“Dream Psychology” is a term often associated with the work of Sigmund Freud, a pioneer in the field of psychoanalysis. Freud’s theories on dreams were groundbreaking and have had a profound impact on psychology.
Freud’s seminal work, “The Interpretation of Dreams” (German: Die Traumdeutung), published in 18991, introduced his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation1. He proposed that dreams are a form of “wish fulfillment”, representing the unconscious desires, thoughts, and motivations that our conscious mind represses23.
He distinguished between the manifest content of a dream (what we remember upon waking) and the latent content (the hidden psychological meaning)23. The manifest content is often a distorted version of the wish that the dreamer’s mind tries to fulfill, while the latent content is the underlying wish itself23.
Freud considered dreams to be the royal road to the unconscious as it is in dreams that the ego’s defenses are lowered so that some of the repressed material comes through to awareness, albeit in distorted form2. Dreams perform important functions for the unconscious mind and serve as valuable clues to how the unconscious mind operates2.
If you’re interested in Sigmund Freud, the origins of psychoanalysis, or dream interpretation, “The Interpretation of Dreams” is a must-have text for your collection3. It serves as an excellent introduction to many of Freud’s major ideas3.
Dream Psychology
by Sigmund Freud
Publication date 2007-05-18Topics Librivox, audiobook, non-fiction, dreams, psychoanalysis, psychologyLanguage English
Librivox recording of Dream Psychology, by Sigmund Freud. Translated by M.D. Eder.
Not a few serious-minded students, […], have been discouraged from attempting a study of Freud’s dream psychology. The book in which he originally offered to the world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a legal record to be pondered over by scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to sift data. - Freud himself, however, realized the magnitude of the task which the reading of his magnum opus imposed upon those who have not been prepared for it by long psychological and scientific training and he abstracted from that gigantic work the parts which constitute the essential of his discoveries.
The publishers of the present book deserve credit for presenting to the reading public the gist of Freud’s psychology in the master’s own words, and in a form which shall neither discourage beginners, nor appear too elementary to those who are more advanced in psychoanalytic study. - Dream psychology is the key to Freud’s works and to all modern psychology. With a simple, compact manual such as Dream Psychology there shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the most revolutionary psychological system of modern times.
(From the book introduction, by Andre Tridon)
