Classics and the Western Canon discussion

III. Fresh off his example of a wish-fulfillment dream, Freud asks if wish fulfillment is a general characteristic of all dreams. He argues that it is. Sometimes the dream expresses a wish openly, as frequently happens in childrens' dreams, but for adults the dream's wish is in disguise. (To be thorough he admits, "What animals dream of I do not know." )

IV. Most dreams do not express a wish directly. They arrive in disguise. The "manifest content" of a dream -- what actually happens in the dream -- may not appear to express a wish, but the "latent content" does. The dream is distorted and requires interpretation to arrive at its meaning. Why does the dream disguise itself?

In presenting a dream that disguises its meaning, the psyche is censoring itself. This raises a problem though: which part of the psyche is producing the content, and which part is the censor? There are two psychical systems or forces at work here and one is more powerful than the other. What does this say about the nature of the unconscious?

Freud ends with a general statement: "The dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish." This strikes me as over-generalizing. It doesn't account for anxiety dreams or nightmares. At the end of part III he mentions that anxiety dreams are "a special sub-species of dreams with a distressing content, which the unenlightened will be least willing to accept as being wishful dreams." (Color me unenlightened then.)

He seems to dismiss anxiety dreams altogether as a symptom of neurosis, but isn't his own dream of "Irma's Injection" an anxiety dream? [The wish involved there was for Freud not to be responsible for medical malpractice, but why did Freud's psyche summon up this concern? Freud says it expresses "a perpetual anxiety on the part of a specialist who sees almost no one but neurotics" that he will misdiagnose a symptom as hysterical when the cause is actually organic. Is this fear of being found a quack?]

V. How does the psyche choose the material for dreams? (a) The source material for dreams seems to come from insignficant everyday thoughts and happenings. These are connected through free association with significant "latent" material. How does one connect with the other? He describes the way that trivial experience comes to stand for the "psychically valuable" as a "displacement." What is this?

He ends this section with a number of example dreams, all of which have trivial elements and appear manifestly 'innocuous" but are latently sexual in nature. The sexual aspect is censored, and may only be revealed through analysis. He says that this is a topic of fundamental importance and will be discussed later. Is he using these examples because he finds them so commonplace? Would he find different examples in a culture that was less sexually repressed?

Thomas wrote: "Freud ends with a general statement: "The dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish." This strikes me as over-generalizing. It doesn't account for anxiety dreams or nightmares. At the end of part III he mentions that anxiety dreams are "a special sub-species of dreams with a distressing content, which the unenlightened will be least willing to accept as being wishful dreams." (Color me unenlightened then.)"

I have no trouble seeing anxiety dreams as expressions of a repressed wish. The flip side of any wish is a fear of failure. A wish for a romantic encounter, for instance, will inevitably be accompanied by a fear of rejection, which would be a source of anxiety.

Isn't a wish for something positive rather than the negation of something negative? Anxiety dreams seem to me to be in a different category because they don't express a desire; they express fear. At one point Freud says that anxiety is "soldered on" to the idea that attends it, and originates from a different source. He knows they are different things, but he still wants to generalize and present a unified theory, so he solders them together.

It's pretty clear that Freud's dream of "Irma's Injection" originates from his fear of fallibility, but he doesn't see it that way. He spins it as wish fulfillment because the dream presents a situation in which his anxiety is allayed by putting the blame for a medical mistake on another doctor. Isn't the root of this dream the anxiety that accompanies his own responsibility, not a wish for other doctors to exonerate him?

Freud tries to wriggle out of the discrepancy in the first few paragraphs of the section on Dream Distortion by saying that even when the manifest content of the dream expresses anxiety, the latent content is a wish-fulfillment. This can only be revealed through interpretation, which in Freud's eyes almost always relates to some kind of desire, often an erotic desire, a wish. This is starting to look a bit contrived to me. Typical nightmares and anxiety dreams of being chased by a predator or falling off a cliff, etc., hardly express a desire.

An afterthought: How does one judge the validity of a dream interpretation? Does it just *sound* right, or is the interpretation itself not as important as the process of working it out?

Thomas wrote: "Isn't a wish for something positive rather than the negation of something negative? Anxiety dreams seem to me to be in a different category because they don't express a desire; they express fear. A..."

When a dream expresses a desire for something that has been 'repressed' it will inevitably arouse anxiety. Perhaps we should revisit this discussion after we have read his more in-depth analysis of anxiety dreams in section VII (d).

I'll hold on for a bit then. It seems to me that the unconscious has more to express than just wishes... on the other hand, it does make sense that the next section concerns dream material drawn from infancy if wishes are what dreams are made of. Babies are big bundles of want, so that makes sense. I would like to think that the adult unconscious is more grown up though. But I will desist, for the moment...

Thomas wrote: "III. Fresh off his example of a wish-fulfillment dream, Freud asks if wish fulfillment is a general characteristic of all dreams. He argues that it is. Sometimes the dream expresses a wish openly, ...
Would he find different examples in a culture that was less sexually repressed?"
That's an interesting question, and I've been wondering whether this theory would also apply equally to the culture back then and now. Even the term 'hysteria' is an outdated term and by the way Freud defined 'infanticide', it used to apply only to women who kill their babies, not men. Would a closeted LGBT be having more of these 'anxiety dreams'? Also, what would this mean for little kids who have nightmares and nocturnal panic attacks?

Thomas wrote: "An afterthought: How does one judge the validity of a dream interpretation? Does it just *sound* right, or is the interpretation itself not as important as the process of working it out?"
If we have to rely on an interpretation 'sounding' right without any basis, it would be more of a form of 'art', not a scientific theory. As Freud has already rejected the 'symbolic' method of dream interpretation as 'the practice of an art which seemed to be bound up with an especial gift', it should be backed up with some valid process. I'm waiting to see it come through the later chapters though.

Donnally wrote: "Thomas wrote: "The flip side of any wish is a fear of failure...."

Very aptly put!

The problem I'm having with every dream involving a wish fullfilment is that it appears that in every case Freud starts with this conclusion and works backward to prove it. With free association this will always be possible. He may in fact be right -- especially if it effects a cure for his neurotic patients in practice -- but his method makes it impossible to prove. I find his method fascinating, but it is the work of an artist, not a scientist bound to rules of reason.