Freud On Dreams
Throughout history, people of all ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds have questioned or attempted to deduce the meaning or significance of dreams. One of the most influential and important theories on dreams comes from the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. In section two of Freud’s essay written near the start of the 20th century, “On Dreams,” he discusses in detail his theory of the significance and meaning of dreams through “a new method [at the time] of psychological investigation which had done excellent service in the solution of phobias, obsessions, and delusions…under the name of ‘psycho-analysis’” (144) and several examples of dreams. He describes the procedure as requiring the patients “to direct his attention on to the
idea in question…[and] to take notice of whatever occurs to his mind without any exception and report it” and soon after these associations and ideas have been made, the physician will “soon find [it] is clearly connected with the pathological idea which was our starting-point; this material will soon reveal connections between the pathological idea and other ideas…” (144). After a thorough description of attempting the psycho-analytical method on one of his personal dreams, he concludes that “the dream [is] a sort of substitute for the thought processes, full of meaning, and emotion” and that “the content of the dream is very much shorter than the thoughts for which [he] regard[s] it as a substitute…” (147). Sigmund Freud argues that by “pursuing the associations arising from any dream,” the significance of any dream may be discovered through the aforementioned psycho-analytic procedure (148). Freud, lastly, defines “’manifest content of the dream’” as one’s actual dream, the “’latent content of the dream’” as the associations made after the dream or the thoughts and events in one’s daily life that make up the dream; and he states that the opposite of the analysis after the dream is known as dream-work (148). Sigmund Freud’s claim that one’s dreams are the manifestations of one’s conscious and subconscious thoughts and actions were not only only controversial, but have also had great implications and significance on the field of psychology.
idea in question…[and] to take notice of whatever occurs to his mind without any exception and report it” and soon after these associations and ideas have been made, the physician will “soon find [it] is clearly connected with the pathological idea which was our starting-point; this material will soon reveal connections between the pathological idea and other ideas…” (144). After a thorough description of attempting the psycho-analytical method on one of his personal dreams, he concludes that “the dream [is] a sort of substitute for the thought processes, full of meaning, and emotion” and that “the content of the dream is very much shorter than the thoughts for which [he] regard[s] it as a substitute…” (147). Sigmund Freud argues that by “pursuing the associations arising from any dream,” the significance of any dream may be discovered through the aforementioned psycho-analytic procedure (148). Freud, lastly, defines “’manifest content of the dream’” as one’s actual dream, the “’latent content of the dream’” as the associations made after the dream or the thoughts and events in one’s daily life that make up the dream; and he states that the opposite of the analysis after the dream is known as dream-work (148). Sigmund Freud’s claim that one’s dreams are the manifestations of one’s conscious and subconscious thoughts and actions were not only only controversial, but have also had great implications and significance on the field of psychology.