ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY BETWEEN IMAGINATION AND EXPERIENCE - CONSIDERATIONS ON THE PERCEPTION OF A DREAM

This work is an attempt at understanding the area 'scientific characte r of analytical psychology' against the background of its structures b eing partly committed to natural philosophically orientated speculativ e thinking and partly to scientific-empirical thinking. In so doing, w e can see in C.G. Jung's works that the emphasis shifts in connection with his development. Drawing on both sources, analytical psychology i s able to take into account the requirements of empirical science with out neglecting the emotional needs for plausible hypotheses in the con text of transcendental questions. To mix these sources of recognition would certainly involve the danger of doctrinary aberration. An exampl e illustrates how Jung himself falls victim to this danger: in a highl y emotional situation, he violates elementary empirical rules by revis ing the text of a dream he has on hand to such an extent that the inte rpretation he is then able to make facilitates the rejection of unplea sant theories connected with dreaming and the obscuration of personal concern. Thus analytical psychology is also given the task of defining the relationship between the dream itself and what is recalled from e ach dream. In this respect, a forgotten theory of Jung's concerning ch anges in the realization level of dreams was useful after having been examined.