Chapter 8 (pp. 55-58) Summary and Analysis

At the beginning of Chapter Eight, Freud asserts that dream work is a very peculiar process. It gives insight to to other phobias, obsessions, and delusions. To him, condensation and displacement are processes of these other psychological disorders. Modification of the pictorial form is specialized to dream work. The heart of the problem with dreams is the process of displacement. With the specimen dream, Freud confesses that it may be hard to describe other dreams because they would alarm other people and embarrass him in front of his friends, family, and colleagues. However, if Freud publishes and analyzes his dreams without a thought to how it might affect others, he will discover new parts about dreams that he would want to refute and disagree with. Freud will wish to repress those parts of the dream. Thus, we...