During prescientific days, dreams were interpreted as ‘manifestations’ of a ‘higher power’. Since the introduction of psychology, dreams have had 4 distinct interpretations. The first interprets dreams as a “liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature”. The second interprets dreams as “accidental disturbances from ‘internal organs’. The third interprets dreams as a foretelling of the future. The last interpretation is Freud’s. He interprets dream as an expression of subconscious desires. He goes further with his interpretation. He compares dreams to psychopathological conditions since both refer to thoughts on a subconscious level, and thus decides to break down dreams through the process of psychotherapy. This process requires the dreamer to record the dream (on paper or to a therapist) “without self-criticism”, analyze the dream and draw a conclusion. To demonstrate this process, Freud records one of his dreams, which is given below: Next is the analysis. The dream seems bizarre to Freud, since he only distantly knows Mrs. E.L. and feels no desire to strengthen their connection. To simplify the dream, he breaks it into elements. The first element for analysis is the table d’hôte …show more content…
Condensation states that an element of the manifest content can draw more than one latent thought, and that one latent thought can be derived from more than one element of the manifest content. Realization of desire usually takes place through the condensation of two contradictory latent thoughts. This is exemplified through Freud’s dream, since the caress under the table from the dream reminds him of a similar instance with his wife while courting her and a contradictory instance where they were separated for a day during the courting process. Both instances indicate a desire for attention from his wife. ‘Dreams never utter the alternate either-or, but accept both as having equal right to the same
Freud starts his report by informing the readers of the incompleteness of his analysis and preparing them for a fragmented case. He admits that though the two dreams of Dora were recorded immediately after his session, “the case history itself was only committed to writing from memory, after the treatment was at an end […] thus the record is not absolutely – phonographically - exact” (4). Already, it becomes clear that the case will be based off of potentially invalid information. Freud attempts to defend this cause of skepticism by stating that the recollection remained fresh and heightened in his mind by his personal interest in the case (4). Freud clearly recognizes the opportunity for criticism due to the lack of information and accompanying lack of validity in his arguments, but he’s more intent on completing the report and proving his sexual desire and dream interpretat...
My ideas resemble a mixture of Rosalind Cartwright and Sigmund Freud’s theories on dreams. Freud believed that the purpose of our dreams is to attain a
From Sigmund Freud 's point of view all his theories were proven in this book. His first theory of Defense Mechanism was present when Jack’s mom used denial when she believed Jack was just a rebirth of her daughter who died during birth, so she didn’t feel the need to face the feelings of the daughter 's death. His second theory of Psychosexual Stages was present when Jack had a strong oral fixation of needing to “get some”, or else known as breast feeding from his mom, and phallic stage because Jack mentioned repeatedly throughout the book about his penis. Freud’s third theory was the Dream Analysis theory, because Jack later on in the book, experienced dreams that could be assumed to represent meaning to Jack’s real life and the struggles
In 1900 , an Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud produced a work entitled The Interpretation of Dreams, reviewing the idea that dreams allow psychic examination, that the dreams that are happening contain some sort of psychological meaning which can be brought on by interpretation. Freud says that every dream will release itself as a emotional structure, full of importance, and one which may be assigned to a designated place in the psychic activities. According to Freud's original thoughts dreams have two contents, a manifest content which is the dream that one actually experiences and a hidden content which is the meaning of the dream as discovered by interpretation.
1.3.4.1: Psychodynamic therapy: The psychodynamic therapies focus on resolving the patient's inner psychological conflicts that are typically thought to be rooted in childhood (Debjit bhowmik, Kumar, Srivastava, Paswan, Dutta 2012). The therapists make an extensive use of free association as the psychodynamic theorists believe that depression develops in response to a loss; often a loss at the unconscious level (Comer, 1992). The therapist and patient discuss the events that may have led to a loss and then interpret accordingly. The interpretations are intended to provide the patient with some insight into his or her self-anger that Freud believed is present with a loss that precipitates a depressive episode. Psychodynamic theorists also use dream interpretation as a means of unlocking the unconscious mind. By gaining insight from th...
The average person spends over one-third of their life sleeping, and over this period of time he or she can have over 1,825 dreams (Wicklinski). By definition, dreams are mental images, thoughts, or emotions that are experienced while sleeping. In the beginning, dreams were thought to be messages sent from the gods or spirit world. Researchers now have many theories explaining why people dream. Many of these theories explain that dreams can resemble an individual’s sensory experiences or even secret wishes. All people dream, but only 42% of people can recall their dreams from the night before (“Dreams”). The study of dreams is a topic that is constantly being debated by researchers for many reasons. Dreaming is important because it can impact people’s health, provide insight into what they are feeling, and reveal information about their behavior.
Condensation and displacement are two types of transformation, which connect to the different structure level of the dreams (the manifest contents and the latent dream-thoughts). They are used to “encode” the dreams and “repress” the consciousness. Condensation is one or more common elements that are packed together forming a composite picture with contradictory details when constructing a dream-situation. Condensation, as Freud describes, “is the most important and peculiar characteristics of the dream-work” (154). Besides condensation, displacement has its own significance. The dream content seems to have a different centre from its dream-thoughts (155) within displacement. The latent dream-thoughts are pr...
Psychology, neuroscience try to explain them, 2012). He studied dreams to better understand aspects of personality as they relate to pathology. Freud believed that every action is motivated by the unconscious at a certain level. In order to be successful in a civilized society, the urges and desires of the unconscious mind must be repressed. Freud believed that dreams are manifestations of urges and desires that are suppressed in the unconscious. Freud categorized the mind into three parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. When one is awake, the impulses if the id are suppressed by the superego, but during dreams, one may get a glimpse into the unconscious mind, or the id. The unconscious has the opportunity to express hidden desires of the id during dreaming. Freud believed that the id can be so disturbing at times that the id’s content can be translated into a more acceptable form. This censor leads to a sometimes confusing and strange dream image. According to Freud, the reason one may struggle to remember a dream is because the superego protects the conscious mind from the disturbance of the unconscious mind (Dream Theories,
Freud’s theory however, is only one of many such as Francis Crick’s. He believed that dreams were a way of mental “house cleaning” or getting rid of unneeded memories. He thought them useful because you don’t have to remember every small minute detail of your life.
During the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, a psychologist named Sigmund Freud welcomed the new age with his socially unacceptable yet undoubtedly intriguing ideologies; one of many was his Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreams. Freud believed that dreams are the gateway into a person’s unconscious mind and repressed desires. He was also determined to prove his theory and the structure, mechanism, and symbolism behind it through a study of his patients’ as well as his own dreams. He contended that all dreams had meaning and were the representation of a person’s repressed wish. While the weaknesses of his theory allowed many people to deem it as merely wishful thinking, he was a brilliant man, and his theory on dreams also had many strengths. Freud’s theories of the unconscious mind enabled him to go down in history as the prominent creator of Psychoanalysis.
Freud graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Vienna, Austria. Soon after, he mapped the geography of the human psyche, and began working with severely disturbed patients. Through extremely intense self-analysis, Freud concurred that repressed desires were the source of emotional disturbances. He then developed psychoanalysis, a method of bringing these repressed desires to the conscious level. In order to evoke these hidden, unconscious desires, Freud used dream analysis and free association. He believed dreams were the royal road to the unconscious, and through the interpretation of its contents, repressed desires can be brought to surface. Free association was a therapeutic technique in which the patient would spontaneously verbalize thoughts in an atmosphere that was open and non-judgmental. It was Freud’s belief that the patient would begin to self-analyze, and ultimately ident...
Freud’s conception of the mind is characterized by primarily by dynamism, seen in the distribution of psychic energy, the interplay between the different levels of consciousness, and the interaction between the various functions of the mind. The single function of the mind, which brings together these various aspects, is repression, the maintenance of what is and what isn’t appropriately retained in the conscious mind.
The aim of this essay is to clarify the basic principles of Freud’s theories and to raise the main issues.
The Ancient Greeks had surprise dream encounters with their gods. Native Americans turned to their dreams for guidance in life. Shamans dreamed in order to gather information from the spirits. Sleep and dreams define eras, cultures, and individuals. Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of dreams revolutionized twentieth-century thought.
Sigmund Freud was a considerably huge impact on the arts and humanities. Freud developed a theory that humans have an unconscious mind in which they develop sexual and aggressive desires. Furthermore he studied the thought process of individuals, for example, he specifically studied the process used within an individual, such as conscious and unconscious minds. Conscious minds were the level in which all of our thought processes would work. Unconscious minds were the developments about wishes, urges, instincts and memories. The majority of his work was about how dreams define our unconscious thoughts; this allowed Freud to understand how the thought process of humans developed. Freud stressed about how the dreams are a safe place for individuals to think about their desires in which they cannot perform in day-to-day living, he quoted: “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”