Freudian Dream Interpretation

Sigmund Freud wrote "The Interpretation of Dreams" in 1900 to show that dreams are not random nonsense but contain meaningful contents from the unconscious. These contents revolve around our most basic instincts - the instincts of aggression, sexuality, and self-love. Freud said we ignore our dreams because we feel both embarrassed and frightened by those strong unconscious instincts. For this reason, a Freudian interpretation must push past the individual's resistance to reveal the dream's underlying truth. The great tragedy of human life, in Freud's view, is that our instinctual wishes are inevitably frustrated by the moral authorities of society. Our happiness through life depends on how well we manage this tension between our internal wishes and the external authorities, and dream interpretation can help us find a healthy balance. As Freud famously said, dreams are "the royal road" to a greater knowledge of the unconscious. The more we know about our instincts, the better we can find mature ways to satisfy them so they promote, rather than block, our growth towards psychological health. That's why dream interpretation is so valuable: it provides an honest view of who we really are, what we really want, where we have the worst conflicts, and how we might overcome them.

A common misconception about Freud is that he believed all dreams are about sex. In fact, Freud believed dreams reveal non-sexual instincts, too, such as aggression and narcissism (self-love). Another common misconception is that modern science has disproved Freud's theory about dreams. Actually, the latest findings of dream research support Freud's claims that dreams reveal important truths about the unconscious mind. Freud was not right about everything, but his psychoanalytic ideas can still provide valuable guidance in the process of interpreting a dream.