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[[Dream]] [[interpretation]] is the "royal road that leads to [[knowledge ]] of the [[unconscious ]] in [[psychic ]] [[life]]."

Such, in highly condensed [[form]], is [[Freud]]'s [[theory ]] as set forth in the founding [[work ]] of [[psychoanalysis]], ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams]]'' (1900a).

As [[Freud]] himself pointed out, this was a revolutionary [[thesis]].

The only scientists interested in [[dreams ]] during the late nineteenth century were psychologists [[looking ]] for "elements" of [[mental ]] [[activity ]] or psychiatrists interested in [[hysteria ]] and [[hypnosis]]. All of [[them ]] saw dreams as [[nothing ]] more than degraded products of a weak and thus dissociated [[psyche]]. Freud's approach was a radical departure for he claimed that [[hysterical ]] [[symptoms ]] were the expression of "conflicts," and that dreams were the product of a "[[dream work]]." In both cases there was no weakening of psychic activity but quite the opposite, an intense activity driven by the opposition between wishes and psychic [[defense ]] mechanisms. The radical [[nature ]] of Freud's [[position ]] was illuminated by his divergence from Josef [[Breuer]], who saw hysteria as the product of "hypnoid states" brought on by a weakening of organizing mental activity and a concomitant decrease in what Pierre Janet called "mental tension" (Freud and Breuer, 1895d).

In 1892 he noted that many dreams "spin out further [[associations ]] which have been rejected or broken off during the day. I have based on this fact the theory of 'hysterical counter-will' which embraces a [[good ]] [[number ]] of hysterical symptoms" (1892-94a, p. 138). ("Counter-will," [[meaning ]] an opposition to the satisfaction of [[desire ]] for [[moral ]] reasons, was a [[conceptual ]] forerunner of [[repression]].) The "[[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology]]" (1950c [1895]) introduced a number of [[ideas ]] [[about ]] dreams that were later expanded and refined.

Between 1897 and 1900 Freud, with moral support from his correspondent Wilhelm [[Fliess]], conducted the [[self]]-[[analysis ]] that gave [[birth ]] to psychoanalysis. For the most part, that [[self-analysis ]] drew on Freud's own dreams (Anzieu, 1975/1984), and in due course those same dreams supplied a large portion of the [[material ]] of The [[Interpretation of Dreams]].

These tenets underpin [[dream interpretation]], whose aim is to render meaningful elements in the dream's [[manifest ]] [[content ]] (to restore their [[latent ]] meaning), on the basis of the dreamer's associations. Freud insisted that any "key to dreams," that is, any [[list ]] of [[symbolic ]] equivalents of supposedly general [[value]], be excluded. He did, however, recognize some [[universal ]] "[[symbols]]," transmitted by [[culture]], and some "typical dreams" to be met with in many dreamers (dreams of nudity, for example).

See also: [[Action]]-(re)presentation; [[Agency]]; Alpha function; [[Anticathexis]]/counter-[[cathexis]]; Beta-elements; Beyond the [[Pleasure ]] [[Principle]]; [[Breton]], André; [[Censorship]]; [[Certainty]]; "[[Claims of Psychoanalysis to Scientific Interest]]"; Compromise [[formation]]; [[Condensation]]; [[Contradiction]]; [[Delusions ]] and Dreams in Jensen's "Gradiva"; [[Subject]]'s desire; Directed daydream (R. Desoille); [[Displacement]]; Dream and [[Myth]]; [[Dream Interpretation|Dream interpretation]]; Dream's [[navel]], the; Convenience, dream of; Nakedness, dream of; "Dream of the Wise [[Baby]];" Dream [[screen]]; Dream [[symbolism]]; [[Dream Work|Dream work]]; Ego [[ideal]]; Ego states; [[Forgetting]]; [[Formations ]] of the unconscious; Functional phenomenon; [[Hypocritical Dream|Hypocritical dream]]; Hysteria; [[Infantile]], the; [[Inferiority]], [[feeling ]] of; [[Interpretation of dreams|Interpretation of Dreams]], The; Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; Isakower phenomenon, [[Jokes]]; Latent; Latent dream [[thoughts]]; [[Letter]], the; [[Logic]](s); Manifest; [[Metaphor]]; "Metapsychologic [[Supplement ]] to the Theory of Dreams"; [[Metonymy]]; [[Mnemic trace]]/memory trace; [[Mourning]], dream of; Myth; Myth of the Birth of the Hero, The; [[Narcissistic ]] [[withdrawal]]; New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis; [[Nightmare]]; Night terrors; [[Oedipus ]] [[complex]]; [[On Dreams]]; [[Overdetermination]]; [[Primal ]] [[scene]]; Primary [[process]]/secondary process; "Project for a Scientific Psychology, A"; Psychic [[reality]]; Psychic [[temporality]]; Psychoanalysis of Dreams; [[Punishment]], dream of; Purposive [[idea]]; [[Reality testing]]; [[Regression]]; [[Repetition]]; [[Repetitive ]] dreams; Representability; [[Representation ]] of [[affect]]; [[Reversal ]] into the opposite; Reverie; Schiller and psychoanalysis; Screen [[memory]]; Secondary revision; [[Secret]]; Self-[[state ]] dream; Somnambulism; [[Substitutive ]] formation; [[Surrealism ]] and psychoanalysis; [[Telepathy]]; [[Thing]]-presentation; [[Thought]]; [[time]]; [[Training ]] analysis; [[Trauma]]; Typical dreams; Unconscious, the; Wish/yearning; Wish fulfillment; Wish, [[hallucinatory ]] satisfaction of a; Work (as a [[psychoanalytical ]] [[notion]]).[[Bibliography]]

Further [[Reading]]

The dream, guardian of [[sleep]], provides disguised satisfaction for wishes that are [[repressed ]] while we are awake; dream interpretation is the "royal road that leads to knowledge of the unconscious in psychic life." Such, in highly condensed form, is Freud's theory as set forth in the founding work of psychoanalysis, The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a). As Freud himself pointed out, this was a revolutionary thesis.