The Freud Project, Year Fifteen

For reasons too complex to explain, I have undertaken to read all 24 volumes of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, at the rate of one volume per year, over the course of 24 years.

Prof Brendan Kelly.
Photo: Ruth-Medjber

Last year, the fourteenth instalment in the Freud Project was devoted to On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works (1914-1916) (Irish Medical Times, March 2024). This was Volume Fourteen of the Standard Edition, translated from the German under the general editorship of James Strachey, in collaboration with Anna Freud, and assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson (Vintage: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis). This year, Year Fifteen of the Freud Project, brings us to Volume Fifteen, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Parts I and II) (1915-1916).

Freud’s Introductory Lectures comprise 28 lectures that he delivered at the University of Vienna between 1915 and 1917. They are divided into three sections, the first two of which are in this volume.

The first section is titled ‘Parapraxes’ and includes four lectures dealing with ‘Freudian slips’ or errors in speech, memory, or behaviour which reveal unconscious processes. The second section explores ‘Dreams’ over the course of 11 rather detailed lectures. The third section comprises 13 lectures devoted to Freud’s ‘General Theory of the Neuroses’; these make up the next volume in the Standard Edition of Freud’s work and will be considered next year.

This year, we focus on dreams.

‘Symbolism in Dreams’
Freud placed great weight on dreams. He was obsessed by their content, their form, their meaning, and their symbolism. This preoccupation is especially apparent in his lecture on ‘Symbolism in Dreams’ in the present volume. In this especially engaging contribution, Freud outlines his theory of dreams in detail, and argues that ‘if we are acquainted with the ordinary dream-symbols, and in addition with the dreamer’s personality, the circumstances in which he lives and the impressions which preceded the occurrence of the dream, we are often in a position to interpret a dream straightaway’ (p. 151).

But while dreams are valuable sources of symbols, symbols can be found elsewhere, too, as Freud readily admits: “The field of symbolism is immensely wide, and dream-symbolism is only a small part of it: indeed, it serves no useful purpose to attack the whole problem from the direction of dreams” (p. 166).

Symbols appear in myths, fairy tales, sayings, songs, poetry, and general language, as well as dreams. We are surrounded by symbols, both when we sleep and when we are awake.

So, why are dream-symbols special? Why are they accorded such importance? Freud writes that dreaming is ‘mental life during sleep’ (p. 88) and ‘dreams are psychical phenomena’ of some significance (p. 100).

They are therefore worthy of attention. Symbols in dreams are not the only source of meaning, but they are an especially rich route to the unconscious. Put simply, dreams matter.

‘The Dream-Work’
Freud outlines two processes in relation to dreams. The first is the ‘dream-work’ which is ‘the work which transforms the latent dream into the manifest one’ (p. 170). In other words, Freud sees ‘dream-work’ as the mental processes that transform the latent content of a dream (the hidden, unconscious thoughts and desires) into the manifest content (the dream as it is consciously remembered). Freud believed that dream-work serves as a way for the unconscious mind to disguise and express repressed desires in a less threatening form while we sleep.

The second process is the reverse of this. It is the ‘work of interpretation’ by the analyst and patient, ‘which endeavours to arrive at the latent dream from the manifest one’ (p. 170). In other words, the ‘work of interpretation’ involves analysing and decoding the manifest content of a dream (what the dreamer consciously remembers) to uncover its latent content (the hidden, unconscious thoughts, desires, or conflicts it represents). It means understanding the ‘dream-work’ in reverse.

Throughout these lectures, Freud delves deep into the meaning of dreams, the nature of the ‘dream-work’, and the value of the ‘work of interpretation’.

The latter is essential for understanding the dream’s deeper psychological meaning and is fundamental to much of Freud’s interpretative work and his understanding of the human mind.

All told, Volume Fifteen of the Standard Edition of Freud’s work provides a convenient overview of many of Freud’s central theories, especially as they pertain to dreams.

I look forward to similar insights in the next instalment of the Standard Edition, Volume Sixteen, which presents the remainder of his Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Part III) (1916-1917). That volume will be considered next year, Deo volente, in Year Sixteen of the Freud Project.

Author
Brendan Kelly is Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and author of The Modern Psychiatrist’s Guide to Contemporary Practice: Discussion, Dissent, and Debate in Mental Health Care (Routledge, 2025).