Humanities exam (Part 3)

Question 1

define/explain what dreams are:

Answer 1

• meaningful mental events, expressing our deepest or current concerns, even if they appear non-sensical.
• residues of a persona mental activity.

Question 2

Freud’s originality on dreams:

Answer 2

• presenting a detailed, theoretical model for how it works.
• released from ego’s conscious control during sleep, our mind thinks and expresses what its otherwise unable to think and express.

Question 3

Explain children’s dreams:

Answer 3

• Children’s dreams usually express the child’s thoughts and feelings

Question 4

Adult dreams are complex and consist of 2 dimensions:

Answer 4

1. Manifest dream content: images and words that actually appear in the dream.
2. Latent dream content: original memories, desires and thoughts concealed ‘behind’ manifest dreams. (subtext of a story)

Question 5

Freud explains the split btw manifest and latent dreams with the “Dream Censor”. What is it?

Answer 5

• associated with the preconscious of superego, weak but active in sleep.
• Acts like censorship in movies but in our minds by ‘cutting’ and ‘distorting’ what’s deemed unacceptable.

Question 6

The process of censoring/distorting dreams is known as ‘Dream-work’ by Freud. What are the all the processes?

Answer 6

1. Translation
2. Condensation
3. Displacement
4. Secondary revision

Question 7

define/explain Translation

Answer 7

• The mind first must translate thoughts and feelings into images and words.
• ex: having inescapable anxiety might manifest itself in a dream as the inability to run away from a threat.

Question 8

define/explain condensation:

Answer 8

-Process where 2 or more images, ideas, or experiences are combines (or compressed) into a single composite dream-image.
- Ex: two ppl or objects from the dreamers life appear as one person/object.

Question 9

explain/define displacement:

Answer 9

• when a significant element in a dream is displaced from the center of attention or replaced by another, less significant, one.
• The point is to shift emphasis away from what censor considers unacceptable.
  -ex: inappropriate object of sexual desire is sidelined in a dream or replaced by a neutral one.

Question 10

explain/define Secondary Revision:

Answer 10

• Dreamers ego selects and transforms dream content while waking up and trying to remember it.
• Involves filling in gaps, replacing non-sensical elements with ‘coherent’ ones, or rejecting or changing what is unacceptable. (ex: mom identified in a dream as another woman, teacher)

Question 11

explain/define Dream Interpretation:

Answer 11

• First step: clear away residues of dreamers actual life: obvious memories and concerns.
• Analysis should move to obscure or insignificant aspects of the dream through free association.
• The point is to not just ‘rationalize’ the dream, but to explore the irrational aspects.