Interpreting a Dream - Essay Example

I met a young man, sweet looking but never attractive, who gave me a single strawberry. I took it and put it into my mouth and magic! The next scene I saw was that I am standing in front of my garden watering the flowers.

In his book ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, Sigmund Freud argued that the foundation of all dream content is the fulfillment of wishes, conscious or not. The theory explains that the schism between ego and id leads to the "censorship" of dreams. The unconscious would "like" to depict the wish fulfilled wholesale, but the preconscious cannot allow it — the wish (or wishes) within a dream is thus disguised, and, as Freud argues, only an understanding of the structure of the dream work can explain the dream. In every dream in which he attempts to do so, he can establish a multitude of wishes on a variety of levels — conscious wishes for the immediate future. (Freud, 59)
According to Freud, our dreams are important and meaningful in understanding the causes of our problems, hidden issues, and painful issues we can't face during wakefulness. Freud identified two types of content in our dreams; latent content and manifest content. The manifest content is all the parts of the dream that we remember (the actual content). It's not the stuff we associate with our dreams, but the actual storylines of the dreams. This is regarded as Manifest Content. On the contrary, dreams have two types of content, each of which contains different meanings to the dreams. One of these types of content is latent content, which is the underlying, more hidden, but the true meaning of a dream (as opposed to the manifest content). Freud believed that the latent content was somehow censored by the subconscious which was a way to protect us from the real meanings of the dreams. This was necessary because the dream content may be difficult for people to deal with, so people disguise the real meaning. However, Freud believed that when people are conflicted, if he could uncover or get to the latent content, then he could identify the person's problem and resolve their conflict. This is regarded as Latent Content. Similarly, the sexual motivator is that part of the thought process that demands the mind to interpret all aspects of being in the context of gender quantum, and on the other hand, the aggressive motivator inclines the thought process in such a manner that it develops an ego that needs fulfillment at all respect.
But if I use the theory of Oneiric Darwinism explaining my dream would be far easier.

Amalgamating this theory with the idea of ‘remains of the day’ I can explain myself perfectly. The other day I went to the screening of the latest film ‘Superman Returns’ but failed to be too late. Not that I was dying to have a show but was somewhat more reluctant about it. But the sense of failure remained but latently. This came out in my dreams as a maze where I was lost but never petrified in any way. This was more of a dormant irritation that I wanted to overcome. The chance came in form of the sweet-looking man (superman?!). The strawberry proves no logical reasoning but simply it was a way out in whatever manner possible. Read More