Has anyone scratched the surface of Cognitive Neuroscience, or Carl Jung's theory of dreams.

I love Jung! He was Open to Being Wrong - or just exploring what he could with what he had. He would often simply state where the science was at, what discoveries were being made and what that might mean. Back then you would have to present additional difficulties to be Dx'd Autistic. Many of our Traits were simply accepted as a different personalty type. 

His volumes on Dreams are really enjoyable. There's quite a bit of metaphysical exploration with lovely nuggets of history - we sense them so much more just by listening to someone in that Time.

What's even MORE fascinating is to see how these psychoanalysts careers played out based on their early clinical experiences. For instance, Freud's early work was with far too many sexually abused individuals. The stories were severe. He started to see similarities and you can hear a conscience in his early work - but it's easy to then understand how this directed his future trajectory. 

Jung - it seems, may have encountered a whole entourage of autistically wired individuals. Just whack open volume one and start reading. And he makes a big differentiation between the Extrovert and Introvert. There's a possibility this would be an early way of describing Allistic and Autistic. 

Neuroscience is actually proving some early theories. I could go on here... but I'm a bit tire. Good topic! I'd encourage everyone to look back at historical work in psychology. It can make a good deal of sense with in our current world. 

thanks for you valued insight.  What strikes me as odd is why we still fall back on Freud/Jung research. There must be more updated research since those chaps.

We don't actually fall back on them, they, like many had discovered and created fundamentally valuable and useful "Concepts", which worked. They weren't alone, they're just more notable names.

And these are not separated from Philosophical concepts. Historically, one can trace ideas back to other ideas, each building upon the previous. Although, sometimes, like the Bad Turn taken with the wrong theories on Autism, one will run into a dead end and hopefully that line of thinking, without much grounded reasoning will eventually wither like a disconnected branch.

Philosophy birthed Alchemy, which branched into Chemistry and Medicine, but Philosophy helped provide rules for thinking and analysis within the Natural Sciences, which birthed physics. but Alchemy's grand goal, the Philosopher's Stone, was to turn lead into gold and thanks to physics that can now be done.

Philosophy birthed ethics which gave way to our judicial system, and it delved into the nature of the soul, the nature of being human which has unravelled into psychology. Humans discover a thing when it appears distinct. An illness is something we have always been aware can wipe out whole civilisations so it's in our best interest to take note of something unique.

Freud was born at the right time - at a Ripe Time in history for the main concepts he's known for - the Ego and the Unconscious. Two fascinating "Axioms". But he wasn't really alone in identifying the Love of Power - power over, which has been about in historical texts since the dawn of time. All philosophers deal with this. Jung broke away from Freud and we're thankful he did. But due to the sheer volumes of material which these two had time and resources to build, they are a bit of a link between the past and the trajectory we've arrived at with varying schools of thought. Both of them quote a wealth of contemporaries and predecessors they drew from. 

I think it's important to have a bit of an understanding of their work in order to engage in a Modern Debate and also a grounded fair fight against Bad Research in Autism. But it's also good to then know a bit about  those who furthered their work, and/or identified where it was incomplete. Freud and Jung were pivotal individuals who influenced schools of thought which sometimes get warped out of context and misapplied. 

It's always good to go to the source and understand it for yourself - whether fact checking a biblical scholar or a journalist. I can tell you one of the most useful discoveries I've found involve the early anti-psychiatry movement which helped expose society as a maddening problem or the corrupted doctors worsening symptoms. Laing was part of this. Erich Fromm who has helped shed light on matters of being human and how isolation is at the root of most of our worst problems. And the noticeable differing schools of thought, which, if constructed in the right research, could spell out the basic differences between autistic and non-autistic by just examining Continental philosophy vs Analytical - and these have been right under our noses the whole time! All of these studied Freud and Jung in the last century. It's a great deal to take in. Somewhere in the 80's there's too many "cooks in the kitchen" and psychology becomes the new Snake Oil. I personally think we need to back track a bit and clean up before proceeding forward.

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

the first Rule is always about matters of Safety

I recognised this rule from an early age which --- in all probability--- is why I (consciously/unconsciously?) opted to take a path of least resistance as my "tool" to deal with my reality as I perceived it to be.  Self-preservation has been a survival instinct for me. Wearing my heart on my sleeve was not one of my instincts. Old habits, I find difficult to unmask.

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

the first Rule is always about matters of Safety

I recognised this rule from an early age which --- in all probability--- is why I (consciously/unconsciously?) opted to take a path of least resistance as my "tool" to deal with my reality as I perceived it to be.  Self-preservation has been a survival instinct for me. Wearing my heart on my sleeve was not one of my instincts. Old habits, I find difficult to unmask.