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forest.
The idea that dreams have personal meaning was introduced in modern times by Freud when he
published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900. Although it took six years to sell the first printing of
600 copies, it has become a classic. Freud argued that “dreams are impartial, spontaneous products
of the unconscious psyche, they show us the unvarnished truth.” Freud thought that the vigilance
of the ego relaxed during sleep, allowing primitive and forbidden sexual and aggressive urges to
escape from the unconscious. This material was so threatening to our waking state of
consciousness that the disgusting desires of the unconscious were disguised in dreams. It is
interesting to note that Freud, like Biblical characters and people of the past, thought that only a
wise man or woman (or psychoanalyst) could interpret dreams correctly.
Freud thought that there was a universal set of symbols used by the unconscious to disguise the
hidden content of dreams. For example, dreams of flying signify the desire for sexual adventure;
elongated objects such as trees and pencils symbolize the penis; containers, such as closets, rooms,
ovens, and automobiles represent the vagina; and sexual intercourse is disguised as riding a horse
or shooting a gun.
Carl Jung was a member of Freud’s inner circle, and later broke away from Freud because of
theoretical disagreements. He believed that the “general function of dreams is to restore
psychological balance,” and that important messages in dreams could only be interpreted from a
series of dreams that occurred over time. Jung estimated that he analyzed at least 80,000 dreams
during his professional career.
Anecdotal evidence to support Freud and Jung’s ideas about dreams exists, but their theories
cannot be experimentally supported or rejected because of problems in doing the necessary
research. Research on dreaming was stimulated in the early 1950s when two investigators,
Aserinsky and Kleitman at the University of Chicago, established the relationship between REM
sleep and dreaming, but their research does not answer the questions posed by the theories of Freud
and Jung. Some of the more frequently asked questions about dreams and dreaming follow.
DOES EVERYONE DREAM?