Watch this ProfMoment:

After you’ve been dazzled by that cinematic brilliance, consider this: in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud developed his notion that dreams fulfill wishes. In the book, he starts with this premise

the dream is the fulfilment of a wish

and then expanded it to this:

the dream is the (disguised) fulfilment of a (repressed, suppressed) wish.

Your discussion task: Explain what Freud means about dreams and wish fulfilment.

REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.

So much of Freud’s work depends on his interpretive style. In Chapter Four of The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud provides numerous examples of patients who try to show him that dreams can’t be the fulfilment of wishes. Freud interprets these dreams to show that they are the disguised fulfilment of suppressed wishes. Here’s an example:

Yet another dream of a more gloomy character was offered me by a female patient in contradiction of my theory of the wish-dream. This patient, a young girl, began as follows: ‘You remember that my sister has now only one boy, Charles. She lost the elder one, Otto, while I was still living with her. Otto was my favourite; it was I who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but, of course, not nearly so much as his dead brother. Now I dreamt last night that I saw Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his little coffin, his hands folded, there were candles all about; and, in short, it was just as it was at the time of little Otto’s death, which gave me such a shock. Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me — am I really so bad as to wish that my sister should lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean that I wish that Charles had died rather than Otto, whom I liked so much better?’

I assured her that this latter interpretation was impossible. After some reflection, I was able to give her the interpretation of the dream, which she subsequently confirmed. I was able to do so because the whole previous history of the dreamer was known to me.

Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been brought up in the home of a much older sister, and had met, among the friends and visitors who frequented the house, a man who made a lasting impression upon her affections. It looked for a time as though these barely explicit relations would end in marriage, but this happy culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives were never completely explained. After the rupture the man whom my patient loved avoided the house; she herself attained her independence some time after the death of little Otto, to whom, meanwhile, her affections had turned. But she did not succeed in freeing herself from the dependence due to her affection for her sister’s friend. Her pride bade her avoid him, but she found it impossible to transfer her love to the other suitors who successively presented themselves. Whenever the man she loved, who was a member of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was certain to be found among the audience; and she seized every other opportunity of seeing him unobserved. I remembered that on the previous day she had told me that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and that she too was going, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on the day before the dream; and the concert was to be given on the day on which she told me the dream. I could now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any particular event which had occurred after Otto’s death. She replied immediately: ‘Of course; the Professor returned then, after a long absence, and I saw him once more beside little Otto’s coffin.’ It was just as I had expected. I interpreted the dream as follows: ‘If now the other boy were to die, the same thing would happen again. You would spend the day with your sister; the Professor would certainly come to offer his condolences, and you would see him once more under the same circumstances as before. The dream signifies nothing more than this wish of yours to see him again — a wish against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that you have the ticket for today’s concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated by several hours the meeting which is to take place today.’

In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a situation in which wishes of the sort are commonly suppressed — a situation so sorrowful that love is not even thought of. And yet it is entirely possible that even in the actual situation beside the coffin of the elder, more dearly loved boy, she had not been able to suppress her tender affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long.

Your discussion task: What do you make of Freud’s interpretation? Do you agree with his method? Why or why not?

REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.

Here’s a video by The School of Life that provides a very quick introduction to some of Freud’s main ideas:

Your discussion task: Is there an idea of Freud’s that you find either particularly insightful or particularly troubling? Explain why you think that.

REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.