Part I, Section F through Part II

[Thomas]

The last sections of the scientific literature review cover ethical feelings in dreams, the function of dreams, and the relation between dreams and mental illness. My less than thorough summary:

Section F: The ethical questions raised have to do with responsibility: should you feel responsible for thinking about something or doing something in a dream that you would not do in waking life? Dreams consist of "involuntary ideas," but they are still the product of the dreamer's psyche. One writer suggests that involuntary ideas are suppresssed by day, and their emergence in dreams is a "genuine psychological phenomenon"

Section G: It's possible that dreams have no function, that they serve a merely physiological function. Dreams may be a kind of mental housekeeping, sweeping away the detritus of the day, or they may be a kind of "safety valve for the overburdened brain." Freud does not agree, saying this robs the psyche of its dignity. Furthermore, it does not explain why certain images or events or concerns of the day appear in dreams. Freud has previously spoken of the psyche's "choice" of these elements, and the fact that some thoughts that are suppressed during waking hours appear in dreams is definitely a point of interest.

Section H: The correspondence between dreams and mental disturbance lends credence to the medical theory of dreams, that dreams are the product of a diseased physiology. A researcher named Radestock sums up this view by saying that dreams are a less intense form of psychosis. Radestock notes that dreams are similar to psychoses in that they often reach for what reality denies, and Freud latches onto this idea:

...wish-fulfillment is one of the forms of imagining common to the dream and the psychoses. My own investigations have taught me that this is where the key to a psychological theory of the dream and of the psychoses is to be found.

Part II

Freud clearly believes dreams have a meaning and can be interpreted. He considers two popular methods: symbolic dream interpretation and the decoding method. The first has an oracular quality and requires a certain amount of intuition or inspiration. The second needs something like a dream book which acts as a key (a popular method even today, and dream books are still quite popular.) Freud rejects both as non-scientific.

Freud then tells us that he intends to show that dreams have meaning, and that there is a scientific method of interpreting them. He explains a bit about how he conducts psychoanalysis, and that patient's dreams often come up in the course of it. The dream in this case may be treated as a symptom.

Now, a problem. Freud says that for various reasons he must use himself as a test subject for the purposes of dream interpretation. Is this really objective science?

The reading at this point becomes more engaging, so I won't attempt to summarize. But I have to ask if the dream Freud relates, of "Irma's Injection," can be taken as a paradigm. His conclusion is that his dream reveals itself as wish-fulfillment, and that is arguably so in his example. (On the other hand, the possibility of confirmation bias seems to me quite high.) Earlier on he cited the common dream of flying. If you have a dream that you're flying, does that mean you want to fly?

[edited]

[Borum]

Thomas wrote: "
Freud says that for various reasons he must use himself as a test subject for the purposes of dream interpretation. Is this really objective science?
..."
I found this very strange as well. I mean, if the problem had been the need for a non-neurotic test subject, wouldn't it have been more objective if it was someone other than himself? Also, how would we be certain that he's NOT neurotic? (We only have his own words to rely upon)

[Borum]

Also, I thought that the schedule for today was from section F up to part II.

[Thomas]

Borum wrote: "Also, I thought that the schedule for today was from section F up to part II."

Whoops! You are correct. Thanks for pointing it out. I edited out my comment on Part III. No spoilers!

[Thomas]

Borum wrote: "I mean, if the problem had been the need for a non-neurotic test subject, wouldn't it have been more objective if it was someone other than himself? Also, how would we be certain that he's NOT neurotic? (We only have his own words to rely upon)"

Maybe we have to look at what he's trying to do with dreams. It would be a lot simpler if his purpose was to find a neurological explanation, but he's not that kind of researcher. He wants to use dreams as a way of resolving his patients' "hysteria." (My understanidng of the term "hysteria" is a bit fuzzy, but I take it to mean physical symptoms for which there are no clear physiological cause. Is this the same as neurosis? I'm not sure.)

So maybe it doesn't matter if his method is not objective. His object is the subject, which sounds strange but I think that's what he's dealing with. If there are no objective standards, because each individual psyche has its own subjective standards, maybe objective scientific criteria do not apply.

Put another way, who is better able to judge what a dream means than the person having the dream?

[Borum]

Thomas wrote: "Borum wrote: "My understanidng of the term "hysteria" is a bit fuzzy, but I take it to mean physical symptoms for which there are no clear physiological cause...."

Hysteria was an outdated terminology for conversion disorder, also known as functional neurological system disorder (whew! that's a long one). The person presents with neurological symptoms, such as numbness, blindness, paralysis, or fits, which are not consistent with a well-established organic cause, which cause significant distress, and can be traced back to a psychological trigger.

Its differential diagnosis from somatic symptom disorder (otherwise known as somatoform disorder) is very tricky. I think not only the ineptitude of the doctors (as Freud would have liked to attribute the source) but lack of information (both clinical and personal) caused lots of disagreement between the physicians.

[Borum]

Thomas wrote: "Borum wrote: "So maybe it doesn't matter if his method is not objective. His object is the subject, which sounds strange but I think that's what he's dealing with. If there are no objective standards, because each individual psyche has its own subjective standards, maybe objective scientific criteria do not apply.

Put another way, who is better able to judge what a dream means than the person having the dream?
..."
So maybe the point is that we shouldn't try to be objective but delve even deeper into the subjective answer to each individual's dream as nobody else but the dreamer is better suited to interpret and recall the subtle hidden connections between one's personal history and desires. This may be Freud's point, but then, what would this imply for other people if the best interpreter of a dream is the dreamer himself/herself? Would it make it possible to apply the same method to other people, especially the ones with psychiatric disorders?

[Borum]

Also, I wonder if his method to prepare the subject by switching "off the critical faculty he normal uses to sift the thoughts arising in him" to give 'all his attention to self-observation' can fully work to observe the really painful and deeper (perhaps darker) thoughts arising in the dream.

For example, in the Analysis of 'In spite of her dress', is it just me, or did I sense some sexual repression? From the onset, Freud states that 'This is CERTAINLY no more than a parenthesis.' and in the end, he concludes that 'The rest is in the dark to me, and, to speak frankly, I have no inclination to probe any deeper.'

[Borum]

Another question would be: would this kind of self-observation be reproducible in other people (with and without neurological disorder/ with and without psychiatric training)? It seems to be a highly biased procedure and may be influenced by other factors such as one's own psychic or organic state, substance influence, mental faculties, and even one's training in neuropsychology!

Also, if the dream is wish-fulfillment as he concluded after his analysis, would this apply for other dreams as well? What about nightmares? How would a nightmare in which one is absolutely dying to escape from be a wish fulfillment?

[Thomas]

Borum wrote: "Hysteria was an outdated terminology for conversion disorder, also known as functional neurological system disorder (whew! that's a long one)."

Thanks for this! Out of curiosity, do you know what the modern therapy for this is? Is it an actual neurological disorder or is it psychological?

[Thomas]

Freud says that he arrived at the subject of dreams because it tends to come up a lot during the therapy he uses, the "talking cure." The talking cure sounds like an experimental therapy used when nothing else does, when there's no explanation for the "hysteria" his patients suffer. He appears to be working in the dark. He doesn't know the cause of the symptoms, and he doesn't know why the cure works. It sounds like risky business, but he says that it works:

...ever since I learned from an important contribution by Josef Breuer that for these formations, experienced as symptoms of illness, the unraveling and the cure, solution, and resolution, amount to the same thing. If one has been able to trace a pathological idea of this sort back to the elements in the patient's inner life which produced it, then it will disintegrate and the patient will be freed from it.

[Borum]

Thomas wrote: "Borum wrote: "Hysteria was an outdated terminology for conversion disorder, also known as functional neurological system disorder (whew! that's a long one)."

Thanks for this! Out of curiosity, do ..."

Although its symptoms are neurological in appearance it doesn't have any neurological pathology as its cause. Since its cause is psychological, the therapy usually involves psychotherapy.

[Emil]

Thomas wrote: "Now, a problem. Freud says that for various reasons he must use himself as a test subject for the purposes of dream interpretation. Is this really objective science?..."

By using his own dreams to validate his theories, Freud is a bit like the early chemists who used to smell and taste the compounds they were creating. Not quite objective, but works when you're stuck into unknown territory.

On the other hand, interpreting your patient's dreams should be objective, so it would require different methods.



Thomas wrote: " His conclusion is that his dream reveals itself as wish-fulfillment, and that is arguably so in his example. (On the other hand, the possibility of confirmation bias seems to me quite high.)..."

This is the biggest problem I have with this book, he is getting fixated on the idea that all dreams are wish-fulfilment. Dreams are by definition extremely vague and if you really want you can attribute a wish-fulfilment value to any possible dream.

I've made the following experiment: I've took 5 of his dreams and assigned them to me, as I would have dreamt them. It was always very easy interpret them as wish-fulfilment for myself.
I'm not saying his work is mumbo-jumbo, but maybe his wish-fulfilment theory should be taken with a pinch of salt...

[Thomas]

I'm not sure how his wish fulfillment dream argument unfolds yet, but at this point it looks like he's going to argue that a positive dream is undisguised wish-fulfillment, and a negative dream (one charged with anxiety or fear, i.e. a nightmare) is just a positive dream in disguise. There are no bad dreams. (Just like there are no bad dogs... I think I can make a better argument for dogs, actually.)

But there's lots more to come on wish-fulfillment.