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

the interior of the body.

Others Scherner (1861) and Volkelt (1875) formed an estimate of the gaps in somatic explanations of dreams. – seeking to regard dreaming as essentially mental. They argue that the imagination is free from the shackles of daytime and seeks to give symbolic representations of the nature of the organ from which the stimulus arises and of the nature of the stimulus itself. This prompts the question as to why should the mind do this, though?

A particular criticism of Scherner and his symbolization of stimuli, is that these stimuli are present at all times and it is generally held that the mind is more accessible to them during sleep than when awake. So, why doesn't the mind dream all through the night continuously and of all the organs. May such dream activity needs special excitations from the eyes, ears, teeth, intestines etc. However more likely is the idea that special motives for interpretations of these stimuli may be temporarily operative which direct the attention to visceral sensations that are uniformly present at all times – but this is beyond the scope of Scherner's theory.

Material of dreams is a collection of psychical residues and memory traces (with a preference for recent and infantile material), so they use 'currently active' material (an indefinable quality). Therefore Freud argues that if fresh information in the form of bodily sensations (of the 3 three types) are added during sleep, they are united with the other currently active psychical material to furnish what is used for the wish-fulfillment construction of the dream. This combination need not occur – as there is more than one way of reacting to a stimulus during sleep. When it does occur, it suggests that it has been possible to find ideational material to serve as the content of the dream of such a sort as to be able to represent both kinds of source of the dream – the somatic and the psychical. However the essential nature of the dream remains the fulfillment of a wish, no matter in what way the expression of that wish-fulfillment is determined by the currently active material.

Freud therefore pictures a combination of individual factors, physiological and accidental, produced by the circumstances of the moment, determining the behaviour of a person in particular cases of comparatively intense objective stimulation during sleep. According to his habitual or accidental depth of his sleep he will either suppress the stimulus, so his sleep is not interrupted or it will compel him to wake up or encourage an attempt to overcome the stimulus by weaving it into a dream. Therefore it follows that external objective stimuli will find expression in dreams with greater or less frequency in on person than in another (Freud confesses that he is biased, being a very heavy sleeper himself).

He concludes with the statement that 'Dreams are the guardians of sleep and not its disturbers', i.e. all dreams serve the purpose of prolonging sleep instead of waking up.

In Freud's opinion therefore, somatic sources of stimulation during sleep (unless of unusual intensity) contribute similarly to the formation of the dreams as do recent but indifferent impressions. They are brought into help the formation of the dream if they fit appropriately with the ideational content derived from the dream's psychical sources, but otherwise not.

D. Typical dreams

Freud observes that, whilst each person is free to construct his dream-world according to his own idiosyncratic experiences, there are also a number of dreams that almost everyone has dreamt alike, and presumably arise from the same source in every case, so could illuminate the sources of dreams

(a) Embarrassing dreams of being naked

The embarrassment of the dreamer and the indifference of the onlookers, - such as the contradictions found commonly in dreams. The indifference of onlookers has been the result of wish- fulfillment, whereas some force has led to the retention of the other features. From analyses of neurotics, and the context in which these dreams appear, Freud is certain that they are based upon memories from earliest childhood. When we look back at this unashamed period of childhood (where nudity was indeed fun and liberating rather than shameful) it seems to us paradise. Thus dreams of being naked are dreams of exhibiting, the core lying in the dreamer himself, as he is at the present time, and the persons in front of whom the dreamer feels ashamed. Such feelings of being inhibited, representing a conflict of will, are addressed later (Chapter 6 (c)).

(b) Dreams of the death of persons of whom the dreamer is fond

There are two classes of these types of dreams. Those in which the dreamer is unaffected by grief, and awakens astonished at his lack of feeling, and those in which the dreamer feels deeply pained by the death and may even weep in his sleep. First type are by no means 'typical'.

However the second type of dream – the meaning of their content is a wish that the person in question may die. Freud then tries to defend this assertion in face of inevitable rebellion. He reserves that this wish may not be for that person's death at the present time.

He looks to childhood for more evidence for these claims. Since children are completely egotistic, he claims that they strive ruthlessly to satisfy their needs, especially against their prime rivals – their siblings. Therefore he argues that many people who love their siblings harbour ill wishes against them in their unconscious, dating from earlier times and these are capable