1. Freud’s Dreamwork Lesson 01: Is dreaming meaningful?

3. The Iceberg…  What part of the mind (conscious, preconscious or unconscious) do you think dreams represent? How could Psychologists use dreams to examine the mind?

4. Lesson aims To apply Freud’s dreamwork theory to two of Freud’s case studies – Ida Bauer, The WolfMan  To describe the features of dreams, according to Freud.  To describe the features of Freud’s dreamwork theory.

5. Freud - Background  Through dreams we can unstart unconscious wishes and desires.  Unconscious - largest part of the mind.  Some of what appears in the unconscious is repressed to help us forget or deal with problems.  Our unconscious thoughts shape our behaviour.  Through dream analysis we can uncover our unconscious thoughts, wishes and desires.

6. Freud - Features of Dreams  Dreams contain:  Manifest content – the story of the dream  Latent content – the underlying meaning of the dream  The latent content is what hides behind the manifest content.  According to Freud, dreamwork is what the mind is doing whilst dreaming – to keep the unconscious thoughts repressed. Thus, dreamwork protects us from undesirable thoughts.

7. Freud’s Dreamwork  Dreamwork includes three components:  Condensation – many ideas within a dream, appear as one.  Displacement – unimportant ideas appear to be more important, to shift attention from what is really important.  Secondary Elaboration – a dreamer will add additional information when telling someone else, to try and make their dream more meaningful. This gets in the way of understanding the latent content.

8. Answer the following…  Describe the three features of dreamwork?  Explain the terms manifest content and latent content.  Explain how some features of dreams, according to Freud make it hard for an analyst to uncover the true meaning of a dream.

9. Freud – famous cases  Dreams of famous cases, include:  Little Hans  Ida Bauer  The Wolfman  Task: You will be provided with a copy of Ida Bauer’s and The Wolfman’s dreams.  In pairs, annotate these dreams for possible condensation, displacement and secondary elaboration.  Then, write a short summary describing the manifest content and the latent content.

10. Summary  Describe the three features of dreamwork?  Explain the terms manifest content and latent content.  Explain how some features of dreams, according to Freud make it hard for an analyst to uncover the true meaning of a dream.  Ida Bauer  The Wolfman  Condensation, displacement and secondary elaboration.  Manifest content and the Latent content.