The Science of Dream Therapy

Christina Sponias has devoted nearly 20 years to advancing Carl Jung's research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation. Here are excerpts from an interview I conducted with her recently.

Q: What encouraged you to become involved in mental health?

A: It was a combination of factors. When I was 23-years-old, while pregnant with my only son, I was extremely nervous and insecure. During the same period of time my young cousin Efi died in a train accident. Then my mother-in-law died three days later from a brain aneurysm. Complicating matters, my father is schizophrenic and I'd always feared inheriting the same traits that kept him so unbalanced. Consequently, my anxiety became exaggerated--fearing nothing could guarantee that my child would live and be healthy.

Furthermore, I was reminded of the tragic car accident I was in when I was 15-years-old, and my dearest friend Marina died. Although I survived, due to a grave trauma to my head, I lost my memory for 15 days and lacked coordination in my movements. Even though I eventually recovered I'd lost faith in God and began having conflicts with everyone--especially the nuns at the Catholic school I attended. I also started following a strange protective ritual, in which everything had to be in exact positions. Otherwise, I was certain something terrible would happen. Then one day I read a magazine article about a neurotic girl who could not sleep if the door to her parents' bedroom was closed. It was then I realized I was as unbalanced as the girl. That's when I decided to stop following my rituals. Although that was hard to do, I won the battle and that prepared me to overcome a form of neurosis that could easily have become schizophrenia.

Q: When did you decide to specialize in dream therapy?

A: I began reading everything I could find about psychology, neurology, biology in journals and various text books about the scientific methods of dream interpretation and concluded that only Carl Jung was correct. Following his teachings I observed amazing results and began discovering explanations to many questions even he couldn't explain. For example, quite often Jung noted that certain dream symbols appear in the artistic manifestations and in the recorded dreams of many civilizations without explaining each symbol's meaning.

In time, I discovered the meaning of many of these symbols and continued his research in the unknown region of the psyche through dream interpretation, discovering the wild side of the human brain--that side that provokes all mental illnesses. Jung believed it was the unconscious mind. However, he was wrong. The unconscious mind is wise and perfect; it is the absurd side of the human conscience that is demonic. This is the primitive human conscience that has not passed through the process of evolution the human side of our conscience has passed through.

After learning so much, I began helping everyone around me by translating their dreams. This began in 1990 with one of my mother's neighbors who suffered from agoraphobia. She refused to go to a psychotherapist and was waging her battle alone but couldn't win. She had stopped working or going out of her house, always afraid that she would faint-as she had more than once. Her treatment lasted 8 months. Then she started driving again and opened a store in her father's shopping centre. Now she has two stores with plans to open another one. Her successful treatment was only the first of a long list of people I have successfully treated.

Q. Is there a root to all mental illnesses?

A. The wild and violent side of the human brain provokes illnesses of all kinds. We have to tame it and transform it into a positive part of our human side by translating the meaning of the dream messages we receive and follow the guidance of the wise unconscious mind that produces our dreams. This is how we can prevent mental illnesses and suicidal thoughts even before they take root.

Q: You say we all have a protector to aide us in our dreams as well as a wild side that is out to destroy us. Can you explain this premise further?

A: The human psyche is divided into three parts. First there is the human conscience, which is a tiny part of our brain that we use to our benefit. It is sensitive and somehow balanced even though it is underdeveloped and quite absurd in many ways. Then there is the unconscious mind: a superior brain that doesn't belong to the human being but gives him directions about everything and coordinates the functions of his body working like a natural doctor. The third part is the anti-conscience: the primitive, wild and evil side of the human brain that has not evolved and remains in a primitive condition. It is a strong force and keeps trying to destroy the humane side of the conscience in order to control us.

The unconscious mind in dreams gives us guidance so that we may eliminate the dangerous influence of the anti-conscience. The dream language has to be studied by our human conscience if we want to decipher its meanings. If we could easily understand the dream messages the anti-conscience would distort them. Then we would not have any protection against its attacks. This part of the human brain pretends that it belongs to our human side, and many times it dominates our lives when it manages to invade the human conscience through absurd suggestions. We have to follow the guidance of our natural doctor, which we receive in our dreams in order to eliminate what is destructive from our personalities (like the influence of the anti-conscience) and develop other parts of our brain.

Q: Interpreting dreams about someone we love, you say, is easy. How so?

A: The unconscious mind uses the symbolic dream language in order to give us information about our mental health and about the future. Love and insanity are connected. Therefore, we need protection when we are in love and vulnerable to the absurd suggestions of our wild side. The unconscious mind sends us very clear dreams that we can easily understand if we learn the meaning of only a few dream symbols. The anti-conscience cannot discern the simple dreams about love matters among the dreams where the symbolic language is used. Therefore, it cannot distort their meaning.

Q: Can you explain more about the language of dreams?

A: When you see a dream it seems to be confused and absurd to your human conscience. However, when you learn the symbolic dream language you start translating images into words and everything starts to make sense. All images and all the people who appear in our dreams have a symbolic meaning. For example, you see a dream scene where you are driving your car and suddenly you see a horse. You leave the car and you ride the horse without caring about the car you abandoned in the middle of the road. This is natural in the dream state because dreams follow a different logic and everything you see has a symbolic meaning. Your car doesn't mean transportation; it represents your life. The way you drive your car is the way you drive your life.

The horse represents courage. If you ride the horse this means you need to show great courage in life for some reason. Putting everything together: something will require you to have a courageous attitude, which will make you abandon the normal route of your life just as you abandoned the car in order to ride the horse. Of course, I'd need a host of biographical details to fully understand why someone may be called on to show courage. If you are having problems in your marriage for example, the horse may mean you need to consider a divorce.

Another example: Let's say you see a cat in your dream. You don't remember anything else except it. Still, that one symbol is already giving you guidance. The cat tells you that you need to behave intelligently because you are overlooking something important. If it is a long dream with many people and many things happening, you simply translate all the symbols that appear in the dream and follow the dream logic in order to understand the message. Usually our dreams reflect our mistakes, or they show us several aspects of reality that we are not paying attention to.

Q: In your work with people who suffer from depression as well as people with suicidal tendencies, what is the first step you take to help them?

A: I ask them to tell me everything about their lives, especially their past. Then I translate their dreams relating them to their present lives and offer explanations. This way they can understand how to follow the guidance they receive in their dream messages.

Q: I read in one of your articles that you encourage regular people, like me, to learn how to interpret dreams. What's the first step in that learning process and how long does it take for someone to become proficient at interpreting dreams?

A: My e-book "Dream Interpretation as a Science" will teach you everything you need to know about the dream language. You'll receive as a bonus my e-book "Craziness Prevention," which explains how to use the free and safe psychotherapy of the unconscious mind. You need about two months to learn the basics of translating your dreams. Of course, the more you study the more you'll understand.

Q: When did you begin offering your e-books online?

A: "Craziness Prevention" was published in 2007. "Dream Interpretation as a Science," came a year later and has many of the dreams I collected from my summer offer of free dream translation and psychotherapy. "Dream Interpretation as a Science" became available in December of last year. I have also written several other e-books. You can find them at http://www.booksirecommend.com

You may also submit your dreams for translation to: http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

Q: Are there any last thoughts you'd like to add to this interview?

A: Thank you very much, Shea, for the opportunity to talk about the importance of understanding the meaning of our dreams. I hope all your readers will discover that dream messages can help them in so many ways.