Chapter 7, Part 1 Summary

In Part 1 of Chapter 7, Freud begins with the re-telling of a dream that one of his patients had after hearing the story of the same dream at a lecture. The dream involves a father of a dying son who hires someone to pray over the son at night amidst many lighted candles. The father leaves the door ajar and retreats to sleep in his own room, where he later dreams that his son has come to his bedside saying he is burning. The father bolts awake and finds the arm of his dead son's body is indeed on fire, having been ignited by a fallen candle, which the now sleeping hireling has failed to prevent.

Freud uses this dream to discuss the challenge of the problematic nature of dream interpretation, which, he reiterates, must not be based on false or exaggerated...