Class 8 Notes - Interpretation of Dreams Freud dream analysis PDF

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Interpretation of Dreams Freud dream analysis...

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Reading: Interpretation of Dreams, Chapter 2: Analysis Specimen Dream -

Symbolic-dream interpretation: dream-content as a whole, seeks to replace it by an intelligible and analogous content Cipher method: treats the dream as a kind of secret code in which every sign is translated into another sign of known meaning, according to an established key - Interpretation is not applied to the entire dream but to each portion as different fragments (incoherent dreams responsible for this method)

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The patient must preserve absolute impartiality in reporting his dreams

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Freud was treating a patient named Irma and had this dream - Irma is sick, friend Otto gave her a bad injection

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Analysis of Irma dream - He hopes to find an error in diagnosis so he could not be reproached for failure to affect a cure

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There are two methods to interpret dreams, symbolic and decoding - Both are flawed

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He has his own method, asking patients to tell him every thought or idea that occurred in the dream so he can follow these associations back to the source

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When analyzing the Irma dream, Freud demonstrates that the dream expresses a number of unconscious wishes. For instance the wish to have a more docile and receptive patient than Irma. And an unconscious wish that his medical skill would be recognized as being above reproach - He also realizes the dream makes his friends and colleagues look bad so he can look good in comparison - The dream fulfilled certain wishes of his, concluding in him being not responsible for the persistence of Irma’s pains (but Otto was) - This conclusion allows Freud to argue that the dream’s content was the fulfillment of a wish and its motive was a wish - Every dream, not just this one, is a fulfillment of a wish

Chapter 3: A Dream is a FulFillment of a Wish -

Having demonstrated that his dream of Irma’s injection fulfilled a wish, Freud has to

enquire whether this is a universal characteristic of dreams -

He discusses dreams that reveal themselves without any disguise as fulfillments of wishes, such as thirst dreams when sleepers dream they are drinking water

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Then there are dreams of convenience, like when sleepers dream that they’re already awake and getting ready to start their days

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Then he describes wish-fulfillment dreams by women he knows, such as one woman dreaming she’s on her period when she was actually pregnant, which Freud interpreted as the woman’s desire to be free for longer before having kids

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He talks about how children’s dreams are often pure wish fulfillments, uncomplicated by the modifications in dreams of adults

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He doesn’t know what animals dream about but suspects they are also wish fulfillment

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Concludes by arguing that linguistic idioms can reveal a lot about the hidden meaning of dreams

Chapter 4: Distortion in Dreams -

His theory of wish fulfillment is based not on the manifest content of dreams but on their later content (the thoughts which are shown by the work of interpretation to lie behind dreams) - Even when surface level content of dreams is upsetting, the thoughts below the surface are still wish fulfillments

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Freud’s dream of Uncle Josef - In real life two professors recommended him for appointment for something but he decided not to get excited because he knew he might be passed over due to anti-Semitic sentiments in Vienna at the time - In the dream a friend R. is his uncle and appears changed, he conflated this friend with his uncle Josef, who had been imprisoned for criminal financial dealings - Freud looks for the unconscious association that brought his uncle and friend together and remembers a conversation he had with a friend N. - N had recently congratulated Freud on his nomination for professorship, Freud knew N had been passed over because a woman started legal proceedings against him, N assured Freud the accusation was false and a disgraceful

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attempt at blackmail Freud realizes the Uncle Josef in his dream represented both R and N, depicting each in a bad light: one as simpleton and other as criminal Wish fulfillment aspect is clear: by representing R and N badly, the dream tells Freud that even though his friends had been passed over that doesn’t mean he will too, after all he is good and they were simpleton/criminal

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Another aspect of the dream is a strong homosexual feeling of love for R, which he has never had towards either his uncle or the real friend R in real life - This affection was a dream distortion/concealing element: his dream thoughts contained slander against R so in order that he might not notice this the dream also presented affection towards R - Parallels to social situations: people display affection to conceal their dislike of someone else, especially to someone of higher power

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Dreams are shaped by two psychical forces that have different degrees of power, one constructing the wish expressed by the dream and the other exercising censorship

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How can distressing dreams be wish fulfillments? - The distressing content disguises something that is wished for - When the manifest content of the dream is distressing to us, the distressing content is actually a ruse to conceal the deeper content of the dream - For example, a patient had a dream where she wanted to host a supper party but wasn’t able to for a number of reasons - This patient had a conversation with a friend who wanted to be invited over for dinner, but the patient’s husband likes plump women so Freud is saying the dream is fulfilling the wish of not being able to feed the friend so she can’t get plump and attractive to the husband

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New thesis: a dream is a disguised fulfillment of a suppressed or repressed wish

Chapter 5: Material and Sources of Dreams -

Time to show us what dreams are made of

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Dreams show a clear preference for the impressions of immediately preceding days Dreams make their selection upon different principles from our waking memory, since they do not recall what is essential and important but what is subsidiary and unnoticed Dreams have at their disposal the earliest impressions of our childhood and bring up

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details from that period of life, which strike us as trivial and which in our waking state we believe them to have been long since forgotten -

All the above characteristics relate to the manifest content of dreams, and by contrast the latent content of dreams receive less attention

February 12th -

With the case of Anna O., we have the transition from the eye to the ear (talking cure) compared to Charcot’s photographs looking at the hysterics - Freud begins listening to what she is saying contrasted to what she is not saying or what she is alluding to - All her physical ailments are brought together with her narrative of her life (like father’s illness), realized that these ailments were due to psychological issues and not physical issues

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Theory of a fundamental bisexuality of all human beings - Defined by Fliess - Everyone has masculine and feminine qualities - Recognition that Freud himself was in need of treatment for hysteria symptoms

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The dream becomes the primary material for Freud to analyze, not only his patients but also in himself because that made it possible to wake up and jot down the dream, then later try to analyze it - The dream is the royal road to the unconscious...