Divided Space: Analysis of Immigrants’ Sleeping Dreams.
On June 30, 2023, at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, Küsnacht, Switzerland, my colleague and friend Anna Serebryannaya (a clinical psychologist from Israel) presented the results of our joint study on the Analysis of Immigrant Sleeping Dreams.
Unfortunately, I could not attend the conference in person because, as a political immigrant, I still not travel outside the US. However, I am glad that Anna made a great presentation and got excellent feedback from the audience.
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Our study aimed to show how the psyche reacts to the trauma of immigration associated with separation, social and cultural isolation, depersonalization, and the loss of belonging in the context of dreaming.
According to Zdeněk Czernovski (1988), Immigration Sleeping Dream means "dreaming that migrants were again in their home country, wishing to or attempting to escape," and coming back to the new country, but they cannot for any reason.
From Jungian and psychoanalytical perspectives, "Immigrant's Sleeping Dream" is: The Ego feels powerless to move between the borders. It's scared of being held within the unaccepting space, attacking the deeper cores of identity. While the day life is already unfolding within the place that provides comfort in an environment of diversity and acceptance, the psyche still carries parts of itself associated with rejection and fear.
We find it essential to notice that despite the resistance of the Ego, time after time, the dream plunges it into this reality and actively keeps it in it, as if saying: "Stay in it for a while, don't rush, look into the face of this part of yourself," pointing to unfinished business of integration.
In our opinion, these results show the complex dynamics between the subjective idea of the immigration process, with repressed emotions and states that manifest in the unconscious through the content of specific dream plots.
The most important result of our study is our Dream Matrix which describes the stages of an immigrant's psyche dynamics and the possible "dysfunctions."
Besides, we talked about the importance of the Trickster Archetype in the Immigration process through the example of different folk tales and myths, including the myth of Persephone.
Our next step is to hold training seminars/workshops in English and Russian, working with migrants on Integration and Adaptation through Dream Analysis.
There are some slides from our presentation.
Key words: migrants, collective trauma, dreams, depth psychology, dream analysis, healing.