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When talking about psychologists, the name that most likely comes to people's minds is Freud. Freud, a psychoanalyst, is known for his controversial theories that paved the way for the psychodynamic approach to psychology. His research focuses on the unconscious mind and how conflicts and unconscious messages affect mental well-being and behaviour. The Freud Theory of Dreaming (1900) focuses on the psychodynamic approach to 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.
According to Freud, the mind consists of the following:
Freud described the mind with an analogy of an iceberg:
The tip of the iceberg is the conscious mind that you can easily see. Whereas beneath the surface, parts of the iceberg remain hidden and cannot be seen. This represents the unconscious mind.
Freud said that our personality reflecting our conscious and unconscious mind should be called the psyche. The psyche has three components. The components are:
Freud described three components to 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.
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.
The manifest content is the story you tell in your dream. It is what you see in your dreams.
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 latent content is the hidden meaning behind what you see in your dreams and is considered the true meaning.
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 the latent content of dreams to manifest content, as unconscious desires may be disturbing in nature. For you to understand dreamwork, there are four components of this that you need to learn:
Dream of moon and stars, flaticon.com/premium-icon
Many reasonings behind the purpose of dreams have been proposed. One of these is Freud's wish fulfilment of dreams.
An example of wish fulfilment is that someone may overcome an overwhelming desire they cannot satisfy in real life by fighting their boss in a dream.
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.
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?
Repression is when you unconsciously 'forget' by blocking a memory. Regression is a defence mechanism of the brain used to hide traumatic memories or negative feelings or thoughts. On a less extreme scale, you may repress a memory from your childhood because you are embarrassed by what happened.
Let's now evaluate Freud's dream theory!
Some strengths of Freud's theory of dreaming include:
Some weaknesses of Freud's theory of dreaming include:
Both Freud's theory of dreaming and the modern activation-synthesis theory propose different reasonings for how dreams occur. So, which one is right?
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.
Freud's theory suggests that dreams are formed through dream work. Dreams are an unconscious process where hidden desires, thoughts, behaviours and wish fulfilment surface.
Freud believed that there were three levels of consciousness:
Alongside three aspects of personality: the id, ego, and superego.
According to Freud's theory of dreaming, there are four components of dreamwork:
Wish fulfilment is when people can fulfil unconscious desires that they cannot do in real life. According to Freud, the point of wish fulfilment is to settle (the ego and superego do this) urges (of the id) that may be destructive.
The two types of dreams that Freud identifies are manifest content and latent content dreams.
Dreams are important to Freud as repressed hidden unconscious messages surface during this period. These hidden messages may be contributing to mental illnesses, which can be understood when undergoing dream analysis.
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