Share this story!            

COMMENT: The interpretation of dreams —Charles Ferndale

For nearly sixty years, Freudian dogma discouraged alternative approaches to the science of dreams, but that was no fault of Sigmund Freud. He was first trained as a neurologist and his theories about human psychology were derived from models he attempted to construct to explain human neurological function

I think it is safe to assume that people have always been intrigued by dreams, but it is only recently that we have begun to study them, using methods we may properly call scientific. The scientific study of dreams cannot yet address all the questions we are tempted to ask about them. That is the nature of science: scientists only ask those questions that they have a reasonable chance of answering accurately. So the reader should not expect from the scientific study of dreams answers to all questions that have been asked about them. And often the questions scientists ask are unfamiliar to the public. They tend to ask unexpected questions, and they often put an end to debate, not by refuting competing theories, but by showing them to be incoherent or pointless.

Before Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), most discussions about dreams had centred upon the idea that they revealed secrets of what had happened or would happen. Their interpretation was a popular occupation among fortune-tellers and charlatans. But the truth of their claims about dreams was in most cases impossible to test. Science requires all theories to be in principle testable, so it is fair to say that few theories about dreams before the late 19th Century were scientific. The first serious attempt at a scientific theory of dreams was proposed at the end of the 19th Century by the Viennese neurologist Sigmund Freud. His major work, The Interpretation of Dreams, was published in 1899 and caused a sensation throughout Europe and America. This book greatly enhanced public interest in dreams, but simultaneously retarded the scientific study of them. This was not Freud’s intention. He was a genuine scientist, but his theories were misused, and became dogmas that precluded intelligent scepticism.

For nearly sixty years, Freudian dogma discouraged alternative approaches to the science of dreams, but that was no fault of Sigmund Freud. He was first trained as a neurologist and his theories about human psychology were derived from models he attempted to construct to explain human neurological function. From these theoretical models, and his clinical observation of patients later, he deduced theories about the mind that eventually became known as psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis could have been treated as a proper scientific theory, but for interesting technical and historical reasons, Freud’s theories have seldom been submitted to anything even resembling an empirical test, so whether or not psychoanalysis is a scientific theory is still fiercely debated. These immensely complex issues cannot possibly be resolved here.

Freud’s theories of human psychology were based upon a general theory that is still useful in many branches of science today, and especially in biology. The theory states that many important biological systems are homeostatic, i.e. they seek equilibrium and are regulated away from the extremes to which they can be prone. Obvious examples are body temperature and blood pressure. Freud assumed that the nervous system, and the mind to which its functioning gave rise, sought a middle level of simulation: not too little, nor too much. So the nervous system (mind) used defensive mechanisms to retain a homeostatic state, a state of balance, which was the state most efficient for practical survival in the daily struggles of life. Freud’s interest always focused more upon the over-stimulation of mind, and its probable consequences, than upon its under-stimulation. This focus was probably the result of his enormous popularity as a therapist, treating the neurotic disorders of affluent married Viennese women who appeared to be suffering from what Freud called hysteria. Observing these syndromes closely, he concluded that the hysterias were the result of pent up, but repressed, sexual desires which found their visible expression in dysfunctional forms. Hysterical paralysis, for example, was seen by Freud as the manifestation of crippling unconscious sexual guilt. Frightening desires were repressed because they would otherwise arouse too much guilt and excitement, so they were stored in what Freud called the unconscious. He thought of the unconscious as a high-pressure storage-system for dangerous impulse-saturated thoughts, kept (usually) beyond the reach of consciousness, so as to maintain the sanity of the person. Keeping forbidden desires below the level of consciousness kept the person whose desires they were in a state of safe equilibrium, i.e. homeostasis. At the time, Freud was much impressed with ideas of steam engines that were being widely discussed in late 19th century Europe, so he thought of the unconscious as a strong, safe, storage device in which increasing pressures of forbidden desire build up. Eventually though, the pressure has to be relieved or it too will blow and render a person’s mind dysfunctional.

Hysterias were symptoms of the excessive pressure of unconscious forbidden desires — of feelings of (usually sexual) guilt — leaking out in cloaked, disguised forms, which could cripple the sufferer both physically and psychologically. The disguises were necessary in order to protect the person from the shock of recognising their own desires. And (the theory claimed) the disguises of these forbidden desires had to be gently and safely removed (by therapists) so as to restore the patient to a healthy balanced state, by helping them to face their fears, to accept the presence and origins of their fears, and so (the theory went) to be free from their haunting effects. The job of the psychoanalyst was to discover dangers hidden in a patient’s unconscious and to free patients from their crippling influence by gently unmasking them. According to Freud, psychoanalysts had two main ways of discovering what a patient’s repressed desires were: one was what he called by free association (the inducement of a state in the patients close to waking dreams) and the other was the patient’s night dreams. Dreams, according to Freud, were the human mind’s mechanism for removing from the pressure-store forbidden desires at night. These terrors were necessarily masked. And these masks were, according to Freud, commonly shared by most people. In other words, there were common patterns, common stories, common images, that had the same meanings in the dreams of all people. So a good psychoanalyst would compile a dictionary, as it were, of the decoded fears (forbidden desires) of patients. The job of the psychoanalyst was to interpret a patient’s fearful thoughts (found especially in dreams), to unmask their forbidden desires in a context of complete safety (the psychoanalyst’s couch), and to gently encourage the patient to face the unthinkable and so be free of the haunting power of their repressed fears. If the technique worked, the patient recovered from her dysfunctional syndrome, her maladaptive behaviour; also, at the time, called her neurosis.

Now the questions arise: was Freud’s theory of the meaning of dreams coherent, and if coherent, was it accurate; was his theory of mind right; did psychoanalysis work as a therapy; and, if it worked, did it work because it was accurate? Alas, the answers will have to await my next article.

The writer has degrees from the Oxford University and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He can be reached at charlesferndale@yahoo.co.uk

Home | Editorial

Share this story!