Dreams, By Sigmund Freud

Freud’s wish fulfillment theory began because he believed that the wishes in adult dreams were disguised in order to reduce their anxiety tendencies. Freud theorised that dreams are disguised by a “censor” of sorts, in four cognitive processes he collectively called the “dream-work” (Freud, 1900) these include; displacement, whereby highly charged thoughts are transferred to minor elements in the impending dream. Condensation then compresses several different dream thoughts. These two are then joined together by the regard for representability, which changes abstract thoughts into a form that is applicable for the sensor. Finally the dream is shaped by secondary revision which basically gives the dream content an understandable pattern. (Freud, 1900).

Dreams are something that occur within our mind as we sleep. They play a crucial role in the mood we carry out through the day or the thoughts that we may have, but have you ever stopped to think about how much dreams truly affect you? As of now, our theories of dreams are very different than the first two theories. Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist, had a theory that "centered around the notion of repressed longing, the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishing." Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who had a theory that “dreams were a way of communicating and acquainting yourself with the unconscious.” There are many different theories that describe dreams on all sides of the spectrum. They include wish fulfillment, encoding short-term memories into long-term storage, garbage collection, and solidifying what we've learned. Other theories take more imaginative routes of explanation including that of the

Many people believe their dreams are a manifestation of their subconscious. Dream analysis is the process of evaluating dreams to determine their meaning. The process of analyzing ones dreams dates back to ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptian people believed dreams were a message from the Gods. Furthermore, in the 20th century Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung gave way to greater scientific advancements through developed scientific theories and disciplines. Freud believed that dreams were the unconscious mind hiding repressed wants and desires from the conscious mind to protect the conscious mind from disturbing thoughts. However, Jung who at the time was a colleague of Freud’s disagreed. Jung thought that dreams were a means for the unconscious mind to bring to light inner desires to the conscious mind. In either case, by analyzing dreams a person has

Freud also listed the following results from his studies, dreams can have multiple layers of meaning, nearly all dreams are wish-fulfilling, and all dreams have a unifying motive that accounts for all random images and events. Freud concluded that dreams are the way an individual 's unconscious mind tries to express itself and that dreams “may only have a chance of reaching our consciousness if they are somewhat disguised”. Which explains the sometimes absurd and bizarre dreams that someone can get. Sigmund Freud uses the following analogy to explain his theory, “a political writer may criticize a ruler, but in doing so may endanger himself. The writer therefore has to fear the ruler’s censorship, and in doing so “moderates and distorts the expression of his opinion”. The writer serves to represent the unconscious mind, while the ruler is the conscious mind that stops an individual from doing certain things. Dreams and daydreams are practically synonymous, except dreams occur when an individual sleeps, and daydreams are when the person is awake, but both allow for the mind to wander, so the theory can apply to both, but Freud mainly focuses on the aspects of dreams.

Dreams and their possible interpretation are not a subject which was first studied by Freud. In fact, dream interpretation had been popular in many cultures since ancient times. Among Huron Indians during the 17th century in southern Ontario dream interpretation was commonly practiced. “Both the Hurons and their relatives, the Iroquois Indians of New York State, treated many maladies by interpreting dreams which were considered subcon- scious expressions of desires. The Indians believed that a desire, when unfulfilled, caused illness or misfortune.”

In his lecture, “Revision of the Theory of Dreams” Freud makes it apparent that this theory alone stands as the basis for the entirety of Psycho-Analysis, he writes, “Whenever I begin to have doubts of the correctness of my wavering conclusions, the successful transformation of a senseless and muddled dream into a logical and intelligible

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Dover Thrift Editions. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2015.

He believed by examining dreams he can understand how the unconscious mind works and what it is trying to hide from conscious awareness. Freud broke down dreams into two different types, the manifest content of the dream and the latent content. The manifest content of the dream contains all the images, events, and thoughts contained in the dream, this is fundamentally what the dreamer remembers upon waking. The latent content is all the hidden and symbolic meanings within the dream. Freud believed that dreams were essentially a form of wish fulfillment, by taking those unconscious thoughts and desires and making them into less unacceptable behavior in society

The point of view of which Freud interprets and examines the manifest of dreams content to obtain their latent meaning is of a professional psychologist and clinical observer who looked for a way to explain how our minds work and how the individual psychology functions. He based his work on clinical experiences and clinical neurosis of the matter of his own interpretations to be able to confirm his theories as a proven fact. The result Freud gets from the patients he observes and interpretation of their dreams are stereotyped to the complete human condition.

By analyzing dreams, Freud believed that it could lead to understanding the most mysterious part of the human body: the brain. He viewed dreams as the unconscious mind making an endeavor to resolve a conflict regardless of when the conflict arose (Freud, 1900, p.577). Freud eventually developed a theory that the symbols and images in dreams may only be the front for multiple connotations, linking icons in dreams to parts of the body and biological drives. The dreamer may “find the top part of a clarinet in the street or the mouth-piece of a tobacco-pipe” in response to stimuli from male sexual organs (Freud, 1900, p.111). Freud argued in many of his early works that many latent dreams are sexual in nature. These connections separated Freud from his colleagues, such as Carl

After a friend told me about some weird dreams he had been having I decided to research the meaning of dreams. I will focus on Sigmund Freud’s idea that understanding our dreams can help us to understand ourselves, and live a much happier and fulfilled life. Freud was known as “the father of psychoanalysis” and in 1899 he wrote his most famous work, The Interpretation of Dreams, and

Freud found two meanings in a dream: the manifest meaning and the latent meaning (Freud 168). The manifest meaning of a dream is what is remembered upon waking (Felluga). The manifest meaning can reflect a situation that follows common sense and unfold in a way possible in waking life. Other times it can take its own wild path that follows little or no logical sequence when viewed at surface level. Despite this vast difference, both of these are influenced by the superego, a part of the mind that Freud believes houses the knowledge of the structure of society and what is acceptable in the dreamers culture. The dream takes place on a stage or backdrop that makes sense and relates to waking life (Freud 216-17). While the manifest meaning is useful and can itself contain a message, interpretation of it can reveal more than seen at face value.

We can say that when dreaming, we jump to a different world plenty of our deepest feelings and sensations. Despite the fact that we do not always remember all the details of our dreams or even do not recall them at all, it is certain that dreams are part of us. This mixture of images, feelings, and thoughts can tell us much about our inner-self and give us a hint of what is happening inside our minds. The author Ed Struzik in his article “Sweet dreams; A mirror of our most intimate secrets or just a random bombardment of brain signals: [FINAL Edition]” makes reference to Sigmund Freud, one the first persons to study the science of dreams, suggesting that “dreams revealed our most intimate secrets, and are a method by which stress and psychological

In his book, Modern Man In Search Of A Soul, C.G. Jung gives a layperson insight into his ideas on dream analysis. Jung's primary objective in this book is to educate the reader as to what a psychoanalyst does when analyzing a patient's dreams. The principal message in the section of the book centered on dream analysis is that dreams should never stand alone. Dreams are meaningless in a vacuum, but on the other hand when put against a strict set of rules, they are oftentimes misunderstood. The unconscious is a fluid entity and cannot be handled either in isolation or with a static set of guidelines. Dreams are reflections of the unconscious and can represent many different things inside of

Freud believed that dreams represent repressed desires, dears and conflicts. He distinguished two aspects of dreams: the manifest content (Actual event) and the latent content (symbolic meaning of the event). In Freud’s latent content all of the symbolic meanings had a sexual background. He viewed dreams as revealing conflicts in a condensed and intensified form.