Skip to main content

Freud and Dreams

Sigmund Freud believed dreams are the mind's way of fulfilling wishes. In an excerpt from his Interpretation of Dreams, he offers several examples of dreams with obvious ties to wish fulfillment. One of these is from a young medical student who had difficulty waking up in the morning. To help, he asked his landlady to wake him each morning. On one of these mornings, she yelled through his door, "Wake up, Herr Pepi! It's time to go to the hospital!" He dreamed in response that he lay in a sick bed in the same hospital as a patient. In his dream, he said, "As I'm already in the hospital, there's no need for me to go there," and continued sleeping. This dream was a way to reconcile his need to get to the hospital and his desire to continue sleeping.

The examples Freud uses in this excerpt are exclusively positive. They are all dreams that represent some desire being fulfilled, whether it is a dream of Freud himself drinking water to quench his real thirst, a child's dream of a boat trip to satisfy her after a disappointing real-life boat trip the day before, or something else. In the excerpt, at least, he never mentions nightmares, which are far removed from the more pleasant world of wish fulfillment. Freud, however, saw nightmares as unsuccessful attempts by the ego to cover up one's repressed desires. They still relate to wish fulfillment, then, but are an expression of the conflict between the id's wishes and the ego's efforts to keep those wishes in check.*

Freud goes on to say that we would have discovered this truth about dreams had we only noticed the language we use when talking about them. When we say "I should never have imagined such a thing even in my wildest dreams," in his example, we reveal our understanding that dreams are expressions of wish fulfillment.

*Freud used the analogy of a horse and rider to explain the relationship between the id and ego: "in its relation to the id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pleasure

*Note: In the following post, I am heavily influenced by a pastor named Bob Shirock. Specifically, Shirock writes about Solomon's response to the pleasures he experienced in life in Ecclesiastes, and observes that we can enjoy pleasures in life if we accept them as God's gifts, and if we express our gratitude in their enjoyment. He cites Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 and 1 Timothy 4:1-5. I’ve noticed something about pleasure: the highs can be followed by lows. This sounds obvious, but what I mean is that times of joy and fun in life's pleasures are wonderful, and can lift your spirits for a time, but they can be followed by a disappointment that comes from the realization that they are short-lived and will not satisfy us in the long-term. I’m calling this a pleasure hangover. We gain happiness for a time, but see that this happiness is temporary. We therefore feel a subsequent low that leaves us still longing. It reminds me of a theme in the life of C.S. Lewis: sehnsucht , or a wist...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghosts

Exercising at a gym seems to be pretty important in our culture, but it's kind of weird to see the social dynamics when you're there. Usually, if you're running an errand, you see others doing the same thing, going about their days and focusing on what's in front of them. The same thing happens at the gym, only everyone is relatively stationary. They don't really go anywhere, except from one machine or area to another. One might think this lends itself to lots of interaction between members, especially since they're all there for the same purpose, but it isn't true. Not only do people generally avoid talking to one another, but they also avoid even looking at one another. It is as though there is no one else there, even though there are dozens on any given day. Most people follow this unwritten rule, unless something in the environment-- say, two people wanting to use the same set of weights-- gives them common ground to interact, or unless they've alr...
2 comments
Read more

End of an Era

It was over two years ago that I joined an experiment that would last until last July, an experiment that would significantly change me and the eleven others involved. That experiment was the creation of a new church comprised of twelve members whose purpose was to serve the people of downtown Stockton. Most attractive to me about it was that half of our income would be used in some way outside the church, to benefit the local community or to aid in international assistance. In that span of time, we did in fact serve in ways we'd envisioned. One of our first events was a pizza and school supplies giveaway (coupled with games for the kids who came) toward the end of our first summer. Many of those who came seemed genuinely happy at this. Through that year, we also hosted an event called a "card me house party," wherein each person's ticket to the event was a gift card. Once inside, chips could be purchased to play card and other games, with the resulting collection g...
1 comment
Read more