What do our dreams mean? Do they actually reveal our deepest, unconscious desires?
In The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud writes that our dreams express unfulfilled wishes from our unconscious mind. Freud’s theory about dreams explains how these desires get distorted as they pass through our mental censor—appearing as symbols, condensed images, and displaced emotions.
Read on to discover why even nightmares might represent wish fulfillment and how scientists view Freud’s revolutionary ideas about our dreaming minds.
Freud’s Theory About Dreams
In our overview of Freud’s theory about dreams, we’ll look at how unconscious wishes manifest themselves in dreams, the distortions they go through to make it past the censor, how dreams handle emotions, and the meaning of nightmares.
Unconscious Wishes Express Themselves In Dreams
Freud posits that unfulfilled wishes from your unconscious mind express themselves in dreams. This is because, during sleep, your censor relaxes and becomes weaker than it is when you’re awake. Thus, the scenarios of your dreams, no matter how bizarre, represent things that you want to happen. Furthermore, according to Freud, this is what happens every time you dream—all dreams can be interpreted as fulfilling some unconscious wish.
(Shortform note: Recent research on dreams has led to updated theories that attribute dreams to physical, neurological activity rather than psychological insight. Some neurologists argue that dreams are our attempt to interpret random electrical signals fired in our brains during REM sleep. This activation synthesis hypothesis is skeptical of the idea that our dreams contain important psychological meaning at all. Others propose, under the memory consolidation hypothesis, that dreams are how our brains store long-term memories: During dreams, our memories reactivate so that the brain can reorganize them and make them stable for long-term storage. This explains why recent novel experiences are often repeated in dreams.)
The Unconscious Desires In Dreams Are Distorted
Freud argues that, in dreams, your unconscious wishes can express themselves only in a veiled or distorted way. This is because your censor doesn’t completely disappear when you sleep—it just becomes weaker. Your unconscious desires can then get around your censor by expressing themselves using materials (thoughts and memories) available from your preconscious. This is why, Freud explains, dreams typically include some connection to recent experiences, usually from the previous day—those memories are easily available in the preconscious.
(Shortform note: Research into neuroscience may support the general idea of a “weakened censor” during sleep. Neuroimaging studies have revealed that during REM sleep (when most dreaming occurs), there is reduced activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—a brain region associated with executive functions and behavioral inhibition. This means that dreamers are less capable of inhibiting or repressing their thoughts and emotions. However, this decrease in functioning may also be responsible for the “distortions” of dreams (as opposed to a subconscious attempt to get around the censor), since this region of the brain is also heavily involved in logic and reasoning—reduced function during sleep leads to more illogical imagery.)
Latent and Manifest Content
According to Freud, a dream can be divided into two layers: the “manifest content” and the “latent content.”
- The manifest content of a dream is the surface level content: the events of the dream that you can remember when you wake up.
- The latent content consists of your repressed wishes that are trying to express themselves through the manifest content.
For example, an unconscious wish for recognition (latent content) might manifest in a dream about winning a race using elements from a TV show watched the day before (manifest content).
Dream Work
Freud theorizes that your mind engages in several processes to rearrange the latent content from your unconscious into the manifest content of your dreams. He calls these processes “dream work.” They include: symbolism, condensation, displacement, and secondary revision.
1) Symbolism
Freud writes that your unconscious operates primarily through images, not language. Therefore, it expresses abstract concepts, desires, and conflicts through symbols and metaphors in dreams. For example, a dream about traveling may represent a desire to move in a new direction in life. While Freud documents many recurring motifs in his patients, he notes that symbols often draw from each dreamer’s unique life and vary from person to person.
2) Condensation
Through the process of condensation, your mind combines multiple thoughts, experiences, and strands of symbolic meaning into a single dream element or situation. According to Freud, condensation allows the same dream imagery to represent different ideas and wishes at once. For example, a dream figure representing your mother could simultaneously connote ideas about nurturing, authority, and disapproval—all of which may stem from distinct childhood memories.
3) Displacement
Freud writes that in displacement, your unconscious disguises the true sources of your repressed desires by transferring them to a more acceptable symbolic substitute. This protects you from directly confronting the anxiety-provoking root of those feelings.
Let’s say that you feel angry toward your boss. Your censor represses these feelings because you can’t express them at work. Dream work then transfers your anger to a more acceptable object: For example, you may have a dream about being angry at a mailman who keeps stealing your packages. This transference simultaneously fulfills your wish of expressing anger and your wish of staying on good terms with your boss.
4) Secondary Revision
To further disguise underlying unconscious meanings and make your dream narrative more coherent, Freud suggests that your mind imposes order and logic onto raw disjointed dream images. This “secondary revision” process strings together dream scenes into a superficially meaningful sequence or story, further obscuring your dream’s true source in irrational primary unconscious thoughts.
Affective Content
Freud writes that not every aspect of latent content is distorted through dream work. He posits that emotions experienced in dreams—which he dubs “affective content”—often remain undisguised. He argues that this is because feelings are harder to distort and reshape than thoughts or memories. While objects, settings, and even people can be symbolic stand-ins for something else, intense emotions like anger, anxiety, fear, or sadness, are often genuine feelings related to your unconscious wishes.
(Shortform note: Neurological research may shed light on why we often experience intense emotions during dreams. Brain imaging has found that the amygdala—the part of the brain responsible for fear, anxiety, and aggression—is especially active during dreams. Further research has found that people with damage to the left half of their amygdala experienced fewer intense emotions during dreams and shorter dreams in general.)
Nightmares and Unpleasant Dreams
If all dreams show us the fulfillment of our unconscious wishes, then what about unpleasant dreams? If you dream of being chased by a bear, does that mean that you want to be chased by a bear?
Not necessarily. Recall that your censor represses wishes that would otherwise instill feelings of guilt, shame, tension, or other forms of emotional distress. These negative emotions then become part of the affective content (the emotional content) of your dream. Freud argues that when that happens, a dream that fulfills a forbidden wish will feel unpleasant. Furthermore, if you feel ashamed about an unconscious desire, you may also want to punish yourself for your unacceptable wishes. Therefore, unpleasant and nightmarish scenarios in your dreams may actually fulfill an unconscious wish for punishment.
| Modern Perspectives on Nightmares Since Freud’s time, scientists have continued to struggle with the question of why humans have nightmares. While there is no scientific consensus, researchers have put forth several theories. Here we’ll discuss three views and explain how they relate to Freud’s perspective. Threat simulation theory maintains that nightmares serve an evolutionary purpose. During a nightmare, the brain “rehearses” for life-threatening situations, thereby becoming better equipped to face dangers when they arise in waking life. This runs counter to Freud’s view by suggesting that nightmares are an inevitable part of our biology rather than the product of repression. Some neuroscientists theorize that nightmares are a response to psychological stress. This view draws on research showing that people with post-traumatic stress disorder experience nightmares at a higher rate than others. Relatedly, other scientists argue that nightmares help us to regulate stressful and unpleasant emotions. By processing these feelings during sleep, you decrease the impact they have throughout the day. Both of these theories align with Freud’s view that nightmares are caused by unpleasant feelings, but they don’t necessarily require those emotions to be repressed. |
