Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep...Out of My Unconscious Do I Speak

Freud saw sleep as a “complete withdrawal from the surrounding world and the cessation of all interest in it” (General Psychological 151). During my Psychology class, I learned that Freud believed dreams offer valuable information about the unconscious mind. He was so passionate about the importance of dreams that he wrote a book, The Interpretation of Dreams. In doing so, Freud has added importance to the use of dreams within the study of psychology. He advocated the use of dream analysis as a tool to help better understand the depths of the unconscious mind.

Freud believed that dreams restore “primitive narcissism” and “hallucinatory wish-fulfillment” (General Psychological 152). Is Freud calling people narcissistic? No. He is simply stating that our dreams are always about ourselves. We are always the subjects. He also believed that one of the principle purposes of dreams is wish fulfillment. This is when “the preconscious dream-wish is formed, which expresses the unconscious impulse in the material of the preconscious day-residues" (General Psychological 155). In simple terms, wish fulfillment is the thought that people fulfill ungratified needs from waking hours through wishful thinking during dreams. For example, if one is sexually frustrated, he or she might have erotic dreams. If someone lost his job, it would be reasonable to dream of accomplishing something great.

Freud also suggested “dreams are excited by residues from the previous day” (General Psychological 153). During the day we experience a wide range of emotions and events. Memories that make a mark on our unconscious mind during the day are many times brought back up during dreams because of the connection between the preconscious and unconscious during sleep. Dream analysis, wish fulfillment, and day residue are the widest known concepts of Freud’s dream analysis method. However, the scope of Freud’s research on dreams is much greater and in-depth than this. As for the advancement in the field of psychology, Freud has “[brought] forward proof that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that, if that procedure is employed, every dream reveals itself as a physical structure which has a meaning and which can be inserted at an assignable point in the mental activities of waking life” (The Interpretation 35). This being said, we can all learn something about our unconscious thoughts and hidden feelings through analyzing our dreams.

Works Cited:

Freud, Sigmund. General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1965. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Basic Books Incorporated, 1965. Print.