A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis — John Shaqi
A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
There is at any rate a class of dreams that are undistorted, and, just
like children's dreams, are easily recognizable as wish fulfillments. It
is those that are called up throughout life by the imperative needs of
the body--hunger, thirst, sexual desire--hence wish fulfillments in
reaction to internal physical stimuli. For this reason, I have noted the
dream of a young girl, that consisted of a menu following her name (Anna
F......, strawberry, huckleberry, egg-dish, pap), as a reaction to an
enforced day of fasting on account of a spoiled stomach, which was
directly traceable to the eating of the fruits twice mentioned in the
dream. At the same time, the grandmother, whose age added to that of her
grandchild would make a full seventy, had to go without food for a day
on account of kidney-trouble, and dreamed the same night that she had
been invited out and that the finest tid-bits had been set before her.
Observations with prisoners who are allowed to go hungry, or with people
who suffer privations on travels or expeditions, show that under these
conditions the dreams regularly deal with the satisfaction of these
needs. Otto Nordenskjold, in his book _Antarctic_ (1904), testifies to
the same thing concerning his crew, who were ice-bound with him during
the winter (Vol. 1, page 336). "Very significant in determining the
trend of our inmost thoughts were our dreams, which were never more
vivid and numerous than just at this time. Even those of our comrades
who ordinarily dreamed but seldom, now had long stories to tell, when in
the morning we exchanged our latest experiences in that realm of
phantasy. All of them dealt with that outside world that now was so far
away from us, but often they fitted into our present condition. Food and
drink were most often the pivots about which our dreams revolved. One of
us, who excelled in going to great dinners in his sleep, was most happy
whenever he could tell us in the morning that he attended a dinner of
three courses; another one dreamed of tobacco, whole mountains of
tobacco; still another dreamed of a ship that came along on the open
sea, under full sail. One other dream deserves mention: The postman
comes with the mail and gives a long explanation of why it is so late;
he had delivered it to the wrong address and only after great trouble on
his part had succeeded in getting it back. Of course one occupies
himself with even more impossible things in sleep, but in nearly all the
dreams that I myself dreamed or heard tell of, the lack of phantasy was
quite striking. It would surely be of great psychological interest if
all these dreams were recorded. It is easy to understand how we longed
for sleep, since it could offer us everything for which each one of us
felt the most burning desire." I quote further from Du Prel. "Mungo
Park, who during a trip in Africa was almost exhausted, dreamed without
interruption of the fertile valleys and fields of his home. Trenck,
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