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Dreamwork is the exploration of the images and emotions that a dream presents and evokes. It differs from classical dream interpretation in that it does not attempt to establish a unique meaning for the dream. In this way the dream remains "alive" whereas if it has been assigned a specific meaning, it is "finished" (i.e., over and done with). Dreamworkers take the position that a dream may have a variety of meanings depending on the levels (e.g. subjective, objective) that are being explored.
A belief of dreamwork is that each person has their own dream "language". Any given place, person, object, or symbol can differ in its meaning from dreamer to dreamer and also from time to time in the dreamer's ongoing life situation. Thus someone helping a dreamer get closer to their dream through dreamwork adopts an attitude of "not knowing" as far as possible.
In dreamwork it is usual to wait until all the questions have been asked—and the answers carefully listened to—before the dreamworker (or dreamworkers if it is done in a group setting) offers any suggestions about what the dream might mean. In fact, a dreamworker often prefaces any interpretation by saying, "if this were my dream, it might mean..." (a technique first developed by Montague Ullman, Stanley Krippner, and Jeremy Taylor and now widely practiced). In this way, dreamers are not obliged to agree with what is said and may use their own judgment in deciding which comments appear valid or provide insight. If the dreamwork is done in a group, there may well be several things that are said by participants that seem valid to the dreamer but it can also happen that nothing does. Appreciation of the validity or insightfulness of a comment from a dreamwork session can come later, sometimes days after the end of the session.
Dreamwork or dream-work can also refer to Sigmund Freud's idea that a person's forbidden and repressed desires are distorted in dreams, so they appear in disguised forms. Freud used the term 'dreamwork' or 'dream-work' (Traumarbeit) to refer to "operations that transform the latent dream-thought into the manifest dream". [1]
Sigmund Freud's theory of psychoanalysis is largely based on the importance of the unconscious mind. According to the theory, the unconscious does not only affect a person during the day, but also in dreams. In the psychodynamic perspective, the transferring of unconscious thoughts into consciousness is called dreamwork (German : Traumarbeit). In dreams, there are two different types of content, the manifest and latent content. The latent content is the underlying, unconscious feelings and thoughts. The manifest content is made up of a combination of the latent thoughts and it is what is actually being seen in the dream. According to Carl Jung's principle of compensation, the reason that there is latent content in dreams is that the unconscious is making up for the limitations of the conscious mind. [2] Since the conscious mind cannot be aware of all things at once, the latent content allows for these hidden away thoughts to be unlocked. Psychoanalysts use the knowledge of the process of dreamwork to analyze dreams. In other words, the clinician will study the manifest content to understand what the latent content is trying to say. [3]
According to psychoanalytic view to be able to understand dreamwork fully, a person needs to understand how the mind transfers the latent thoughts to manifest. The first step is called condensation, and it is the combining of different unconscious thought into one. [3] The combining of the unconscious thoughts makes it easier for the mind to express them in the dream. The step of condensation has two sub-steps, day residues and censorship. (On the other hand, according to Ullman and Erich Fromm dreams have no censorship at all). Day residues are left over daily issues that bring up some unconscious thought. The mind then displays this thought through a similar situation from the day. [4] Before the unconscious thoughts can be displayed they are censored. Since many unconscious thoughts do not follow the moral code of society, the mind changes them to be more respectful. This is done so that it does not cause the dreamer anxiety and therefore wake them up. It is also due to censorship that multiple unconscious thoughts are combined, since it is hard to just have one slip through. [5]
After condensation, another step in the formation of dreams is displacement. This is where the dream may direct feelings or desires onto an unrelated subject. This is similar to the practice of transference, which is a common technique used in psychoanalysis. Another step in the formation of dreams is symbolism. Objects or situations in a dream may represent something else, commonly an unconscious thought or desire. The fourth and final step in formation is secondary revision. In this step, all the thoughts are put together and are made coherent. Another point of this step is to make the dream relate to the dreamer. These four steps put together make up dreamwork. [3] [6]
People who study the formation of dreams and then analyze them are called dreamworkers. As mentioned before, dreamworkers must work backwards from the conscious to the unconscious. Since they are not the ones who had the dream, they use a variety of methods with their clients, such as free association, to gain more insight into the context of the dream. Free association is where the client describes the dream and relates as many aspects of it to their life as possible. The dreamworker listens intently and once they have gained as much information as possible about the dream both through the dreamer's description of the dream and through the dreamer's emotional status, they may be able to understand the dream better and to gain information about the dreamer that they may not be aware of or be willing to share. [3]
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.
The unconscious mind consists of processes in the mind that occur automatically and are not available to introspection. Although these processes exist beneath the surface of conscious awareness, they are thought to exert an effect on conscious thought processes and behavior. Empirical evidence suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings and desires, memories, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, and automatic reactions. The term was coined by the 18th-century German Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, although the dreamer may perceive the dream as being much longer than this.
Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory that, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.
Psychoanalytic theory is the theory of personality organization and the dynamics of personality development relating to the practice of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology. First laid out by Sigmund Freud in the late 19th century, psychoanalytic theory has undergone many refinements since his work. The psychoanalytic theory came to full prominence in the last third of the twentieth century as part of the flow of critical discourse regarding psychological treatments after the 1960s, long after Freud's death in 1939. Freud had ceased his analysis of the brain and his physiological studies and shifted his focus to the study of the psyche, and on treatment using free association and the phenomena of transference. His study emphasized the recognition of childhood events that could influence the mental functioning of adults. His examination of the genetic and then the developmental aspects gave the psychoanalytic theory its characteristics. Starting with his publication of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1899, his theories began to gain prominence.
Free association is the expression of the content of consciousness without censorship as an aid in gaining access to unconscious processes. The technique is used in psychoanalysis which was originally devised by Sigmund Freud out of the hypnotic method of his mentor and colleague, Josef Breuer.
The Interpretation of Dreams is an 1899 book by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in which the author introduces his theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation, and discusses what would later become the theory of the Oedipus complex. Freud revised the book at least eight times and, in the third edition, added an extensive section which treated dream symbolism very literally, following the influence of Wilhelm Stekel. Freud said of this work, "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime."
Dream telepathy is the purported ability to communicate telepathically with another person while one is dreaming. Mainstream scientific consensus rejects dream telepathy as a real phenomenon. Parapsychological experiments into dream telepathy have not produced replicable results. The first person in modern times to claim to document telepathic dreaming was Sigmund Freud. In the 1940s, it was the subject of the Eisenbud-Pederson-Krag-Fodor-Ellis controversy, named after the preeminent psychoanalysts of the time who were involved: Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-Krag, Nandor Fodor, and Albert Ellis.
"Irma's injection" is the name given to the dream that Sigmund Freud dreamt on the night of July 23, 1895, and that he subsequently analyzed to arrive at his theory that dreams are wish fulfillments. He described his ideas on dream theory and provided his analysis of the dream, alongside other dreams from case studies, in his book The Interpretation of Dreams.
In psychoanalysis, preconscious is the loci preceding consciousness. Thoughts are preconscious when they are unconscious at a particular moment, but are not repressed. Therefore, preconscious thoughts are available for recall and easily 'capable of becoming conscious'—a phrase attributed by Sigmund Freud to Josef Breuer.
Psychoanalytic dream interpretation is a subdivision of dream interpretation as well as a subdivision of psychoanalysis pioneered by Sigmund Freud in the early 20th century. Psychoanalytic dream interpretation is the process of explaining the meaning of the way the unconscious thoughts and emotions are processed in the mind during sleep.
Dream sharing is the process of documenting or discussing both night and daydreams with others. Dreams are novel but realistic simulations of waking social life. One of the primary purposes of sharing dreams is entertainment.
Daseinsanalysis is an existentialist approach to psychoanalysis. It was first developed by Ludwig Binswanger in the 1920s under the concept of "phenomenological anthropology". After the publication of "Basic Forms and Perception of Human Dasein", Binswanger would refer to his approach as Daseinsanalysis. Binswanger's approach was heavily influenced by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and psychoanalysis founder Sigmund Freud. The philosophy of daseinsanalysis is centered on the thought that the human Dasein is open to any and all experience, and that the phenomenological world is experienced freely in an undistorted way. This way initially being absent from meaning, is the basis for analysis. This theory goes opposite to dualism in the way that it proposes no gap between the human mind and measurable matter. Subjects are taught to think in the terms of being alone with oneself and grasping concepts of personhood, mortality and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself. Binswanger believed that all mental issues stemmed from the dilemma of living with other humans and being ultimately alone.
Oneironautics refers to the ability to travel within a dream on a conscious basis. Such a traveler in a dream may be called an oneironaut.
Content in Freudian dream analysis refers to two closely connected aspects of the dream: the manifest content, and the latent content. Impulses and drives residing in the unconscious press toward consciousness during sleep, but are only able to evade the censorship mechanism of repression by associating themselves with words, ideas and images that are acceptable to consciousness. Thus the dream as consciously remembered upon waking is interpreted in psychoanalysis as a disguised or distorted representation of repressed desires.
Wish fulfillment is the satisfaction of a desire through an involuntary thought process. It can occur in dreams or in daydreams, in the symptoms of neurosis, or in the hallucinations of psychosis. This satisfaction is often indirect and requires interpretation to recognize.
Sigmund Freud is considered to be the founder of the psychodynamic approach to psychology, which looks to unconscious drives to explain human behavior. Freud believed that the mind is responsible for both conscious and unconscious decisions that it makes on the basis of psychological drives. The id, ego, and super-ego are three aspects of the mind Freud believed to comprise a person's personality. Freud believed people are "simply actors in the drama of [their] own minds, pushed by desire, pulled by coincidence. Underneath the surface, our personalities represent the power struggle going on deep within us".
Censorship (psychoanalysis) (Zensur) is the force identified by Sigmund Freud as operating to separate consciousness from the unconscious mind.
Dream psychology is a scientific research field in psychology. In analytical psychology, as in psychoanalysis generally, dreams are "the royal road" to understanding unconscious content.