Samples of Dreams and Other Release Phenomena, with Interpretations and Commentaries

Abstract

Freud’s approach to dream interpretation starts with the dream report, is followed by the generation of a “preamble” that explains the details in the dream, and then, the elicitation of free-associations to successive segments of the dream—which lead to interpretations. The first example of the procedure is illustrated not with a dream but a parapraxis (a Freudian slip) involving the forgetting of one word ( aliquis ) from a five-word line from Virgil by a young academician. The early associations lead to the splitting of “aliquis” into “a” and “liquis” (no liquid). A series of Church fathers were then produced, connected to the calendar, and then, an occasion in which the Miracle of St. Januarius (the yearly appearance of blood in a phial in the Chapel of Naples) failed to happen. Freud’s (reluctantly accepted) interpretation was that the young man was worried that his girlfriend might be pregnant. The same interpretative approach is applied to other materials, for example, Freud’s famous “Irma Dream,” “The Picture Dream of Dolores P.,” Allan Hobson’s “Mozart at the Museum Dream.” Similar examples are offered for two clinical samples, the author’s “The Case of N.” and Freud’s “The Psychotic Dr. Schreber.” A section, by Diane M. Zizak, “Freud Dreams Chinese Poetry,” is devoted to similarities between Chinese poetry and dreams. Also, a section is included on the work of Deirdre Barret on problem-solving in sleep.