Freuds Psychoanalysis of the Interpretations of Dreams :: Freudian Psychology Essays

Dreams have been objects of boundless fascination and mystery for humankind since the beginning of term. These nocturnal acute images seem to arise from some source other than our ordinary conscious mind. They contain a mixture of elements from our own personal identity, which we recognize as familiar along with a quality of others in the dream images that carries a sense of the strange and eerie. The bizarre and nonsensical characters and plots in dreams point to deeper meanings and contain rational and insightful comments on our waking situations and emotional experiences. The ancients thought that dreams were messages from the gods. The cornerstone of Sigmund Freuds infamous psychoanalysis is the interpretation of dreams. Freud called dream-interpretation the via reggia, or the royal road to the unconscious, and it is his theory of dreams that has best stood the test of time over a period of more than seventy years (Many of Freuds other theories have been disputed in recent years). Freud reportedly admired Aristotles assertion that woolgather is the occupation of the mind during sleep (Fine, 1973). It was perhaps the use of the term activity that Freud most appreciated in this brief definition for, as his understanding of the dynamics of dreaming increased, so did the impression of ceaseless mental activity differing in quality from that of ordinary waking life (Fine, 1973). In fact, the quality of mental activity during sleep differed so radically from what we take to be the essence of mental functioning that Freud coined the term Kingdom of the Illogical to describe that realm of the human psyche. This proficiency of dream-interpretation allowed him to penetrate (Fine, 1973). We dream every single night whether it stays with us or not. It is a time when our minds bring together material which is kept unconnected during out waking hours (Anonymous, 1991). As Erik Craig said while we dream we entertain a wider range of human possibilities then when awake the open house of dreaming is less guarded (Craig, 1992).