The Interpretation of Dreams

In Chapter 2, Freud “propos[es] to show that dreams are capable of interpretation” and describes his method for interpreting them (70). This means rejecting the leading scientific concept that dreams are irrational psychic acts brought on by somatic stimuli, instead arguing that they are “a substitute for some other thought-process, and that we have only to disclose this substitute correctly in order to discover the hidden meaning of the dream” (70, emphasis added). In other words, dreams have hidden psychic content they express through images, and interpreting these images reveals the psychic struggle occurring in the dreamer’s unconscious mind.

In discussing some lay methods for dream interpretation, Freud mentions the “symbolic method” (70), which suggests dream images have stable symbolic meaning, as is common in popular-dream symbol books that are still read today. There is also the “cipher method” (70), which suggests dreams have secret meanings. Although Freud’s dream analysis does work on images and suggests these images have hidden meanings, Freud’s method differs “in that it imposes upon the dreamer himself the work of interpretation" (72, emphasis added). Freud mentions this to differentiate his theory as based on individual psychical content, thereby stressing the importance of psychoanalysis as a method. In doing so, he emphasizes that the interpretation of dreams is a complex and difficult process that requires a deep understanding of the dreamer's psyche and personal experiences.

Dream interpretation begins in asking patients to “inform [the analyst] of all the ideas and thoughts which occurred to them in connection with a given theme,” at which point they often mention dreams, a tendency that leads Freud to claim dreams are “symptoms” of a “pathological idea” (73). In using the language of pathology and symptoms, Freud relates dream analysis—and, more broadly, psychoanalysis—with medical credulity.

In describing his dream-analysis method, Freud foregrounds the psychoanalytic technique of “free association” (110), a method of freely relating one’s thoughts to the therapist as they pass from object to object in a sort of stream of consciousness, initiating with the therapist’s mention of a target stimulus. To achieve this state of free association, the patient must sit with their eyes closed and “be explicitly instructed to renounce all criticism of the thought-formations which he may perceive," communicating “everything that passes through his mind” (74). Relating this to the natural state of dreams, Freud states, “the point is to induce a psychic state which is in some degree analogous [...] to the state of the mind before falling asleep—and also, of course, to the hypnotic state” (75). When relating a dream, Freud reiterates individual components of the dream to the patient for them to then remark on, deepening the associations. Unlike the cipher method, the meaning of dream components here relies on the individual.

Freud gives an example of one of his own dreams of examining a patient at a great hall. In real life the patient is the daughter of a friend who is not satisfied with Freud’s treatment. Freud breaks the dream into its several segments, relating each to symbols relevant to his unconscious conflict with this friend and desire to be free from his blame, intermixed with several memories and associations to personal material both relevant and far-fetched. Freud shows how the dream’s content is in fact governed by several of the factors detailed in the previous chapter, but its most important through line is as an evocation of subconscious concerns and escape from them. Overall, the dream serves to mentally cleanse Freud of his guilt in the situation with his friend and its latent sense of his own lack of conscientiousness as a doctor. From this, Freud concludes, “the content of the dream is thus the fulfilment of a wish; its motive is a wish” (86)—a subject he turns to in the next chapter.