by Sabrina Ginesi

Created on: March 25, 2009

Freud's approach to dreams analysis revolutionised the concept of the human mind; he concluded the interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the unconscious activities of the mind' (Freud, 1915 pg 92). Pre-scientific views of dreams were understood to be friendly or hostile manifestations of higher powers, demonical or divine' (Freud, 1914 pg 1). However contrary to popular belief, Freud viewed dreams as a psychical act and a manifestation of a latent thought repressed due to anxiety surrounding the forbidden wish held in the unconscious. His work on dreams and their interpretation paved the way in which we use and see dreams to a large extent in modern psychoanalytical practice, from a technical, clinical and theoretical perspective.

Before engaging on Freud's approach to dreams analysis, one must first appraise his hypothesis of the unconscious mind and the role of censorship, as this is the main reason behind any distortion in a dream. Freud divided the human mind into conscious and unconscious systems. The conscious mind contains contemporary thoughts, feelings and sensations that we are instantly aware of at any time.

In contrast however, the unconscious mind is usually suppressed from our conscious mind, consisting of all suppressed desires, drives (particularly libido), and also suppressed memories suppressed due to repression; a psychical mechanism keeping these wishes out of consciousness as a style of defence against guilt or anxiety, as these wishes are usually forbidden and emanate from what Freud termed the Id'.

Due to the unpleasantness of these instincts and wishes, a censorship is required to maintain repression, to protect the conscious mind, the Ego'. Freud nominated this censorship as the Superego', which was occasionally circumvented due to the desire of unconscious wishes to manifest into the conscious, indicating the failure of repression. Freud termed this the return of the repressed' (cited in Quinodoz, 2004 pg245). All dreams indicate failure in repression and the mechanisms involved in this circumvention will be explored further with specific reference to the Irma dream.

Freud believed dreams were unconscious wish fulfilments that had two contents; the latent thought and the manifest content. The latent thought being the repressed wish hiding in the unconscious yet ready to surface at any opportunity, usually in the form of a dream. The manifest content is an attempt at disclosing the latent thought but due to psychical mechanisms

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