"If we recognize that dreams are not merely dreams but -as both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung believed-portals to the unconscious, filled with signals, messages, and meaning in the form of symbols, we can appreciate how our dreams provide us opportunities for growth, including for managing our feelings. You can discover a lot about yourself through dream interpretation, especially by exploring the dream's symbols, as well as the feelings and emotions they contain, which reflect what psychologists technically refer to as your "affect.""
"In contrast to emotions and feelings, which are generally more conscious, personal, and specific to a particular event, "affect" serves as a signal, reflecting the broad, generally unconscious experience of an internal feeling or state before it is consciously registered. Affect manifests in our outward expression of emotions and feelings, reflected in our nonverbal and verbal behaviors. Dreams can powerfully reveal our affect."
Dreams can signal waking emotions, unresolved feelings, and inner conflicts through symbolic imagery and affective tone. Many people forget dreams or dismiss them as strange, but dream material can function as portals to unconscious processes that offer growth opportunities for emotional management. Exploring dream symbols, feelings, and affect helps people name emotions and process complex experiences, strengthening the capacity to mentalize. Affect functions as a broad, often unconscious signal of internal states and appears in nonverbal and verbal behavior; dreams can reveal affect more powerfully than waking reflection. Using dreams in therapy can foster emotional regulation and a deeper understanding of thoughts and intentions.
Read at Psychology Today
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