Dreams having meaning for both inner and outer life.

Guidance from dreams for both inner and outer life:

“But this specific help from the unconscious is not given to primitive man alone. Jung discovered that dreams can also give civilized man the guidance he needs in finding his way through the problems of both his inner and his outer life. Indeed, many of our dreams are concerned with details of our outer life and our surroundings. Such things as the tree in front of the window, one’s bicycle or car, or a stone picked up during a walk may be raised to the level of symbolism through our dream life and become meaningful. If we pay attention to our dreams, instead of living in a cold, impersonal world of meaningless chance, we may begin to emerge into a world of our own, full of important and secretly ordered events.

“Our dreams, however, are not as a rule primarily concerned with our adaptation to outer life. In our civilized world, most dreams have to do with the development (by the ego) of the ‘right’ inner attitude toward the Self, for this relationship is far more disturbed in us by modern ways of thinking and behaving than is the case with primitive people. They generally live directly from the inner center, but we, with our uprooted consciousness, are so entangled with external, completely foreign matters that it is very difficult for the messages of the Self to get through to us.” – Man and His Symbols, Marie-Louise von Franz