leased to see that no one had proposed his idea before. In fact, most people believed dreams were just nonsense. It took Freud about two years to write The
Interpretation of Dreams, finishing it in September 1897. It was published late in the year and released in 1900. Freud was paid about $ 209.
The book explained the double level of dreams: the actual dream with its
"Manifest content," and the dream's true if hidden meaning, or "latent content. "The idea of ​​dream as wish-fulfillment was explained, and he introduced the theory that sexuality was an important part of childhood, a shocking idea at the time. He also outlined a sort of universal language of dreams, by which they might be interpreted.
Most people now agree that The Interpretation of Dreams was Freud's most important work, but it took eight years to sell the 600 copies printed in
1900. In the first year and a half, no scientific journal reviewed it and few other periodicals mentioned it. It was largely ignored, though in psychological journals it received crushing reviews. One critic warned that
"Uncritical minds would be delighted to join in this play with ideas and would end up in complete mysticism and chaotic arbitrariness. "
In 1910, however, Freud's overall work was becoming better known and a second edition was printed. There would be six more in Freud's lifetime, the last in 1929. He changed very little in the book, only adding illustrations, elaborating certain ideas, and adding to the portions on symbolism. The book was translated into English and Russian in 1913, and into six more languages ​​by 1938. Though he was a prolific writer, The
Interpretation of Dreams remained Freud's most original work. Despite the initial cold reception, Freud himself knew it was a breakthrough. "Insight such as this falls to one's lot but once in a lifetime, "he wrote.
Chapter 2. The dream theory.
According to Freud (in his book The Interpretation of Dreams), dreams are symbolic fulfillments of wishes that can't be fulfilled because they've been repressed. Often these wishes can't even be expressed directly in consciousness, because they are forbidden, so they come out in dreams - but in strange ways, in ways that often hide or disguise the true wish behind the dream.
Freud believed that dreams acted as a form of fantasy, a defense mechanism against the unacceptable urges of the id. Fantasy allows the individual to act out events in the imagination, which can satiate the urges of the id which are repressed. Freud theorized that dreams were a subconscious manifestation of these repressed urges, and that they served mainly to satisfy sexual and aggressive tendencies. The interpretation of dreams has come to be one of the aspects of Freud's studies which are most popularized, as he took the importance of dreams far more seriously than many of those who came before him or s...
