On Dreams

“Before all there is the question as to the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided.”

Dreams are double-sided because they represent the physical world and the unconscious mind. Dreams are influenced by the outside world, but they also present unconscious desires. They consist of myriad symbols, which can have multiple interpretations and meanings.

“Obsessions and those peculiar sensations of haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as do dreams to our waking consciousness; their origin is as unknown to consciousness as is that of dreams.”

Dreams undergo a process of condensation or compression and then are filtered through censorship. Freud asserts that repressed desires are unknown to consciousness and that the mind transfers desire into various symbols. This quotation contributes to the theme Repression and the Unconscious. Erotic desires are repressed, especially those that are deemed inappropriate or against social norms. They are housed in the unconscious mind but sometimes manage to escape the process of censorship.

“Experience had shown us that a cure and a consequent mastery of the obsessing ideas did result when once those thoughts, the connecting links between the morbid ideas and the rest of the psychical content, were revealed which were heretofore veiled from consciousness.”

Psychoanalysis allows the patient to follow the threads of memory connected to each image or symbol in the dream. By doing so, the patient can, hypothetically, be cured. Freud proposes that this can be done by Making Meaning Through Analysis. By unlocking the secrets of the symbols and hidden desires revealed in a dream, the analyst can guide the patient through understanding and releasing infantile sexual fantasies.

“I could draw closer the threads of the web which analysis has disclosed, and would then be able to show how they all run together into a single knot.”

In this passage, the dream represents the knot. Freud suggests that the mind employs a process of compression in which many different thoughts and ideas are condensed into a singular narrative, or dream composition. The analyst’s job is to follow the various threads and untangle them. This contributes to the theme of Making Meaning Through Analysis. The psychologist utilizes analysis to make sense of the knot that would otherwise continue to be convoluted to the patient.

“There is an intimate bond, with laws of its own, between the unintelligible and complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties attending communication of the thoughts connected with the dream.”

Repressed desires are unknown to the patient and unknown to psychologists except through intense psychoanalysis. The unconscious mind works actively to keep these desires hidden from consciousness. Revealed through the theme Repression and the Unconscious, the mind convolutes the relationship between a symbol and its meaning.

“It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis, the more deeply you are impressed by it.”

Freud demonstrates this concept through an analysis of one of his own dreams. At first, the dream appears to be simple and unimportant. By following the various threads connected to the different images and symbols within the dream, he reveals that the dream has a much deeper and larger meaning. The work of interpretation requires extensive free association. The psychoanalyst must encourage the patient to speak freely and openly, even about those thoughts and ideas that may ordinarily be considered taboo.

“Their strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary detail.”

The strangeness of dreams speaks to the level of repression. The more convoluted and confusing a dream appears, the more closely the unconscious mind holds onto the repressed thought, contributing to both themes Dreams as Expressions of Desire and Repression and the Unconscious. Dream displacement places all manifest content, the images and symbols found in the dream, on an equal field in which no component representing the repressed desire is given greater significance.

“If we abolish the dream displacement, we attain through analysis quite certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most disputed—as to what provokes a dream at all, and as to the connection of the dream with our waking life.”

Psychoanalysis rejects the dream displacement and follows the paths of each image and symbol. This process unlocks the hidden meanings of the symbols. Freud believes this work is important because Making Meaning Through Analysis addresses the two problems outlined in this quotation. Uncovering the repressed thoughts and desires helps the patient understand the reason for the dream and how repressed thoughts influence behavior and everyday life.

“Where the dream is concerned with uninteresting and unimportant concepts, analysis reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual.”

Psychoanalysis involves asking the patient to speak freely about the dream as well as memories and thoughts about the various images within the dream. Freud reveals how even the most trivial details may lead to the correct interpretation and discovery of meaning. Dream displacement, and other processes contributed by the unconscious, try to conceal the meaning from the mind. This is done by making vital details unimportant. For this reason, the psychoanalyst must be in tune with even the most insignificant comments and images that surface during therapy.

“The first dream thoughts which are unraveled by analysis frequently strike one by their unusual wording. They do not appear to be expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers; rather are they expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative language of the poets.”

Freud is struck by the sophistication and complexity of dreams, making them fodder for intense analysis. As revealed through the theme Making Meaning Through Analysis, Freud recognizes dreams as the storytellers of the unconscious mind. The convoluted nature of dreams serves a specific purpose: to shield that which has been repressed from consciousness. The more unintelligible the dream, the deeper the meaning may be.

“I am prepared to maintain that no dream is inspired by other than egoistic emotions.”

Here, Freud emphasizes the deeply personal nature of dreams. Although certain symbols may appear frequently in the dreams of multiple individuals, dream compositions are entirely unique. Freud’s passage here alludes to his work on the ego, id, and superego. The ego represents the pursuit of pleasure, or what Freud calls “the pleasure principle.” Dreams are driven by erotic fantasies and urges as outlined in the theme Dreams as Expressions of Desire.

“So far, however, as our analysis is concerned, the dream, which resembles a medley of disconnected fragments, is of as much value as the one with a smooth and beautifully polished surface.”

In this quotation, Freud continues to advocate for the analysis of complicated dreams that are, at first, unintelligible and confusing. These dreams have much to offer for interpretation. The stranger and less coherent a dream is the more repressed the desire may be.

“Whence I conclude that the cause of the obscurity is the desire to conceal these thoughts.”

Dreams operate on their own level of figurative consciousness. The unconscious mind actively seeks to conceal information from consciousness, contributing to the theme Repression and the Unconscious. The reason dreams are often strange is that they are working to hide repressed desires.

“We learnt that the most intelligible and meaningful dreams are unrealised desires; the desires they pictured as realised are known to consciousness, have been held over from the daytime, and are of absorbing interest.”

Freud claims that all dreams are egoistic, meaning they all center on desire. For the psychologist, the dreams represented symbolically in dreams are erotic or sexual in nature, left over from infantile sexuality, contributing to the theme Dreams as Expressions of Desire. Simple and intelligible dreams reference desires that are just below the surface, easily attainable by the patient and the psychoanalyst. Convoluted dreams also express desires but are more difficult to access, as these have been more repressed.

“It is interesting to note that they are right who regard the dream as foretelling the future. Although the future which the dream shows us is not that which will occur, but that which we would like to occur.”

In the opening chapter, Freud acknowledges a history of interest in dreams and their meanings. For many, dreams represent foreshadowing for the future. Here, Freud asserts that this is not entirely false, as dreams are expressions of desire. Those repressed desires symbolized in dreams influence behavior and everyday life. Therefore, it is plausible that the desires represented in dreams might be acted upon in the waking life, despite the desire’s concealment from the conscious mind.

“At the borderland of these two procedures, where the first passes over into the second, a censorship is established which only passes what pleases it, keeping back everything else.”

Freud speaks about the unconscious mind as having intention. Dream composition enables the mind to filter and censor certain information from the conscious mind, as detailed in the theme Repression and the Unconscious. Although the mind censors information about repressed desires, certain elements pass through in the form of symbols, which psychoanalysts can interpret in therapy.

“During the relation of a dream, or during analysis of one, it not infrequently happens that some fragment of the dream is suddenly forgotten.”

Freud argues that parts of dreams that are lost from the memory represent repressed memories or thoughts. He also suggests that these repressed thoughts provide the key to understanding and interpreting the meaning of dreams. In the theme Repression and the Unconscious, forgotten elements of dreams represent some of the most repressed desires in the human psyche.

“The adult has learnt this differentiation; he has also learnt the futility of desire, and by continuous practice manages to postpone his aspirations, until they can be granted in some roundabout method by a change in the external world.”

Children often have difficulty falling asleep due to external stimuli that entice for pleasure. Children avoid going to bed so they may read one more book, hear one more song, or watch one more cartoon. Here, Freud suggests that adults have learned to ignore these external stimuli to sleep. However, adults are plagued by internal stimuli through repressed desires, detailed in the theme Dreams as Expressions of Desire.

“This attention, thus on the alert, makes use of the internal stimuli arising from repressed desires, and fuses them into a dream.”

A return to the iceberg analogy provides further clarity to this idea. If the tip of the iceberg is the conscious mind and what is beneath the surface of the water is the unconscious mind, then children operate mostly at the top. Their dreams are simple to interpret and are intelligible, speaking directly to desires that were expressed outwardly throughout the day. For adults, those desires are more hidden, and adults live a more psychical life than children. Repressed desires are presented through dreams, bobbing just below the surface before being made available through psychoanalysis.

“Whosoever has firmly accepted this censorship as the chief motive for the distortion of dreams will not be surprised to learn as the result of dream interpretation that most of the dreams of adults are traced by analysis to erotic desires.”

Freud proposes that the reason the unconscious mind censors information in dreams is due to the threatening nature of repressed desires. These urges, often originating in youth, are taboo, dangerous, or socially inappropriate. Freud suggests that the fact that dreams conceal desires from the conscious mind implies their erotic nature.

“Since we have learnt to understand infantile sexuality, often so vague in its expression, so invariably overlooked and misunderstood, we are justified in saying that nearly every civilised person has retained at some point or other the infantile type of sex life.”

This quotation aligns with Freud’s work on child development. At the varying stages of child development—including oral, anal, and phallic stages—children are susceptible to developing anxious behaviors and obsessions. Freud introduced the controversial idea of infantile sexuality and suggested that most repressed desires were born out of this state. The Oedipus complex provides an example of this: this psychoanalytic theory suggests that all children develop sexual desire for a parent. The taboo nature of this theory reveals the reason for repression.

“The matter of these sexual presentations cannot be exhibited as such, but must be replaced by allusions, suggestions, and similar indirect means; differing from other cases of indirect presentation, those used in dreams must be deprived of direct understanding.”

In the theme Repression and the Unconscious, dreams are presented as expressions of threatening desires. The unconscious mind cannot make these desires available to the conscious mind for fear they might cause damage or overwhelm consciousness. Dreams provide a more palatable means for understanding through symbolism and narrative.

“Dream symbolism leads us far beyond the dream; it does not belong only to dreams, but is likewise dominant in legend, myth, and saga, in wit and in folklore. It compels us to pursue the inner meaning of the dream in these productions.”

Dreams are sophisticated in their processes and articulation of desire. Freud speaks about dreams as polished and advanced forms of narrative. By Making Meaning Through Analysis, the psychoanalyst can unlock these narratives and decode them. Psychoanalysis functions as a form of deconstruction by separating each symbol to its most basic form and following its associative paths.