Sigmund Freud - Why Do We Dream?
Throughout his lifetime, many people often asked Sigmund Freud -- why do we dream? Due to his every changing mind and evolving ideas, Freud’s response to this question greatly varied.
When he was younger, Freud often believed that dreams were only sexual in nature. He thought that they contained sexual images, were made of sexual thoughts, and possessed nothing more than the animalistic urges of the average human. However, as he grew older, Freud discovered that dreams also consisted of things that happened throughout the day (though he never did completely release that sexual theory). Since his time, we have been trying to find reasons why the Sigmund Freud – why do we dream – theory may, or may not, be accurate.
For the most part, Freud’s theory called “day residue” makes perfect sense. This term refers to the various activities and emotions that an average person goes through during the day. For Freud, the things that we do during the day often surface when we are dreaming during the evening hours. Think about it, when was the last time that a portion of your day seeped into your dreams at night? Chances are, this happens to you quite often (as it happens to everyone), though the many things that you do throughout the day only add up to a part of your dream world.
So, what about the rest of your dreams? Well, Freud would have stated that some parts come from subconscious desires (relating to sex), and some parts are mere suppressed memories that only surface in the form of your subconscious. As you can tell, there are really three parts to a Freudian dream (day residue, sexual desire, and repressed memories). Then again, the Sigmund Freud – why do we dream – idea regarding dreaming may not be the only one worth of consideration.
Freud’s former pupil, Carl Jung, had ideas relating to the dream world of his own. Jung believed that each person had various symbols (or archetypes) that would surface during dreams. For Jung, these symbols were directly link to a person’s collective unconscious – though Freud greatly disagreed with this theory. If you are still wondering where dreams come from, you are not alone. There are many people all over the world wondering the same thing, though we may never truly find out.
When it comes to Sigmund Freud – why do we dream at all? – dreams are the stuff that, well, dreams are made of. That is to say, even Freud wasn’t completely certain about dreams.