The Interpretation of Dreams [Paperback]

Moreover, the cover art is very eye catching, since the blurred water-color profiles have a dream-like quality about them, reinforcing, but not distracting from the books subject and contents. In many ways, the book is the cover.

I admire the heavy secondary research Freud put into his book. Keeping in mind Freud's ideas were gestating in the late 1800's, when there was none of the perfected scientific research and research methods that we have today. Like Darwin, Galileo, or Newton, Freud did so much with so little in the way of technological gizmos. This adds even a greater luster to his genius.

However, there are two issues I have with Dr. Freud's methodology. First, his has a very odd universe of sampling, namely himself and his neurotic patients (136, 138). First of all, relying on his own dreams for analysis tends to make his research solipsistic, which is to say we may be looking more at Freud than his research and conclusions. Moreover, relying on neurotic patients does not yield statistically balanced data. His skewed sampling leads to a skewed conclusion.

Secondly, Freud comes to the reductionist conclusion that all dreams are wish fulfillment. Keeping in mind the strange and limited universe of sampling, it is no wonder that Freud came to this rather odd conclusion. Part of the problem is that Freud completely ignored the creativity aspect of dreams. The classic example of the creativity in dreams is Elias Howe's invention of the sewing machine needle. He was an English inventor trying to invent the sewing machine. He had all the parts in place expect the needle, which was giving him problems. He fell asleep at his inventor's table and dreamt cannibals were chasing him, whose spears that had holes in the tops. He woke up and put the hole in the top of the machine needle, and presto! A new industry.

I recognize that this book is an essential the historical literature of psychology. And I have no qualms about typical and ubiquitous Freudian sexology. Sex, or better yet reproduction, is a power drive in humanity, although I do not concede that it is the one and only drive.

It is apparent that Freud concentrates to a larger extent on the use of words in dreams and on the difficulty of deciphering them. Freud's ideas of dreams as wish-fulfillment, his ideas of the retelling of the dream as a continuation, as well as the dream's manifest and latent content, are covered much more clearly than in any of the later editions of the same text. The fact that Joyce Crick's translation is faster-moving and definitively lighter than previous versions enhances the understanding of the material and engages the reader. It established a sense of dialogue with the reader.

While reading Joyce Crick's translation the author of the review remembered her first encounter with Freud's original German version Die Traumdeutung while she was an undergraduate student. The German version was definitely much more difficult to read and caused some confusion for the reader. The author valued Freud's elaboration on the symbols of dreams, but viewed the statement that all psychopathic phenomena derive from the suppression of sexual desires as difficult to comprehend (for an undergraduate student). However when comparing The Interpretation of Dreams with Freud's discussion of dreams in his work Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis it has to be pointed out that the latter is probably an easier way of gaining insight into his views about dreams. Dreams are covered in Part II of the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, which Freud delivered in two successive winter terms (running from October to March) in 1915-16 and 1916-17 at the University of Vienna. The new translation is targeted at the psychoanalytically minded postgraduate student or psychiatric registrar who had previous exposure and an understanding of basic concepts such as the preconscious, unconscious and conscious as well as the id, ego and superego. However some explanation about these concepts is provided at the end of the book.

Freud's work on dreaming has recently regained interest because among many other opportunities, the ability to conduct studies in sleep laboratories and the neuropsychological assessment of brain-injured patients has assisted us in finding some scientific evidence for some of his theories. Neuroscience has proven that dreaming can be switched on or off by a neurochemical pathway whose main function is to "instigate goal-seeking behaviors and an organism's appetitive interaction with the world" (Panksepp, 1985, p. 273). This means that neuroscience has contributed to the evidence of a radical hypothesis that is more than 100 years old (i.e. that dreams are motivated phenomena, driven by our wishes and the dopamigergic mechanisms, the appetitive (i.e. libidinal) 'command system' of the brain (Panksepp, 1985, 1998)). The Interpretation of Dreams edited by Ritchie Robertson is meeting the challenge for psychoanalysis to refresh Freudian theory, "which now has an unpalatable and distinctly post-Victorian flavor for many" (Panksepp, 1999, p.35). It assists in moving psychoanalysis towards a modern and dynamic mode of thought that continues to be rejuvenated by the accumulating evidence in neuroscience, thus consolidating its presence in the twenty-first century.

References Freud, S. (1900). Die Traumdeutung. GW Bd 2-3, 1-642.

Freud, S. (1966). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis 1933. In Strachey (Ed & Trans). The complete introductory lectures on psychoanalysis (pp. 471-646). New York: Norton. (Original work published in 1933).

Panksepp, J. (1985). Mood changes. In P. Vinken, C Bruyn, H. Klawans (Eds) Handbook of Clinical Neurology, Vol. 45 (pp.271-285). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Panksepp, J. (1998) Affective Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Panksepp, J. (1999) Emotions as Viewed by Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience: An Exercise in Consilience, Neuropsychoanalysis, 1,1, 15-37.

"Now I have finished and am thinking about the dream book again. I have been looking into the literature and feel like a Celtic imp."Oh, how I am glad that no one, no one knows..." No one suspects that the dream is not nonsense but wish fulfillment."

Indeed, this is the premise of Freud's entire thesis: dreams are no more than repressed unconscious wishes, battling for expression and consummation.

In his own words, Freud had 'dared' to rally against the 'objections of severe science, to take the part of the ancients and of superstition.' In 1900, the official year of the book's publication, its reception, despite its provoctive title, was tepid, and in the course of six years, only sold 351 copies. Freud never gave up hope, and 30 years later, in the preface of the third English edition, he wrote, "It contains, even according to my present day judgement, the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once a lifetime.' In present day, one can question any Freud scholar about ~The Interpretation of Dreams~ and they will say the same thing: the book contains everything that 'is' psychoanalysis.

Anyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis and the mind of Sigmund Freud, reading this book is an absolute must. The reading runs along too, quite easily, as Freud was an excellent writer: his unique prose style even shines through some clumsy translations.

If you are interested in the book's process of development, I would suggest reading ~The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Fliess~; another gold mine for understanding the growth of psychoanalysis.