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Title page of the original German edition
| |
| Author | Sigmund Freud |
|---|---|
| Original title | Die Traumdeutung |
| Translators | A. A. Brill (first version) James Strachey (authorized version) Joyce Crick (most recent version) |
| Country | Austria |
| Language | German |
| Subject | Dream interpretation |
| Publisher | Franz Deuticke, Leipzig & Vienna |
Publication date
| November 4, 1899 (dated 1900) |
Published in English
| 1913 (Macmillan, translation of the German third edition) |
| Media type | |
| Text | The Interpretation of Dreams at Wikisource |
The Interpretation of Dreams (German: Die Traumdeutung) is an 1899 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author introduces his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation, and discusses what would later become the theory of the Oedipus complex. Freud revised the book at least eight times and, in the third edition, added an extensive section which treated dream symbolism very literally, following the influence of Wilhelm Stekel. Freud said of this work, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime."
Dated 1900, the book was first published in an edition of 600 copies, which did not sell out for eight years. The Interpretation of Dreams later gained in popularity, and seven more editions were published in Freud's lifetime.
Because of the book's length and complexity, Freud also wrote an abridged version called On Dreams. The original text is widely regarded as one of Freud's most significant works.
Background
Freud spent the summer of 1895 at Schloss BelleVue near Grinzing in Austria, where he began the inception of The Interpretation of Dreams. In a 1900 letter to Wilhelm Fliess, he wrote in commemoration of the place:
"Do you suppose that some day a marble tablet will be placed on the house, inscribed with these words: 'In this house on July 24, 1895, the secret of dreams was revealed to Dr. Sigm. Freud'? At the moment I see little prospect of it." — Freud in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess, June 12, 1900
While staying at Schloss Bellevue, Freud dreamed his famous dream of 'Irma's injection'. His reading and analysis of the dream allowed him to be exonerated from his mishandling of the treatment of a patient in 1895.
In 1963, Belle Vue manor was demolished, but today a memorial plaque
with just that inscription has been erected at the site by the Austrian Sigmund Freud Society.
Overview
Dreams,
in Freud's view, are formed as the result of two mental processes. The
first process involves unconscious forces that construct a wish that is
expressed by the dream, and the second is the process of censorship that
forcibly distorts the expression of the wish. In Freud's view, all
dreams are forms of "wish fulfillment" (later in Beyond the Pleasure Principle,
Freud would discuss dreams which do not appear to be wish-fulfillment).
Freud states: "My presumption that dreams can be interpreted at once
puts me in opposition to the ruling theory of dreams and in fact to
every theory of dreams..."
Freud advanced the idea that an analyst can differentiate between the manifest content and latent content of a dream. The manifest content refers to the remembered narrative that plays out in the dream itself. The latent content
refers to the underlying meaning of the dream. During sleep, the
unconscious condenses, displaces, and forms representations of the dream
content, the latent content of which is often unrecognizable to the
individual upon waking.
Critics have argued that Freud's theory of dreams requires sexual
interpretation. Freud, however, contested this criticism, noting that
"the assertion that all dreams require a sexual interpretation, against
which critics rage so incessantly, occurs nowhere in my Interpretation of Dreams.
It is not to be found in any of the numerous editions of this book and
is in obvious contradiction to other views expressed in it."
Freud acknowledged that the interpretation of dreams is the royal road
to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind."
Sources of dream content
Freud
claimed that every dream has a connection point with an experience of
the previous day. Though, the connection may be minor, as the dream
content can be selected from any part of the dreamer's life.
He described four possible sources of dreams: a) mentally significant
experiences represented directly, b) several recent and significant
experiences combined into a single unity by the dream, c) one or more
recent and significant experiences which are represented in the content
by the mention of a contemporary but indifferent experience, and d) an
internal significant experience, such as a memory or train of thought,
that is invariably represented in the dream by a mention of a recent but
indifferent impression.
Oftentimes people experience external stimuli, such as an alarm
clock or music, being distorted and incorporated into their dreams.
Freud explained that this is because "the mind is withdrawn from the
external world during sleep, and it is unable to give it a correct
interpretation ..." He further explained that our mind wishes
to continue sleeping, and therefore will try to suppress external
stimuli, weave the stimuli into the dream, compel a person to wake up,
or encourage him or her to overcome it.
Freud believed that dreams were picture-puzzles, and though they
may appear nonsensical and worthless on the surface, through the process
of interpretation they can form a "poetical phrase of the greatest
beauty and significance."
Condensation, displacement, and representation in dreams
Dreams
are brief compared to the range and abundance of dream thoughts.
Through condensation or compression, dream content can be presented in
one dream. Oftentimes, people may recall having more than one dream in a
night. Freud explained that the content of all dreams occurring on the
same night represents part of the same whole.
He believed that separate dreams have the same meaning. Often the first
dream is more distorted and the latter is more distinct. Displacement
of dream content occurs when manifest content does not resemble the
actual meaning of the dream. Displacement comes through the influence of
a censorship agent. Representation in dreams is the causal relation
between two things. Freud argues that two persons or objects can be
combined into a single representation in a dream (see Freud's dream of
his uncle and Friend R).
On Dreams
An abridged version called On Dreams was published in 1901 as part of Lowenfeld and Kurella's Grenzfragen des Nerven und Seelenlebens. It was re-published in 1911 in slightly larger form as a book. On Dreams is also included in the 1953 edition and the second part of Freud's work on dreams, Volume Five, The Interpretation of Dreams II and On Dreams. It follows chapter seven in The Interpretation of Dreams and in this edition, is fifty-three pages in length. There are thirteen chapters in total and Freud directs the reader to The Interpretation of Dreams for further reading throughout On Dreams, in particular, in the final chapter. Immediately after its publication, Freud considered On Dreams as a shortened version of The Interpretation of Dreams. The English translation of On Dreams was first published in 1914 and the second English publication in the James Strachey translation from 1952. Freud investigates the subject of displacement
and our inability to recognize our dreams. In chapter VI, page 659, he
states: "It is the process of displacement which is chiefly responsible
for our being unable to discover or recognize them in the dream-content"
and he considers the issue of displacement in chapter VIII, page 671
as: "the most striking of the dream-work."
Contents
The first edition begins:
"In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there exists a psychological technique by which dreams may be interpreted and that upon the application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic activity of the waking state. I shall furthermore endeavor to explain the processes which give rise to the strangeness and obscurity of the dream, and to discover through them the psychic forces, which operate whether in combination or opposition, to produce the dream. This accomplished by investigation will terminate as it will reach the point where the problem of the dream meets broader problems, the solution of which must be attempted through other material."
Freud begins his book in the first chapter titled "The Scientific
Literature on the Problems of the Dream" by reviewing different
scientific views on dream interpretation, which he finds interesting but
not adequate. He then makes his argument by describing a number of dreams which he claims illustrate his theory.
Freud describes three main types of dreams:
1. Direct prophecies received in the dream (chrematismos, oraculum);
2. The foretelling of a future event (orama, visio)
3. The symbolic dream, which requires interpretation (Interpretation of Dreams 5).
Much of Freud's sources for analysis are in literature. Many of
his most important dreams are his own — his method is inaugurated with
an analysis of his dream "Irma's injection" — but many also come from patient case studies.
Influence and reception
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Memorial plate in commemoration of the place where Freud began The Interpretation of Dreams, near Grinzing, Austria
The Interpretation of Dreams
was first published in an edition of only 600 copies, and these took
eight years to sell. The work subsequently gained popularity, and seven
more editions were printed in Freud's lifetime, the last in 1929. The Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler wrote to Freud in October 1905 that he was convinced of the correctness of The Interpretation of Dreams as soon as he read it.
Otto Rank
was impressed by the work when he read it in 1905. Rank was moved to
write a critical reanalysis of one of Freud's own dreams, and perhaps
partly for this reason came to Freud's attention. It was with Rank's
help that Freud published the work's second edition in 1909. The classicist Norman O. Brown described The Interpretation of Dreams as one of the great applications and extensions of the Socratic maxim "know thyself" in Life Against Death (1959). The philosopher Paul Ricœur described The Interpretation of Dreams as Freud's "first great book" in Freud and Philosophy (1965). He argued that like Freud's other works it posits a "semantics of desire".
The mythologist Joseph Campbell
described the book as an "epochal work", noting that it was "based on
insights derived from years devoted to the fantasies of neurotics". Max Schur,
Freud's physician and friend, has provided evidence that the first
dream that Freud analyzed, his so-called "Irma dream" was not very
disguised, but actually closely portrayed a medical disaster of Emma
Steinbeck, one of Freud's patients. The psychologist Hans Eysenck argued in Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985) that the dreams Freud cites not only do not support his dream theory, but actually disprove it.
The philosopher Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen and the psychologist Sonu Shamdasani argued in The Freud Files (2012) that Freud's analysis of the dream of Irma's injection was partly based on Belgian psychologist Joseph Delboeuf's analysis of the "dream of lizards and of the Asplenium Ruta muraria" in Sleep and Dreams. In their view, Freud's work should be placed in the context of the "introspective hypnotism" practiced by figures such as Auguste Forel, Eugen Bleuler, and Oskar Vogt. They charged Freud with selectively citing some authors on dreams (including Marie-Jean-Léon, Marquis d'Hervey de Saint Denys and Louis Ferdinand Alfred Maury), passing over others (including Jean-Martin Charcot, Pierre Janet, and Richard von Krafft-Ebing)
in silence, and with systematically avoiding "citing the passages in
the works of his predecessors which came closest to his own theories."
Neuropsychoanalyst Mark Blechner maintains that even if one does
not agree with Freud's theories that all dreams are wish-fulfillments
and that the strangeness of dreams is due to mental disguise, The Interpretation of Dreams remains an extraordinary scientific record of dream texts and an analysis of the mental operations that dreams demonstrate.
Translations
The first translation from German into English was completed by A. A. Brill, a Freudian psychoanalyst. Years later, an authorized translation by James Strachey was published. The most recent English translation is by Joyce Crick.
Online editions
The full text of The Interpretation of Dreams at Wikisource, a faithful copy of the third edition translated in English by Abraham Arden Brill and published in 1913 by The Macmillan Company.- The Interpretation of Dreams at Bartebly, derived from the same edition as above.
- The Interpretation of Dreams at Psych Web, derived from the same edition as above.
The Interpretation of Dreams public domain audiobook at LibriVox- Die Traumdeutung at Project Gutenberg, derived from the original text in German
- Die Traumdeutung at the Internet Archive, scans of the original text in German.
