The functioning of the human mind remains in great measure a catalyst for wonder, amazement, and discovery for all mankind. Some of mankind's greatest intellectuals have attempted to quantify and define the vast amount of brain functions. Through years of experiment and observation, man has excelled in the understanding of many of the brain's functions. However, the function of dreaming continues to elude empirical verification, and many have theorized about its purpose. Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in developing theories on the usage of dreams. He described many of these theories in his essay, "The Interpretation of Dreams." From some of the premises found in his essay, we can see how dreams are capable of opening a window into the nature of human kind.

Freud theory states that dreams serve as a function of wish fulfillment. They are the unconscious manifestations of

Freud also included the effects of the emotional response into the function of wish fulfillment. In his essay, Freud used his children as examples of how emotional need could promote the dream-wish fulfillment function. He described how his daughter had hoped that a particular boat ride would have been a long journey. When the ride ended without achieving the child's expectations, she began to cry. The next day, the child described with joy how she had dreamt of a long boat journey during the night. Here, we see another example of how the dream-wish fulfillment function has served its purpose. It created a convenient joyful response for the child in order to promote the most amount of satisfaction.

Freud says that the dream-wish fulfillment function is, "constructed by a highly complicated activity of the mind." He equates this function with intelligible acts, and does so perhaps because this function could be viewed as a problem-solving scenario: the problem being a deficiency in the perceived needs of the conscious individual, and the solution is provided in the dream-wish fulfillment. The Swiss physician Carl Jung might have added that this problem-solving function could be accomplished by a continuously active piece of psychic material that lies below the threshold of the conscious mind.

Our minds are infinitely complex. There are still many areas of function that await discovery, and the dream-wish fulfillment function is one of those mysterious regions. Freud creates a solid case for the motiva

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