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 dream of the old man needing a urinal and a nurse in public indicated that Freud harbored a wish to shame his father as he was once shamed: in relation to urinating. The dream state offers a means to fulfill such wishes in a fantasy world. Freud drew his conclusions based on the dream's content. For example, in real life Freud's father had an eye operation, so Freud assumed that the old blind man in the dream represented his father. Freud's disguise and his position in the dream signify his burgeoning pride as an adult and his desire to outdo his father, to shame him in return for being shamed as a child.

             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.