In the following essay, Wollheim surveys and analyzes Freud's study of dreams.

I shall begin with Freud's study of dreams, which is in many ways the most distinctive and the most remarkable single element in his vast survey of the mind. It is the topic of his most important work, The Interpretation of Dreams, which, besides being what its title indicates, is also a work of confession, in that Freud committed to its pages many of the findings of his self-analysis. And Freud continued to feel a special attachment to dream-interpretation, both for the exactness of its findings and for the precious evidence it provided for the deeper workings of the mind in normality and abnormality alike. The view expressed in the maxim ' 'The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind" is one from which he...