Freudian Dream Analysis: Id, Ego, and Dream Work

The Dream Narrative

The dream I have chosen to analyze is one I have had several times over the past few years. It begins with me in the kitchen, preparing food for dinner and looking out the window. The backyard is filled with flowers and grass, but there is a clearing through which I can see a long way into the distance. Through that clearing, far away, I see several tornadoes that appear to be coming straight for the house.

I become instantly panicked and my stomach goes into knots. I watch them for several seconds, trying to determine which way they are headed. There are four of them in a line, and they are getting closer.

I begin racing through the house trying to locate my loved ones. I find them and begin directing them to safety; however, the problem is that I am petrified I will choose the wrong place to send them. We all race around the house. First I open a closet and we all push inside. We can hear the wind outside getting stronger, but I am afraid the closet will not be sturdy enough. So we all race out of the closet, and everyone is looking for a place where we can hide together. I look out the window and see that the tornadoes are terrifyingly close — bearing down on our backyard.

We spot what appears to be a basement, even though part of it is above ground. Once inside, we cannot agree on where exactly to hide. Do we go under the wooden staircase? Do we press against the tall brick wall that makes up the garage area? They all ask me what to do, and I direct them to various spots but keep changing my mind out of fear that I am choosing the wrong place and those I love will die when the tornadoes hit.

Suddenly the storm is upon us. I throw myself over my loved ones and somehow manage to cover them all, with enough arm span to grab the carpet beneath us. I hold onto the carpet with everything I have as the tornado tries to rip us off the floor and carry us away. The tornadoes pass and we all jump up. I am overcome with relief — crying at the realization that I somehow managed to save them. We look outside and see the same four tornadoes coming back again, and the whole process starts over. I wake up just as we are once again panicking about where to hide.

Several recurring details are worth noting. Every time I have this dream, the house is completely decorated in cedar wood tongue-and-groove paneling, yet I have never lived in a wood-paneled house. I am always cutting carrots at the moment I look out the window and see the tornadoes approaching. And the basement windows — the last refuge we run to — are damaged with condensation, fogged so that you cannot see through them, though light still filters in.

Sources in the Psyche: The Id and Its Symbols

There are several factors in the dream that I believe are sources connected to various parts of my psyche. The most obvious is the use of tornadoes. The tornadoes represent fear residing in my psyche, and they grow more threatening as they draw nearer — mirroring the way fear intensifies.

While the tornadoes are the most obvious psychic source, others are present as well. The open clearing I see when I look out the window, and the basement area we try to crowd into, are also psychic sources. According to Sigmund Freud's theory, the closet that I try to get everyone into would likewise be a psychic source, since enclosed spaces such as closets can function in dreams as images of female genitalia.

This connects to another psychic source I identify in the dream: the carrots I am cutting. Freud believed strongly that nearly every emotion and thought traces back to repressed sexual desire. By Freudian standards, the carrots represent my id's desire for sexual relations.

The deep features desired by the id include not only the carrots and the closet but also the powerful wind that roars through the house as I try to hold my loved ones beneath me to keep them safe. The tornado, I believe, also represents an id desire — but for freedom from the obligations of my life rather than an urge to protect those I love.

One way these urges and impulses are released is through dreams. Freud understood the symbolic nature of dreams and believed they were a direct connection to the unconscious — what he refers to as the id. The id is centered on pleasure, desire, unchecked urges, and wish fulfillment. During waking hours, the desires of the id are suppressed by the superego, which acts as a censor. The superego enforces moral codes for the ego and blocks unacceptable impulses of the id. Because one's guard is lowered during sleep, the unconscious has the opportunity to act out and express the hidden desires of the id.

The Ego's Contribution and Childhood Fear

The ego is also an element that contributed to the dream. I have always feared losing my family and being alone in the world. When I was a small child, I became lost for several hours in the woods. I remember being petrified and feeling as though I would never see any of my family members again. That fear has stayed with me ever since. My father eventually found me, took me into his arms, and carried me all the way back to the family campsite I had wandered from. I remember my mother crying and hugging me, a full family embrace unfolding around me, and a police officer telling me how brave I had been to wait to be found. For many years afterward, I desired that my family be together every minute of every day so I would never risk losing them again.

The dream used several manifest ideas to bring forth latent ones. Freud uses the term displacement to describe the desire for one thing or person being symbolized by another — a mechanism clearly at work in this dream.

Conclusion

The theory that Freud developed in the context of understanding dreams takes some deep examination to grasp, but once understood it is a theory that makes a measure of sense. Using the psyche to put forward underlying or subconscious ideas that are too frightening to bring to the conscious mind may well be one of the human mind's tools for processing desires — expressing them through the symbolic language of dreams rather than confronting them directly in waking life.