This article will explain Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation About Dreams. This topic is quite important from the perspective of a psychology student.
You must be aware of the first psychoanalyst ever, Sigmund Freud who has given many contradictory theories about human behavior and thinking. Well, Freud has given a lot of significance to the dreams that we see while asleep.
He believed that a lot of hidden information regarding a person can be obtained if their dreams are properly interpreted, these are the things that the individuals themselves might not be aware of about them.
Sigmund Freud Interpretation About Dreams
According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are the royal road to unconsciousness.
Dreams explain:
1. Hidden/repressed experiences
2. New experiences
3. Wishes which are not fulfilled
4. There are annoying dreams as well
5. Majorly, dreams satisfy us and tell us our wishes that we want to be completed and this lowers our anxiety level and makes us feel satisfied the next day.
Sigmund Freud’s Dream Interpretation
It consists of two parts: Manifest content and Latent content.
Manifest Content
It is the content that appears in the dream. The things and situations that we see in the dreams on the surface level.
Latent Content
It is what the dream is actually about. It is the hidden content which is the actual meaning of the dream which can be retrieved only after a careful interpretation and analysis of the dream which is properly done by a psychoanalyst.
Sigmund Freud was also like Titchener and he used to consider women inferior to men. He explained that females have penis envy. But Karen Horney explained that if females have penis envy then men also have womb envy.
Also, don’t forget to check out our article on Little Albert Experiment In Psychology Explained In Detail
Sigmund Freud Psychosexual Stages Of Development
These stages were given by Sigmund Freud and are applied in Psychoanalysis schools which were also proven to some extent.
Sigmund Freud talked about the unconscious in general in which he also talked about sex. Basically, according to Freud, when children are born, right from that moment they tend to seek pleasure.
With time, an infant develops his/her erogenous zones – the zones or areas that help in seeking pleasure.
As the child grows up, the pleasure-seeking areas, that is, the erogenous zones also start developing and differentiating.
There are five stages of development of a child according to Freud.
1. Oral Stage
In this stage, the pleasure area is the mouth. This stage starts from birth till one year of age. It is further classified into two sub-stages: Oral Incorporative Stage (sucking during breastfeeding) and Oral Sadistic Stage (biting objects like toys).
When an infant fails to cross this stage properly and gets stuck in that particular stage when the pleasure area of that point is not satisfied, then the person gets some attributes in his/her adult personality. This is called fixation in the developmental stage.
2. Anal Stage
This stage is from one to three years of age. Here, the pleasure area of the child is the anus.
Here the role of parents comes in giving them toilet training. They have to teach them how to urinate and when to urinate, they set the time for their toilet, otherwise, the child will keep doing it anytime.
It is further classified into two categories:
- Anal Expulsive- the child feels pleasure in excreting and keeps going to the toilet all the time. This leads to messy, clumsy, generous, and unorderly personalities in adulthood.
- Anal Retentive – the child feels pleasure in controlling, even if parents tell them to go to the toilet, they control. This leads to perfectionist, cleanliness-loving, orderly, and active personalities in adulthood.
3. Phallic Stage
This stage is from three to five years of age. And according to Freud, this is the most important stage of child development.
Freud says that in this stage, the child develops a sexual inclination towards the opposite sex in its parents.
Daughters get sexually and romantically inclined to their fathers and sons to their mothers.
According to Freud, boys bear Oedipus Complex and girls bear Electra Complex in this stage.
4. Latency Stage
This stage starts from the age of 6 years till puberty. Here, same-sex, or same-peer group activities are involved like playing games together, but boys and girls start differentiating from each other in this stage.
5. Genital Stage
This stage begins during adolescence and goes on till around 19. Here, proper heterogenous relations are formed, which sometimes lead to marriage and sometimes to procrastination.
Final Words
We hope you found our content useful. Let us know if you want more information about the different psychosexual stages of development by Sigmund Freud. Till then, you can check out our other articles Origin Of Health Psychology | Research In Health Psychology, Sigmund Freud On Neurosis Summary