Sigmund Freud and Dreams

Interpretation of Dreams

Using Freud's dream analyses and his work with hysteria, in relation to the theory of infantile sexuality, one reads of the fluid interchanges between subject and object, text and body that form part of both analytic and literary experience.  Free associations and dream analyses are said, by psychoanalysts, to be the royal road into the unconscious mind. The doctrine of the unconscious mind was advanced by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) in his early writings, especially in the Interpretation of Dreams.  There are descriptions of the Freudian unconscious from many different texts: Essentially, then, the psychoanalytic [Freudian] model shows us an individual dominated by instinctual biological drives and by unconscious desires and motives.  The Hindu concept of man rests on the basic thesis that he is a layered being.  Lacan notes that Freud's dream analyses, and most of his analyses of the unconscious symbolism used by his patients, depend on word-play--on puns, associations, etc. that are chiefly verbal.

The rational method

Further, Freud’s psychoanalytic method is the only rational method of treatment, of which dream analyses is an important technique.  Sigmond Freud was one of the most influential dream interpreters of this century. His beliefs about dreams dominated dream analyses for nearly a century.  Freud was originally influenced by Charcot, but soon lost interest in hypnosis, and instead relied upon techniques such as dream analyses and free association; however, he retained an interest in hysteria and phobias, and has achieved much in connection with anxiety disorders.