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ABSTRACT

Alchemical Symbolism in Dreams: A Clinical Approach

Lee Weiser Ph.D.
E-mail: dr.leelee@excite.com

Bio: Lee Weiser holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and works as a psychotherapist in a private practice in Santa Barbara. She uses dreamwork as a clinical tool to help the client establish a relationship with unconscious psychological process.

4)Summary:
This presentation serves as an introduction to the use of an alchemical model for identification of elemental dream motifs. Familiarity with the language of alchemy is a useful clinical tool for recognizing imaginal indications of subtle psychological transformations occurring in the life of the dreamer.

5. Learning Objectives:
After attending this presentation, the listener should:

1) have a basic understanding of the experiential origins of alchemy,
2) be able to identify several different elemental motifs that occur regularly in dreams,
3) be able to outline psychological processes that parallel some alchemical dream images.

Evaluative Questions:

1) What alchemical image would best represent psychological naivete? (the stone)

2)Fire was one of the earliest symbols for which human quality? (passion)

3)Why has gold historically been symbolic of perfection? (It is luminous and impervious to corruption that affects baser metals)

8) Abstract:

Alchemical Symbolism in Dreams:
A Clinical Approach

Though a modern scientific understanding has dismantled many mythological explanations of natural phenomenon, our sensorial experience of being in the world keeps alive earlier ways of knowing. Dream images arising from the historical layers of our consciousness often carry these earlier impressions and attending to their immediacy can contribute to greater self-knowledge.
The protoscience of alchemy, which developed out of the mythological framework of metallurgy, provided an important connection between the sensorial experience of the world and the unfolding scientific understanding of the stages involved in the process of psychological transformation. Alchemy produced an overflowing wealth of meaningful images that are similar to the images of a dream in that they originate in the unconscious and serve to represent and embody experiences that are otherwise irrepresentable. In order to make sense of alchemical images, one needs a basic comprehension of the analogous chemical processes that contributed to the formation of the images, and of the stages of psychological transformation that they attempt to articulate.
In this paper I have focused on the exploration and amplification of some very basic representations of psychological transformation often present in dreams that correspond to alchemical images: the stone, earth, water, fire, air, the mystical marriage, death, and gold. I have attempted to examine these images utilizing a historical approach to the material, and have provided a glimpse at the psychological representation corresponding to the alchemical experience.
The alchemist, like the potter, the smith, and the chemist, attempted to control the passage of matter from one state to another and in doing so, gained insight into the parallel psychological processes occurring within his own being, beyond his intention. In the clinical situation, the application of an alchemical understanding of dream material serves to provide a useful map of psychological process, and furnishes an important link to the collective layers of the unconsciousness.

References
Edinger, E. F. (1985). Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical symbolism in psychotherapy. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories Dreams and Reflections. NY: Vintage Books
Jung, C.G.(1996). In Shamdasani, (Ed.). The Psychology of kundalini yoga. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Jung, Misterm Coniunctio Parag 306
Rama, S., Ballentine, R., and Ajaya, S.(1976). Yoga and psychotherapy: the evolution of consciousness. Honesdale, PA: The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy

Alchemical Symbolism in Dreams:
A Clinical Approach

Every new stage of technological advance brings with it a simultaneous development of relevant cultural mythologies and a dismantling of previous held representations. As we experience the accelerated scientific progress of the Information Age, old mythologies are spirited away by the emerging scientific perspective, but the older ways of knowing go on living in the deep layers of the psyche and make their appearance in our dreams because they originate from our sensorial experience of being in the world. The mythical level of our encounter with the cosmos can never be completely diminished or explained away by a modern scientific understanding of natural phenomenon because it is produced out of our primal and sensorial experiences in life, such as birth, being mothered and fathered, growth and learning, the search for a mate, and eventual acceptance of our mortality.
On a personal level we may function efficiently in the realm of the twenty first century intellectual adult, while our emotional life carries with it the poignant remembrance of lost childhood, gawky adolescence, and all of the rites of passage, life traumas, hopes, and dreams of earlier stages. Dream images rising up from the historical layers of consciousness contain evidence of our previous transformations and express them in ways that hint of immediacy and proximity. By attending to these images, we are allowed a certain measure of affiliation with our inner multiplicity. Thus, attention to the content of dreams can serve to make us more complete, more whole, and more self-knowing.
The mythic images of actual historical times, places, and persons outside of our personal lifetimes also live in our psyches and populate our dreams, joining in the dream dance with their modern-day counterparts, because they, too, continue to be relevant to our psychic life. The mythic images of the nomadic stone age people were centered around natural elements and forces like storms, wind, rain, and fire. During this time, tools were made from stone to be used for hunting, cooking, building, and fighting. The lingering numinosity of the stone is evident in the lingam of Shiva, the myth of Prometheus who was chained to the rock, the Black Stone of Mecca, the polished diamond in the wedding ring offered as a promise of eternal love, the philosopherÕs stone that has the power to change everything to gold, and the gravestone, a marker of the passing over from the solid earthy world of matter to the invisible one following.
During the Neolithic period, when agriculture and animal domestication were developed, complex myths and symbols centered around plants and animals materialized, for example, the wishing cow, the tree of life, the paradisical garden, and the zodiacal wheel of animals lined up along the elliptical plane in the sky.
It may have been the potter, processing earthen creations through fire, who first realized that the natural processes taking place deep within the earth, could be accelerated by means of technological advance. Taking the clay from the earth, shaping it, and processing it through fire gave people the ability to make their own stone-like substance. Then, during the Bronze Age, when humankind learned to work with metals, these transformational arts separated into distinct but related forms, such as metallurgy and chemistry, which continue to become more and more advanced in modern-day research laboratories.
Alchemy, is an esoteric discipline concerned with the transformation of the inner person at very subtle levels which rose out of a complex intermingling between scientific, religious, and psychological ideas. Scientific thought addressed the outer experience, the material changes that took place in the world of matter, and alchemy developed as a language that could speak metaphorically of the transformations taking place in the hidden, interior realm of psyche, those that mirrored the chemical alterations happening in the alchemist's laboratory.
Alchemy derives from the same mythological framework as metallurgy, the taking up and perfecting the gestational work of Nature, creating something precious out of something base, and familiarity with the images of alchemy as they appear in dreams provides a psychologically objective framework, a way of comprehending what may be going on internally during periods of intense psychological pressure. It offers a context for those experiences when the unconscious bubbles up, boils over, catches fire, loses substance, hardens, or changes form.
The chaotic and highly cryptic images of alchemy utilize concrete substances and forms to represent the abstract drama of transformation that takes place at subtle levels of consciousness independent of human intention. The contribution of these images lies in their ability to represent a consciousness that comprehends the human capacity for self-renewal, thereby providing a sound basis with which to approach dream material. For this paper, I have selected some of the most elemental alchemical images, ones that have made an appearance in the dreams of the psychotherapy clients I have worked with, thereby establishing their contemporary relevance.

Beginning with the Stone:
The lapis, or stone, is the beginning and the end of the alchemical work. It represents the base metal that is to be transformed into gold. It corresponds to the alchemical operation of Coagulatio, which is a process that creates a solid substance from something that was not solid to begin with. To visualize this stage of the work, think of the insides of an egg before and after cooking. As the beginning of the alchemical work, the stone symbolizes the prima materia, the initial stuff, matter, substance, or material that one shapes and forges a life out of.
The stone represents the hardness and solidity of matter, the vibratory earth element, the power of resistance, and transcendence over the precariousness of existence. A symbol of immortality, endurance, permanence, and power, the stone corresponds to the Muladhara chakra at the base of the spine in the kundalini system of yoga. Psychologically, this is the center closest to the earth and corresponds to fear, survival, and the instinct of self-preservation. (See Rama, Ballentine, and Ajaya 1976, p.227). It is the worldly consciousness we have when we go about living our lives in an unreflective manner. (See Jung, 1996, p.14)
The stone appearing in dreams can represent initial innocence and naivete, a place of unknowing, or inertia, the place of contentment with no desire for change. It may symbolize fixedness and rigidity, or solidity and strength. It can take its shape as dirt, salt, sand, clay, mud, soil, dry land, caves, or any of the metals: tin, lead, copper, or iron. It can appear in dreams as a single stone, a pile of stones like the hermetic stone pile, a stone wall or stone building, a meteorite, or metal objects. Land animals visiting dreams like dogs, horses, cattle, and domestic elephants, can signify the domestic or instinctual energies involved at the beginning of psychic transformation but animals come into dreams attached to very intense personal associations and must be approached with multiple possibilities in mind.
Other dream images corresponding to the prima materia and initial stages of the alchemical process are the egg, the child, the seed, chaos, birth, the hermetic vessel, the container used to create alchemical changes, and then of course, the alchemist himself.
After leaving the solidity of the earthly consciousness we slip into the watery world of the unconscious. So now we will move on to discuss Water.
Water, in alchemy, is a liquid version of the stone and can take the form of dew, moisture, tincture, elixir, solvent, aqua permanens,the flowing pearl, quicksilver, the divine water, or the philosopherÕs water. Everything liquid in alchemy can be called water, which is indeed a complex symbol with a wide range of meaning that points us to the alchemical operation of Solutio. The Latin word ÒSolutioÓ means a Òloosening,Ó a Òrelaxation,Ó and a Òreadying.Ó To attend to dreams, their images and elemental ideas, readies the psyche to come into relation with them. When the boundaries around ordinary consciousness are loosened or relaxed, then there is a readying for change. Something becomes unfettered, unbound, and set free from a previous, more solid state which makes room for a new insight or value to slip in.
Solutio turns everything solid into liquid, symbolizing psychic movement and changes in basic attitudes and personality aspects. Psychotherapy works, precisely because it undoes the ordinary boundaries of life and readies the psyche for growth and transformation. Without water, nothing lives. Water represents the flow of emotion which nourishes life and supports the ego.
Water appears in dreams as any kind of moisture, rain, waves, waterfalls, streams, ponds, rivers, lakes, fountains, and oceans, or as drowning, bathing or showering, baptism, the juice of fruits, wine, the water that we drink, or the fluids of our bodies. Water animals that visit dreams include all manner of fish and frogs, salamanders, crocodiles and alligators, whales and dolphins, anemones, eels, the sea turtle, and crustaceans like the crab, the lobster, and the mollusks. Water images can correspond to purification, cleansing, and fertilization, or to a release from the concrete which stimulates the flow of life energy, or to the solution of problems. The moon, with her continual and rhythmic pull on the tides is also affiliated with water.
Water in dreams can be frighteningly violent and destructive like the Biblical flood, or beneficial and rejuvenating like the flooding of the Nile. There is often a containment present in the dream such as a canoe, boat, or a raft, surfboard, boogieboard, a bridge over the water, or an island surrounded by the water, to protect the dreamer from the power and danger of the water.
The purifying effects of water have been recognized since the birth of civilization. We baptize children to purify them. We bathe daily. We plunge into the holy river, the Ganges, the Jordan, to cleanse and purify. We touch holy water to our foreheads. These holy waters are symbolic of the original chaos, and returning to them is a way to receive anew their potentiality. Water often has the qualities of movement, action, and activity, and to be with it and in it requires great strength and will. The water can symbolize the dark unknown dimension of life and association with it can bring about a feeling of renewal of after a period of depression or disassociation.
Water dreams correspond to energy moving through the Svadhisthana chakra, located in the sacral region of the spine. Psychologically this center is connected to the instincts for survival of the species, sensual pleasures, and especially the sexual experience.
Fire
The next element we encounter is Fire, which corresponds to the chemical process of heating a substance to very high temperatures but just below the melting point. This heat causes the moisture to dry out, or causes reduction or decomposition. The parallel alchemical process is called Calcinatio, and will signal its presence when dream images appear as burning heat, fire, flames, coal, ashes, cremation, cooking, ovens, the fireplace, the furnace, and anything white-hot.
Fire was one of the earliest symbol of passion, and fire in dreams often symbolizes the bodily passions, the passion in speech, in feeling, and in every aspect of life. In the body we are heated by the blood and the stomach ÒcooksÓ our food. Sulfur was another element that represented the passion and fiery energy of the soul of nature. It is flammable and was considered by medieval folk to be associated with the devil.
Dreamers who are coping well with changes in life will often report calmly watching fires burn and they will not experience the panic that earthly fires provoke. When substances burn, energy is being used to transform a solid or liquid fuel into smoke which ascends, and may signify a new level of psychological growth. It could be that the fires of anger, hatred, jealousy, envy, greed, or desire are burned up or sublimated. Fire causes a death that can also mean rebirth at a new level. In Southern California there is a tree, the bristle cone pine, that only releases its seeds after an intense fire.
Fire is a more subtle element than earth or water. You can see fire and feel its heat but you canÕt hold it. The effect of baptism by fire can be the transformation of the psyche so that the individual may function on a more psychologically, socially, intellectually, or spiritually sophisticated level. Fire gives us sight when there is darkness, warmth against the cold, protection against dangerous animals.
Fire is the element that corresponds to the chakra Manipura, Òthe fullness of jewels,Ó and once the energy leaves this chakra, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, it ascends to Anahata, the heart center, the door to the infinite.
Air
Air corresponds to the alchemical operation Sublimatio from the Latin word meaning uplifted, high, lofty, exalted, and elevated. Edinger says, ÒThe image derives from the chemical process of sublimation in which a solid, when heated, passes directly into a gaseous state and ascends to the top of the vessel where it resolidifies on the upper, cooler regionÓ (Edinger 1985, p. 117). This process corresponds to the heart chakra, Anahata, where feeling and empathy are developed marking a departure from biological and survival matters to more subtle energies which allow for the development of the capacity to see oneself and oneÕs situation more objectively; less personally, more transpersonally. Air dreams may signal the ability to hold oneself above what happens on the level of the body or the emotions and behold the self as separate from them. Air is invisible, colorless, almost intangible, and air images refer to upward movements which symbolize movement from the grosser aspects of life to the more subtle. To breathe air, means to draw a substance into the body and convert it into a more subtle substance, energy. With the quieting of the breath comes the perception of the inner worlds. The fundamental relationship between breath and spirit is reflected in our language. The word ÒspiritÓ comes from the Latin word meaning breath. The word ÒinspirationÓ means to inhale and to be filled with creative energy. Expiration is to exhale, to lose life energy, and to die.
The dream of flying illustrates the sublimatio process as does anything having to do with upward motion and air such as stars and planets, wings, balloons, clouds, airplanes, steps, ladders, escalators, elevators, mountain climbing, wind, breezes, and all matter of birds including the pelican, eagles, doves, crows, swans, and the peacock, whose tail is the rainbow of colors that provides a bridge between the two realms of heaven and earth. Angels have wings signifying their ability to move freely between the two realm.
Another important alchemical image is the Sacred Marriage.
The Sacred Marriage
The sacred marriage is symbolic of the coming together of two things, and the corresponding alchemical process is the Coniunctio, from the Latin, meaning Ôunited,Ó Òconnected,Ó Òconjointly,Ó Òrelationship,Óand Òat the same time.Ó For a union to occur, there will be necessarily be two substances that come into relationship and merge which creates a newer substance, a third. Chemically speaking many different things can happen when two substances are mixed together. Mix salt and water, the salt is dissolved, the water is changed, and the third produced is salt water. Another example is the combination of fire and water. The new entity is steam. Plaster of Paris and water, when mixed, create heat.
There are different levels of the sacred marriage. One way to distinguish them is to divide them into the lesser Coniunctio and greater Coniunctio. When the opposites come together on a personal level, change happens in the realm of the lesser Coniunctio. The greater Coniunctio symbolizes coming together of earth and heaven, the transpersonal level of consciousness that intermingles with the personal. Jung said, ÒNothing so promotes the growth of consciousness as this inner confrontation of the opposites,Ó (1961. p 345).
The Coniunctio is the great mystery of life itself, symbolized by numerous mythological pairings: the king and queen, the alchemist and his mystical helper, heaven and earth, sun and moon, Father Sky and Mother Earth, Adam and Eve, the Hermaphrodite. Many common mythological figures fit this profile. The marriage of the two figures means a unification and a way of returning to an original wholeness without regression backwards psychologically.
In dreams, the human sexual union often stands in as a symbol of the mystical meeting of opposite principals within the psyche. This very human union, sexuality, symbolizes the intermingling of inner and outer worlds and the joys and frustrations that follow. In Coniunctio, love and truth are reconciled and held together within the psyche. Sometimes in dreams the opposites present as a battle between two figures, or two situations alike but different, or two opposites such as heat and cold, dark and light, birth and death, sickness and health, or by a pair of figures with opposite tendencies such as a good animal and a bad animal, or a creator and a destroyer. Often in dreams one component of the opposites may be present and it is the task of the dreamer to recover consciousness of the repressed or missing component.
Another common image in alchemy is the Negredo, the darkness of life, often represented as death.
Death
Death in dreams corresponds to the alchemical process of Mortificatio, also known as the Ònigredo,Ó the darkest experiences of the soul. It derives from the Latin root ÒMors,Ó which means death and was the name of the mythological daughter of Erebus (the God of Darkness) and his spouse Nox (Night). Our word Òmortal,Ó also derives from Mors, meaning that we humans, mere mortals, are subject to death.
Death in dreams appears in the form of dead or dying bodies, coffins, mutilated body parts, funerals, graves, shadows, Hell, poison, bloodstains, the spilling of blood, murder, sacrifice, massacre, bones, Saturn, the wolf, putrefaction and rot, blackness, imprisonment in the underworld, the Raven, and the Devil, ravaging, spoiling, laying waste, plundering, and devastation. Oftentimes, the dreamer will simply state, ÒI knew I was dying.Ó Edward Edinger tells us that ÒMortificatio is the most negative operation in alchemy. It has to do with darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death, and rotting. However, these dark images often lead over to highly positive ones--growth, resurrection, (and) rebirth.Ó(1985 p. 148).
Psychologically death is always with us as a part of life. In Alchemy, death is not seen as an end, but a natural stage in the progression toward a larger perspective, a deliverance from previously binding rigidity, compulsions, or entanglements. Surrendering to the unknown is essentially a death but death is required at each stage of growth in order to to make room for life.
At last we come to:
Gold
Gold has been highly valued in almost every corner of the earth. It is one of the oldest, most universal symbols of perfection due to some of its unusual properties. It can be polished until it shines and has a reflective quality and thus appears as a luminous, brilliant material that seems to be emitting its own light. As a physical substance, it is highly resistant to chemical changes and immune to corrosion that affects baser metals. And so, it is a great symbol for such things as light, insight, the life of the spirit, and the power to withstand the Coniunctio.
It corresponds symbolically to the same substance that the sun is made out of and thus was used to construct the crowns of royal persons. The royal person is the mediator between heaven and earth, the transpersonal and the personal realms. The golden crown represents the solar halo and gold coins represent the highest attainable value of the realm. The crown of the head is the sacred point where the earth and the sky come together physically and psychologically. We see this symbolically in the ÒcrownÓ chakra, the thousand petal lotus at the top of the head, Sahasrara.
In alchemy gold symbolizes the most elevated spiritual position and corresponds to the achievement of love, integrity, responsibility, wisdom, strength, purity, honor, and all of the virtues and characteristics of goodness that the alchemist strives for. Gold is the most sacred substance that the earth offers up and therefore, symbolizes attainment of the highest levels of self-realization. It appears in dreams as gold metal, golden objects, gold medals, the sun, the lion, the king, the solar wheel, which is a symbol of the power that animates the changing seasons, the idea of perfection be it animal, mineral, or human, an incorruptible body, the magic elixir, and the philosopher's stone. The idea of gold as enlightenment may take the form of light in a dream and will present as a lamp, or flashlight, a glow, a luminous quality, or a sudden realization.
Conclusion
Beyond the few images I have touched on in this paper, there are numerous ways to use an alchemical model for looking into dream images. There is the coloring of the dream such as the blackening, reddening, whitening, or yellowing stages of transformation. There are landscapes of alchemy, alchemical situations, and other alchemical figures and processes that we have not had time to cover.
The alchemical stages of transformation do not follow a specific order in the psyche. Any number or combination of alchemical operations can bring about a complete cycle of psychic process depending on the circumstances. Coagulatio, the process of fixing, solidifying and hardening, and its opposite, Sublimatio, the process of gaining objectivity, detachment, and breadth of vision, are opposites that when brought together represent the fluctuation between spirit and incarnation. Without sublimatio we become narrow minded. Without Coagulatio we fly too far above earth, incapable of realizing our visions. When both operations are utilized, we get the alchemical process of Circulatio, a circulation, back and forth, up and down, heaven to earth, the rhythm of life. What is important to keep in mind is the cyclical character, the eternal repetition, of the alchemical operations.
Each stage is repeatable, and occurs on all planes, cosmological, biological, historical, psychological. It is through the continual, conscious passage through the stages of transformation that life is fertilized, animated, enlivened, and inspired, and we are regenerated, and reborn.

References
Edinger, E. F. (1985). Anatomy of the Psyche: Alchemical symbolism in psychotherapy. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories Dreams and Reflections. NY: Vintage Books
Jung, C.G.(1996). In Shamdasani, (Ed.). The Psychology of kundalini yoga. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Rama, S., Ballentine, R., and Ajaya, S.(1976). Yoga and psychotherapy: the evolution of consciousness. Honesdale, PA: The Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy