Twelve Dreams is a 1981 play by James Lapine that was inspired by a case study contained in Carl Jung's 1964 book Man and His Symbols.
The case concerns a 10-year-old girl who gave her father, a psychiatrist, an unusual Christmas present—a handwritten booklet describing twelve dreams that she had had when she was eight years old.
[2] Set in 1936-37 in a New England university town, Emma presents her practicing psychiatrist and lecturer father with a Christmas gift, a handwritten collection detailing 12 of her dreams.
[4] Cast Crew Vincent Canby gave the 1995 revival a favorable review in The New York Times, saying that Barton "has a sweet gravity as the doomed Emma," as well as affirming that:[2] Mr. Lapine has produced an elaborate theatrical meditation on Jung's work in which Emma, Charles, the Professor and all the other characters in the play behave like people in a case history.
The result is itself a riveting dream which, for all its unsettling animal imagery, never loses its focus on the people at its core; it's an enormously empathic evening.