Though the censor sits on the lid of the subconsciousness, that
wily self has ways and means of expression. In dreams, in humor,
in the slip of the tongue, in forgetfulness, in myths of the
race, in the symptoms of the hysteric patient, in the creations
of writers and artists, the subconsciousness seeks to symbolize
in innocent (or acceptable) form its crude wishes. By taking a
dream, for example, and analyzing it by what is known as the free
association method, one discovers the real meaning of the terms
used, the meaning behind the symbol; and behind the apparent
dream-content one sees revealed the wishes and disorganizing
desires of the subconscious or the real person. For throughout
Freud's work, though not so definitely expressed, there is the
idea that the subconscious is by far the most important part of
the personality, and that the social purposes, the moral
injunctions and feelings are not the real purposes and real
desires of the real personality.
In analyzing dreams, the symbols become quite standardized. The
horses, dogs, beards, queer situations of the dream (falling,
walking without clothes, picking up money, etc.), the demons,
ghosts, flying, relate definitely to sex situations, sex organs,
sex desires. (The Freudians are apt to deny this theoretically,
but practically every dream of the thousands they publish is a
sex dream of crude content.) Naturally a "pure" girl is quite
shocked when told that because she dreamed she was riding a gray
horse in a green meadow that she really has bad (and still is
troubled by) incestuous desires for her father, but that is the
way to cure her of her neurasthenia or fatigue or obsession of
one kind or other.
I have not attempted a detailed account of the technique of free
association, nor the Freudian account of humor, etc. There are
plenty of books on the market written by Freud himself and his
followers. Frankly I advise the average person not to read them.
I am opposed to the Freudian account of life and character,
though recognizing that he has caused the psychologist to examine
life with more realism, to strip away pretense, to be familiar
with the crude and to examine conduct with the microscope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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