Freud: Theories and Using His Dreams as a Reference Point
Freud began to develop his eventually well-articulated theory of dreams by analyzing his own, paying attention to the symbolic rather than literal content of his nighttime fantasies. The first dream Appignanesi relates in Introducing Freud is one in which Freud and an old man stand at a train station. The old man is blind, and Freud wears a disguise. He acts like his nurse by taking out a glass urinal container while the old man takes out his penis.
Freud believed that the dream linked to some events and repressed childhood memories. He first postulated that the dream was related to a humiliating experience with bedwetting. Freud noted that bedwetting was related to ambition, and that the dream in part symbolized his having fulfilled his ambition and overcome his shame as an adult. However, the dream also signified something that would become a core component of Freud's theories: wish fulfillment, especially related to the parental relationships. The dr
The second dream of Freud's that Appignanesi depicts in Introducing Freud evokes ancient mythology and also caused Freud to develop another theory of wish fulfillment. In this dream, bird-headed figures carry a listless woman. Freud noted that this dream symbolized the sexual desire for the mother. Attraction for the mother and hostility toward the father are, as Freud noted, common themes in ancient myths. The bird-headed figures in the dream not only represented the Egyptian gods but also, referred to the German slang word for sex, which also means "bird." Moreover, the woman had a "listless" look on her face, which could correspond to sexual pleasure as well as to death. These ideas regarding wish fulfillment would mature into full-fledged theories as Freud developed his ideas while working with his patients.
Prompted by Freud's suggestions, the patient recalled that when he was seven years old he did wish his father were dead and just recently, the
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