Experimental Essay: Dream Analysis based on Freud's Theories

This experimental essay delves into the realm of dream analysis through the lens of Sigmund Freud's theories. It begins by outlining Freud's concepts of dreams as representations of unconscious desires and wish fulfillment, highlighting the significance of manifest and latent content. The essay then presents a personal dream involving a childhood fear of mice, dissecting it to reveal both the surface-level imagery (manifest content) and the hidden meanings potentially rooted in past traumatic experiences (latent content). The analysis draws upon Freud's ideas of condensation, displacement, and the role of the unconscious mind in shaping dreams. Ultimately, the essay concludes that dreams can serve as a window into our deepest fears and desires, offering valuable insights into our psychological makeup and the potential for personal growth and resolution of past traumas. Desklib provides more resources for students, including past papers and solved assignments.

Experimental essay

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................2
Freud’s theories of dreams...........................................................................................................2
Description of a dream.................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The essay is all about to share the dream by using a Freud’s model which proposed that
sleeping brain is a self-organizing system and a combination of discontinuous and incongruous
neuronal signals. Similarly, the present essay also shares the experience of a dream by reflecting
the dream’s physiological and psychological activities. The dream is all about fear and its impact
over the mental status of a people. Also, the study also used an effective tool to interpret the
dream so that it analyzed that latent as well as manifest content.
MAIN BODY
Freud’s theories of dreams
Sigmund Freud’s theory of dream suggested that dreams represent unconscious desires,
thoughts and wish fulfilment. The idea presented by him had a strong impact on psychology
which a person thought emerged from their routine. He also added that dreams come due to sort
of day’s event and consolidate the memories. Also, either people dreams about the things which
they have not experienced or experienced (Lacan, Sheridan and Bowie, 2020). That is why, it
can be stated that it had a lasting impact on both psychology and psychotherapy. The major
reason of introducing the theory is such that it is represented a disguised fulfillment of a
repressed wish and also explained that studying dreams provides an easiest road to understanding
of an unconscious activities of mind. Hence, with the help of this theory, a state of unconscious
mind can be interpreted easily and also determine the greater degree than people suspect.
Freud also uses different sources of dreams in order to interpret the dreams of an
individual which include the stimuli from an external world, subjective experience, organic
stimuli within body, mental activities during sleep (
The interpretation of dreams, 2020). This
sources are first introduced in July 1985 about a patient name Irma and also develop theory of
dream analysis. Along with this, he also proposed that all dreams are a form of wish-fulfillment
of suppressed wishes so that actual meaning can be analyzed through an interpretation. In
addition to this, it has been also stated that wish fulfillment occurs when the unconscious desire
which uplift by ego and superego (Scalabrini, Esposito and Mucci, 2021). Thus, it is an idea
when wished cannot be fulfilled and this in turn comes out in dreams. The author also stated that
an anxious and punishing dreams of an individual also have their roots in wish fulfillment and

that is why, the factor is consider in a dream which might affect the mental status of an
individual.
Apart from this, another component used by the Freud in their theory is related to
manifest content that is related to actual images and another one is latent content i.e. hidden
meaning from a dream. As, there are wide range of dreams that can be seen by the individual but
all of them have a hidden meaning which need to be understand and examine the logic behind
the same. Therefore, it can be stated that the theory supports to interpret the meaning and this in
turn assist to generate the best outcomes.
Beside this, there are many other components used by Freud in order to interpret the
dream which include condensation where dream work tries to condense two different thoughts
by using an unclear word in order to make two thoughts come together. Also, displacement is
another word which is used to interpret the dream where manifest content and dream thoughts
are used in order to present the dreams in an effective manner (Erwin, 2019). Also, consideration
of respectability also used by them in order to transforming the thoughts into a visual images and
this comprise the essence of a formation of a dreams. Also, over-determination is another
concept which is used by the Freud which is all about provoking cause of a hysterical symptom
and it is also consider a pattern of trauma where an individual followed a pattern of repetition
compulsion that might affect the mind and mental status of a people. Thus, it can be stated that
with the help of such aspects, Freud interpret overall experience of a dream.
Description of a dream
The dream which I chose to analyze is such that when I was a child, I feel irrational fear
of a mice and this fear makes me shiver at sight of mice. Also, this dreams comes many times at
night where I experience very bad. I also feel that even thought of touching a holding a mouse
makes me quack in boots. Along with this, sometimes I think that mouse just run all over the
house and that is why, I fear to groom in my own house. Further, I also think that if the solution
has not taken then I have to leave my own house because one day there may be hundreds of
mice. This dream keep increases my fear and whenever I awake in next day, I realize that the
mice or mouse was on my bed that increases my fear day by day. Apart from this, I also saw that
mouse is in my folded clothes, which also contribute to increase my fear. Such type of dreams
come when the unconscious mind still working and recall the things which a person experienced

from their past or have an history related to such things that increase the chances of such type of
dreams. The latent content which I realized from the dream is such that I was might be bitten by
the rat when I was a toddler and due to medication and injections after that incident years back, I
react the same in negative manner. It is only an assumption which helps to increase the rates of
dream among individual. However, there may be other chances which convince person to think
such dreams that might be happen in their past birth or during childhood years.
Here the manifest content is all about dream which I saw at night, whereas the latent
content (actual meaning) with regard to the dream is such that there might be some wrong
incidence will happen in near future where I can’t do anything. This in turn reflected that the
unconscious mind has range of things like desire, urges and thought which can be acceptable to
conscious mind. This thought might include traumatic memories and secret desire and in the
context of my dream, it can be stated that it is all about traumatic memories which lead to
stressed and also bought into awareness for accepting the future challenge (Niaz, Stanikzai, and
Sahibzada, 2019). The dreams come in the form of hidden, symbolic forms which is actually
related to something. Further, it needs to understand the latent content from manifest content so
that it will either provide a best result in near future or might create awareness among them.
So the story line of my dream reflected that there was a personal history which makes me
fear of such situation and that is why, such dreams come. Also, at the present situation, when I
saw any mouse in a day then it affects the entire day and I think the major reason of my fear is
personal history that contribute to increase the fear day by day or year by year. I had not face any
incident related to the mouse and that is why, I am sure that the dream has a latent content and it
does not relate to present circumstance. Also, secondary study stated that the main rationale for
dreams is related to representing unconscious desire or interpreting the random signal from brain.
In the context of present dream, it has been stated that consolidation of person’s history helps in
developing dream even in that situation where they are not stable. In addition to this, as per the
Freud’s theory of dream interpretation, it has realized that it is a form of condensation when two
experience combine with each other in order to present one dream. The same happened to me
where my childhood experience overlapped my dream and this in turn raise the level of fear as
well. de Bianchedi (2018) explained that condensation is introduced by latent element which
have something in common and that is why, it has fused into a single unity in a manifest dream.

A temporary concept had developed during my childhood when I was bitten by rat and that is
why, I develop a new concept pertaining to the same which introduced fear into me. Fraud also
stated that it is also creative imagination which cannot be combine into another for a strange
topic. That is why, it was all about put the thoughts into a dream in order to create a new
imagination.
By using the concept of dream analysis, it can be stated that there was a situation
happened in past and mind of an individual highly affected which in turn leads to dreams of
mouse. However, the psychoanalysis revealed that such that of incident will be diminished once
the individual become a strong and mature because they start involving themselves into another
situation (Lyotard, 2017). Also, there are many chances when any person faces any unrealistic
incident and that was stuck by them which increase the rate of dreams at night. As a result,
sometimes people become threatened from this and might relate the same to another situation as
well. But unfortunately, the dream which I shared was not related to recent event occurred, but it
might be related to my past history like one of those bitten and for that I had to take many
injections. This in turn also supported by Eifermann (2018) that repression by a super-ego is
weakened during sleep due to absence of motor activity. This in turn increase the possibility of
subconscious impulse which develop thoughts and as a result, individual start thinking that
named as dream. Similarly, each individual faces variety of dreams where some of them have
meaning while some are useless. That is why, by using Freud theory, individual can interpret the
dream and this in turn helps to understand the dream.
In order to get clear and sudden discernment of a solution of such type of dream, it can be
stated that reading good books before sleeping will help to improve the sleep and this also
decrease the chances of unnecessary dreams as well as remain the unconscious mind more stable
than before. It has been further stated that psychological makeup gets a deep insight from the
people due to their past experience and they interpret the same things from their experience. This
in turn assists to change the perception of people towards their dream and they also provide rage
of different solutions which in turn helps in make-up the mindset of individual. Also, it can be
stated that with the help of a psychoanalytic tool, individual can get a new insight and it clearly
interpret the in-depth analysis of a dream so that effective measures can be taken (Heotis, 2017).
Overall, it can be stated that with the help of self-analysis, Freud suggested to use such tool in

order to understand as well as interpret the dream so that the latent content of a dream can be
analyzed. This helps to get a deeper insight regarding to dream and this in turn generate the
actual meaning through the process of free association.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above essay, it has been concluded that dreams have a relation from
either past history or present circumstances and by choosing the single dream from past. It has
been summarized that by using Freud theory, both manifest content and latent content used
which provide a clear picture and message from the dream. Moreover, it has been also concluded
that the dream is related to early childhood experience and that is why, it makes unconscious
mind to think about the same that converted into the dream. Therefore, by using the concept
introduced by Freud i.e. condensation, it has been analyzed that the past experience overlapped
the dream which increases the chances of such types of dream.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
de Bianchedi, E. T., 2018. Creative writers and dream-work-alpha. In
On Freud's “Creative
Writers and Day-Dreaming” (pp. 122-132). Routledge.
Eifermann, R. R., 2018. On the inevitable neglect of the unconscious: a contemporary reminder.
In
The Unconscious (pp. 133-148). Routledge.
Erwin, E., 2019. Freud and the unconscious. In
The Routledge companion to philosophy of
psychology (pp. 59-70). Routledge.
Heotis, E., 2017. Messenger Dreams: Unfolding the Self for Development.
Journal for Spiritual
& Consciousness Studies. 40(2).
Lacan, J., Sheridan, A. and Bowie, M., 2020.
The agency of the letter in the unconscious or
reason since Freud (pp. 161-197). Routledge.
Lyotard, J., 2017. The Unconscious as Mise-en-scène.
Acinemas: Lyotard’s Philosophy of Film,
pp.43-54.
Niaz, A., Stanikzai, S. M. and Sahibzada, J., 2019. Review of Freud’s psychoanalysis approach
to literary studies.
American International Journal of Social Science Research. 4(2). pp.35-
44.
Scalabrini, A., Esposito, R. and Mucci, C., 2021. Dreaming the unrepressed unconscious and
beyond: repression vs dissociation in the oneiric functioning of severe patients.
Research in
Psychotherapy: Psychopathology, Process, and Outcome. 24(2).
OnlineThe interpretation of dreams. 2020. [online]. Available through:
<https://www.freud.org.uk/education/resources/the-interpretation-of-dreams/>.