The Dream World

I mean in the sense that if you don't use a muscle then it begins to weaken and atrophy.

I have been in a phase lately, where I cannot remember any of my dreams what-so-ever. I blame my chronic insomnia on that one.

Psychoanalytic procedure, employed in the interpretation of
dreams of any person can be called a scientifically organized
confession that traces out with infinite patience even to the
smallest ramifications, the spiritual inventory of what was tucked
away in the mind of the person undergoing it. Psychoanalysis
is used in medical practice to discover and relieve the spiritual
causes of neurotic phenomena. The patient is induced to tell
more and more, starting from a given point, thereby going into
the most intimate details, and yet we are aware, in the network
of outcropping thoughts and memories, of certain points of
connection, which have dominating significance for the affective
life of the person being studied. Here the path begins to be hard
because it leads into the intimately personal. The secret places of
the soul set up a powerful opposition to the intruder, even without
the purposive action of the patient. Right there are, however, so
to speak, the sore spots (pathogenic “complexes”) of the psyche,
towards which the research is directed. Firmly advancing in spite
of the limitations, we lay bare these roots of the soul that strive
to cling to the unconscious. Those are the disfigured elements
just mentioned; all of the items of the spiritual inventory from
which the person in question has toilsomely “worked himself
out” and from which he supposes himself free. They must be
silent because they stand in some contradictory relation to the
character in which the person has clothed himself; and if they,
the subterranean elements still try to announce themselves, he
hurls them back immediately into their underworld; he allows
himself to think of nothing that offends too much his attitudes,
his morality and his feelings. He does not give verbal expression
to the disturbers of the peace that dwell in his heart of hearts.
The mischief makers are, however, merely repressed, not
dead. They are like the Titans [On this similarity rests the
psychologic term “titanic,” used frequently by me in what
follows.] which were not crushed by the gods of Olympus,
but only shut up in the depths of Tartarus. There they wait
for the time when they can again arise and show their faces in
daylight. The earth trembles at their attempts to free themselves.
Thus the titanic forces of the soul strive powerfully upward. And
as they may not live in the light of consciousness they rave in
darkness. They take the main part in the procreation of dreams,
produce in some cases hysterical symptoms, compulsion ideas
and acts, anxiety neuroses, etc. The examination of these psychic
disturbances is not without importance for our later researches.
Psychoanalysis, which has not at any time been limited to
medical practice, but soon began with its torch to illumine the
activity of the human spirit in all its forms (poetry, myth-making,
etc.), was decried as pernicious in many quarters. [The question
as to how widely psychoanalysis may be employed would at this
time lead us too far, yet it will be considered in Sect. 1, of the
synthetic part of this volume.] Now it is indeed true that it leads
us toward all kinds of spiritual refuse. It does so, however, in
the service of truth, and it would be unfortunate to deny to truth
its right to justify itself. Any one determined to do so could in
that case defend a theory that sexual maladies are acquired by
catching a cold.
The spiritual refuse that psychoanalysis uncovers is like the
manure on which our cultivated fruits thrive. The dark titanic
impulses are the raw material from which in every man, the work
of civilization forms an ethical character. Where there is a strong
light there are deep shadows. Should we be so insincere as to
deny, because of supposed danger, the shadows in our inmost
selves? Do we not diminish the light by so doing? Morality, in
whose name we are so scrupulous, demands above everything
else, truth and sincerity. But the beginning of all truth is that we
do not impose upon ourselves. “Know thyself” is written over
the entrance of the Pythian sanctuary. And it is this inspiring
summons of the radiant god of Delphi that psychoanalysis seeks
to meet.

......Firmly advancing in spite
of the limitations, we lay bare these roots of the soul that strive
to cling to the unconscious. Those are the disfigured elements
just mentioned; all of the items of the spiritual inventory from
which the person in question has toilsomely “worked himself
out” and from which he supposes himself free. They must be
silent because they stand in some contradictory relation to the
character in which the person has clothed himself; and if they,
the subterranean elements still try to announce themselves, he
hurls them back immediately into their underworld; he allows
himself to think of nothing that offends too much his attitudes,
his morality and his feelings. He does not give verbal expression
to the disturbers of the peace that dwell in his heart of hearts.
The mischief makers are, however, merely repressed, not
dead. They are like the Titans [On this similarity rests the
psychologic term “titanic,” used frequently by me in what
follows.] which were not crushed by the gods of Olympus,
but only shut up in the depths of Tartarus. There they wait
for the time when they can again arise and show their faces in
daylight. The earth trembles at their attempts to free themselves.
Thus the titanic forces of the soul strive powerfully upward. And
as they may not live in the light of consciousness they rave in
darkness. They take the main part in the procreation of dreams,
produce in some cases hysterical symptoms, compulsion ideas
and acts, anxiety neuroses, etc. The examination of these psychic
disturbances is not without importance for our later researches.......

About a week ago, I woke up from a dream and I could have sworn I felt my consciousness snap back into my body from somewhere else.