PDF Summary:The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1900, revolutionized the understanding of the human mind and laid the foundation for psychoanalysis. In this groundbreaking work, Freud presents his theory that dreams are expressions of repressed wishes and desires that can reveal your deepest motivations, conflicts, and psychological issues. He also offers a method to analyze these nocturnal visions and uncover their hidden meanings.

Freud’s work on dream interpretation was born from his clinical experience treating patients, and it quickly became a cornerstone of psychoanalytic practice. While some of Freud’s claims have been debated over the years, his insights about the significance of dreams and the unconscious mind continue to influence psychology and popular culture. By learning to interpret dreams using Freud’s methods, you can gain valuable self-understanding and insight into your psychological problems. This guide will explore Freud’s revolutionary ideas and their lasting impact on our understanding of the human psyche. Throughout, our commentary will compare Freud’s ideas to modern research and alternative traditions of dream interpretation.

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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.

(Shortform note: The idea that dreams represent their meaning through symbolism predates the field of Western psychology, appearing in many of the world’s oldest books on dream interpretation. Duke Zhou's Book of Dreams, from China in the 12th century BCE, provides a dictionary of dream symbols and their possible meanings. An Egyptian papyrus from the 13th century BCE divides a list of dream symbols into “good” and “bad” omens. Finally, the Oneirocritica, a Greek manual on interpreting dreams from the 2nd century CE, draws a distinction between “direct” and “allegorical” dreams, suggesting that dreams can be either literal or symbolic.)

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.

(Shortform note: Freudian ideas have influenced fields outside of psychology, including criticism of literature and media. The idea of condensation is especially useful when analyzing media, since symbols and words often carry multiple meanings at once. For example, some scholars argue that rhetoric becomes more impactful when using words that condense multiple meanings and associations together.)

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.

(Shortform note: According to some psychologists, displacement commonly occurs outside of dreams as well. When someone feels an intense emotion that they can’t direct at its actual cause, they may redirect it toward a target they find more acceptable. For example, someone who is bullied may find someone weaker to lash out at instead of standing up to their bully, expressing their anger without the risk of confrontation.)

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.

(Shortform note: Researchers have found that all memories, not just dreams, can change when you try to remember them. This is because when we remember an experience, our brains actively reconstruct our memories by taking selective cues and then using imagination to fill in the gaps.)

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.

Part 3: Common Latent Content of Dreams

While every dream and every dreamer is unique, Freud argues that there are common unconscious wishes that appear in dreams more frequently than others. In this section, we’ll explore Freud’s theories about the sexual content of dreams and about early childhood desires that stay with people into adulthood.

Sexual Wishes in Dreams

Freud argues that most of the unconscious desires expressed through dreams are sexual in nature. Recall that dreams arise out of the tension between an unfulfilled wish and the censor that filters out unacceptable thoughts and feelings. Freud states that sexual desires are heavily subject to repression because of the many religious and social taboos that encourage people to view their own sexual desires as unacceptable. Thus, while not all desires expressed in dreams are sexual, Freud asserts that most of them are.

For example, a dream featuring a steady rhythmic activity such as rowing a boat or riding a horse could be a symbolic stand-in for the act of having sex. Meanwhile, male genitals may be symbolically represented by long objects such as pencils or bread sticks, while female genitals may be represented by containers such as suitcases or boxes.

Dreams About Sex Itself

While not all psychologists agree with Freud’s view that seemingly mundane dreams are often secretly about sex, research has confirmed that explicitly sexual dreams are quite common, with 85% of men and 75% of women reporting they’ve had at least one erotic dream in their lives, though the frequency and subject matter of such dreams varies by gender, sex drive, and relationship situation.

For instance, people with high sex drives tend to have sexual dreams more often. Women are more likely than men to dream about their current partner, while men are more likely to dream about a casual acquaintance. Finally, both men and women who are unsatisfied with their current relationship are more likely to have a sexual dream about someone outside of their relationship.

Freud’s Theories of Childhood Desire and Development

Freud also asserts that many of the unconscious desires expressed through dreams are left over from childhood. He maintains that childhood wishes are strong and thus leave a deep impression on our minds that can last for a lifetime. Furthermore, he contends that many childhood wishes are undeveloped versions of the adult desires we grow into as we age. In this section, we’ll explore how these childhood desires develop from family dynamics to become common themes in dreams.

(Shortform note: Modern research supports Freud’s general view that our childhood experiences have the power to shape our feelings and behaviors as adults. Studies have found that children raised in emotionally supportive homes are more likely to succeed in education and to form satisfying relationships. Meanwhile, children who suffer adverse childhood experiences such as neglect or abuse are more likely to develop anxiety or depression and struggle with forming healthy relationships.)

Desire for Opposite-Sex Parent

Freud argues that a child’s yearning for closeness with their opposite-sex parent represents an early, rudimentary form of sexuality that evolves into adult sexuality as the child matures. As a child grows and develops, these feelings are typically repressed and redirected toward more appropriate objects of desire. However, Freud contends that this early experience of desire for a parent shapes your later romantic relationships and sexual preferences.

How Parent/Child Relationships Impact Romantic Relationships

While most modern psychologists are critical of Freud’s theories about childhood attraction to their opposite-sex parent, many support the idea that child/parent relationships can have a profound impact on romantic relationships later in life.

In particular, attachment theory maintains that people have different styles of attachment shaped by their parents. For example, when parents are unavailable and fail to meet their child’s needs, a child may develop an ambivalent attachment style characterized by feeling anxious that their parents will abandon them. People with ambivalent attachment tend to feel more insecure and jealous in their romantic relationships, constantly worrying that their partner might leave.

Furthermore, when parents are abusive, a child may develop an avoidant attachment style. People with avoidant attachment styles tend to feel uncomfortable with intimacy and may avoid romantic relationships altogether.

Rivalry with Same-Sex Parent and Siblings

Freud posits that an undeveloped sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent can make children view their same-sex parent as a rival, potentially causing feelings of resentment and antagonism. This may result in an undeveloped wish for the death of their same-sex parent. Freud emphasizes that this is not a wish for literal death, since children lack a mature understanding of death, but simply an undeveloped desire for the rival parent to disappear so that they may enjoy the complete attention and affection of their opposite-sex parent. For instance, a young boy might fantasize about his father being absent, allowing him exclusive access to his mother’s attention.

Freud explains that this desire for connection with the opposite-sex parent can also lead to rivalry with siblings, as a child may view them as competitors for the affection of their opposite-sex parent. This can result in a primitive “wish for death” for their siblings as well.

(Shortform note: In The Moral Animal, Robert Wright argues that children have a natural tendency to view both siblings and parents as rivals, but not necessarily for the reasons Freud presents. He asserts that children evolved to compete with their siblings for their parents’ attention, since historically, children who received less attention were less likely to survive. Furthermore, he argues that this pits the interest of parents against those of their children, as parents have an evolutionary incentive to be equally invested in all their children. However, this theory doesn’t necessarily assert that children respond differently to their opposite-sex parent than their same-sex parent.)

Why These Desires Influence Dreams

According to Freud, childhood sexual wishes play an outsize role in our dreams because they’re so heavily repressed. While any sexual feeling may be repressed, attraction to your opposite-sex parent is especially unacceptable because it’s viewed as incestuous, while a wish for the death of family members—parents or siblings—is unacceptable because it’s seen as murderous and immoral. Thus, these desires are banished to the unconscious, where they’re only capable of expressing themselves in dreams.

Incest, Abuse, and Challenges to Freud’s Theory

According to anthropologists, virtually all cultures prohibit sex between a parent and a child. Despite these prohibitions, incest has been recorded throughout history and across cultures, with paternal incest—fathers sexually abusing their daughters—being the most common. While this opposite-sex pairing may support part of Freud’s theory, the difference in power suggests that it is the parent, not the child, whose desire drives the behavior.

According to some scholars, this dynamic may have inadvertently influenced Freud’s theories about childhood sexuality. Prior to his theory about childhood sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent, Freud developed an alternative theory linking neuroses to childhood sexual abuse, based on his patients’ accounts of sexual encounters in childhood. However, he later changed his mind, believing that these accounts were fantasies or dreams rather than memories of abuse, and that his patients were fantasizing about sexual encounters with their parents as children.

This has led some scholars to argue that Freud may have misinterpreted real accounts of his patients’ sexual abuse as dreams and then developed his theories of childhood sexuality based on these misinterpretations.

Part 4: How to Interpret a Dream

Now that we’ve discussed Freud’s theory of mind, his understanding of what happens when you dream, and some of the most common dream themes found in dreams, we can explore his method for interpreting your dreams. Freud argues that all dreams are meaningful, and that by following his method, any dream can be traced back to the latent content of your unconscious desires.

Freud’s Method for Analyzing and Interpreting a Dream

We’ve distilled Freud’s methods for interpreting dreams into four steps.

Step 1: Write Down Your Dream

First, Freud suggests writing down your dream in detail. The more details you remember, the better: Because every detail in your dream is the expression of unconscious desires, every detail in your dream is meaningful, even ones that might seem arbitrary or unimportant. He advises that you also note what emotions you experienced during the dream, as these are less subject to distortion than thoughts or memories.

How to Get Better at Remembering Dreams

Freud’s first step requires you to remember your dreams in detail, which can be hard to do. However, psychologists offer several tips to improve your dream recall.

• Write down your dreams as soon as you wake up. You might forget important details if you wait until after you’ve started your day.

• Wake up slowly, without an alarm. You’re more likely to remember dreams if you transition into consciousness gradually.

• Keep a consistent sleep schedule. People who go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day are better able to wake up without an alarm, and thus have an easier time remembering dreams.

Step 2: Relax Your Mind

Before you begin interpreting your dream, Freud explains that it’s important to relax your mind and try to suspend your personal judgments of yourself. This is because your censor may try to resist the desires you uncover in your latent content. By suspending self-judgment, you’re more open to uncovering parts of yourself that your censor may resist. In his psychotherapeutic practice, Freud enabled this by having patients lie down on a couch and close their eyes to put them into a calmer state of mind while discussing their dreams.

(Shortform note: Suspending your judgments of yourself can be a challenge. If you struggle with this step, psychologists recommend that you break the habit of binary thinking. Binary thinking occurs when you see a trait as either all good or all bad. Some psychologists argue that when you judge yourself harshly, you’re likely thinking that your trait or desire is all bad. By recognizing that your traits and desires are a mixture of good and bad, you’ll be more open to self-discovery through the process of dreams.)

Step 3: Uncover Associations in the Details

Once you’re in a relaxed state of mind, go back through the details of your dreams one by one. Identify what your personal association is to each detail. These will be memories, thoughts, and feelings that could relate to something recent or to something more distant, like your childhood. Your associations will be personal and idiosyncratic, since each detail comes from your own mind. According to Freud, they’ll be manifestations of unfulfilled wishes trying to fulfill themselves through the dream.

(Shortform note: According to some experts, when you connect the details of your dreams to the details of your life, you’re using associative thinking, which is a skill you can develop through intentional practice. To improve your associative thinking, they recommend activities that relax your mind, such as meditation, exercise, or taking a walk, as studies have shown that relaxed minds are better at forming connections. They also recommend learning new things, having new experiences, and meeting new people, since these all give your mind more material to work with. Lastly, they recommend practicing associative thinking directly through writing, either by keeping a journal or by writing out your thoughts in a stream of consciousness.)

Step 4: Analyze Your Dream

Now that you have a list of personal associations with the details of your dream, look for common themes, patterns, and preoccupations, as well as instances of symbolism, condensation, or transference. Finally, ask yourself what wishes are fulfilled by this dream. According to Freud, your dream is motivated by desires that you’ve kept hidden from yourself, but which nonetheless play a very important role in life. By analyzing your dreams through Freud’s technique, you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and recognize the hidden motivations that guide you.

(Shortform note: According to the psychologist Carl Jung, dream analysis may reveal ways to restore balance in your waking life. He argues that dreams provide compensation for the qualities that you are missing to become your full self. Someone who is very passive in their waking life may dream of being assertive, whereas someone who feels isolated may dream of forming deep, intimate connections. While these can be interpreted as “wishes” in accordance with Freud’s theory, Jung says the underlying motivation is a desire for personal growth rather than a repressed sexual urge.)