Decoding the Dream Messages
This is for anyone who is interesting in figuring out why do we let go of logic and why are some of our dreams so absurbed. Okay the problem according to Freud, is how to decode the dream messages, which have been disguised by the internal censor (the super-ego). Freud provides some clues in his account of what he calls the 'Dream-Work' - those unconscious processes that distort the original message of a dream. If we can find a way to figuring out what tricks the censor uses, then we can easily work out what the original message was.
There are three techniques used by the internal censor to disquise the message of a drea: condensation, displacement, and representation. A dream story is usually a condensed or compressed presentation of something that the conscious brain might have to use many words to express. The purpose of this condensing is, to make a more forceful impact on the conscious mind- in much the same way as an arrowhead, by virtue of the fact that it is condensed into a point, has the power to pierce its target.
Condensation may take serval forms. For example, a piece of conversation in a dream may have been put together from bits taken from two or more actual and remembered conversations from the waking world. Similarly, several real happenings or occassions may become fused together intoa a single event. Words or names (of people or places, for instance) may be combined in a dream to make composite words. For example, Blakeson appearing in a dream may be an amalgam of real-life names, Blake and Wilson. One item in the dream thoughts (the latent content) may be represented by more than one image in the manifest content.
Freud saw the human mind or psyche as consistinng of three elements, which he named the ego, the super-ego and the id. The id is the instinctive drives. Freud called it the "Pleasure Principle", because our instincts always aim at pleasure. The super-ego corresponds roughly to what we commonly call 'conscience', and Freud referred to this as the 'Moral Principle'. Howerver, it is important to bear in mind that Freud saw it as having a social origin: It represents the prohibitions and taboos as well as the values and ideals- the norms- of society.
What happens in Dreams?
According to Freud, in dreams the id (your instincts and desires) tries to comminciate with the ego (conscious part of yourself). When you sleep, the ego relaxes. Sleep is withdrawal from the waking world, so in sleep the ego goes off-duty, as it were. This means that, with lowered resistance from the conscious mind, the contents of the unconscious may begin to express themselves, coming up as dreams. However the super-ego also operates largely at the unconscous level and is therefore still on duty when you sleep. Therefore, if what the id is trying to tell the ego is in conflict with the moral/social values emobodied in the super-ego, the latter will intervene and censor the message that the id is sending to the conscious mind. The result is that the message from the unconscious comes through to the conscious mind only in a disguised or distorted form.
Hope you all enjoyed it! :goodjob2:
