'Dreamcovery': A Jungian analysis of the meaning and clinical significance of drug-dreams

The phenomena of drug-dreams, frequently experienced by patients in recovery from addiction, are defined as dreams where drugs or addictive substances are used, including the attempted use, seeking, handling, viewing, or acquiring of them (Johnson, 2001). Despite considerable research into drug-dreams, calls for further investigations have been made by researchers and clinicians, on the basis of an imbalance in the types/classifications of drug-dreams studied, and a lack of studies investigating drug-dreams and long-term abstinence (Parker, 2015). To date, early psychoanalytic theories of addiction and dreaming have predominantly been used to explain the cause and clinical value of drug-dreams, linked to drug-craving, predicting relapse and gauging motivation in recovery (Colace, 2014). However, clinical and personal lived-experience of drug-dreams, has highlighted that the specificity of the drug being dreamed about, and its psychological/physical effect, could be indicative of affect states in conscious life that need addressing in recovery; supporting Jung’s conceptualisation of the psyche as a self-regulating system (Jung, 1970). This research will test this hypothesis, and contribute to the gaps in current knowledge, by analysing and comparing the drug-dreams of patients with poly-drug addiction in residential rehab treatment (1-6 months), and private-practice patients in long-term recovery from addiction (1-8 years), using the dream interpretation method of Structural Dream Analysis (Roesler, 2018). I will argue that considering drug-dreams from a Jungian perspective, offers what I am calling ‘Dreamcovery’, a dream or series of dreams proficient in guiding recovery, dispelling misleading concepts, and contributing to a more progressive understanding of drug-dreams. The outcome of this research will inform new therapeutic applications for the clinical treatment of addiction, potentially tackling the undesirable accolade of the UK being dubbed ‘the addiction capital of Europe’ (Centre for Social Justice, 2013), and resulting in the governments new 10-year drug strategy, pledging £780 million to ‘rebuild the drug treatment system’ (HM Government, ‘From Harm to Hope’, 2021).