having analyzed his own dreams—Freud determined that all dreams are wish
fulfillments. This is clearly observable in children, he said. They dream about
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 re-
pression 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.”