Dreaming of Freud

Freud and “The Interpretation of Dreams”

                According to Freud, the motivation behind dream content is wish fulfillment. That is to say that, dreams are founded by or provoked by daily activities and thoughts which have produced or instilled a want within the dreamer. However, discerning what specific wish fulfillment is being subconsciously mulled over/appeased is a difficult task due to the distorted nature of dreams. Manifest content is disguised by latent dream thoughts present in the subconscious. Thus, the true significance of one’s personal dreams is always concealed from the dreamer.

                Freud elaborates on this distortion by offering up the theory that the super-ego censors or resists the wishes of the unconscious and attempts to repress them/keep them away from consciousness to such an extent that even when such wishes are revealed through dreams, resistance from the super ego is still capable of distorting and disguising such revelations. Dreams then are a type of compromise between the subconscious and the super-ego self. Repressed wishes are depicted in convoluted ways that allude to a false sense of fulfillment, so as to appease the unconscious while not disturbing the dreamer.

Dream Work (sorting through manifest content in order to reach latent content)

* Condensation – one dream object stands for several associations and ideas; thus "dreams are brief, meager and laconic in comparison with the range and wealth of the dream-thoughts."

* Displacement – a dream object's emotional significance is separated from its real object or content and attached to an entirely different one that does not raise the censor's suspicions.

* Representation – a thought is translated to visual images.

* Symbolism – a symbol replaces an action, person, or idea.

(This is not to say that Feud believed that manifest content could, once analyzed, be viewed as part of a coherent whole.)

Going further- Anxiety dreams and/or nightmares are representative of the ego’s reaction to a dreamer’s awareness of repressed wishes that are powerful and poorly disguised.

Note-Traumatic dreams (reliving a traumatic even through dreams) are an exception.

Personal Response:

                The idea that I am split individual, that is to say that I am both a self formed by repressed urges and a self formed by my perception of self in relation to my world (super ego) is a troubling concept. Even more troubling is the theory that I subconsciously work to protect myself from myself. It seems to me that my repressed self is a truer version of myself because it is free from social construction and restraint and yet, due to my internal urge (instinct?) to maintain my developed sense of self (super ego) I shall never know this, perhaps truer version, of myself. If we were wild things, disconnected from structure and theory, purely reliant on pleasure and self-preservation would we then be split in such a fashion?  Do wild animals dream and if they do dream, do they too dream manifest content so as to keep from themselves latent and repressed content/urges?

On a personal note, I find that I dream vivid, colorful, musical, and often disturbing dreams which leave me in momentary states of anxiety upon waking, am I then to conclude that I (perhaps without realizing it) know what my repressed urges are and thus my super ego is reacting to such awareness through disturbing imagery and mock sensory overload?

Freud,Sigmund. "The Interpretation of Dreams." The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism 2nd Ed.

        New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010.807-821. Print.