“On Dreams”

Sigmund Freud asserts that “condensation means that each element in the
content of a dream is “overdetermined” by material in the dream thoughts”. In other
words, condensation is a phenomenon in which two dream-elements from dream-
thoughts interweave and form one single element which contains the energy of the
other two. To make things more clear, I will give an example, but before that I want
to mention that dream-thoughts are in fact the latent thoughts or to put it in another
way the dream-thoughts are the thoughts that people have in their unconscious. And
let’s take an example: let’s say that Kate goes to work and on her way she sees
somebody with a coffee (the first dream element) in his/her hand. And she craves
for that, but she does not have enough money and continues to go to work. At the
building where she works a handsome guy (the second dream element) opens her
the door and she feels immediately attracted to him and all day she is thinking of
him. At night, she will dream that she drinks a coffee with that guy. The meeting of
Kate and the mysterious guy is that single element formed by the other two
mentioned before.
To go on, Freud also says that when we want something, for example a cake,
that desire is represented by more than one dream-element. This means that if I want
a cake I can dream that I go to a pastry, or I eat a pie or candy or things like that.
Things that actually reflects my desire for something sweet. However, when we talk
about confused dreams, condensation and dramatization (dream-thoughts are turned
into a situation in your dream) are not enough to explain the difference between the
content of the dream (what you dream) and the dream-thoughts (your unconscious
desires). And here a new concept intervenes. That is the manifest dream-content
which is the dream itself. It is no more than an appearance. By this, I mean that (we’ll
stick to the same example with the cake) you want a cake, you cannot buy it and at
night you dream a candy let’s say. That candy is a projection of your unconscious
desire. It is not exactly the thing that you want (in our example the cake), but other
dream-element which is an appearance of what you actually want. Going into further
details, after you have dreamed the cake you wanted, your desire was satisfied so
that you won’t think of that anymore until your desire is reactivated when you see
another sweet thing.
Another concept which Freud talks about is “dream-displacement”. This is a
process which conceals the actual meaning of the dream. He says that psychical
intensity (awareness of the situation), significance (meaning) or affective
potentiality (emotions) of the thoughts is turned into sensory vividness. This means
that when you dream that you are going to fall, you realize that, you know what
implies (pain, injuries) and feel fear. All these are turned into sensory vividness when
you jerk and wake up. Therefore, in a dream the psyche simulates the sensations that
are identical to reality (you feel that you fell, but you actually did not).
The manifest dream-content is presented differently from the latent-content of
the dream. In other words, the dream itself may have a different significance from
its initial appearances (Kate likes John and hates Bill => fight; John-the winner).
Nevertheless, there are dreams in which the latent-thoughts are clearly expressed.
But there are also dreams in which their content does not reveal the latent-thoughts
in an obvious way and here appears displacement. In other words, when the latent-
content is the same with the manifest dream-content there is no displacement, when
there are differences between these two types of content there appears displacement.

“Beyond the Pleasure Principle”

The pleasure principle does not dominate the course of mental processes.
However, there is a tendency towards the pleasure principle which is repressed by
other forces or circumstances. One example of this is when the pleasure principle is
replaced by the reality principle. This second principle leads to the postponement of
satisfaction and to toleration of some unpleasant experiences on the way of gaining
pleasure. We take as example an experiment in which a number of children had to
pass a test. Each child was left single in a room with a cake in front of him and asked
not to eat the cake for several minutes. If they managed to refrain themselves from
eating the cake, at the end they were given an additional cake. Now we see how the
reality principle works. Children had to wait before they could eat the cake and this
led to unpleasant experiences (they craved for the cake, they had to wait, they felt
that time did not pass at all etc.). Nevertheless, sometimes the pleasure principle
overcomes the reality principle. Some of the kids could not resist until the end and
ate the cake before they were supposed to.
The inhibition of pleasure is caused most of the times by the conflicts (what’s
good and bad) that take place in our minds while the ego is passing through its
development into more highly composite organisations. I will explain this by giving
an example. Let’s say that you work very hard in a company and your boss comes
to you and says that you do not work enough, you are the weakest employee in his
company and you have to do extra hours when you know that you do your best at
work. At that moment you want to beat him up (and now in your mind appear
conflicts. You think of what is better to do) and then you start thinking that if you
beat him, you will be fired, you won’t have any money, your wife will divorce you
(these are the composite organisations that the ego is passing through). You then
decide to do what your boss wants. In this way your primary instincts or your
instinctual impulses are repressed without reaching satisfaction. However, these
instincts can reach a substitutive satisfaction which is felt by the ego as unpleasure
(you say nothing to your boss, but you are still angry and go home and start a quarrel
with your wife out of nothing. This leads to a substitutive satisfaction which as a
whole turned into an unpleasant experience-the quarrel).
We can assert that the organic instincts (primary instincts) exist from ancient
times and that they exist in everyone. If there had been no modification or no
development in the world, the instincts would have remained the same. But they
have adapted to new conditions and they seem to tend towards progress. In fact, they
have an ancient goal. This goal is represented by something from which at one
moment we have departed and now we try to return to it.
The life instincts produce our internal sensations or our internal perception (if
you just want to eat something, you will immediately feel that you are hungry).
These instincts are perceived as disturbing factors (your desire to eat during an exam)
and their release is felt as pleasure. The death instincts repress the pleasure and it
actually leads to the safety of an individual. For example, if a man wants to plunge
into a river from high heights the death instincts (the fear of being injured or of
dying) prevent him from doing this saving his life.