Throughout early human history, it was a common belief that dreams served as divine messages, guiding individuals and communities to take specific actions. Adherence to these dream instructions was thought to bring about positive outcomes and ward off negative ones. This belief persisted through later historical periods, with dreams being perceived as sources of vital information, future prophecies, and warnings.

In contemporary times, the prevailing belief is that we ourselves are the architects of our dreams. As we sleep, our minds work to organize, integrate, and evaluate aspects of our lives from a potentially broader perspective than our waking viewpoint allows. Dreams manifest as an alternative form of knowledge, and engaging with them can offer us a more comprehensive understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung (1956) made a distinction between "fantasy or dream thinking" and "directed or reality thinking." He proposed that dream thinking:

leads away from reality into fantasies of the past or future... image piles upon image, feeling upon feeling.... Naturally enough, the stuff of this thinking which shies away from reality can only be the past with its thousand-and-one memory images. Common speech calls this kind of thinking 'dreaming.'

Thus, according to Jung, dreaming constitutes our mode of thought during sleep, accounting for about one-third of our total cognitive activity. Both our intentional waking thoughts and our "dream thinking" offer valuable insights into ourselves. They each play a vital role, often complementing and enhancing each other, helping us to achieve a balanced understanding of our lives and enabling us to live as fully and completely as possible.