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

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VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM-PROCESSES

Having thus far been concerned with the secret meaning of dreams and the methods of discovering it and with the means employed by the dream-work for concealing it, we now look at the examples where the dream raises no problem of interpretation, but nevertheless retains the essential characteristics that differentiate dreams so strikingly from waking life. Thus we can see the incompleteness of our psychology of dreams. SO Freud begins to set up a number of hypotheses to probe the mental structure of the apparatus of the mind and the forces operating in it, using the phenomena at his disposal.

A. The forgetting of dreams

Despite this work on the interpretation of dreams, it remains a fact that most of us are inclined to forget our dreams, either as a whole, or bit by bit throughout the course of a day. Freud proposes that this s because, at night mental resistance to a dream is weaker, but not all as it manages to distort details in the structure of the dream. Furthermore how can we be sure that what we do recall was actually in the dream? Freud argues that any fabrications in recall, can be isolated by repeated recall by patients, and hence topics that are repeatedly altered can be isolated as the fabrications and distortions of recall.

In summary, Freud argues that dreams are forgotten in waking life, because of increased endopsychic censorship, which is reduced in the state of sleep, to make the formation of dreams possible. And that fresh daytime material inserts itself into the interpretative chains, but is not problematic, since it is no more than the distorting activities which have been in operation since the dream's formation

B. Regression

Freud defines 'regression' as the returning to things that are together older in time, more primitive in form and perceptual in nature. This regression, wherever it may occur, is an effect of a resistance opposing the progress of a thought into consciousness along the normal path, and of a simultaneous attraction exercised upon the thought by the presence of memories possessing great sensory force. All of this is accentuated by the fact that dreams are frequently an example of regression to the dreamer's earliest condition, a revival of his childhood.

C. Wish fulfillment

Freud acknowledges that our daytime thinking is varied – concerning judgments, inferences, denials, expectations, intentions etc. and therefore has to defend his argument that despite this, at night, it is restricted to the production of wishes alone.

He divides dreams into two groups: Those that are openly wish fulfillments and others in which the wish-fulfillment is unrecognisable and often disguised by every possible means. In these latter dreams, dream-censorship can be said to be at work. A further distinction can then be made: The undistorted wishful dreams are found principally in children, although short frankly wishful dreams can be found in adults to some extent.

Freud then cites three sources of these wishes: 1) The wish may have been aroused during the day and for external reasons may not have been satisfied, so is left to be dealt with at night. 2) The wish may have arisen during the day but been repudiated – so the dream is left to be dealt with at night, but because of repression. 3) The wish may have no connection with daytime life and be one of those wishes which only emerges from the suppressed part of the mind and become active in us at night.

Furthermore, Freud did not deny that unsolved problems and worries can also carry over into our sleep, and cites five sources which they might do so: 1) What has not been carried to a conclusion during the day owing to some chance hindrance 2) What has not been dealt with owing to the insufficiency of our intellectual power – what is unsolved. 3) What has been rejected and suppressed during the daytime 4) What has been set in action by our unconscious during the day. 5) Daytime impressions which are indifferent and for that reason not been dealt with.

Freud argues that anxiety dreams and unpleasurable dreams can be seen to be wish- fulfillment in a similar way to straightforward dreams of satisfaction. However unpleasurable dreams can be 'punishment dreams' and often occur when the day's residues are thoughts of a satisfying nature but the satisfaction which they express is a forbidden one. So, the trace of these thoughts that occurs in the manifest dream is their opposite, i.e. a punitive wish derived from the repressed wish.

Freud then related these findings to neuroses and hysterical symptoms, which he proposes develop 'only where the fulfillments of two opposing wishes, arising each from a different psychical system, are able to converge in a single expression.

D. Arousal by dreams – the Function of dreams – Anxiety dreams

Freud proposes that the function of dreaming is to bring back under the control of the preconscious the excitation in the unconscious which has been left free, and in doing so discharge the unconscious excitation, serving it as a safety valve and at the same time preserving the sleep of the preconscious in return for a small expenditure of waking activity. So it constitutes a compromise – servicing two systems, fulfilling the two wishes in so far as they are compatible with each other. But Freud adds that the basic role of dreams can be seen as the guardian of sleep.

Anxiety dreams are also wish fulfillment because it can be seen