Freud's controversial theory of the interpretation of dreams causes a lot of skepticism and enthusiasm. But its essence is irrefutable. Very often, a thorough analysis of a dream according to Freud using the images he interpreted and with the correct analysis technique makes it possible for a person to understand the true causes of experiences.
Dreams in Freud's theory hide real human experiences behind their clear meaning. The obvious meaning is the dream itself with those faces, objects and actions that remain in the memory after awakening. Since it is very difficult to solve Freudian dreams, it is necessary to understand the very mechanism of interaction of images from dreams with consciousness, with the experience of a person and with his unconscious.
Games of images
The process of interpreting dreams is always multi-stage. True experiences are hidden under dreams, reliably protected from consciousness by the inner "censor". In dreams, thoughts are transformed into visual images. It is often difficult to guess them. Dreams can thicken. In this case, consciousness transforms hidden experiences into a minimum of images and events that were dreamed of.
When there is a shift in the meaning of a dream, the images are not clearly guessed, they are only indirect hints of a hidden meaning. It happens that thoughts in a dream are transformed into those images that were formed in a person long before the events of today. Freud's interpretation of dreams must take into account any of the transformation options.
Freud's Dream Analysis Principle
The main technique that lies in the mechanism of dream interpretation is free associations. It is this method that allows you to get to the true meaning of sleep.
1. You should pay attention to the dream itself. It should be borne in mind that all sleep events, in their direct form, do not make any sense, but it is necessary to break the dream itself into several stages. After that, each semantic part is analyzed separately.
2. The dreamed elements in each of the semantic parts and even individual objects must be explained by those associations that first come to mind. They should be written down to facilitate a complete interpretation of the dream. Thus, all sleep events during the analysis are replaced by associative ones, and the meaning of the dream can already be interpreted, starting from real events in a person's life.
3. Careful attention should be paid to those associations that are questioned by the internal "censor" as insignificant or indecent. Freud's theory of dream interpretation pays special attention to them. What is hushed up and rejected, most likely, is the true cause of the experiences reflected in the dream. Sometimes it is difficult for a person to admit this to himself, and therefore, when interpreting dreams, the help of specialists may be required.
4. Some of the images that appear in a dream, Freud interprets in his book with sexual connotations. For example, vessels, suitcases, bowls and everything that a limited space can absorb is a woman's womb. At the same time, umbrellas, trees, sticks, etc. are symbols of the phallus. These images and a list of others given in the book of Freud are culturally and historically embedded in the unconscious. When interpreting dreams, they are taken into account, together with previously recorded associations.
