ice cream and cherries. But in adults, the wishes that are to be fulfilled in dreams are disguised. That is because even when we sleep, censorship is at work on what we will permit ourselves. And although this censorship, or repression mechanism, is considerably weaker when we are asleep than when we are awake, it is still strong enough to cause our dreams to distort the wishes we cannot acknowledge.”
“Which is why dreams have to be interpreted “
“Freud showed that we must distinguish between the actual dream as we recall it in the morning and the real meaning of the dream. He termed the actual dream image—that is, the ‘film’ or ‘video’ we dream—the manifest dream. This ‘apparent’ dream content always takes its material or scenario from the previous day. But the dream also contains a deeper meaning which is hidden from consciousness. Freud called this the latent dream thoughts, and these hidden thoughts which the dream is really about may stem from the distant past, from earliest childhood, for instance.”
“So we have to analyze the dream before we can understand it.”
“Yes, and for the mentally ill, this must be done in conjunction with the therapist. But it is not the doctor who interprets the dream. He can only do it with the help of the patient. In this situation, the doctor simply fulfills the function of a Socratic ‘midwife,’ assisting during the interpretation.”
“I see.”
“The actual process of converting the latent dream thoughts to the manifest dream aspect was termed by Freud the dream work. We might call it ‘masking’ or ‘coding’ what the dream is actually about. In interpreting the dream, we must go through the reverse process and unmask or decode the motif to arrive at its theme.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Freud’s book teems with examples. But we can construct a simple and very Freudian example for ourselves. Let us say a young man dreams that he is given two balloons by his female cousin . . .”
“Yes?”
“Go on, try to interpret the dream yourself.”
“Hmm ... there is a manifest dream, just like you said: a young man gets two balloons from his female cousin.”
“Carry on.”
“You said the scenario is always from the previous day. So he had been to the fair the day before—or maybe he saw a picture of balloons in the newspaper.”
“It’s possible, but he need only have seen the word ‘balloon,’ or something that reminded him of a balloon.”
“But what are the latent dream thoughts that the dream is really about?”
“You’re the interpreter.”
“Maybe he just wanted a couple of balloons.”
“No, that won’t work. You’re right about the dream being a wish fulfillment. But a young man would hardly have an ardent wish for a couple of balloons. And if he had, he wouldn’t need to dream about them.”
“I think I’ve got it: he really wants his cousin—and the two balloons are her breasts.”
“Yes, that’s a much more likely explanation. And it presupposes that he experienced his wish as an embarrassment.”
“In a way, our dreams make a lot of detours?”
“Yes. Freud believed that the dream was a ‘disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish.’ But exactly what we have repressed can have changed considerably since Freud was a doctor in Vienna. However, the mechanism of disguised dream content can still be intact.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Freud’s psychoanalysis was extremely important in the 1920s, especially for the treatment of certain psychiatric patients. His theory of the unconscious was also very significant for art and literature.”
“Artists became interested in people’s unconscious mental life?”
“Exactly so, although this had already become a predominant aspect of literature in the last decade of the nineteenth century—before Freud’s psychoanalysis was known. It merely shows that the appearance of Freud’s psychoanalysis at that particular time, the 1890s, was no coincidence.”
“You mean it was in the spirit of the times?”
“Freud himself did not claim to have discovered phenomena such as repression, defense mechanisms, or rationalizing. He was simply the first to apply these human experiences to psychiatry. He was also a master at illustrating his theories with literary examples. But as I mentioned, from the 1920s, Freud’s psychoanalysis had a more direct influence on art and literature “
“In what sense?”
“Poets and painters, especially the surrealists, attempted to exploit the power of the unconscious in their work.”
“What are surrealists?”
“The word surrealism comes from the French, and means ‘super realism.’ In 1924 Andre Breton published a ‘surrealistic manifesto,’ claiming that art should come from the unconscious. The artist should thus derive the freest possible inspiration from his dream images and strive toward a ‘super realism,’ in which the boundaries between dream and reality were dissolved. For an artist too it can be necessary to break the censorship of the conscious and let words and images have free play.”
“I can see that.”
“In a sense, Freud demonstrated that there is an artist in everyone. A dream is, after all, a little work of art, and there are new dreams every night. In order to interpret his patients’ dreams, Freud often had to work his way through a dense language of symbols—rather in the way we interpret a picture or a literary text.”
“And we dream every single night?”
“Recent research shows that we dream for about twenty percent of our sleeping hours, that is, between one and two hours each- night. If we are disturbed during our dream phases we become nervous and irritable. This means nothing less than that everybody has an innate need to give artistic expression to his or her existential situation. After all, it is ourselves that our dreams are about We are the directors, we set up the scenario and play all the roles. A person who says he doesn’t understand art doesn’t know himself very well.”
“I see that.”
“Freud also delivered impressive evidence of the wonders of the human mind. His work with patients convinced him that we retain everything we have seen and experienced somewhere deep in our consciousness, and all these impressions can be brought to light again. When we experience a memory lapse, and a bit later ‘have it on the tip of our tongue’ and then later still ‘suddenly remember it,’ we are talking about something which has lain in the unconscious and suddenly slips through the half-open door to consciousness.”
“But it takes a while sometimes.”
“All artists are aware of that. But then suddenly it’s as if all doors and all drawers fly open. Everything comes tumbling out by itself, and we can find all the words and images we need. This is when we have ‘lifted the lid’ of the unconscious. We can call it inspiration, Sophie. It feels as if what we are drawing or writing is coming from some outside source.”
“It must be a wonderful feeling.”
“But you must have experienced it yourself. You can frequently observe inspiration at work in children who are overtired. They are sometimes so extremely overtired that they seem to be wide awake. Suddenly they start telling a story—as if they are finding words they haven’t yet learned. They have, though; the words and the ideas have lain ‘latent’ in their consciousness, but now, when all caution and all censorship have let go, they are surfacing. It can also be important for an artist not to let reason and reflection control a more or less unconscious expression. Shall I tell you a little story to illustrate this?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a very serious and a very sad story.”
“Okay.”
“Once upon a time there was a centipede that was amazingly good at dancing with all hundred legs. All the creatures of the forest gathered to watch every time the centipede danced, and they were all duly impressed by the exquisite dance. But there was one creature that didn’t like watching the centipede dance—that was a tortoise.”
