Sigmund Freud Dream Theory Essay

The relationship between dreaming and repression is complex and requires thorough understanding of Freud’s theory thus it is better to get to know some of the terms and concepts Freud raises in study of dreams. As all the information is gathered, it is believed that the wish as fulfilled is shown only in a state of repression during sleep.

Every night people lay their heads down to rest in hopes of having a good night’s sleep and as you sleep during the night, dreams occur. Some remember more than others. However, a dream is always present even if you may think it is not. The curiosity of dreams is what started the popularity of dream interpretation. People wanted to know what they meant and how they were getting there which drove psychologists to go out and study them. (The Dream Experience Chapter 1) Dreams are a very complex topic because of the various meanings for their appearance. Theories vary from dream simply being apart of a biological cycle that occurs during sleep to theories, or like Sigmund Freud’s who believed that there is a deeper meaning behind dreams that is driven by sexual aggression. Carl Jung’s theory is also very popular because of its acceptance. Jung, in general, believed dreams had a different meaning from what the dream actually shows. Several theories and several explanations for dream causes great disagreement between scientists and psychologists. (You are What you Dream) Throughout time, however, other theories of dreaming have come about after Freud’s. Freud’s theory is, to this say, questioned, by psychologists around the world. Is Freud’s theory still hold up in the 21st century? Freud’s theory of dreams which is extremely abstract when it relates to other theories such as Carl Jung’s and Allan Hobson and Robert McCarley. Freud’s theory for the most part was used

Experts still do not completely understand why we dream or the causes behind dreams. There are several hypotheses and concepts as to why we dream. Are dreams just part of the sleep cycle or do they serve some other purpose? One possible explanation for why we dream could be that we want to represent unconscious desires and wishes. Others say, we dream because we interpret random signals from the brain and body during sleep. I personally believe, that dreams represent desires and wishes. As with many things concerning the brain and unconscious thought, there is so much that remains unknown about dreaming. Dreams are difficult to study in a laboratory. As technology and new research techniques are developed, the understanding of dreams will continue to

     In 1899, more than two thousand years after Aristotle, Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams and “modern dream psychology was born” (Fontana 26). Freud looked down on other methods of dream interpretation because they were too rigid. Psychologists would create lists of dream symbols along with their meaning so that they could quickly look up the meaning of a dream. Freud believed that each person associated dream symbols with different things. For example, a ship going through a storm could represent a difficult time at work for one person, but it could represent a health problem for someone else. Freud developed his own method of dream interpretation, which he called free

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.

Freud presented his theory about dreams in the book The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899. In it he sets out to prove "there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams" and that

It is through this dream work that Freud contended unconscious thoughts were transferred into dream content. (Freud, 1900)

     An individual’s unconscious mind combines bits and pieces of information and places them together. Dreams are almost always visual. “Forty to fifty percent of dreams have some form of communication present in them and a very small percentage of dreams give the dreamer the ability to use his or her five senses”(Encarta). Dreams allow one to take a closer look into their mind in a quest for self-discovery. In ancient Greece dreams were believed to be messages from the gods. Hippocrates and Aristotle believed that dreams contained physiological information that may be cause of future illnesses. Dreams can be used to solve a number of different types of problems. In The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud he states “As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are transferred by it to the sleeping

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

Have you ever had a dream that you had no idea what it meant? In the essay Excerpts from “On Dream” Freud discusses dream symbolism. He states that the dream thought we first come across, we proceed without analysis we often think those dreams are unusual. He goes on by saying that our dreams are employed by our thoughts. “The content of dreams, however, does not consist entirely of situations, but also includes disconnected fragments of visual images, speeches and even bits of unmodified thoughts.” This quote explains why I dream about that scary little girl from the horror movie commercial. We dream what we see throughout our day. Dreams seem to be composed of more than one experience or impression. “Wishful fantasies which are present

Personally, I have always found dreams to be fascinating and the article, “Dream on, Freud” by Sue Goetinck discusses the advances made in neuroscience regarding dreams. Dr. Edward Nersessian is a psychoanalyst who discusses what the scientific community has learned about dreams since Freud’s time. Freud assumed that people dream simply because their thoughts would keep them awake at night. Dr. Edward Nersessian agrees with some of Freud’s theories but quickly argues that how we interpret dreams is different then Freud had originally thought. During the time of Freud he was the only one who would interpret the dreams while today not only are the doctors and psychoanalyst interpreting but the patients as well. Today, the scientific community

“Dreams are a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.” This is the true definition of what dreams are according to Free Dictionary.com. Although many people are unaware of how dreams actually work there are two psychologists that have been able to pinpoint the true meaning of dreams. These two men are Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. There are many different perceptions on how people dream, what dreams mean, and why people dream.

Freud’s theory is that dreaming is meaningful, unlike the activation synthesis theory. He believed that the mind had three sections, represented in a shape of an iceberg; the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. The conscious is the tip of the iceberg above the water involves everything we are aware of right now such as our thoughts. The

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.

Dreams are “hallucinations of the sleeping mind” (Loftus & Ketcham). Dreams can be very vivid, loud, and even emotional. This is why it is easy to confuse them with reality. Dreams are kind of like taking all of a person’s wishes and emotions and putting them all in a little “shadow world” (Bynum) when they go to sleep at night. “What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.” (Freud). A person may be experiencing an emotion or wishing for something without even realizing it at all. Dreams can sometimes show a person how they are truly feeling without even their own awareness of these feelings or wishes. A lot of a person’s reality and emotions are used in their dreams, however, this is not always the case. Dreams can also be extremely bizarre, confusing, and even repetitive. This is where the interpretation of dreams comes into action. Many people find it hard to believe that when they have a dream over and over again that it does not mean anything. These types of dreams are called recurring dreams. Recurring dreams happen