Latent dream content

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The latent dream content is by Sigmund Freud is the "hidden" for the dreamer usually meaning of the dream, but which through dream interpretation can be decrypted. Freud uses the method of objective interpretation from the assumption that every dream can be traced back to concrete dream thoughts . These dream thoughts represent a relationship to objective facts, such as B. reminder remnants of the previous day ( day's residues ), childhood memories, echoes of body stimuli or unconscious desires of the dreamer. The concept of dream thought is therefore used by Freud as a synonym for the latent dream content. (a)

Use of terms

According to Freud, the latent dream contents are the logical counterpart of the manifest dream contents . The manifest dream contents represent the starting point of the dream interpretation. They supply the dream material that is to be deciphered in the interpretation. This material is influenced by current wishes. According to Freud, the concrete dream represents a wish fulfillment. Therefore, unconscious dream motifs are also spoken of, which do not always have to correspond to those of the conscious attitude of the dreamer. Christoph Türcke regards the term "latent dream content" as a more cautious term for dreams that can always be interpreted in many ways. He regards the Freudian term "dream thought" as rather daring. (a) The question can be asked whether the conscious mental interpretation of a given pictorial dream element restores the original conditions on which the dream is based - e.g. B. a possibly repressed already existing traumatic situation - or whether such pictorial elements cannot be regarded as a preliminary stage of completely new contents of consciousness and also - at least partially - have to be interpreted as such. CG Jung took this last path of a rather final dream interpretation with his interpretation on the subject level as a new possibility. In contrast, Freud's view is to be regarded as rather reductive . The picture writing of the dream would then rather be understood as the distortion of the dream thoughts, with the aim of circumventing the dream censorship . However, Freud may have viewed the pictorial writing of the dream as characteristic of the “primitive thinking activity” of the unconscious in contrast to the conceptual logic of the consciousness. According to him, dream interpretation should be understood as the reversal of dream work. Christoph Türcke sees the predominantly pictorial dream elements and the dream logic related to them possibly even as the developmental preliminary stage of an evolutionary conceptual logic that only develops later. Pictures are the first concrete means of human expression ( cave painting , picture writing ). Seen in this way, the dream would be a temporary regression to an earlier phylogenetic stage of development. (b)

Pictorial dream material

In a narrower sense, the latent dream content represents the psychodynamically understandable origin of manifest dream content, which is mainly uncovered through analysis and interpretation . Freud distinguished between these two dream contents because he did not see a sufficient possibility of interpretation in the “ visual value ” of each manifestly remembered dream like a dream dictionary . (b) Jung also took the view that a dream interpretation could not refer to standard symbols. However, it also differed from Freud's method of interpretation. For him, a meaningful interpretation emerged from the "hidden" relationship between various, mostly pictorial dream elements , which represent the largest part of the dream material. The dream thoughts are therefore the result of the interpretation and thus represent a reconstruction of the interpreter. The reconstruction reverses the results of the dream work. The dream work of condensing , shifting and converting into the visual and symbolic makes it possible to circumvent or weaken censorship . Freud thus takes up the symbolic method of interpretation as it was before him and others. a. was proposed by Karl Albert Scherner . The latent dream contents thus represent the “missing fragment”, which is not positively contained in the dream due to the lack of terminology in the dream. It opens up through the psychoanalytic technique, in particular through the consideration of the person and the living conditions of the dreamer. Artemidor has already asked Daldis to take these circumstances into account . (c)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Sigmund Freud : The Interpretation of Dreams . [1900] Collected Works, Volume II / III, S. Fischer, Frankfurt / M; The following page references from: Paperback edition of the Fischer-Bücherei, Aug. 1966;
    (a) pp. 121, 144, 234 on Stw .: "Latent dream content";
    (b) P. 90 to Stw .: "Traumlexikon, Traumbuch";
    (c) pp. 79, 90 f. to Stw .: "Symbolic dream interpretation as a purely mechanical encryption method".
  2. ↑ a b Christoph Türcke : Philosophy of Dreams , CH Beck, Munich 2008 ISBN 978-3-406-57637-9 ;
    (a) p. 36 f. to Stw. "latent dream content";
    (b) p. 11 f. to Stw. " Paleontology , Mental Archeology".
  3. ↑ a b Stavros Mentzos : Neurotic Conflict Processing. Introduction to the psychoanalytic theory of neuroses, taking into account more recent perspectives. © 1982 Kindler, Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-596-42239-6 ; P. 70 to Stw. "Dream interpretation according to Freud is reversal of dream work".
  4. ↑ Jolande Jacobi : The psychology of CG Jung . An introduction to the complete works. With a foreword by CG Jung. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt March 1987, ISBN 3-596-26365-4 , pp. 75, 81 on Stw. “Standardymbole”.
  5. ^ Karl Albert Scherner : The life of the dream . Berlin 1861