Freud saw dreams as protecting sleep, and even more, as protecting our deepest desires and fears. By connecting dreams to the operations of the unconscious, he assured their connection to psychology over the next century of development.

Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung broke away from Freud and the Psychoanalytic Society to start a more humanistic and imaginal approach to psychology.  The Jungian Analytical School saw dreams as part of a natural process of healing and wholeness that was leading us towards our own individuation and unique being. They developed a rich body of literature which has deeply influenced the Dream Movement and continues to explore the meaning and value of dreams through mythology, symbols, archetypes, personality types and many esoteric systems that engage us through our imagination and soul.

The dream traditions of Freud and Jung seem to have had the largest influence on the modern dream work movement, but they have not been the only influences. The idea of the unconscious was not as popular in America as in Europe and the works that de-emphasized the role of the unconscious gained popularity and influence. This is especially seen in the Existential movement which appealed to the American spirit of free will and self determination. But before the Human Potential movement and its influence on dream sharing, there where a variety of Continnental influences that are hard to characterize as a group, and include Medard Boss, Andre Breton and Alfred Adler.

The middle of the twentieth century saw great wars and destruction. Therapy shifted from long term inner exploration to ways of reconstructing the individual in his/her society in a meaningful way. Well know names in social psychology  emerged, including  Horney, Kelman, Robbins, Fromm, Sullivan and Erickson. In dreamwork, the most active social therapists included  Walter Bonime and Montegue Ullman. Bonime rescued dreams from mere biological instincts and placed them within the context of human relations and Ullman released the interpretation of them from the therapist's office and placed the task within the context of general social relations.

At the now famous 1960's Big Sur retreat center in Esalen, California, there developed in the 1960's a whole set of techniques that are now part and parcel of the dreamwork movement. From taking every part of the dream as a piece of one's self to putting the dream on an empty chair and asking it directly what it was about, Perls and the Gestalt movement made dreamwork popular in a way it had never before seen.

By the 1970's ideas and practices were emerging that were taking the dreamwork beyond its role as a healing tool for therapy.  Anthropology was reporting that indigenous cultures shared dreams naturally as a part of everyday life. Shamanic and esoteric religious practices were aligning themselves with dream traveling to places beyond the commonplace. Parapsychologists were finding dreams were a useful way to explore telepathy and other psi events. Lucid and conscious dreaming were emerging as a new sub-field of dream studies. Transpersonal groups began exploring dreaming beyond the ego. Churches began having dream groups. Groups were experimenting with a wide variety of practices with dreams in these social, psychic, spiritual and imaginal realms that would in turn begin influencing the ways dream therapy would be conducted in the late Twentieth Century.

Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden gleam --
Life what is it but a dream?

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Edgar Allan Poe