(“complex”).[1] The more penetrating method is that of dream-analysis whose discovery belongs to Sigmund Freud.[2]
Of the dream it can be said that “the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” It is only in modern times that the dream (that fleeting and seemingly insignificant product of the soul), has met with such complete contempt. Formerly it was esteemed, as a harbinger of fate, a warning or a consolation, a messenger of the gods. Now we use it as a messenger of the unconscious; it must disclose to us the secrets which our unconscious self enviously hides from our consciousness, and it does so with astonishing completeness.
On analytical investigation it becomes plain that the dream, as we remember it, is only a façade which conceals the contents within the house. But if, observing certain technical rules, we get the dreamer to talk about the details of his dream, it soon appears that his free associations group themselves in certain directions and round certain topics. These appear to be of personal significance, and have a meaning which at first sight would not be suspected. Careful comparison shows that they are in close and subtle symbolic connection with the dream-façade.[3] This particular complex of ideas in which all the threads of the dream unite, is the conflict for which we are seeking; is its particular form at the moment, conditioned by the immediate circumstances. What is painful and incompatible is in this way so covered up or split that we can call it a wish-fulfilment; but we must immediately add that the wishes fulfilled in the dream do not seem at first sight to be our wishes, but rather the very opposite. For instance, a daughter loves her mother tenderly, but she dreams that her mother is dead; this causes her great grief. Such dreams, where apparently there is no trace of any wish-fulfilment are
- ↑ The theory of “Complexes” is set out in “Psychology of Dementia praecox,” Jung.
- ↑ Freud, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” James Allen.
- ↑ The rules of dream-analysis, the laws of the structure of the dream and its symbolism, form almost a science; this is one of the most important chapters of the psychology of the unconscious whose comprehension requires very arduous study.
