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Freud believed that dreams had the function of providing latent content that could not be easily discovered by the individual. He believed that the best way for an individual to discover the underlying meaning of dreams was to ignore the natural reaction of censoring thoughts and allow oneself to focus on the associations that can be inferred from the dream. According to Freud, in order to interpret dreams one must be able to think and remember in a visual manner and to understand the unconscious symbols that present themselves in dreams. Interpretation of dreams requires translating the visual imagery of the dream into linguistic symbols. The technique most often employed by Freud in dream analysis was free association, which seeks to uncover the underlying meaning in the dream. Freud utilized free association as a manner by which latent dreams could be manifested. In this method the client is encouraged to look at the thoughts and emotions generate by the dream and to allow the mind to continue to make associations to other thoughts and emotions or whatever appears in the consciousness (Weitz, 1976).
Free associations can be developed from any point in a dream. The individual is asked to describe their dream thoroughly and they are then directed by the analyst to focus on specific aspects and build associations from there (Weitz, 1976). This process continues until all manifest content has been explored and the analyst believes that latent is also fully discovered (Weitz, 1976). The analyst records each chain of associations and help the client develop an understanding of their experiences with the goal of exploring and organizing unknown aspects of the unconscious (Weitz, 1976). This process can be quite lengthy as after the recording is completed the information needs to be analyzed.
Freud utilized his own dream as an example of how interpretation works. He was able to separate the critical elements in the dream and utilize the free association to draw connections between the individual aspects (Weitz, 1976). This is common for Freud as much of his work was the direct result of his interpretation of his personal experiences and thought processes. He believed that the level of activity that...
At times dreams that were believed to be negative did not end up being warnings at all but rather unfulfilled desires.
Freud believed that this method was scientific in nature and interpretations were logically drawn from the material that is presented to the analyst (Michael, 2008). He believed that conclusions were scientifically uncovered and believed his method to be accurate and not the result of analyst subjectivity (Michael, 2008). The manifested and latent material is presented and the analyst aids the individual in finding the most plausible explanation for the symbols (Tauber, 2009).
Freud's contributions on the topic of dreams had widespread influence in the study of dreams although and psychoanalysis. Many experts have been skeptical of the validity of these theories as well as the applicability to practice and the human experience. Freud believed that dreams played an integral role in psychoanalysis. In his theory dreams provided access to information that is not readily available and provides yet one more opportunity to conduct analytic inquiry into the personal psyche (Weitz, 1976). Despite efforts of scientists to discredit the notion that dreams can be interpreted, Freud argued that there was meaning present in the content of dreams (Schneider, 2010). Many theorists have continued this interpretation of dreams and derived their own theories from the work of Freud.
References
Blum, H.P. (2000). The writing and interpretation of dreams. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 17(4), 651-666. doi: 10.1037//0736-9735.17.4.651
Micheal, M. (2008). On the validity of Freud's dream interpretations. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology & Biomedical Sciences, 39, 52-64.
Schneider, J. (2010). From Freud's dream-work to Bion's work of dreaming: The changing conception of dreaming in psychoanalytic theory. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 91(3), 521-540.
Tauber, A.I. (2009). Freud's dreams of reason: the Kantian structure of psychoanalysis. History of the Human Sciences, 22(4), 1-29.
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