Dream Analysis2
Dream Analysis2
Dream Analysis2
Freud Basics
Freud is often quoted as saying, “The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.” He
was stating his belief that our unconscious wishes and desires can have a great deal of influence over our outward
behavior. He believed that getting in touch with these hidden desires was the key to a healthy and fulfilling life.
Dreams act as keys to unlocking these hidden
secrets, he felt, thus making them invaluable to
mental health.
The id doesn't care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction. If you think about it,
babies are not very considerate of their parents' wishes. They have no care for time, whether their parents are
sleeping, relaxing, eating dinner, or bathing. When the id wants something, nothing else is important.
Within the next three years, as the child interacts more and more with the world, the second part of the personality
begins to develop. Freud called this part the Ego. The ego is based on the reality principle. The ego understands
that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can hurt us in the long run.
It’s the ego's job to meet the needs of the id, while taking into consideration the reality of the situation.
By the age of five, or the end of the phallic stage of development, the Superego develops. The Superego is the
moral part of us and develops due to the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers. Many equate
the superego with the conscience as it dictates our belief of right and wrong.
In a healthy person, according to Freud, the ego is the strongest so that it can satisfy the needs of the id, not upset
the superego, and still take into consideration the reality of every situation. Not an easy job by any means, but if
the id gets too strong, impulses and self gratification take over the person's life. If the superego becomes to strong,
the person would be driven by rigid morals, would be judgmental and unbending in his or her interactions with the
world. (Allpsych online)
Dream Interpretation
What are dreams?
According to Freud, then, dreams are the id’s attempt to psychically fulfill its wishes, especially those that can not
be fulfilled in waking life. Because the id’s desires are often objectionable to the superego, the id must disguise its
wishes in symbolism. Thus, a dream has a manifest content (the actual storyline you remember from a dream) and
a latent content (the underlying meaning). The manifest content is often confusing and misleading unless one
knows how to properly interpret his or her dreams. The symbols are not universal but reflect one’s personal
associations. However, as they reveal the wishes of the primal id, they often symbolize sexual or aggressive urges.
Freud believed that the id was a powerful force and suppressing its desires could lead to neuroses in our conscious
self.
One theory, that we will call the physiological function theory, argues that REM sleep prevents degradation of
neural pathways. Evidence supports a bit of a “use-it-or-lose-it” function to neural connections, which could make
sleep a risky proposition if it was truly a period of brain rest. After all, the typical person spends 1/3 of his or her life
asleep (that’s about 25 years if you live to be 75). That is a lot of time for neural connections to decay. The
physiological hypothesis contends that REM sleep evolved as a way to protect these connections during the longs
stretches of rest each night.
If dreams are simply opportunities to mentally rehearse daily experiences (either real or hypothetical), then why
are they so bizarre? One explanation is that regions of the brain that typically edit and make judgments about our
thoughts are disabled during dream sleep. The belief is that dreaming is an opportunity to rehearse different
scenarios without censoring ideas that could generate novel solutions (kind of like brainstorming). Thus, even the
most bizarre thoughts and ideas creep into our dreams.
Step 2: Find the wish that is being fulfilled by the dream. What is the latent desire of your partner’s id?
Remember, it is probably something she would find repulsive or else there would be no need for her id to
hide it in symbols.