Dreams as a code language

Abstract

Since Freud, psychologists have sought to decipher the language of dreams, but no universal interpretive manual exists. Advances in dream neuroscience and the emergence of Code Biology have brought us closer to understanding the rules and functions underlying dream formation. Code Biology, which studies coding processes in living systems, offers a revolutionary framework for how neural and symbolic patterns generate dream narratives. Dreams are not epiphenomena; they serve crucial adaptive functions—emotional regulation, memory consolidation, and ego development. Despite energetic costs, their evolutionary conservation across species highlights their biological necessity. Cartwright's studies confirm dreams' essential regulatory role in survival.

This article argues that dreams are coded artifacts produced by multiple organic codes—biological, neuronal, symbolic, and cultural—mediated by archetypes. Drawing on Barbieri's, Major's and Goodwyn work, archetypes are reframed as artifacts of embodied organic codes regulating dream formation and symbolic imagery. Integrating affective neuroscience findings and Jung's theory, this perspective proposes emotional affects as archetypal neurodynamic patterns. A key methodological gap remains: the separation of neuroscience and clinical practice. Through clinical dream analysis, the article shows therapists act as “adaptors,” translating dream codes into meaningful narratives—a process termed psychic codepoiesis. Finally, it discusses how Large Language Models, trained on life-coding principles, may support but not replace embodied human adaptors, offering a new paradigm for understanding dreams as the foundational language of subjective life.