Freud: Interpretation of Dreams 1 Compiled by Dr. Inna Rozentsvit
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud is a book that introduces Freud’s theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation. Freud provides an analysis of the most common dreams and their meaning along with an extensive discussion of dream psychology and its role in psychoanalysis.
Culture and Dreams Babylonians - saw dreams as messages from the supernatural beings (good dreams came from the gods, bad dreams came from demons). Assyrians - saw dreams as omens. Bad dreams demanded action, i.e. exorcisms. Other dreams were seen as "advice." Egyptians -believed that the gods revealed themselves in dreams, demanding pious acts, or warning of impending doom. Greeks -dreams were good or bad. Sometimes, a treatment, or sleep ritual would be worked up to help incubate good dreams. This "treatment" would include abstaining from sex, meat, and drink. Dreams often told a prophecy. Aristotle postulated that dreams may be premonitions of an illness coming from within the body, where some "unconscious" mind recognized early symptoms, but the absolute sensation threshold had not been crossed to alert the "waking self". (Sounds like he was way ahead of his time) The Romans had similar beliefs. Hebrews -dreams were a vision or prophecy from a god (keep in mind that we see monotheism emerging here).
Culture and Dreams Hindus -dreams are prophetic, and the timing of the dream will indicate how soon the prophecy will come to pass Japanese -dreams are sought as visions to help answer questions that are plaguing the waking self. Usually the answers come from ancestral spirits. Muslims -dreams and astrology are closely related in this culture. True dreams come from god, false ones from the devil. Australian Aborigines -the spirits from underground rise and wander in the land of the living, and when they pass through a mortal being, a "greater vision" is momentarily acquired.. this would be what we call a dream North American Indians -hidden wished of the soul are addressed and fulfilled in dreams. Visions can also be sought after in the hopes of answering a question or resolving a conflict.
Sigmund Freud and Dreams • Sigmund Freud is considered by many to be the reason for studying dreams and the unconscious in psychology. • His work provided paved the way for others with similar ideas to express their beliefs. Freud was classically educated. He was aware of the culture of interpretation of dreams since early civilizations (and of the Dream Lore,), and Freud's own theories were "borrowed" from these early civilizations. His use of the Greek civilization is very apparent, as in his Oedipal (or Oedipus) complex.
Freud’s Theory of Dreams: Freud's Questions: 1) How do dreams operate? 2)What mechanisms or structures account for the creation of dreams? 3) Can we discern and describe a deep structure that generates the infinite production of dream material from a finite set of rules? 4) Is there a grammar or syntax of dreams? Rules for creating all dreams? 5) What is the significance of dreams? What to they mean and what is their relationship to our psychic lives? 6) Why are dreams so ethereal, why do we forget them so easily? http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Dream s.html
Collage: Francis Picabia (1879-1959)
The Visual Character of Unconscious Representations Collage: Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)
1. We have no direct access to the unconscious; we only have access to it by means of its representations. These can take various forms, but the privileged form is dreams. This is why Freud called dreams "the royal road to the unconscious." Dream-texture, dream-logic as the closest approximation of how the unconscious functions structurally. 2. Predominance of visual representations. –Dreams, like other modes of unconscious representation (e.g. fantasy), tend toward the pictorial, toward images, scenes that occur as individual elements without causal connections. Dreams dramatize ideas; like playing a game of "charades" in which ideas must be acted out. –Unconscious knows no logic, no sequence, no "plot" = it may be a language, but it has no syntax: just images arranged in a series. http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Dreams.html
Understanding of Dreams
The Id, the Ego and the Super Ego Id (primitive) operates on preconscious and unconscious levels Ego (reality based)operates on conscious and (some) preconscious levels Super Ego (conscience, values, morality) works at every level
Sketch of Freud's dream scheme – from http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jel/Dreams1. html
According to Freud, • ...dreams are disguised, hallucinatory fulfilment of repressed wishes.... • ...dreams are not only represented current wishes, but were also invariably expressions of wishfulfilments dating from early childhood.... • …if expressed in undisguised form, would so disturb the dreamer that he would wake up…. …because these wishes are unacceptable and potentially disturbing, they are censored and disguised… “RULES” for dream Interpretations: • do not trouble yourself over the manifest's meaning; • allow the dreamer to free-associate - to say whatever comes to mind when he/she thinks about different parts of the dream; • the hidden thoughts will appear on their own, we can not rush them along…
Psychoanalytic (Freud's) Theory of Dreams Dreams and Meanings: – Dream interpretation requires that you ask the dreamer what he/she thinks the dream means. – The first words out of their mouths are usually the most telling. – There is no "quick reference" book to identify what objects in dreams symbolize. – The objects undergo changes that only the individual can gain an understanding of, and the psychoanalyst can learn of through the "talking" cure. Interpretation: – There are obstacles that the patient's own unconscious throws up to keep the meanings of dreams hidden (remember, this is the function of dreams according to Freud). – These obstacles can be in the form of forgetting the content of a dream, being uncooperative in analysis, censorship in what they do say about the dream, and other forms of resistance.
Psychoanalytic (Freud's) Theory of Dreams (cont.) Freud introduced the terms “manifest content” (to describe what the dreamer recalled) and the “latent content” (= the hidden, true meaning of the dream). This latent content could be ascertained only when the dreamer’s associations to the images in the dream had been subjected to psychoanalytical scrutiny and interpretation. Types of Dreams:
1) Manifest content makes sense and has a coherent "plot"; its connection to psychic life is clear. 2) Manifest content seems clear and connected (has plot), but meaning of dream remains obscure. 3) Manifest content confused and chaotic, and there seems to be no discernible meaning; interpretation apparently impossible. (For Freud, most dreams fall into this category.)
Structure of Dreams and Structure of the Freudian Psyche –Latent content = unconscious dream thought (wish).
–Manifest content = form the dream takes in our conscious mind, our memory. –Distortion (or “dream-work” = the set of rules or processes that dictate the translation of the latent content, the “truth” of the dream (the unconscious dream “thought”), into its manifest content, its façade or its purified, cosmetic form. (Freud Reader 147-148.) Parallel between dream structure and structure of psyche: Manifest Content -------------------------------------------------------Conscious Distortion -----------------------------------------------------------------Censorship (Preconscious) Latent Content ----------------------------------------------------------Unconscious –If dream production moves from latent content, through distortion, to manifest content, then interpretation reverses this process, undoing distortion in order to arrive at the original dream thought. Read more: http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Dreams.html
Freud described the mental processes, or “dream-work”, by which the dream was modified and rendered less disturbing. These processes included:
Condensation, the fusing together of different ideas and images into a single image; Displacement, in which a potentially disturbing image or idea is replaced by something connected but less disturbing; Representation, the process by which thoughts are converted into visual images; Symbolization, in which some neutral object stands for some aspect of sexual life or those persons connected with it which the dreamer would prefer not to recognize.
Freud “Dreamers” Dictionary Freud found that many times, certain "items" of the real world, were represented the same way between different people. Some of these "generalities" are listed here: • a house = the human form • if the house is flat (no balconies or things coming off the house)- it is a man • if the house has balconies, awnings, etc., then it is usually a woman • emperors and empresses = parents • Kings/Queens = parents • little animals/vermin = siblings • water = birth • journeys/travel = dying • the #3, umbrellas, sticks, poles, trees, (things that penetrate) knives, daggers, lances, sabers, guns, pistols, revolvers, (things form which water flow) taps, water cans, springs (objects that get longer) balloons, slide rulers, (things that defy gravity) airplanes, and (animals) snakes, etc. = the male sex organs • pits, hallows, caves (things that hold things) jars, bottles, boxes, chests, coffers, pockets, cupboards, stoves, rooms, (things that hold other things) mouths, doors, gates, (things that represent breasts) apples, peaches fruits, and (others) woods, shrubs, bushes, etc. = female sex organs • Intercourse (the act) was often found to be represented as dancing, riding, climbing, or experiencing some violent act…
Common Dreams
Nightmares
Interpretation of Dreams,1900 Dream of Irma’s Injection • Freud's dream of "Irma's injection" introduced the process of dream interpretation and, in a way, psychoanalytic technique as well. It is described in the second chapter of The Interpretation of Dreams, "The Method of Interpreting Dreams," and was reinterpreted many times by Freud's successors and biographers. • Early in the morning of July 24, 1895, Freud, then on vacation at the Hôtel Bellevue, near Vienna, had a dream about one of his patients, whom he called Irma. The manifest content of the dream can be summarized as follows: • Irma is not doing well; she has pain in her throat, stomach, and nose. Freud examines her in spite of her reluctance and is disturbed, wondering if he has made a medical error. He calls over his two friends M. and Otto, both doctors, for a consultation. This results in an absurd diagnosis that involves trimethylamine . • Later in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud provided a detailed account of this dream that illustrated his approach to dream analysis. The analytical procedure suggested by Freud begins by examining "day residues," events that occur during the days preceding the dream and which, through association, can clarify the dream episode and restore the identity of the protagonists.
Dream of Irma’s Injection, continued • The interpretation is guided by the assumption that the dream is the fulfillment of a wish, in this case, the wish to deflect responsibility for the fault onto someone else, namely M. and Otto. Freud's friend Wilhelm Fliess, an ENT doctor, who played an important part in Freud's self-analysis, appeared in the background of the dream in connection with the anomalous appearance of turbinate nasal bones in Irma's throat. In reality, Fliess had previously made a serious professional error in treating one of Freud's patients, Emma Eckstein, leaving a bandage in one of her nasal cavities after an operation, which had resulted in infection and serious hemorrhaging. • The interpretation of this dream was the beginning of Freud's self-analysis, which he conducted primarily through analysis of his own dreams. He chronicled the results of this process in The Interpretation of Dreams and thus introduced the practice of psychoanalysis itself. • “...One day I had a visit from a junior colleague, who had been staying with my patient, Irma, and her family at their country resort. I asked him how he had found her, and he answered, “She’s better, but not quite well.” I was conscious that my friend Otto’s words, or the tone in which he spoke them, annoyed me. I fancied I detected a reproof in them, such as to the effect that I had promised the patient too much...
Dream of Irma’s Injection, continued • That same evening, I wrote out Irma’s case history, with the idea of giving it to Dr. M, a common friend, in order to justify myself. That night I had the following dream, which I noted down immediately upon waking.” • Freud dreamed he was at a formal party in a long reception hall, and his patient Irma was there. He criticized her for not accepting his interpretations, and said, “If you still get pains, it’s really only your fault.” She said she was suffering greatly, and Freud noticed that she didn’t look well. He became alarmed that he had missed a physical illness, and began examining her throat. Then he called over his friend Dr. M to examine her as well. • By this point, Freud’s colleague Otto was standing next to them, and after declaring the Irma had an infection that eventually would pass, Dr. M. observed that “my friend Otto had given her an injection of propyl, propyls, propionic acid, trimethylamin (and I saw before me the formula for this printed in heavy type)... Injections of that sort ought not to be made so thoughtlessly....” • Freud reports his free associations to the dream, image by image. These led to his own doubts about his medical competence and newly-propounded psychoanalytic theories.
Dream of Irma’s Injection, continued • Other associations led to thoughts about supporters of his work, and others to thoughts of getting back at his detractors. He discovered that “trimethylamin” “was an allusion not only to the immensely powerful factor of sexuality, but also to the person whose agreement I recalled with satisfaction whenever I felt isolated in my opinions.” Freud concluded that : • “The dream fulfilled certain wishes which were started in me by the events of the previous evening. The conclusion of the dream… was that I was not responsible for the persistence of Irma’s pains, but that Otto was. Otto had in fact annoyed me by his remarks about Irma’s incomplete cure, and the dream gave me my revenge by throwing the reproach back on to him.” • “The dream acquitted me of the responsibility for Irma’s condition by showing that it was due to other factors... The dream represented a particular state of affairs as I should have wished it to be. Thus its content was the fulfillment of a wish....” • Day Residue • Wish-fulfillment Interpretation of Dreams Involves: • Regression from secondary process (verbal) to primary process (pictorial) thinking • Disguise and distortion of the wish • Free association to images
Theory of Dreams Manifest Content distortion censor
day residue
anxiety
Latent Content ( wish )
Example Dream Last Saturday night, Tom went to a night club with a couple of his friends, and met another friend named Horace there, who was out with his girlfriend Terry. Tom really took a liking to Terry, and thought she maybe liked him, but he didn’t even talk with her very much because he was afraid Horace might notice his attraction to her and be angry. He went home alone and lonely, and that night had a dream: He and Terry were horseback riding through the countryside on a beautiful autumn day. They stopped and spread out a blanket and picnic lunch under a tree, and were just about to kiss when to his horror, Tom noticed that Terry’s horse had wandered onto a road, and a large truck was bearing down on him. Tom leaped up, raced down to the road, grabbed the horse’s reins, and led it off the road to safety just as the truck roared by. When he looked back, Terry and the picnic were gone, and he found himself coughing in the thick smoky exhaust and dust left by the truck. Then he woke up in a start. Possible Interpretation: • Day Residue: Tom met & liked Terry • Manifest: Tom saves Terry’s horse • Symbol: Horse = Horace • Latent wish: Get rid of Horace & get Terry • Defense: Reaction formation
Possible Deeper Interpretation: • Oedipal triangle? • Horse = Horace = father? • Terry = mother?
