Freud and Dreams Flashcards
Sigmund Freud
- the founder of psychoanalysis
- proposed complex theory to explain why and how dreams are produced
Freud and Dreams
- he beleived that dreams are expressions of unconscious desires, thoughts and conflicts that are typically repressed or suppressed during waking life
- according to him, the primary purpose of dreams is wish fulfillment.
- though dreams can serve other functions such as processing emotions and providing insight into the unconscious mind
freud distinguished between the manifest content of dreams
- the actual narrative or imagery experienced during dreaming
- often distorted and distinguished through symbolism
psychical determinism
- means that even small, unmotivated actions and mistakes are caused by our conscious and unconscious motivations
the latent content
- represents the underlying, hidden meaning of the dream
- reflects unconscious wishes and conflicts
dreams originate from the unconscious mind
- where repressed desires, fears and unresolved conflicts reside
- these unconscious impulses are censored by the ego to protect against anxiety and maintain psychological stability
- however, during sleep, when the egos defenses are lowered, repressed material can surface in the form of dreams
Freuds mechanisms - through which the unconscious material is transformed into the manifest content of dreams
- condensation
- displacement
- symbolization
- secondary elaboration
condensation
multiple unconscious thoughts and wishes are combined into a single dream element
displacement
emotionally charged content is shifted from its original source to a less threatening or more acceptable form in the dream
symbolization
unconscious desires and conflicts are represented symbolically in the dream, often through abstract imagery
secondary elaboration
the unconscious material is woven into a coherent narrative during the dream
dreams provide information about the unconscious, Freud stated…
“the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind”.
dream content analysis
- if it is applied to children’s dreams, it seems they often have very simple wishes, whereas adults dreams have disguised wishes
- Freud said that dreams are the guardians of sleep because they represent a wish that would otherwise wake us
oedipus complex
- Freud thought many dreams are influenced by this
- a central concept in Freudian psychoanalysis
- according to this, children experience unconscious desires for their opposite sex parent and hostility toward their same-sex parent
- these repressed feelings may manifest in dreams as symbolic representations of familial relationships and sexual desires
dis-confirming Freud account - Kleitman 1953
- provided a foundation for alter crisis to declare that Freud’s wish-fulfilling dream theory was wrong
- if anything dreams tend to be emotionally transparent