Dreams have long been a source of fascination and mystery. From ancient cultures to modern psychoanalysis, they’ve been seen as messages from the divine, reflections of our inner world, and windows into the unconscious. In contemporary therapy—especially Jungian and depth-oriented work—dreams remain a vital tool for healing. But why do they matter so much? And what does neuroscience say about the role dreams play in mental health?

This post explores the science behind why dreams matter—and why working with them in therapy can be a powerful path toward integration and psychological growth.

Dreams Are Emotionally Intelligent

During REM sleep—the phase in which most vivid dreaming occurs—the brain is highly active. Emotional and memory-related regions such as the amygdala, hippocampus, and anterior cingulate cortex are especially engaged (Nir & Tononi, 2010; Walker & van der Helm, 2009). Meanwhile, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational thinking and impulse control, is deactivated.

This shift allows emotional material to rise to the surface in symbolic, often surprising ways—free from the constraints of logic or ego defense. The dreaming brain expresses truths the waking mind might suppress.

The Dream as Emotional Integration

REM sleep plays a critical role in affect regulation and memory consolidation. A landmark study by Walker and van der Helm (2009) found that dreaming helps “strip the emotional tone” from distressing experiences, allowing people to remember events without reliving their emotional intensity.

In therapy, revisiting and analyzing a dream builds on this process. By making the dream conscious—reflecting on it, giving it meaning—clients reinforce neuroplastic change. Brain networks that previously encoded distress can be updated with new meaning, creating more adaptive emotional pathways (Siegel, 2012).

Dreams Speak the Language of the Unconscious

From a Jungian perspective, dreams are symbolic communications from the unconscious. Modern neuroscience supports this through research on the right hemisphere, which plays a dominant role in visual-spatial processing, metaphor, and emotion—all central to dream formation (Braun et al., 1997; Domhoff, 2005).

In dreams, the brain weaves together memory fragments, emotional impressions, and archetypal motifs—often in nonlinear, poetic ways. Working with these images through amplification and personal association taps into deep neural networks, particularly those involved in meaning-making and emotion.

Why Dream Analysis Heals

1. Access to Implicit Memory

Many traumatic experiences are stored as implicit memory—nonverbal, sensory-based impressions that bypass conscious recall (van der Kolk, 2014). Dreams often surface this material indirectly. Symbols, emotions, and bodily sensations in dreams can point to unintegrated experiences.

Exploring these elements in therapy allows clients to recontextualize implicit memory, shifting it toward explicit, narrative integration—a change that can be seen neurologically in the strengthened connectivity between limbic and prefrontal regions.

2. Restoring Symbolic Thinking

Symbolic thinking—a capacity often diminished by trauma or depression—is essential to psychological resilience. Dreamwork exercises and reawakens this symbolic function, which is linked to default mode network activity and the right temporal and parietal cortices (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). This neural activity supports imagination, creativity, and the ability to see new perspectives.

3. Enhancing Self-Reflection

Dreams frequently challenge the ego. When we reflect on these images—especially those that evoke discomfort or confusion—we engage metacognitive functions (Fleming & Dolan, 2012). This strengthens the medial prefrontal cortex, which supports insight, empathy, and emotional regulation.

4. Facilitating Integration

Jung’s goal of individuation—becoming a more whole and integrated self—has a neurological correlate: integration of neural networks. As Daniel Siegel (2012) notes, “integration is the heart of mental health.” Dreamwork fosters this by linking unconscious material to conscious reflection, promoting connectivity across the brain’s emotional, cognitive, and narrative systems.

Final Thoughts: The Night Mind as Therapist

When clients bring dreams into therapy, they’re not just sharing an odd story—they’re offering a message from the deeper self. And thanks to neuroscience, we now understand that these messages are more than metaphor. They represent real emotional work the brain is trying to accomplish—work that therapy can deepen, refine, and bring into lasting change.

As Jung once wrote, “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.” Now, neuroscience invites us to open that door not only symbolically, but biologically.

Dr. Thomas Lindquist, Psy.D.

Contact: t.lindquist.psyd@gmail.com