In order to understand and interpret dreams, we need to know how dreams are encoded. Testing and symbolizing are two tasks that our dreams often do. The
In order to understand and interpret dreams, we need to know how dreams are encoded. Testing and symbolizing are two tasks that our dreams often do. The process of dream interpretation is to restore the meaning hidden by investigation and the meaning of dressing up with symbols.
First of all, let's give an example to help you understand what dream censorship is. In Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Freud recorded the following cases:
An old lady told me that she dreamed of being invited to a military hospital to comfort the soldiers there. In the description of the old woman, psychoanalysts found that whenever sensitive words were encountered in dreams, they would be replaced by vague whispers. This is the dream that deletes, changes or reorganizes our manifest dreams. This process is called the dream checking function.
Let's give a more vivid example. We assume that what emerges in our mind is an unedited version of the movie, which can be regarded as the hidden meaning of the dream, and our inner moral rules think that it is too exposed, then this time it will play a role in checking the dream, and the final photo is the obvious meaning of the dream. This process of hiding and deleting key parts is the test function of dreams.
The symbolism of dreams is the fixed relationship between the explicit meaning of dreams and the interpretation of dreams. In other words, the explicit meaning of a dream is a symbol of its implicit meaning. This part sounds mysterious again. Freud thought that some elements in dreams can be translated like looking them up in a dictionary. For example, he proposed:
The house represents the whole human body, the smooth walls represent men, and the wall frame or balcony represents women.
Kings, queens or other nobles represent parents.
Small animals and pests in dreams often symbolize children, brothers and sisters.
Falling into the water or climbing out of the water suggests a mother-child relationship.
Whether right or wrong, Freud's viewpoint plays an important role in our study of dreams.