Building on last night’s lecture, this seminar will present ways of seeing, understanding, and working with archetypes in our dreams. We will learn to see the difference between our personal and subjective reactions to dream images and their innate, archetypal meaning. Herein lies a profound understanding of the spiritual nature of Psyche.

In a dream, patterns of life, growth, and endings are revealed through a rich collective language. A dream allows us to see that something in our life -- perhaps a relationship, a job, or an attitude – is outdated and that the Self, the soul, needs renewal.  

The simplicity of the dream, communicating to us in a language derived from the natural world, moves us deeply. Like the apparent simplicity of French composer Eric Satie's music, dreams can mesmerize us and take us to a realm far beyond everyday life into something that may be the domain of the numinous. Listening to the opening stanza of Satie’s Gymnopedie, we sense that he was already transfixed and needed to create music expressive of the world existing beyond the veil. Like an image, sounds and rhythm convey the movement of the Self as it gently transports us into relationship with the sacred.

Carl Jung was once asked why the dream speaks through symbols and not in the language of everyday life. He responded by saying that such a direct communication would fall on deaf ears and that the Self speaks through an iconographic, pictorial voice of the ages, the language of the "Antique Soul.”  He reminds us that from time eternal, humanity has been moved by images, sounds, parables, and symbols. 

Could the majesty and utter beauty of Satie’s and Debussy's music or of DaVinci’s and Michelangelo's art ever be conveyed in words?

Offering a glimpse into the world of the archetypal and closely aligned to Jung's and von Franz's work, this presentation promises to enrich your appreciation and understanding of archetypal images in dreams and the relationship between the personal meaning of the symbols and their innate, archetypal meaning.

Dr. Michael Conforti is a Jungian analyst and the Founder and Director of the Assisi Institute. He is a faculty member at the C.G. Jung Institute - Boston, the C.G Jung Foundation of New York, and for many years served as a Senior Associate faculty member in the Doctoral and Master's Programs in Clinical Psychology at Antioch New England. A pioneer in the field of matter-psyche studies, Dr. Conforti is actively investigating the workings of archetypal fields and the relationship between Jungian psychology and the New Sciences. He has presented his work to a wide range of national and international audiences, including the C.G. Jung Institute - Zurich and Jungian organizations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and Venezuela. He is the author of Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings (2007) and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature and Psyche (2002). His articles have appeared in Psychological Perspectives, San Francisco Jung Library Journal, Roundtable Press, World Futures: The Journal of General Evolution, and Spring Journal, and his books has been translated into Italian, Russian and a soon to be released Spanish edition of his work.