Sigmund Freud on Dreams

Freud theorizes that dreams are wish-fulfillments. Because not all dreams involve pleasurable occurrences, he suggests that "distortion" is a fundamental aspect of dreams. The manifest content of dreams must be distinguished from their latent content. The content of dreams must be interpreted by first examining the thoughts at work which give rise to the dream's manifest content. Freud identifies two forms of distortion that have been useful for literary critics: condensation and displacement.

Freud means at least two things by the term condensation. First, he means that dreams are condensed; they naturally omit some aspects of the dreamer's thoughts. Second, he suggests that objects, figures, and even words within the dream are overdetermined; they represent more than just one thing: "The construction of collective and composite figures is one of the chief methods by which condensation operates in dreams." Each figure, then, cannot be interpreted as standing for one thing in a simple relationship. Instead, even seemingly simple objects in dreams are more complicated, representing layers of complex dream-thoughts.

Displacement is another distortion at work in dreams. Freud posits that objects or figures with high psychological intensity can be shifted onto objects or figures of low intensity. The dream-thoughts themselves are masked or censored by the process of dream formation.

The question for literary critics is whether they want to apply Freud's thoughts on dreams to the interpretation of literature. That is, does literature follow the same processes, and for the same reasons, as dream formation? While this is too large a question to answer in all its particulars, I'd like to think the answer is yes, sometimes. Perhaps the best way to prove it would be to perform a Freudian reading of a poem to see if it is compelling. Maybe "Gentildonna" by Ezra Pound. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to this tomorrow night, although I have six more books to read this week....