Review of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams

Comments on the book, The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams (TIOD) makes the absolutely compelling case that dreaming and perhaps all thought is driven by motives, or "wishes," of which the dreamer may be unaware. Although portions of his thesis had previously been expressed by Plato, and by contemporary students and philosophers such as Shiller, Schemer and Maury, it was Freud who put it together in a detailed, systematic, persuasive argument. In doing so, he moved against the powerful academic positions of rationalism and logical positivism that insisted that motives were vitalistic and teleological and therefore had no place in the science of psychology. And so for this reviewer, although TlOD is a brilliant creative hypothetical view of the dreaming process, it should, after so many years of failing to find empirical support, be taken simply as a fascinating piece of our early history. It is the best attempt we have, but it falls far short of the mark. Until we have an acceptable theory, let us hope that those who interpret dreams, particularly the dreams of people more vulnerable than themselves, will make allowance for the possibility that their interpretation may be based on their own and Freud's personal associations to the dream, and dream associations, of their client and may have nothing whatever to do with how that dream was produced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)