Sigmund Freud (The ‘Father of Psychoanalysis’) created a large body of work on the interpretation of dreams during his time. One part of this large body was his book ”The Interpretation of dreams”. The following is a summary of his work.



Freud said that dreams are the fufilment of a wish. This means that we dream about what we wish to have, but we cannot. Something we cannot have, is the idea behind Freud’s theory. This theory is however, often conflicted, since some state that dreams are NOT results of wishes. Freud aruges though, that dreams are always the results of a wish.



One way, that Freud argues, that dreams are a result of a wish is that dreams are the fufilment of a wish. This meaning, that the dream goes beyond what we are capable of, and fufils are wish. An example would be, someone wanting to have money. They cannot have money however, since they incapable of obtaining it. So, the result is they wish they had money. They would later dream about having money, as a result of this wish.



Freud also argues that dreams can sometimes be the disgused fufilment of a wish. This is where dreams start to NOT make sense, as they are made up of symbols and other such that, if interpretated correctly, become the fufilment of a wish, only in disguise.


Freud continues, that a ‘disguised’ wish dream goes through several steps. The first being condensation, where the elements of the dream are compacted, or condensed. An example of this would be in the dream, someone stating something, like a joke. In the joke, someone says: “When is a door not a door?”, and the answer being: “When it is ajar.” Condensation comes into play here, because two answers have been condensed into one. The first answer being the object called ‘a jar’, while the state of a door being left ‘ajar’.



Freud’s second step to his therorized dream process of a diguised fufilment of a wish would be the step known as displacement. In displacement, a dream seems to show one thing or idea, while the dream thoughts themsleves show that the dream is really about something else. An example of this would be that a dream is about someone hurting someone else, while the dream thoughts originated from someone having a bad day at work. The anger you had from having a bad day at work is being focused on the person in the dream, and that person, whom you probably do not even hate.


The third step in Freud’s process of the disguised fuffilment of a wish dream would be secondary Revision . This process usualy occurs near the end of a dream, according to Freud. Stated, the step turns the dream into something more coherent or a depiction of realtiy. It basicaly ‘fills in the gaps’ and causes the dream to make more sense.  

There is a third argument, that Freud has, and that is, “Dreams are the disguised fulfillment of a repressed wish”. This meaning, that dreams are sometimes fulfillment of wishes that we once had, but have moved on; or wishes that we know that are bad. One example would be a dream that’s meaning would be you inflicting pain on somebody that you hate. A wish that you know is wrong, but your dream fulfills it.



Freud’s final theory on what dreams are, is that dreams can be “the disguised fulfillment of an adolescent wish”, that being, dreams are the disguised fulfillment of wishes we had when we were younger. This relates back to the previous idea, except that these wishes come from our younger selves. These wishes can be a number of things, wither they be about egotistical accomplishments, wanting to be with our parents, or wanting anything else that we might have wished for when we were younger.