Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) studied medicine at the University of Vienna. Freud proposed the theory of Psychoanalysis and devoted a lot of his time to developing and formulating Psychoanalysis theory. Sigmund Freud hypothesised that dreams were hidden repressed wishes and are residues of the previous days activities. The 'day residue' is meshed along with the unconscious wish and the dream then becomes distorted. The dream goes from the unconscious to preconscious, followed by

censorship and onto perception. Dream analysis can uncover unconscious material and provide insight into unresolved issues. This is because whilst we are sleeping defenses are lowered and repressed material can surface. Dreams are an expression of one's unconscious wishes, needs and fears. Some motivations are considered to be highly unacceptable so rather than reveal the motivation directly in the dream, they are expressed in a symbolic or disguised form. There are two levels to the dream the latent content and the manifest content. The latent content is made up of symbolic, hidden, and unconscious motives, fears and wishes. As they are often unacceptable and threatening they are then transformed into more appropriate manifest content, which is simply the dream as it seems to the dreamer. Freud also believed that the most irrelevant and insignificant part of the dream can provide the most insight as this part of the dream is the most repressed. Psychoanalysis interprets dreams, stresses intellectual insight and one method used to explore the dreams unconscious meaning is free association. If Freud were to interpret a dream the question on his mind would be What is the cause of this dream?