Probably the most well-known of the modern dream philosophers was Sigmund Freud. Freud first developed the theory about the role of the unconscious on the individual. Freud believed the dream worked on two levels. A straightforward level showed events in dreams as remembered. However in the latent level objects and actions in the dreams symbolize sexual and aggressive feelings and ideas that are repressed. So in dreams it protects the sleeper from the effects of a realization of these wishes. The dream taps into the desire for wish fulfilment when the controlling ego is relaxed during sleep. Freud wrote "All dreams are in a sense dreams of convenience, they help to prolong sleep instead of waking up. Dreams are the guardians of sleep and not its disturbers. "

Carl Jung believed a dreams content uses symbolic language. He proposed that a dream expresses collective racial unconscious memories and instincts shared by all people. These are basic ideas that are themselves symbols. These include the hero, monster, mother, father, mandala, sacrifice and the mask. Dreams also indicate the way to self actualization Jungian therapy in fact deals extensively with dreams and fantasies.

Today, most psychologists agree with Jung's theory, and it is this theory that makes dream interpretation something that we can use in our everyday lives. If Freud were alive today he would disagree with every theory that says you are able to interpret your own dreams. Jung believed that, although it was difficult, dreams were meant to be understood.

getting above yourself; liberation; extend the range of your consciousness.

From SpiritCommunity

Flying

Some people believe that flying in our dreams can be an actual out of body experience, that we go to places on this physical plane as well as into the inner planes (mostly the Astral). Edgar Cayce thought that Astral travel or 'soul travel" might be a precursor to becoming lucid in a dream. Carl Jung's idea was that in a flying dream we are expressing our desire to break free of restrictions and limitations. We have a desire to be free and above all difficulties! Alfred Adler thought that this dream was a type of a superiority dream in which we reveal the desire to dominate and be above others. Focusing on the libido, Freud thought that flying was another way to express sexual desires. The details of your dream will give you clues as to what it symbolizes, if your dream was a spiritual experience or ego based.

The 'totality" of the conscious and unconscious life. The mind considered as an organic system reaching all parts of the body and serving to adjust the total organism to the needs or demands of the environment.

The ego, the subject of consciousness, comes into existence as a complex quantity which is constituted partly by the inherited disposition (character constituents) and partly by unconsciously acquired impressions and their attendant phenomena ... Analytical psychology differs from experimental psychology in that ... it is far more concerned with the total manifestation of the psyche as a natural phenomenon - a highly complex structure....Carl Jung

To Jung, the psyche, like the living body, is a self-regulating system

The Swiss psychologist, C. G. Jung, taught that the human mind or psyche is complex and is composed of parts, much like the physical body. He coined the word "complexes" for various unconscious parts of the psyche.

Complexes are the focal and nodal points of psychic life (Jacobi, 1973, p. 37). He also divided the unconscious into two distinct regions, the personal and the collective. "Whereas the personal unconscious consists for the most part of complexes, the content of the collective unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes".

In mythology - (Greek: 'soul"), in classical mythology, princess of outstanding beauty who aroused Venus" jealousy and Cupid's love. The fullest version of the tale is that told by the Latin author Apuleius in his Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass). According to Apuleius, the jealous Venus commanded her son Cupid (the god of love) to inspire Psyche with love for the most despicable of men. Instead, Cupid placed Psyche in a remote palace where he could visit her secretly and, by his warning, only in total darkness. One night Psyche lit a lamp and found that the figure at her side was the god of love himself. When a drop of oil from the lamp awakened him, he reproached Psyche and fled. Wandering the earth in search of him, Psyche fell into the hands of Venus, who imposed upon her difficult tasks. Finally, touched by Psyche's repentance, Cupid rescued her, and, at his instigation, Jupiter made her immortal and gave her in marriage to Cupid. The sources of the tale are a number of folk motifs; the handling by Apuleius, however, conveys an allegory of the progress of the Soul guided by Love, which adhered to Psyche in Renaissance literature and art. In Greek folklore the soul was pictured as a butterfly, which is another meaning of the word psyche.