Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for BeginnersFreud, Sigmund
Science
Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners
Freud, Sigmund
Dreams; Psychoanalysis
The unconscious wish-feelings evidently strive to assert themselves
during the day also, and the fact of transference and the psychoses
teach us that they endeavor to penetrate to consciousness and dominate
motility by the road leading through the system of the foreconscious. It
is, therefore, the censor lying between the Unc. and the Forec., the
assumption of which is forced upon us by the dream, that we have to
recognize and honor as the guardian of our psychic health. But is it not
carelessness on the part of this guardian to diminish its vigilance
during the night and to allow the suppressed emotions of the Unc. to
come to expression, thus again making possible the hallucinatory
regression? I think not, for when the critical guardian goes to
rest--and we have proof that his slumber is not profound--he takes care
to close the gate to motility. No matter what feelings from the
otherwise inhibited Unc. may roam about on the scene, they need not be
interfered with; they remain harmless because they are unable to put in
motion the motor apparatus which alone can exert a modifying influence
upon the outer world. Sleep guarantees the security of the fortress
which is under guard. Conditions are less harmless when a displacement
of forces is produced, not through a nocturnal diminution in the
operation of the critical censor, but through pathological enfeeblement
of the latter or through pathological reinforcement of the unconscious
excitations, and this while the foreconscious is charged with energy and
the avenues to motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered, the
unconscious excitations subdue the Forec.; through it they dominate our
speech and actions, or they enforce the hallucinatory regression, thus
governing an apparatus not designed for them by virtue of the attraction
exerted by the perceptions on the distribution of our psychic energy. We
call this condition a psychosis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account