Dreams in Homeopathy: Guide to the Homeopathic Interpretation of Dreams with a Repertory of Dream Remedies

The late Dr. Prakash Vikal's book on dreams is a new edition of the original, first published in 1995. It consists of three sections: general information on dreams, dreams in relationship to homeopathy and a repertory of dreams.

The first section contains many short chapters on scientific research into dreams, types of dreams, lucid dreaming and some information on Freud and Jung. There are also lists of prophetic and visionary dreams of famous people. It is obvious that the author spent a lot of time researching the subject.

In the section on dreams and homeopathy, Dr. Vakil suggests that after taking a detailed case history, a homeopath is in a good position to interpret the patient's dream. While he looks for an ‘Aha’ moment from the patient, there is no mention of asking what the dreamer thinks of the symbolic content of the dream.

There is a useful chapter on how to record dreams and some interesting information on dreams according to Jainism.[a] What is problematic, in my mind, is the author's statement ‘while Dr. Montague Ullman says patients undergoing psychoanalysis weave their dreams in accord with the analysts own concerns, this is unlikely to be true in the case of homeopathy’. This is a reference to the well-known fact that the dreamer dreams differently for different therapists. Edward Whitmont and Sylvia Perera write about this subject:

Often it seems as if the dream uses whatever images are meaningful to the dream and to his or her therapist. To some extent the limitations of the therapist, therefore, limit the image range of his or her client's dreams. The same dreamer may dream different dreams for different therapists at the same time'.[1]

Vakil does not dispute the truth of this, but writes that it is unlikely that it applies to homeopathy. The fact is that projections of this sort occur not only in all therapeutic situations, but also throughout life.

Modern science has subtilized its projections to an almost unrecognizable degree, but our ordinary life still swarms with them. You can find them spread out in the newspapers, in books, rumours, and ordinary social gossip. All gaps in our actual knowledge are still filled out with projections.[2]

The role of projection in dreams is worthy of consideration by homeopaths. When we factor in the phenomenon of projection, we begin to understand that dreams recounted to one homeopath and seen as relating to a particular remedy may not be generally transferable. In other words, the psyche of the patient is recounting a particular dream that the specific homeopath will understand. This is also true concerning dreams from the past. Each person has thousands of dreams in his or her lifetime, but the psyche choses to remember a particular dream to tell to the homeopath.

The second half of this book consists largely of case studies, 107 in all. A section of the case studies includes what the writer calls ‘clinical dreams’. These are dreams that he describes as indicating compensation, dreams of the unconscious and resolution, as well as physical pathology. The true meaning of this delineation is unclear.

There is a chapter on dreams in more recently proven remedies, an outline of a plan of how to work with dreams, and a repertory of themes that the author has collected from dreams of his patients. At the end of the short chapter on how to work with dreams, the author mentions that more research is necessary in this field.

The information in this book is from 1995 at the latest. Since that time, additional and more sophisticated knowledge about the use of dreams has been integrated into our profession. Nevertheless, this publication provides a comprehensive view into the methods of dream analysis used by a dedicated homeopath throughout a lifetime.

• References

• 1 Whitmont EC, Brinton Perera S. Dreams, a Portal to the Source. New York, NY: Routledge; 1991: 27
• 2 Jung CG. Psychology and Religion: West and East. Collected Works. Vol 11. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1989: 83