Dream Interpretation in Psychoanalysis - Essay Example

Early in his career, Freud postulated a descriptive categorization of the human psyche into the conscious, the preconscious, and the unconscious. The first of these refers to what is actively part of someone's immediate awareness, the second to what can actively be called to the conscious state, and the last refers to subjects present in the mind which cannot be called into the conscious. This last division contains desires or memories hidden in the psyche which cause one to act, think or feel in a certain manner that they are not able to explain in a rational way.

Freud further divides these unconscious 'triggers' into instincts, drives which relate to meeting or ignoring basic human needs, and developmental drives, which are a reaction to social behavior learned from one's parents or environment. By the 1920's, Freud's research evolved into a structural model of the mind, in which he divides the psyche into the id, the ego, and the superego. The id operates on the "pleasure principle", which seeks to gratify the most immediate desires of a small child.

At the opposite end of the model is the superego, which is a human's conscience, containing all of the rules and regulations learned as acceptable to society. Between the two is the ego, or the conscious mind, which interprets the reality of the outside world and how best to operate in satiating the needs of the id. The ego frequently serves as the battleground when the superego rushes to prohibit a desire of the id that clashes with acceptable parameters of social conduct. When such conflict occurs, the ego and superego frequently collaborate unconsciously to repress the desire.

Freud believed that the root of most neurotic illnesses lay in this repression. Used as a defense mechanism, repression occurs when an individual tries to avoid an interior conflict by pretending that the desire itself does not exist. When this occurs, the desire does not disappear, but instead remains in the unconscious part of the mind. Here it retains its instinctual strength and the energy manifests itself in other guises: most often in neurotic symptoms, unconscious 'slips of the tongue' when speaking, or in dreams.

Furthermore, by repressing the desire to the unconscious, one relinquishes control: the symptoms cannot be alleviated and the repression will not allow the initial instinct to be brought into the conscious mind. By extending Freud's theory of dream manifestations into psychoanalysis, dreams are extremely flexible in the manner with which they can be interpreted. Dreams allow the unconscious to satisfy unfulfilled desires, by allowing 'latent' issues to manifest in the 'real' content of the dream world.

Two of the most frequently interpreted methods by which repressed issues surface in dreams are defined by the terms displacement and condensation. When something in a dream causes a disproportionate emotional response, it is because the seemingly unimportant matter is a symbol of a much deeper personal interest. In this manner, when an individual recalls a trivial matter from a dream much more distinctly than the overall elements of the dream, the minor thing is a manifest representation of a deeper trouble.

For instance, a dream involving a small dog constantly yipping could be indicative of an