Freud's Theory of Dreaming

What is Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of Dreaming?

Freud's psychoanalytic theory of dreaming is essentially his application of the psychodynamic approach to dreaming. Before we learn about his theory of dreaming, let's first take a look at how Freud described and explained the mind.

The unconscious mind

According to Freud, the mind consists of the following:

• The conscious mind - these are the things you are aware of and actively doing.

• The unconscious mind - these are the things we subconsciously do, such as dreaming. The unconscious mind relays hidden messages that may contribute to why we behave the way we do.
• The preconscious mind - these are thoughts and desires we are not entirely aware of all the time but can bring into the conscious mind should we choose to do so (for example, the phone number of your mother)

Freud described the mind with an analogy of an iceberg:

Freud said that our personality reflecting our conscious and unconscious mind should be called the psyche. The psyche has three components. The components are:

• id - the pleasure principle, responsible for our impulses and selfish desires

• ego - the reality principle, makes sense of reality and keeps the id and superego balanced

• superego - the morality principle, responsible for our morals

Freud described three components of the psyche, depicting the mind as an iceberg, flaticon.com/free-icon

The id and superego need to remain balanced for healthy and normal functioning.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory of dreaming

Forgetting dreams is a common thing that happens to many people. Freud proposed a purpose behind this, the theory of dreaming (1900). When asleep, according to Freud, the ego is weakened, and the unconscious mind begins to seep through.

The theory of dreaming suggests that dreams contain manifest content.

As you would predict with the psychodynamic approach, the theory proposes that these dreams/the stories you tell in your sleep have hidden meanings. These are known as the latent content of dreams.

The psychodynamic intervention, psychoanalysis tries to uncover what these hidden meanings (the latent content) are. Dreams are where unconscious desires, thoughts, behaviours and wish fulfilment surface.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory of dreaming explains that the process of dreaming happens through dreamwork.

Dreamwork is what your brain does to change dreams' latent content to manifest, as unconscious desires may be disturbing in nature. For you to understand dreamwork, there are four components of this that you need to learn:

1. Condensation - all of the elements of the manifest content of a dream are associated and combined into one with one another. Therefore, all dream elements represent the hidden message relayed in dreams.
2. Displacement - what you think is an essential detail of a dream may not be as vital as you feel. This defence mechanism is used to hide the important details that may uncover the latent content of dreams. Emotions concerning one aspect of a concept are removed and placed onto another concept through displacement.
3. Secondary revision is when the psyche's ego tries to make sense of dreams and attempts to fill in the gaps to make sense of the dream. These are usually not accurate.
4. Understanding representations of dreams is the process of changing thoughts and experiences into images so they can be relayed in your dreams. Essentially this changes the latent content that the psyche is trying to keep hidden into manifest content.

Dream of moon and stars, flaticon.com/premium-icon

Freud's Wish Fulfilment Theory of Dreams

Many reasonings behind the purpose of dreams have been proposed. One of these is Freud's wish fulfilment of dreams.

This example essentially describes what wish fulfilment is. Wish fulfilment is when people can fulfil unconscious desires in their dreams that they cannot do in real life.

• Now, this example seems harmless. However, they can be more serious, such as stopping people from committing adultery or murder. According to the wish fulfilment theory of dreams, their point is to settle (the ego and superego do this) urges of the id that may be destructive.

You may have been thinking, why is the brain working so hard, and why are there so many defence mechanisms to stop us from learning the latent content of our dreams?

• This is because if the unconscious thoughts and behaviours hidden in dreams surface to consciousness, and can lead to people giving in to impulses of the id. When the psyche is not balanced, you may develop mental health illnesses like a narcissistic personality disorder. Therefore, the psyche represses thoughts, feelings and behaviours that may do this.

Evaluation of Freud's Dream Theory

Let's now evaluate Freud's dream theory!

Strengths of Freud's dream theory

Some strengths of Freud's theory of dreaming include:

• Freud provided research evidence for his theory (the Little Hans case study, 1909).

• Little Hans had developed a phobia of horses.
• Freud used dream analysis to uncover what caused his phobia.
• Freud interpreted the dream as Hans being scared that his father would castrate him because he had incestuous feelings for his mother.
• After Hans's father told him he would not castrate him, the phobia eventually went away.

• Freud provided more supportive research evidence for his theory (the Wolfman study, 1918).

• Freud aimed to understand and treat the underlying psychological problems Wolfman had
• Wolfman had been diagnosed with several mental illnesses, such as anxiety, hysteria and obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Freud used dream analysis to uncover the latent content meaning behind the manifest content of Wolfman's dream
  • E.g. manifest content - feared the wolves would eat him and the latent content, according to Freud, was that the Wolfman had undergone some trauma after witnessing his parents having intercourse.

• When you think back on some of the dreams that you have recently had, they're not always random and are sometimes relevant to what is playing on our minds. So there is some element of truth to Freud's theory.

• It has been applied to create psychodynamic intervention techniques, such as dream analysis, which research has shown to help treat mental illnesses.

• It allows people and therapists to uncover the root of problems that may contribute to mental distress/ illnesses (as the Little Hans case study shows).

Criticisms of Freud's Theory of Dreaming

Some weaknesses of Freud's theory of dreaming include:

• Although there is supporting evidence of Freud's claims in the form of case studies, there are generalisability implications involved in these. As the studies were conducted on individuals, the sample is non-representative, so it is difficult to apply the inferences found to the population.

• How dreams are interpreted is subjective. What you understand as the latent content of a dream will likely differ from how someone else interprets your dream. So, which one is the right interpretation?

• As Freud suggested, condensation is an important part of dreamwork. However, it is unlikely that someone will remember every single detail of a dream. Another common thing is that many people do not remember dreams at all. Therefore, this theory has limited use.

• If the brain is repressing memories, should we try to recall them? What if it causes more damage than help?
• The Wolfman case study has undergone intense scrutiny, with the child himself, Sergei Pankejeff, stating the idea was implausible and "out-there", and he disagreed with the assumption that he was cured. Sergei Pankejeff said in later life; he began suffering from the same issues he had before.

• Dreams rely on introspection; this technique has been widely criticised as a non-empirical technique. It requires an individual to make observations on our internal thoughts and feelings. Introspection is used when we can't directly observe something, such as dreaming. Therefore, Freud's theory can be criticised as non-empirical and challenging to establish its reliability and validity.

Freud's Theory of Dreaming Versus the Modern Activation-Synthesis Theory

Both Freud's theory of dreaming and the modern activation-synthesis theory propose different reasonings for how dreams occur.

According to the modern activation-synthesis theory, dreams are a neurobiological process; neuronal activity causes dreaming behaviour. Dreams make sense of what is happening in the brain on a biological level, in that spikes in activity are rationalised in dreams. In contrast, Freud suggests that dreams result from an unconscious effort to hide the latent content with manifest content. The brain does this because often, the meanings can be hiding traumatic or sad events or because the meanings are considered appropriate.

So, which one is right?