a dreamlike dreamworld; perhaps my dream images
came up from the rabbit hole to inhabit my dreamlike dreamworld.
That means I am the guest and also the host.
I pondered this thought of Alice and the hole, and going
down below, and then in an interrupting flash, the shower drain
from my nightmare begins to speak:
"I am a gateway—a portal. What you wash away, I gather. And I hold, and see. And when you are ready, I will allow you entrance down the hole. Here there are
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pieces of you—remnants of your past. What you once washed away, I collected. And they are on display—not to remind you of your dirt, but to remind you of where you came from. Only then are you grounded enough to seewhere it is you belong. It is in being rooted in the muck and mire, in knowing your past, and being remindedof it, that you will truly grow. The most beautiful flower still needs dirt to survive.
"Do not fear what is below—it is hidden from sight, butstill present. Allow the journey down—Hermes beckons totake you across the rivers, and to show you wonders of a world that most men only dream of. The life from thisworld came to visit you…and you are blessed. Consider yourself one of the fortunate ones. You have found wisdom. She is divine—able to hold that which is above,and which is below. She is your guide, and your spine. She is your centering pole. She often looks dangerous, or poisonous, but she has been into the depths (not always by her own choosing) and she returns with the rains. To bring refreshing, and cleansing. Wisdom and Hope are the same word. They grow together within everyman. The milk we feed on can be toxic, but only ifit is incomplete. Do not rest in the shallow pools of ashower. Let yourself float in deeper waters." (Author'sPersonal Journal, August 13, 2014)
Whoa.
This shower drain speaks effortlessly and eloquently. Here,
an inanimate object, something that I had overlooked within the
dream image itself, was espousing wisdom about the most beautiful
flowers still needing dirt to survive. It's acting as a threshold
to the underworld, mysteriously beckoning me down. There must be
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a deeper dropping that needs to happen here, into deeper waters.
And I think that's the point. There is always a deeper drop to
make. There are always deeper waters to swim. The choice then
becomes whether to be forced deeper through yet another
terrifying nightmare, or to choose the descent of our own accord.
This very vocal shower drain, the passageway into the darker
places, spends a great deal of time speaking to me about the
serpent, Hope. And I think I'm beginning to understand why this
drain feels so inclined to admonish her. The drain recognizes
just how vital she has always been to me, and how rejecting I
have been towards her. I had assumed this snake's initial
confrontation with me was one of demonic proportions—and for good
reason: it terrified me! Yet her intent was not to terrify, but
to bring the wisdom of the underworld back to me, to bring the
"treasures hard to attain" up out of the shadows.
The drain knows her intrinsic value, and knows how
desperately I needed her at the time of my dream, and how much I
still need her now. My initial reaction to her was one of
abhorrence, of disgust, of repulsion. "She is evil and vicious,"
I thought. I literalized the image, and "literalizations that
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kills the flow and bury the soul" is dangerous indeed (Hillman,
1979, p. 153).
This dream image, this nightmare, my anima, that I assumed
wanted to harm me… I am the one who had harmed her. She was the
one who was wounded… by me. I am the Hydra's poison that caused
her pain and forced her down to Hades. I am the one who impaled
her on a pole, for my own healing. Through my own witlessness,
and my own refusal to appreciate the very thing that makes me
uncomfortable, I created my own nightmare. I ignorantly set its
manifestation in motion. Certainly Aizenstat (2011) is correct
when he says, "[w]hen dream images are experienced as embodied,
the life force with all of its medicinal properties is present in
each image… The image is the medicine" (p. 220). The serpentine
image brought healing to my soul (psyche) through her forceful
emergence from the very underworld I thrust her into. Indeed,
this nightmare image was in need of a deep healing.
And with compassion, this nightmare returned deep healing to
me.
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References
Aizenstat, S. (2011). Dream tending: Awakening to the healing power of dreams. New Orleans, LA: Spring Journal, Inc.
Atsma, A. (n.d.). Kheiron. Retrieved September 17, 2014, from http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/KentaurosKheiron.html
Atsma, A. (n.d.). Asklepios. Retrieved September 17, 2014, from http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Asklepios.html
Freud, S. (2001). On dreams. (M.D. Eder, Trans.). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. (Original work published 1914)
Hillman, J. (1979). The dream and the underworld. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Jung, C. G. (1989). Memories, dreams, reflections. (A. Jaffe, Ed.) (R. & C. Winston, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Jung, C. G. (1977). Mysterium coniunctionis (H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, & W. McGuire, Eds.), The collected works of C. G. Jung (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (Vol. 14). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1956)
Jung, C. G. (2009). The red book. (S. Shamdasani, Ed. & Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.
Meredith, S. (2014, June 4). Sleep disorders guide: Adult nightmares. Retrieved September 16, 2014, from http://www.webmd.boots.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults
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