Chapter Commentary of The Interpretation of Dreams - Study Guide by Sigmund Freud

e.g. retinal sensations – 'hallucinations' (independent of external stimulation) often correlate with dreams of abstract animal forms as our brain tries to accommodate them. (3) Internal (organic) physical stimuli – e.g. anxiety dreams in diseases of the heart and lungs. These dreams can be stimulated by two classes of sensation – general and specific. The latter being subdivided into muscular; pneumatic; gastric; sexual; and peripheral sensations. (4) Purely psychical sources of excitation - e.g. dreams of activities from the waking day, especially things that have been of interest in the waking state.

Freud argues these are insufficient to explain the entire aetiology of dreams and that many components of a dream will still remain whose sources are untraceable. Hence, Freud argues for another source of psychic excitation.

D. Why Dreams are forgotten after waking

Freud discusses the phenomena of dreams and the remarkable ability of remembering them both over many years, and of forgetting them, despite an awareness of having been dreaming.

Strumpell examines the reasons for forgetting dreams in detail. (a) Their images are too weak (b) They only occur once (recurring dreams are better remembered). (c) Confused and disorderly sequences of events, as those found in dreams are recalled with more difficulty than associated, coherent sequences. (d) Interference of our attention on waking with external sensations, would hinder any attempts to recall dreams. (e) People normally take little interest in and assign little importance to their dreams, and this reflects itself in their ability to recall them.

Freud then discusses, given how much we are prone to forget, how can we be sure that our memory does not falsify what it retains? Yet since the only source is our memory, no objective test of our accuracy of recall is possible, therefore what value can these recollections possess in the first place?

E. The Distinguishing Psychological Characteristics of Dreams

Freud discusses our perceptions of the concept of dreams. They seem to have 'come' to us from some alien source, yet we assume that they are a phenomena of our own mental activity. Dreams transform ideas into hallucinations, which we accept as not just a thought, but as objective perceptions, despite the passivity induced by sleep.

Within dreams, time and space are abolished. During sleep the psyche isolates itself from he outside world – yet not completely, or else one would never awaken. Is this annihilation of psychic values, responsible for the impression of 'alienation' and strangeness that accompanies memories of dreams? The suspension (or at least reduction) of psychic activity and higher intellectual activities, but constant functioning of the memory, also contribute to the distinctions between one's behaviour and speech in a dream with one's behaviour and speech in everyday life. Others see the peculiarities of dreams as representative of primitive stages of development in mental life (Havelock Ellis). Can we explain the random connections between idea on dreams in terms of these connections happening so obscurely in the soul that we observe a leap of the imagination when in fact there is a connection in our train of mental processes.

These views contrast those of philosophers from the previous centuries, who preferred the romantic interpretation of dreams as 'freeing the mind to fulfill its creative potential' and inspire, yet Freud argues that in their day, scientific methods have shown that dreams may resolve doubts and problems and carry intellectual activities of the day to a novel point, however the interpretations of them remain disputed.

F. The Moral sense in Dreams

Here Freud examines the extent to which moral dispositions and feelings from everyday, waking life extend into one's dreams. Again writers are shown to be divided into those that assert that dreams include no input from our moral thought, against those who claim that the moral nature of an individual persists into his dreams.

Freud, argues that our ordinary experience of dreams is enough to confirm the former argument, with most literature supporting him, citing example of weak judgment, uninhibited sexual behaviour, and ethical indifference. However the critics of this (Hildebrandt, Schopenhauer and Fischer) argue that, as alarming as it may seem, one's subjective desires, feelings and affects are mirrored in one's dreams.

In spite of these two groups' conflicting views of dream-morality, the question remains of explaining the origin of immoral dreams. Two sources have been proposed – (i) the normal functions of psychic life (ii) the somatic influences on this life. Both groups argue for a special psychic source for immorality in dreams, and therefore one can disown full responsibility for dreams.

Freud contends that obtrusive, unacceptable thoughts are regular occurrences amongst all men, and those that are suppressed by day, are expressed in dreams by night. Thus Freud concludes that whilst the contents of a dream may be phantastical, one's feelings towards these events are representative of our true, undisguised selves.

G. Theories of Dreaming and its Function

Freud describes the individual theories of dreams, pointing out that their main distinctions were in terms of the importance they assigned to various characteristics of dreams. He also alludes to the possibility that a theory may describe no specific function for dreams, yet he praises those that do as more appropriate.

He describes