Was Freud Wrong About Everything? What About Dreams?

[DrTechnical]

In one of our other threads and enthusiastic debates, the issue of Freud came up and it was suggested that he was wrong about everything.

I can't speak in general, not being a Freud expert and even a person particularly interested in Psych in general. But I did read "The Interpretation of Dreams". It was the very first book I ever read on the subject of dreams. Read it several decades ago.

The core premise behindFreud's dream interpretation method and model, is that ALL dreams are wish fulfillments. This comes in two flavors:

1) Obvious wish fulfillments (e.g.  you win the lottery, you get a great new job, etc ...)

2) Latent wish fulfillments (e.g. you dream you are 10 and your younger brother dies. The dream is freightening, but it fulfills a latent wish for your brothers demise so you can reap the benefit of all of your parents attention, not just half).

Personally, I still see this model as a bit restrictive. But I happen to believe it has merit. What do you think?

[pj]

Looking back over my dream journal, I think Freud may have recognized two dream origins - but I believe he was just barely scratching the surface overall.

Many of my dreams are inventive or problem solving.  Most of them are just quirky and weird - hardly the kind of thing I can stretch to recognize any kind of latent wish.

So yeah - I think there is merit. . . but it is extremely limited.  To say "ALL" is not credible, at least not by my experiences.

[StarSeeker]

From what I know of Freud from my very basic Psychology, almost everything that happens in a dream has sexual interpretation. But that could just be my understanding.
Also, his other theories on children and development, good heavens, THAT is crazy.

[AspirationRealized]

I think neither claim is true. The one that Freud was wrong about everything, nor Freud's claim itself. If Freud were completely wrong then we wouldn't still be talking about him. Did he get everything exactly right? No, but he did make breakthroughs that are at least part of his theories. Did he say some crazy shit? Definitely!

But more to the point of your thread. I think a lot of Freud's theories "benefit" (and I use that word in an odd way here) from loopholes, in the case of what you mentioned with things like "latent". Including "latent" allows him the luxury of saying "ALWAYS" because now you can't prove against it. If its latent, you wouldn't know it, so how could you be so sure?

Freud was the type that was very attached to his theories and would adhere to them in the most ridiculous of circumstances. I remember the story of the kid who had a phobia of horses. Freud somehow twisted it into an oedipal complex, that is, that the kid was afraid of horses because he wanted to kill his father and sleep with his mother. The actual cause? The kid had seen a horse carrying a heavy cart collapse nearby when he was four years old.

My point being that I think that there are such things as obvious wish fulfillment and latent wish fulfillment, but I think thats too simple to explain everything and its using the "latent" part as a crutch.

[IndigoGhost]

I believe that everyone has their own ways of coping and understanding the unknown, these were just the ones Freud chose. I think he is partially right in that all dreams are wish fulfillment's, I believe that if you are "Enjoying" a dream then its most likely a subconscious desire to perform the act, like flying. If its a lucid dream and your "Enjoying" it then its a conscious desire to perform the act. If your not enjoying it then its a subconscious fear that your brain is using to prepare you to face that possible challenge, for example a loved one dieing. If you are lucid and you face a fear then your doing it consciously for whatever reason you choose, for example fighting ninja's or dragons or whatever where this is normally you boosting your situational confidence as do most things in lucid dreams.  

Its a balance between Good and Evul / Fear and Happiness going on in your brain, to put it simply. I believe the only way to know if something is a subconscious desire in your dreams is to study your DJ after and see if there are any links to whats going on in your life. Example "Your in a horrible job" & "Dream of a good job", This is your subconscious desire for a better job you may not have been aware of in your conscious state, you could of just wrote it off as stress and forgot about it. 

[Moonbeam]

People still talk about him for a couple reasons.  He came up with some terms, such as the unconscious mind, which came to be used for ideas other than what he had originally described.  Also his ideas and words were widespread and became part of the culture.

The trouble with Freud is the trouble with everything that has ever been made up by somebody using only their imagination to try and figure out how something works.  It's the same reason that all religions are nonsense.  You start with trying to explain earthquakes and lightning and come up with all-powerful magical beings, with all sorts of intricacies and complexity based on nothing.   

When you use your imagination to figure something out, rather than using evidence, the odds are vastly against you happening to just guess the right answer, especially when it is something complicated.

As I was telling IG, I realize that 99% of people do not understand this, and think that making things up (or believing other peoples' made up ideas) is a good way to explain things.  My problem with him in that thread, as I told him by PM, was that I don't think that he should present these made-up ideas he has about what dreams are and what they mean to somebody new who is looking for advice.  Anecdotal advice about lucid dreaming, which we all give, is not the same thing as announcing that a person's dreams specifically mean something about that person, which of course IG has no way of knowing.  Luckily this new person didn't mind, but some people might not understand, thinking that IG was talking about a generally accepted POV here, if it was not corrected.

[IndigoGhost]

It's the same reason that all religions are nonsense.  You start with trying to explain earthquakes and lightning and come up with all-powerful magical beings, with all sorts of intricacies and complexity based on nothing.

How do you know all religions are nonsense? You have a time machine to go back in time and see for yourself, or are you doing the very thing that you complained at me for? Which is stating something as fact when you have no real way of knowing and its just your own personal opinion or as you like to call it "making things up", where is your evidence?    

When you use your imagination to figure something out, rather than using evidence, the odds are vastly against you happening to just guess the right answer, especially when it is something complicated

How else are you supposed to figure things out? If you look at most of the old philosophers and scientists that really made a difference in the world, most of the time they were similar thinkers to me. They dreamed up or were sitting down one day imagining things and an idea popped into their heads which they tried out and it worked. If everything was left up to the left brain "logical" then guess what? It would be okay for someone to kill another person because we are robots anyway, just biological robots with no souls and thus no consequence. I am quoting Stephen hawking, one of the many men who only believe what the evidence tells them and always puts down people like me who imagine more for the world.

As I was telling IG, I realize that 99% of people do not understand this, and think that making things up (or believing other peoples' made up ideas) is a good way to explain things.  My problem with him in that thread, as I told him by PM, was that I don't think that he should present these made-up ideas he has about what dreams are and what they mean to somebody new who is looking for advice.  Anecdotal advice about lucid dreaming, which we all give, is not the same thing as announcing that a person's dreams specifically mean something about that person, which of course IG has no way of knowing.  Luckily this new person didn't mind, but some people might not understand, thinking that IG was talking about a generally accepted POV here, if it was not corrected.

You were not telling IG, you were lecturing him on how he should not tell others his thoughts on things because it cant be proven true by the scientific method. Making up things by looking at what we know and best guessing using the heuristic method is the way we discover new things and come up with new branching ideas. No matter what anyone could have said in that thread, everyone answer would be "Made-Up" because there is no true way to know whats going on in someone's brain, you simply chose me as a target because i picked a theory that could be potentially offensive to the person it was directed at, I never said it was cut in stone and true, if i did then you would have a valid reason to abject.

Who says giants and mythical beasts never existed? Yes, its a logical guess based on Darwinist approach but is that not the same type of guessing religious people do related to the bible? Whats the difference between the two? Simply one thing, and that is being an atheist lets you sleep better at night knowing you are so much smarter and superior then everyone else because you know the truth and thus are more intelligent and can sit in the corner with the rich scientists and laugh at the silly creationists.

Simply put your being contradictory, hidden behind the false cause and protection of atheism and the scientific method, because anyone that believes in god is an idiot caveman right?    

[Moonbeam]

How do you know all religions are nonsense? You have a time machine to go back in time and see for yourself, or are you doing the very thing that you complained at me for? Which is stating something as fact when you have no real way of knowing and its just your own personal opinion or as you like to call it "making things up", where is your evidence?  

Why would I need a time machine? 

You don't have to have evidence to dismiss anything.  You only need evidence to make claims.  Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.  Imagine if I said that pink unicorns on Venus are the source of lucid dreaming, if you sacrifice a beer to them on Monday night.  Can you find evidence against that?  Of course not.  I should provide evidence for that statement, rather than make and then say since you don't have evidence to the contrary, it must be true.

How else are you supposed to figure things out? If you look at most of the old philosophers and scientists that really made a difference in the world, most of the time they were similar thinkers to me. They dreamed up or were sitting down one day imagining things and an idea popped into their heads which they tried out and it worked. If everything was left up to the left brain "logical" then guess what? It would be okay for someone to kill another person because we are robots anyway, just biological robots with no souls and thus no consequence. I am quoting Stephen hawking, one of the many men who only believe what the evidence tells them and always puts down people like me who imagine more for the world.

It's OK to use your imagination, but then you should gather the supporting evidence before you make any claims about regarding the truth of what your imagination told you.  I don't think using logic leads to believing that it's OK to kill people.  Everything isn't left up to logic, only things that are claimed as being facts.

You were not telling IG, you were lecturing him on how he should not tell others his thoughts on things because it cant be proven true by the scientific method. Making up things by looking at what we know and best guessing using the heuristic method is the way we discover new things and come up with new branching ideas. No matter what anyone could have said in that thread, everyone answer would be "Made-Up" because there is no true way to know whats going on in someone's brain, you simply chose me as a target because i picked a theory that could be potentially offensive to the person it was directed at, I never said it was cut in stone and true, if i did then you would have a valid reason to abject.

Yes, because I thought it might be offensive was partly why I did that.

Who says giants and mythical beasts never existed? Yes, its a logical guess based on Darwinist approach but is that not the same type of guessing religious people do related to the bible? Whats the difference between the two? Simply one thing, and that is being an atheist lets you sleep better at night knowing you are so much smarter and superior then everyone else because you know the truth and thus are more intelligent and can sit in the corner with the rich scientists and laugh at the silly creationists.

Who says pink unicorns on Venus don't exist?

Simply put your being contradictory, hidden behind the false cause and protection of atheism and the scientific method, because anyone that believes in god is an idiot caveman right?    

I think anybody who believes in god has an irrational belief.  Which I realize is most people, therefore most people are irrational.  However, I think talking about things like is useful because it makes people think about it.

[greg lousy]

      I have a basic, experiential problem with this wish fulfillment theory.

        If I am frustrated by a situation in real life, I am frustrated by the same thing in my dreams, just usually in a more stripped down, emotional way, and in different contexts.  Is it just me? Is everyone else on top of the world in their dreams?
       
           In my dreams, the fulfillment of a conscious wish is rare, and incomplete. I can't really say about subconscious wish fulfillment, but I have suspicions about that too.
         
         I work overnights in a psych hospital. There is a girl there who is engaged in a constant fight with all adult figures. In her sleep, She swears at them (aloud) in very much the same way she does while awake.

        Maybe later in the dreams, she wins, or she loses because she deep down wants the security of being controlled and kept safe... but not in a way that keeps her from that same conflict in the next dream, or the next day
..... Maybe she has some "wish" to fight. 
         There is some aspect of dreams that recreates conflict. 

            So, conscious wish fulfillment is an idea I feel explains very few dreams.
           if subconscious wish fulfillment is a huge, driving force, then we must subconsciously desire a lot of our real life conflicts. I don't know.

      I'm not even sure they always have a definite "function". Maybe there is more to dreams than the attitude of functionalism can explain.

               

[DrTechnical]

        If I am frustrated by a situation in real life, I am frustrated by the same thing in my dreams, just usually in a more stripped down, emotional way, and in different contexts. 

I tend to agree. I ask the question only to induce some discussion. Your point above is more consistent with the model for dreams which I do tend to believe, which is the one proposed in Tibetan dream yoga. What you are discussing here, is a conditioning of the mind. You condition your mind in WRS, and then re-experience things and further condition your mind while dreaming, getting deeper and deeper into a mindset.

What I find interesting about Freud's theory, is the notion of a latent wish fullfilment. The example I gave above was a nightmare I had as a teenager, about my brother being kidnapped and killed. I never really understood that dream until taken in Freuds latent wish fullfilment context, which does explain things rather nicely.

But yes, I think it's hard to pidgeon hole all dreams into the wish fullfilment model.

[Moonbeam]

I know people are annoyed at me again for arguing.  Last night I was trying to think of a way to explain why it matters that people recognize the difference between stuff we say that has evidence, and stuff we say that is presented as some sort of explanation truth or fact, but which has no evidence, and what's in in the middle--stuff we have some evidence for, but is not universally accepted or acknowledged.

To me it's obvious how damaging just making stuff up has been for people.  Even if you can pretend your own religion is wonderful, look at the damage caused by all the others.  If people think they can treat psychosis by using psychoanalysis, that is very damaging to the person who might be missing out on an effective treatment, or at the very least is wasting their money and time.  The list is endless. 

If we present our baseless, speculative ideas about dreaming as "facts", that could be damaging to people, in a more minor way.  If I announce that I have thought about it for a long time, and now know what everything everybody's dreams means, and proceed to tell them, that is most likely not going to be helpful to anybody.  The most I can and should do is to relate my own experiences with dreaming, and what has worked for me, and what has seemed to work for other people.  To announce a whole theory of mind and consciousness and motivations and dreaming based on nothing more than sitting around thinking about it while I smoke cigars and do coke would be lying. 

People didn't know until recently that you can't figure out things by just thinking about them.  You have to establish an independent reality for whatever it is that you have thought up.  That is the only way it will be useful and beneficial and, obviously, true.  That realization is a great leap forward.  Evidently a lot of people aren't there yet, but those of us who are can only hope and do what we can to try and get those who are capable to understand.

I'm always amazed at how few people in any group seem to be capable of understanding that.

[pj]

One of the unique things about this place is that we are spending our effort and time exploring individual realities - our dreams.  (Or maybe not - we don't really know for sure, do we?)

None of us can present any evidence about what we experience in our dreams.  It seems to me that experience IS the evidence of consciousness - but since it is by nature not physical, our ability to prove anything with it is pretty much nil.  Aside from proof, however, who I am is the culmination of my experience.

As I grow older and dumber, the desire to impress my understanding of anything on others diminishes.  I grow more accepting of who I am and of who you are, which is kind of nice.

Evidence is extremely useful for exploring and modeling the physical.  Experience. . . must be experienced.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfy3r3ykpY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfy3r3ykpY</a>

[IndigoGhost]

If subconscious wish fulfillment is a huge, driving force, then we must subconsciously desire a lot of our real life conflicts. I don't know.

Ever see the Matrix films? They explain in one of the scenes that they already tried to create a perfect world where everyone lived in harmony, and it failed because humans at a very core level require some kind of conflict or else the human mind gets bored or is not fulfilled. I believe that this is inherently true, that there always has to be a balance in the universe.

Who says pink unicorns on Venus don't exist?

I'm not your typical thinker, I'm all backwards and that's perfectly fine with me. I believe everything until proven wrong, you may think this is a bad way to learn and understand but its been working out well for me so far. I understand that the way people think will dictate the results and understanding they have on things, and the world in general. I thus choose a path less traveled, and yes it may not be the scientific method but it really does allow me to find out things that other people have not. Its the little things that people miss, because they push them aside when they are gaining understanding of a subject for the very reason that logic and science tells them that it cant be true. It does not matter, if you look at the universe as a whole you will understand that humans try to make things fit in a linear logical pattern as that's the way our brains work. If we switch this off we get a new understanding on life, Its kind of a life-style or way of understanding that works with the natural principles of the universe that we have seemed to forget, for example how trees branch out into other small twigs as they grow and ever multiplying. Same way the natural geometric shapes and angels of the world work and grow out in a pattern, you probably wont understand what i mean but its whatever. I just simply like to understand in a different way, yeah maybe a lot of the stuff I'm coming up with is random guessing and speculation, but even gravity is speculation and guessing based on the most obvious situational understanding, for example you yourself never created or tested to perfect knowledge the theory of gravity and are only accepting someones "word" on it which comes from your teachers and the other scientists. Think of it this way, if we always believe what the collective peoples say then we should believe in god as there are more people who believe in one then not. Yes, your science may have "Circumstantial Evidence" using the machines and techniques they understand to use, and yes it may be correct but their word is just about as good as those who talk of god. Think about it this way, if a man made a machine to "Detect" god and it was beeping saying god was "here" then you would not believe him without understanding and doing the tests yourself right? Have you ever done a test that proves gravity is caused the way that science traditionally tells you?

I may seem confusing, but you have to understand that i have spent the last 6 years of my life searching for science breaking evidence and understandings that are not used in the traditional arena of education. I have found so much stuff that goes against traditional scientific belief that i completely discarded all information i have ever learned in any educational institution. Forgetting what you learn at school really is the only way to truly understand the world and find the true understandings of everything.  

People didn't know until recently that you can't figure out things by just thinking about them.

Can, have done so countless times. In my case it almost always works and i have had a good tract record for it. Then again, it may be down to the fact that i have the belief that i can do so and thus i can, same way when i want to get lucid I'm able to almost anytime i want. I can switch it on and off, because i know i can, this is caused by an unwavering belief in myself. Maybe you just don;t believe in yourself enough MB.

I'm an Autistic picture thinker though, which is probably where the difference comes from. In-fact, SARP came from me trying to come up with a lucid dream method, where sat on my bed and ran through images of scenarios in my head and within 2-5 minutes i came up with the basics of SARP. I then tried it for a few nights, it worked and that was when i told Dr.T about it. I did not need anything else but my brain to come up with it, and it was easy because i had unwavering belief in myself being able to come up with a technique so i was able to. Its sad that SARP has been under used to be honest as its early track record was great for the people who actually used it and let me know about their results. I got to a point with it that it was so easy it got myself lucid without any effort and the only was i did not have a lucid dream was going to bed with the intention of blacking out.  

People didn't know until recently that you can't figure out things by just thinking about them.

If this was true we would not be thinking as the first thought after our initial existence would never have been thought.  

I find it funny as well that there's no evidence to prove this other then someones misunderstandings of how the human mind works and someones personal experience, but because they wear a lab-coat they must be right? right? 

[majic]

can you explain or show me the posts on SARP please

As for science and where we are I read something in a book that was simple and interesting and that is that a lot of what we do to generate force is based on explosion and is wasteful and the process generates heat and in nature force is generated by implosion, very powerful and does not generate head.  I say that our entire thinking process is contra to reality and our thinking went left at some stage and who knows what we would have come up with if we had gone right.  A sweeping statement and no doubt someone will rip it to bits but that is fine

[StarSeeker]

I lost of track of whatever I was I intended to read. But I'd say there is a difference between theoretical constructions and simply "making things up".