The Interpretation of Dreams

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Sigmund Freud
Publisher:	Avon
Release date:	20 March, 1980
Our price:	$6.99

The Interpretation of Dreams

Average rating: Stars

an outstanding read that delivers esteemed perceptivity to t

My version of this book has a translation by Joyce Crick (ISBN 0192823523). She gives an insightful introduction to Freud that is well referenced. However, her style is absolutely monotonous and was far more difficult to complete than Freud's writing which was to follow. What Crick has done well with this version is that she has retained certain significant or vague tests in German (original) with their translations as parentheses, footnotes, or explantory notes. She has also added value to the version with an extensive package of explanatory notes after Freud's work. In addition, her translation of Freud's work "captures the lightness and pace of Freud's style, freed from the jargon and Victorian elaborations of James Strachey's famous version."

On Freud's work itself, The Interpretation of Dreams was a revoluationary paper of its time, discussing for the first time, concepts such as the Oedipus complex and the practice of psychoanalysis. Freud explores his personal life with this paper, enriching the reader with his self-analyses. However, I felt he over did the case studies, presenting several examples of a single concept, which was for me perhaps a little long-winded and tiring to read, especially if his first examples were good ones, and presented the concept/s acutely.

The pace of the paper picks up at the start of each new concept and tends to wind down and even drag at the middle or end portions. Towards the end however, his pace dramatically picks up (and no, it's not a placebo effect), as he summarises and pulls all his concepts together in an attempt to hold on to the reader and deliver his final call to action. Overall this is an outstanding read that delivers esteemed perceptivity to the faculty of psychoanalysis, how we perceive and interpret the arts and literature, and on the variety of complex languages with which we do so. However, be prepared for an intense read, but remain assured that upon completion of this work, you will be duly facinated, inspired, and impelled to re-examine your psyche.

The Interpretation of Dreams - Sigmund Freud

Classic contribution to psychoanalytic theory

Although Freud's ideas and psychoanalytic theory haven't fared that well in recent decades (Jung's views and reputation have actually done much better), there is no doubt that Freud's ideas were a major contribution to the understanding of human behavior and the mind and remain at least historically important today. Although perhaps superceded by the cognitive and neurobiological approaches that have developed in the last few decades, Freud was still a brilliant thinker who changed our undestanding of the mind for the better.

For example, although his idea of the ego, super-ego, and id are now being supplanted by more physiological explanations (the limbic system of the brain being a very good analog to the id), nevertheless, basically what Freud was saying was that a shaping process goes on during early childhood that results in the formation of relatively enduring personality characteristics. There is no doubt that this developmental idea still has validity to this very day.

However, while I certainly respect and admire many of the early psychologists, and they were great pioneers in many ways, and some of their ideas are still important, nevertheless, a lot of what they said has to be taken now with a considerable grain of salt, and the area of dream interpretation is one them. It doesn't mean that dreams are completely valueless, but they're of much less significance than has been claimed in the past. The most serious critique of the psycholanalytic (and others) view of dreams comes from recent research into the brain and neurobiology. The problem is that dreams are really not what people think at all most of the time--which is some sort of cyptic but profound message from the unconscious mind.

For example, consider the question of why most dreams seem to consist of collections or sequences of difficult to interpret images, thoughts, and memories that seem to be combined or strung together in a not very logical and difficult to interpret fashion. The reason why, contrary to the popular belief that this reflects some profound and not easily discernible meaning, is that the order really is almost random, or is governed by very weak associational processes. The reason why this is, and why most dreams seem so puzzling and difficult to understand is that when you go to sleep, the memory areas of the brain located in the temporal cortex become more active through a process known as corticocipedal disinhibition, allowing memories, images, and thoughts to flood into consciousness willy-nilly. This is prevented or inhibited during normal waking, otherwise the flood of thoughts and images would interfere with normal memory retrieval and thinking processes.

This is a little off the subject, but one area of pseudo or quasi-scientific theory and speculation that has been getting a lot of attention lately (and shows how much more sophisticated the more fantastically oriented or perhaps "mystically" oriented types in psychology are getting) is the idea that the brain is a "quantum computer" and uses quantum mechanical and even multi-dimensional spatial capabilities to do its work. At least one world-famous physicist and mathematician, Roger Penrose, has suggested it himself. (I critique Penrose's proposal on this in my Amazon review of his book, The Large, The Small, and the Human Brain).

However, although a fascinating idea, there is still no real evidence that this is in fact the case. Neurobiologists have drawn analogies between devices like SQIDs (super-conducting quantum interference devices) and nerve cells, but this is reaching a bit.

One main problem for me would be the noise factor. There is already a huge amount of random noise in the firings of nerves in the human brain and quantum mechanisms are far below the level of this noise. The brain seems to ignore the high noise level just fine and to operate pretty well despite it and so I don't see how quantum effects which would be far more subtle would have much of an effect.

The other main problem is that the brain typically shows a huge amount of integration and convergence in its mechanisms, and phenomena at the level of quantum effects would probably just get lost in the overall convergence process or even the resting level of noise. Another way to think about it is how likely quantum effects are to manifest themselves at the molecular level, let alone the cellular level or the level of a neural circuit or the entire brain.

So until there's some real evidence, I remain sceptical, and this is probably another "mystical" idea that will probably go the way of all the others.

But anyway, getting back to the present book, that little digression was really by way of pointing out that unscientific speculation has been rife in psychology from its birth in the mid-19th century with thinkers such as Rudolph Lotze, Paul Brentano, Wilhelm Wundt, Johann Fechner, Hartmann and the Scottish faculty psychologists, Janet, Freud and the other psychoanalytic theorists, and many others. It's just getting harder for the layman to recognize this sort of thing when he sees it since their ideas are more and more taking on the language of physics and engineering and neurobiology. But that doesn't mean it's not the same old unfounded speculation and mystical nonsense.

Sigmund Freud - The Interpretation of Dreams

If life is a dream, then don't wake me up

This book is a watershed in human intellectual history. In it Freud undermines the picture of mankind as primarily a being of reason, and presents the idea that we are all creatures of our wishes, our inner unconscious lives. Dreams are not nothing, and they are not in Freud's eyes rare religious gifts, but rather to the key to our own mental life. Freud in this book presents a vast world of examples and interpretations .
I am not a psychologist and do not consider myself competent to really judge how much of what Freud presents here is valid or even capable of scientific testing. I do know that this work is one which like a great literary masterpiece has inspired countless interpretations and reinterpretations.
Understanding human Intellectual History is now impossible without knowing this work.

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