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Book

The Interpretation of Dreams

Also known as Die Traumdeutung, Interpreting Dreams, The Dream Book

Freud's 1899 book arguing every dream is a disguised wish, his first map of the mind

At a glance

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Why it matters

Key facts

Author
Sigmund Freud1
Published
1899, dated 1900; seven more editions in his lifetime, the last in 19291
Original title
Die Traumdeutung1
First printing
600 copies, which took eight years to sell1
English translations
A. A. Brill (1913), James Strachey (1953, Standard Edition vols. 4–5), Joyce Crick (Oxford, 1999), J. A. Underwood (Penguin, 2006)1
Abridged version
On Dreams (1901)1
Free full text
Brill's 1913 translation of the third edition, Project Gutenberg2
Influence
Widely regarded as one of Freud's most significant works; John Forrester called it his masterpiece1

What it argues

  1. Dreams mean something1

    Opens by saying a psychological technique can interpret dreams and that every dream proves a meaningful psychological structure.

  2. A wish, disguised1

    Two processes make a dream: unconscious forces build a wish, and censorship distorts how it is expressed.

  3. The royal road1

    "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind."

Key ideas

  1. Manifest and latent content1

    The story you remember versus the hidden meaning underneath, often unrecognisable on waking.

  2. Condensation1

    Many dream thoughts compressed into a brief dream; two people can merge into one figure.

  3. Displacement1

    Emphasis moves from what matters to what doesn't, by the censor's influence; Freud called it the most striking part of the dream-work.

  4. Day residue1

    Every dream links to some experience of the previous day, even a trivial one.

  5. Oedipus complex1

    The book discusses what later became his theory of the Oedipus complex.

Examples from the book

The line under a date fills as it gets older: empty when new, full at 2 years.

  1. Irma's injection2

    His own dream, read as a wish to be cleared of blame for a patient: "the content of the dream is thus the fulfilment of a wish; its motive is a wish".

  2. The burning child2

    A father dreams his dead son pleads, "Father, don't you see that I am burning?"; the dream opens chapter 7.

  3. Outside noise1

    Alarm clocks or music get woven into dreams because the sleeping mind wants to keep sleeping.

Criticism and limits

  1. Evidence against1

    Hans Eysenck argued the dreams Freud cites actually disprove his theory.

  2. Irma was less disguised1

    Max Schur showed the Irma dream closely portrayed a real medical disaster with Freud's patient Emma Eckstein.

  3. Selective sources1

    Borch-Jacobsen and Shamdasani say Freud ignored predecessors whose theories came closest to his own.

  4. Not every dream a wish1

    Freud himself later discussed dreams that do not seem to fulfil wishes, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Connections

Written by

Related

Sources

  1. The Interpretation of Dreams (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
  2. The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. A. A. Brill (Project Gutenberg) (opens gutenberg.org)

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How recent

The line under a date fills as time passes: empty when new, then one equal share each for a day, a week, a month and a year. For episodes and other items it is full at 2 years; for "last checked", at a year. A striped line means the date is known only to the month or year.