Freud And Sontag: The Use Of Interpretation Vs. Freud

Much like the underneath of your childhood bed, dreams are chaotic and need to be cleaned out. If not those peanut butter sandwiches forgotten under the mattress of the unconscious tend to mold quickly. Soon those repressions that were forgotten start to stink and cause the dreamer agitation in their waking hours. Freud believed heavily in the use of interpretation to unpack dream’s latent content and often spoke of interpretation playing a key role in his understandings of psychoanalysis. However some would argue against the use of interpretation, Such as Sontag in her essay ‘Against Interpretation’. Sontag describes Interpretation as “ reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, [and] stifling.”pg3 However this is not true, interpretation is a valuable resource that, when used to unmask the unconscious’s intent in dreams- like in Freud’s psychoanalytical studies- allows one to fully understand the clandestine truths that dreams hold about ones self. Sontag compares interpretation to“ the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry, which befoul the urban atmosphere ”. To her, interpretation is dirty and industrial because it spoils the

” Interpretation is rescuing the dream from oblivion. The dream only seems that it is changing because the viewer’s understanding of the dream is experiencing a metamorphosis; it is becoming enlightened by interpretation “The decomposition of these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an interpretation of the dream. ” Feud recognized the convenience separation of elements in dreams in order to reach an interpretation, rather than drag the process on like a dull conversation. If the dream is not organized in a proficient manner, the dream may still die and change with time. Interpretation, in order to do its job correctly, needs to be done so that the dream remains