Meditation and Archetypal Content of Nocturnal Dreams

THE NATURE AND FUNCTION of the dream, long considered the province of psychotherapists, is today the subject of a rapidly expanding field of interdisciplinary investigation. Furthermore, there is widespread interest in the theory and practice of meditation. Experimentation on sleep and dreaming was stimulated by the discovery of rapid eye movement (stage R.E.M.) sleep (ASERINSKY & KLEITMAN 2). Similarly, a major emphasis is placed upon the use of instruments, such as the electro-encephalogram (E.E.G.) and electro-oculogram (E.O.G.), in the increasing numbers of attempts to isolate and quantify the physiological effects thought to be associated with the practice of meditation (review by EMERSON 9). This research has provoked controversy concerning the equivalence or non-equivalence of meditational and sleep states as assessed by physiological parameters (WALLACE 48; BANQUET 3; YOUNGER et al 51; PAGANO et al 36; ELSON et al 8). The controversy is perhaps not surprising since these investigations tend to support the traditional association between meditation and the sleep cycle in the doctrines of yoga: the practitioner attempts to enter and leave the sleep states while remaining fully lucid and aware of the transition (ELIADE 7).

Although meditation thus bears some relationship to sleep and dreaming, there has been little or no experimental investigation relating the practice of meditation to Western theories concerning the nature and function of dreams. However, Jung, several decades ago, had explicitly related the practice of meditative techniques to his theory of the compensatory function of dreams (JUNG 16). In so doing he had independently arrived at a position paralleling Eastern doctrines in both theory and practice and had thereby placed these within a frame of reference compatible with Western depth psychology (WILHELM & JUNG 50, p. 86). In the present study we have subjected some hypotheses derived from Jungian theory and yogic doctrines to experi