Dream Interpretation is the royal road to the unconscious in spiritual life. (Page:617)
Freud begins his work with the dream interpretation techniques of his predecessors. In ancient times, dreams were regarded as divine messages and prophecies. Ancient interpreters interpreted the dream in two ways.
1-) Interpreting the whole without associating it with the future: While interpreting the whole, the dream interpreter’s thoughts were based on, not the interpretations of the person who saw the dream.
2-) Analyzing piece by piece: Here, interpretation was made depending on the past experiences of the dreamer. Various interpretations were made according to the gender, age and profession of the person.
Coming to Freud’s interpretation of dreams, Freud said that there is a “desire fulfillment” in dreams. He interpreted a dream of his own, which he called “Injection of Irma”. For Freud, every dream is a “wish fulfillment”.
Distortion: The hidden meaning of the dream was important, not its apparent meaning. Because the dream was distorted by the censorship mechanism. In dreams, desire was fulfilled, but this was achieved by avoiding censorship.
The Subject of Dreams: Freud says that the remnants of the day before the dream is seen in the dream. He calls it the relics of the day. Secondly; Oftentimes, a real life experience can connect with other thoughts and memories that ended up in the dream instead. The third is childhood memories; in some cases, the childhood experience is so profound that it can reappear, often in connection with more recent events. Freud here mentions a situation with his father. As a result of Freud’s mischief, his father yells at Freud, saying, “Nothing will ever happen to this child.” Every success he experienced in his later life reminded him of that childhood memory. When he won an award, his experience with his father would somehow appear in a dream. In his dream, he saw that he had tied his tie incorrectly to justify his father. Fourthly; bodily stimulations. It can take shape in a dream, depending on the state of bodily stimulation. If in a dream someone gently shakes you, you may experience a feeling of dizziness in your dream state. If sexual stimulation is high, you may see sexuality in your dream.
Freud called our dreaming “dream work”. For this work the dream was using some situations.
1-) Concentration: While Freud says that we can describe the dream even in half a page, he actually says that the subject of the dream is quite intense. Half-page dream content can be interpreted with seven or eight pages.
2-) Displacement: The dream replaces the important with the unimportant to escape censorship.
3-) Dream Representation Tools: During condensation, the dream creates a logical sequence from it. In waking life, people tend to correct the inconsistencies they encounter. You can skip errors in a text by imagining the correct words in their places. The same thing happens in dreams.
4-) Dream Symbols: Dreams represent thoughts indirectly or through symbols. Dreams by conceptualizing thoughts; occurs with images and symbols, says Freud in his work.
Sometimes events in your life can appear directly in your dreams. The mountain has been seen and may appear as a mountain in a dream in experiences. Some objects often, but not always, symbolize the same thing. In the dream, the king can symbolize the father, the queen mother, the princess or the princess herself. The right may represent moral righteousness, while the left may represent falsehood. Many of these symbols can also have sexual connotations. Any weapon, stick or long object can represent the penis. A small box, oven, vessel, or any kind of container can similarly replace the vagina. Climbing a steep slope or climbing stairs can be a symbol of sexual intercourse. Freud explained this situation with the “straw hat” dream of a female patient and many dreams. Straw hat dream summary: the female patient dreamed that she was walking confidently down a public street in her straw hat lying on her side, drooping in the front. In the dream interpretation, the hat was a symbol of her husband’s genitalia, and the dream was fabricated out of fear that she was misshapen. This fact came to light when the woman asked Freud if it was strange for a man to have one testicle hanging lower than the other.
Walking/staying outside naked in a dream: Children take pleasure in being naked in front of others. In the dream, the desire for this former state appears as a desire for exhibitionism.
Fly-Falling: Children enjoy being thrown into the air or jumping on an uncle’s knee, falling suddenly and being caught. Dreams about flying or falling may actually stem from a desire to relive that enthusiasm. The dream is the reproduction of the sexual desire they experienced at that time.
The death of a loved one: corresponds to childhood fantasies. Freud says that many people have such dreams. If the dream is suffering and mourning for the person, the dreams are the result of actually wishing that the person in question would die. These dreams may be dreams of a reaction to the birth of a sibling experienced in childhood.
-Death of a loved one caused by the oedipal complex: A boy thinks that if his father were gone forever, he could always be close to his mother at night. He also knows from conversations about his grandparents that “being dead” means going away forever. Therefore, the boy wishes his father dead.
Analyzing dreams can help them understand and treat psychosis. Psychotic episodes occur when the repressed wishes of the subconscious mind are not adequately censored, which leads to their expression during waking life. Dreams can also help treat neuroses where repressed desires result in observable symptoms such as phobias.
In the last part of the book, he explains the primary and secondary processes and their effects in dreams, unconscious ideas. Here it is possible to find a wonderful summary of topographic theory.
The unconscious is psychic reality itself. (Page 620)
