On Dreams

Freud compares repression to a form of censorship. The thought is formulated based upon experience, memory, and feeling. It passes through censorship and what is left behind is repressed. Dreams limit the mind’s ability to censor everything that is repressed, and small pieces make it through. Sleeping creates a compromising state in which the psychologist and the patient can examine the condensation and displacement to obtain a meaningful interpretation. Freud suggests that one of the reasons humans forget dreams or parts of dreams is that these parts hold the key to the meaning of the dream and are representative of what would ordinarily be repressed.

Freud speaks about dreams and the unconscious mind as if they have agency. In his work, Freud describes a process by which dreams make intentional choices about condensing information and concealing individual components through the process of censorship. In this way, Repression and the Unconscious hold profound power over what is made available to the conscious mind.

The act of sleeping dismantles many of the guards of the unconscious mind, allowing pieces of repressed desires to filter through via symbolism in dreams. When one wakes, guards are reconstructed. Freud suggests that the forgotten components of dreams may be representative of deeply repressed desires. The unconscious mind is alerted to the slip-up and actively seeks to conceal information once more. The compromising state of sleep enables the psychologist to engage in a process of Making Meaning Through Analysis.

In Chapter 11, Freud compares the removal of external stimuli to aid sleep to the removal of internal stimuli. He uses the analogy of a child trying to fall asleep. The child pleads to stay up longer, and the mother removes anything that might distract the child from the task: toys, books, etc. Desire is distraction. Adults have learned to tame desire to sleep. Where children struggle with external stimuli and desires, adults struggle with the psychical. Freud argues that the small amount of attention that is reserved for waking—such as when a mother hears the cry of her baby, or someone wakes when their name is whispered—is also devoted to internal stimuli and directs desires toward dreams. External stimuli are even folded into dreams to ensure continued sleep.

The interplay between external and internal further divulges the differences between the desires of children and adults as outlined in Dreams as Expressions of Desire. Children’s desires are simple and tangible. They are easily distracted from sleep because most of their desires are external: a slice of cake, a bedtime story, or one more snuggle. As children age, their desires become increasingly complex. Desires from infantile sexuality are taboo and threaten the waking life, so they are concealed through dream displacement.