Chapter 12 (pp. 70-74) Summary and Analysis

In the beginning of Chapter 12, Freud asserts that many dreams of adults must actually be erotic wishes. Sometimes the dreams may seem to be perversions. Other dreams where the dream content is in no way erotic, can be revealed to be erotic dreams through dream interpretation. He further thinks that it is often sexual desires that our brains make allowances for. Often infantile sexual wishes are overlooked and not understood. Furthermore, infantile sexual wishes can provide the strongest forces in creation of dreams.

The only way that a sexual dream can be seen as non sexual is for the content of the dream to be replaced by symbols. Symbols are interesting because people who speak the same language often use the same symbols for dreams. If Freud can codify symbols in dreams, then we can interpret dreams...