Product Description
THIS BOOK IS A UNIQUE TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION of Sigmund Freud’s (1920) original work in German received by the reader of today quite in contrast of the scornful reception which first was accorded to his discoveries in the domain of the unconscious, appearing before medical bodies to tell them modestly of some facts which always recurred in his dream and his patients' dreams, he was first laughed at and then avoided as a crank.
Freud's theories are anything but theoretical. The pragmatic view that "truth is what works" had not been as yet expressed when Freud published his revolutionary views on the psychology of dreams. Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his interpretation of dreams.
First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading nowhere. Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought, after noting down all his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the conclusion that there was in every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious. Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider them as absurd and unintelligible; the universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained observer. Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to minimize, if not to ignore entirely. Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic visions of our sleep and the symbolic actions of the mentally deranged.
Other explorers have struck the path blazed by Freud and leading into man's unconscious. Jung of Zurich, Adler of Vienna and Kempf of Washington, DC, have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions which have brought that study into fields which Freud himself never dreamt of invading.
Dream psychology is the key to Freud's works and to all modern psychology. With a simple, compact manual such as Dream Psychology there shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the most revolutionary psychological system of modern times.
— ANDRẾ TRIDON (1920). Excerpts from the Introduction to Sigmund Freud’s “Dream Psychology.”
Freud's theories are anything but theoretical. The pragmatic view that "truth is what works" had not been as yet expressed when Freud published his revolutionary views on the psychology of dreams. Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his interpretation of dreams.
First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading nowhere. Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought, after noting down all his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the conclusion that there was in every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious. Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider them as absurd and unintelligible; the universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained observer. Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to minimize, if not to ignore entirely. Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic visions of our sleep and the symbolic actions of the mentally deranged.
Other explorers have struck the path blazed by Freud and leading into man's unconscious. Jung of Zurich, Adler of Vienna and Kempf of Washington, DC, have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions which have brought that study into fields which Freud himself never dreamt of invading.
Dream psychology is the key to Freud's works and to all modern psychology. With a simple, compact manual such as Dream Psychology there shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the most revolutionary psychological system of modern times.
— ANDRẾ TRIDON (1920). Excerpts from the Introduction to Sigmund Freud’s “Dream Psychology.”
