Freud published his ideas about dreams in
1900 in a book called The Interpretation
of Dreams. His ideas about the human mind and human nature shocked, then
excited the world. Over the next one-hundred years, they would deeply influence
not only medicine but culture, art, even politics.
Freud was not the first person to have
all these ideas. But he was the first to develop a complete system of ideas
about dreams and the mind.
The most important part of Freud’s theory of dreams was his idea that dreams are always attempts to satisfy unconscious wishes and desires. For sex. For power. For the death of others.
He said most of our unconscious wishes and desires are so intense that they would wake us if we knew them. So, he said, our dreams try to cover them in unclear pictures and strange stories. It is as if dreams speak in a language we can only partly understand. Freud said a doctor must help uncover the true dream—the one that lies deep within the pictures and strange stories.
Sigmund Freud quickly gained many followers. One was Carl Gustav Jung of Switzerland. The two men first met in 1906. They separated five years later, when Jung disagreed with Freud’s thinking about dreams and the unconscious mind. Jung’s own ideas about dreams gained wide influence.
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Jung did not agree with Freud that images in dreams had just one meaning. He believed the images could have more than one meaning. The meaning was different, he said, depending on the personality and the life of the dreamer.
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Most important, Jung rejected the idea that a real dream is hidden, covered over by a false dream. Jung believed that dreams are as clear and direct as our sleeping minds can make them. He said. “Dreams are a part of nature. And nature has no desire to lie or mislead. It tries to express something as best as it can.”
Most dream scientists today would support Carl Jung on that point. New brain research has provided evidence that our dreams are not hidden messages. They are as clear as our minds can make them. Allan Hobson is an expert on the brain and dreams. He says Freud’s theory of dreams has much power and beauty. It contains revolutionary ideas. But, he says, it is more like a work of art than a work of science.