The Interpretation Of Dreams

The Interpretation Of Dreams is Sigmund Freud’s seminal work on scientifically analyzing the deeper meaning hidden inside each and every one of our human dreams, which will help you make more sense of your own psyche.

To be honest I can rarely remember my dreams. When I do, I’m almost disappointed when the dream is about something really obvious, like me suddenly becoming super rich or successful. These kinds of wishes aren’t special. Most people have them. There isn’t much to learn.

Another obvious desire your dreams want to fulfill for you is being lazy. If you dream about relaxing, lying in bed all day or living at the beach, free from worry, the innate human longing for lethargy is at play. However, quite often, our dreams successfully mask the deep and sometimes obscure desires in our hearts.

For example, one of Freud’s patients dreamed her youngest nephew Charles was lying dead in an open casket. When they analyzed her situation, it turned out the dream was about her suppressed love for a professor whose relationship with the family had gone awry. The last time she’d seen him was at the funeral of Charles’s older brother Otto, one of the rare events they both attended.

Her only way to see him again would have been if Charles had died – so that’s what her mind showed her. Crazy, right? That’s why reading dreams is a bit like reading between the lines in newspapers where journalists are censored. You have to look for what’s not obvious to find the truth.

We often dream about what happened on the same day or the one before, but real-life events are just one of three sources of dream content: Recent, real-life events. Anything that happened in the past 24 hours, or even the last week. If you bumped into Mr. Gartner, maybe he’ll show up. These often connect to other memories too, so you might dream about a garden you once visited, because Mr. Gartner’s name sounds similar. Childhood memories. If we dream about it often enough, we might be able to identify definite, distant memories that ended up defining who we are. Freud’s dad told him he wouldn’t amount to anything when he was really young, so with each new success and award ceremony, dreams of embarrassing moments would come back. Bodily stimuli. If you’ve ever had a wet dream, you’ve experienced this. But any physical influence on your body will transcend into your dreams while you’re asleep. For example, if you sleep on a plane and it starts shaking, you might get dizzy in your dream. There are lots of places to find “the stuff that dreams are made of.” Now you…