In this post under the category of dreams I give a brief introduction to Freud’s Dream Theory. I came across Freud’s Dream Theory my first semester in college. No I wasn’t a Psych major. I was far from it as a Recreation Education Major. However, on weekends when my roommate and friends went DT (Duh Tav) I was alone with time on my hands and access to a great college library. I already had an interest in dreams. I had several significant dreams in my life and always wanted to understand them better. I borrowed two of Freud’s books: The Interpretation of Dreams and The Psychology of Everyday Life. I devoured them both. By now most of us a familiar with the concept of the unconscious mind. However, before Freud it was unknown and unexplored. Freud believed the unconscious was a reservoir of forbidden wishes and desires. The things we might really want but suppress because of cultural and/or parental restrictions. He developed the process of psychological inquiry to free people to understand these restriction and use the conscious mind to integrate them into every day life as appropriate. Moreover, he used his methods of dream interpretation and free association to uncover these repressed wishes and desires. This new approach helped people understand that dreams were not random nor just products of indigestion or spiritual fancy. Instead he say the as atemps at wish fulfillment. He believe there we two parts of dream messages. The obvious direct stories of the dreams and the latent message beneath them. He saw the symbols and stories of the dreams as a sort of camouflage that was hiding the real message in the message. Free Association was the process of finding the real message. He would have his patients say what ever came to mind in association me found in them the “real” or Latent meaning. The hypothesis is that as a symbol connects to seemingly random association the process draws from the unconscious deception the real message. For example, let’s say there is a small dog in my dream. (Trigger warning: I may reveal things about myself in playing with this example.) Dog might lead to cat to bird, to humming bird, to singing, singing in Kindergarten, to being told I may have a good voice, but shouldn’t brag about it! Wow, that surprised even me! So you see how it works! Let us also look briefly at the pathology of everyday life. My favorite example comes in the form of things left behind. If a guest leaves my home after a visit and “forgets” something, say a piece of clothing or perhaps an umbrella I am pleased. “They had a good to,e and want to return.” I think. Recently after a visit to the local prison I left a hat behind. I am not surprised because I really do want to return. Next we will look at Freud’s most famous colleague, Carl Jung. Jung split from Freud over their disagreement regarding dreams!
For more on dreams click here.