Initial Dream

The initial dream is the dream that arrives at the opening of an analytic process — or, more precisely, at the opening of any new phase of individuation. The Jungian tradition reads it as a précis of the territory the analysis will have to cross. robert-bosnak states the understanding directly: “An initial dream is not necessarily one dream. It can also be a cluster of dreams in the beginning phase of a process. Also, such a dream does not come about exclusively at the start of an analysis. An initial dream can precede any new phase in analysis. Like a briefly flashing precursor of dream life to come” (A Little Course in Dreams).

The initial dream is therefore less a single object than a structural position — the dream-as-precursor, the dream whose images will return, elaborated, across the series that follows. Its authority within the analysis is proportional to the analyst’s capacity to remember it faithfully, to hold it lightly enough that later dreams can complete it rather than contradict it, and to refuse premature interpretation. The unit of meaning in Jungian dreamwork is the dream-series; the initial dream is the series’ keynote.

The concept extends a classical intuition. Greek incubation at the Asclepian shrines sought a first dream — the one the god would send, around which the cure would organize. The Jungian initial dream inherits the posture: the patient places himself at the disposal of what will arrive, and the arrival sets the frame.

Relationships

• dreamwork
• compensation
• incubation
• individuation

Primary sources

• bosnak-little-course-dreams (Bosnak 1986)
• hall-jungian-dream-interpretation (Hall 1983)