Dreams

While reading and analyzing “The interpretation of Dreams” by Freud, I had trouble believing the accuracy. From personal experience, it is very hard to remember a dream, even if you wake up and immediately write it down. Let alone remember very specific details. The accuracy at which he remembers certain details such as words on a bottle, make me question the accuracy. He writes, “Not long before, when she was feeling unwell, my friend Otto had given her an injection of a preparation of propyl, propyls…..propionic acid…….trimethylamin (and I saw before me the formula for this printed out in heavy type)”. How can we truly know the accuracy of what he is saying? What kind of mental state do you think all this dream analysis had on Freud’s mental state? Analyzing every line of a dream like its AP English during the Great Gatsby unit has to take a toll after awhile. Also, mix in the cocaine and constant highs and lows, you’re probably going to have some wild dreams.

2 Replies to “Dreams”

  1. I think that it is impossible to know exactly how accurate his dream and dream analysis is. It is easy for someone to unconsciously add details to a dream to have it make more sense to them (like the bottle writing). I think that his eagerness to prove his theory takes a toll on his argument. While he is trying to analyze his dream objectively and make realistic claims about his dream, i think he looses sight that dreams are and will always be subjective.

  2. I do take problem with some of Freud’s methods, I think he attempts to project an air of objectivity and scientific fact in this piece but he overstates the amount that both are applicable to this new field of study. However, his remembrance of the dream is not really something that I took issue with, personally I have a similar experience with my dreams in which I am largely capable of remembering them long after I wake up although I know some who have the opposite experience. I think in his effort to appear legitimate, he goes about his analysis in a way that makes me question his method, I do not know if acting like he is trying to get a better grade in AP Literature is the best way he could have demonstrated his thought process as it makes him appear desperate for each word to have meaning.

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