By a detailed investigation of the universal phenomenon of dreaming, Freud discovered a radical new way of exploring the unconscious and recognized that dreams are a conflict and compromise between conscious and unconscious impulses. Through his insights about dreams, Freud was able to revise his methods of treatment for neurotic patients and develop, largely through this remarkable work, his revolutionary theories of the Oedipus Complex and of the profound importance of infantile life and sexuality for the development of adults.
Extract from the Introduction to Interpreting Dreams
“This book… contains, even according to my present-day judgement, the most valuable of all the discoveries it has been my good fortune to make. Insight such as this falls to one’s lot but once in a lifetime.” (Freud)
“The most important achievement of Freud’s recounting of a life in dreams, his own life, is to provide an example, a model, for making an extraordinary life out of the ordinariness of the everyday. The heroic and the bestial are both simultaneously deprived of their magic and made the property of all; each of us, through following our dreams as Freud did, can discover the “excitement of the wholly interesting life”. Freud presages the possibility of a democracy of the inner life to follow on the heels of democracies of suffrage and education.” (From John Forrester’s introduction)
“The dream-book was the extension of the clinical investigation of the ‘abnormal’ mind to a new domain to provide the base for an ambitious and truly scientific psychology. Dreams were the ideal vehicle for this project: universal experiences with a history of fascination expressed in popular and esoteric literature, but with clear links to the extreme states of insanity and everyday abnormality.” (From John Forrester’s introduction)
