This morning, as autumn light filtered through our kitchen window, my nine-year-old daughter padded over to me with that particular look children get when they’re carrying something precious and fragile—a secret that feels too important to hold alone.
“Dad,” she said, settling into the chair beside me, “I had my first original feeling dream last night.”
I set down my coffee, recognizing the gravity in her voice. She went on to explain that this dream hadn’t come from anything she’d seen on television, or read in books, or heard in stories. It had emerged, she said with wonder, from her own thoughts—from some deep, quiet place within herself that she was only just beginning to discover.
As she spoke, I felt myself witnessing something sacred: the birth of her interior mythology.
The Threshold Between Worlds
There’s a moment in every child’s development when the boundary between the outer world and inner world becomes permeable in a new way. Until this point, dreams often serve as a kind of mental housekeeping—processing the day’s experiences, reorganizing memories, working through the overwhelming input of childhood. But this dream my daughter described was different. It marked her crossing of a threshold, from being a passive receiver of images to becoming an active creator of meaning.
Jung wrote extensively about the significance of children’s dreams, noting that they often reveal “the child’s unconscious in a relatively undisturbed state.” In his view, these early dreams aren’t just random neural firings but glimpses into the developing psyche, the first stirrings of what he called the “transcendent function”—the bridge between conscious and unconscious mind.
What my daughter had experienced was her first taste of this transcendence. Her psyche had begun to speak in its own voice, creating symbols and narratives that belonged entirely to her inner world. As I listened to her describe this dream, I realized I was witnessing the moment when her soul first learned to dream itself into being.
Note: One of my greatest joys in life is hearing my daughters describe their dreams. I’ve got a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old, and getting to witness—and listen to—what their imaginations are creating (or maybe witnessing, depending on how you look at dreams) is easily a top 5 thing in my world. It feels like I get a front-row seat to the birth of their inner language—this quiet, luminous theater where their souls start to speak in symbols. And every now and then, one of those dreams hits different. This morning, it did.
The Gift of Morpheus
In Greek mythology, Morpheus was the god of dreams, the shaper of forms who could appear in any guise within the realm of sleep. But Morpheus wasn’t just a deliverer of visions—he was a translator, transforming the ineffable movements of the soul into images the dreaming mind could understand. The ancient Greeks understood that dreams were more than mere sleep phenomena; they were a sacred technology for accessing hidden wisdom.
This understanding echoes in many cultures. The Egyptians practiced dream incubation in temples, believing that important dreams could be cultivated through ritual and intention. Aboriginal Australians speak of the Dreamtime, a realm where past, present, and future converge, where the deepest truths of existence reveal themselves through story and symbol.
My daughter’s “original feeling” dream felt like her first invitation into this ancient tradition—her psyche learning to speak the timeless language of image and metaphor. She was beginning to participate in what Jung called the “collective unconscious,” that vast repository of human experience that expresses itself through universal symbols and archetypes.
The Archetypal Child
In mythology and psychology alike, the child represents potential, new beginnings, and the untainted connection to divine wisdom. The Christ child, the Buddha’s enlightened smile, Persephone’s innocent wandering—all point to the child as a bridge between worlds, a bearer of fresh insight that adults have forgotten.
Jung identified the Child as one of the fundamental archetypes, representing not just literal childhood but the eternal aspect of the psyche that remains open to wonder, transformation, and growth. When a child begins to dream original dreams, they’re not just developing psychologically—they’re awakening to their role as a myth-maker, a meaning-creator, a participant in the ongoing story of human consciousness.
Watching my daughter describe her dream, I saw this archetypal Child coming alive in her. She wasn’t just telling me about a dream; she was announcing her emergence as a conscious participant in the grand conversation between mind and mystery, between the known and the unknowable.
The Mother’s Initiation
But this moment wasn’t just about her development—it was about mine as well. As she spoke, I felt myself being initiated into a new phase of motherhood. No longer was I simply protecting her from the world or helping her navigate external challenges. Now I was being called to witness and honor the emergence of her inner world, to become a guardian of her psychological development.
This is perhaps one of the most profound aspects of parenting: the recognition that we are not just raising children, but shepherding souls. We are present for those moments when consciousness awakens to itself, when the inner world begins to speak its own language, when the child discovers they are not just in the world but that they carry a world within themselves.
The ancient mystery traditions understood this. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, initiates were guided through symbolic deaths and rebirths, learning to navigate the landscapes of the psyche. As parents, we serve as guides for our children’s first forays into these inner territories, helping them understand that dreams are not just random images but messages from the deep self.
The Language of the Soul
What strikes me most about my daughter’s description of her “original feeling” dream is how naturally she seemed to understand its significance. Children often possess an intuitive grasp of symbolism that adults have to work to reclaim. They haven’t yet learned to dismiss their inner experiences as “just imagination” or “just a dream.”
This reminds me of Jung’s observation that “the child has no problems with the reality of the soul.” For her, the dream wasn’t something to be analyzed or explained away—it was simply a new form of communication from a part of herself she was just beginning to know. She recognized instinctively that this dream was different, that it marked a new chapter in her relationship with her own consciousness.
In many ways, children are our teachers when it comes to the reality of the psyche. They haven’t yet built the walls between rational and intuitive, between literal and symbolic, between outer and inner. They move fluidly between worlds, accepting mystery as a natural part of existence.
The Continuing Dream
As I write this, hours after our conversation, I find myself wondering: What was it like for her, experiencing that first dream that came entirely from within? What did it feel like to recognize that her mind could create experiences that belonged to no one else, that emerged from depths she didn’t even know she possessed?
I think of all the dreams still waiting for her—the ones that will guide her through adolescence, that will help her navigate love and loss, that will whisper to her of paths not yet taken and selves not yet discovered. I think of how this first “original feeling” dream is just the beginning of a lifelong conversation with the mystery of her own being.
And I wonder about my own first original dream—the one that announced my psyche’s independence, my soul’s unique voice. Do any of us remember that moment when we first discovered we were not just observers of the world but creators of meaning? When we realized that within us lay entire universes waiting to be explored?
Perhaps that’s the invitation this moment offers all of us: to remember our own first original dreams, to honor the child within us who still knows how to receive messages from the depths, to stay open to the continuing revelation of our inner worlds. What would change if we approached each dream—whether sleeping or waking—as a potential gift from the deep self, a whisper from the part of us that knows things our conscious mind has forgotten?
In the end, my daughter’s dream reminds me that we are all, always, just beginning to discover who we are. The psyche never stops creating, never stops speaking in images and symbols, never stops inviting us deeper into the mystery of our own existence. All we have to do is listen.
Related articles you might enjoy:
- The Greek Gods of Sleep and Dreams – Explore how ancient cultures understood the divine nature of dreams through Morpheus and the Oneiroi
- What is Oneirology? The Scientific Study of Dreams – Discover how psychology intersects with the biological processes of dreaming
- 13 Common Dream Symbols and Their Meanings – Learn about babies and children as powerful symbols of new beginnings in dreams
I’ve been intrigued by my dreams (we’re talking night-time ones) from a young age, and have decided to take some steps to inquire deeper into this fascinating, mysterious realm. Join me?