So it’s kind of ridiculous.
*Actually, though, I was shocked by how little sex talk was in the essay. I mean, there was some, but I thought that’s all Freud ever did.
Anyway, the main conclusion of Freud’s essay is that there are two main types of dreams: those that express unfulfilled wishes, and those that express unfulfilled wishes under layers and layers of convoluted memory fragments.
The best example he offered of the first was a child’s dream, where the child dreams about eating candy.
The best example he offered of the second was about woman who dreamt that she went to the theater with her husband, and her friend didn’t go because the tickets weren’t good. Freud tells us this means that the woman doesn’t want to be married, for if she had waited (as her friend did) she could have purchased much better theater tickets…ahem, found a much better husband.
Sorry, what?
Essentially my entire class was all “dude, Professor, this is total garbage, people didn’t believe this right?” and “did he ruin that lady’s marriage?”
To further express this, I’ve recorded a couple dreams of the past few days, and analyzed them according to Freud.
In chronological order:
9/12/11
Everything was perfectly ordinary, except that for some reason everyone had a special connection or something with a “ghost animal,” which would tell us the future. I don’t know what was up with that, but I guess in dream world it was perfectly normal, as no one seemed to think it was strange. Anyway, I was walking through the library with a group of people I didn’t know, and my friend Brad walks in with a ghost animal (this one was a cat, but I think there were other ones too), and it looks up and tells the entire group that we should avoid heights today, like anywhere over ten feet, actually. Then of course the entire group goes up the stairs to the second floor of the library, and I’m trapped in several antagonizing minutes of fear, as we’re going up some stairs, which are definitely higher than ten feet, and didn’t anyone hear what the ghost cat said?!
Fortunately, we all get to the top, and no one miraculously falls off the stairs and crashes out of the window. That said, being on the second story of the library leaves me with a slightly repressed feeling of dread.
Following this, everything got less improbable, as my Mom shows up, and we get in her car (from in the library), and then proceed to drive over this enormous old, crumbling stone bridge over a terrifying canal. The white capped water below was that freezing gray-black color, and there are way too many out-of-place stones for this bridge to be safe.
Sure enough, we drive down, and low and behold, the bridge has sunk in the middle, the windstorm has forced the water over the bridge, and oh, cool, there are ships sailing right over the place where the bridge should be. Also, the water is getting closer and closer, so we turn the car around, drive back up the bridge a way, and then the car tips, the door opens, somehow, and my mom totally falls out into the water some 50 feet below. She was super calm about it though, and was all like “well, this is it” and then plunged to what was probably a watery death. And I’m in the car like “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” and then recall dream-thinking “oh, so that was what the ghost cat meant by “avoid heights.” Great.”
So this was actually terrifying, I woke up right after and was mentally all like “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” That said, Freud would probably tell me that this dream means I want my mother dead so I can get with my dad or something. Thanks Freud!
9/14/11
This wasn’t much better, although it seemed a lot shorter. This time, my former anthro professor was walking around on a peg leg, and trying to kill me. Yeah.
Oddly, he was trying to kill me with traps or something, and for some reason I kept getting lucky and avoiding them, but they also kept getting weirder. To make matters worse, he was trying to remain friendly, so I only had this lingering “hmmmm, he’s trying to kill me, isn’t he” thought crawling around in the back of my head. I’m not even sure why he only had one foot, but I recall dream Casey (my roommate, and an anthro major) mentioning it way earlier in the dream, but I dream-tuned her out. That was actually rather realistic. The rest, not so much.
If we use Freud’s analysis technique of tracing back to former memories to figure out dreams, uh… the Professor did almost hit me with his car once, although I’m pretty sure that was an accident, since there are two crosswalks, he stopped at the first, didn’t see me at the second, and tried to keep going. That was embarrassing for everyone.
I have no idea about the one-foot-thing, though, so either my memory has failed, or Freud is just saying stuff.
Either way, according to Freud, this dream would probably mean that I want to get with that professor or something. Thanks Freud!
9/18/11
I dreamt that a couple of my friends and I were in staying in this giant hotel/restaurant thing, in a random city, and had gone shopping. We were supposed to meet somebody or another in the café atop this giant building, but we had some spare time so we went shopping. We stopped at this random fashion store called Anita’s, where Mary-Gray pointed out that she loved the clothes here, but couldn’t afford any of them. Naturally, I touched something, touched my coat pocket, and was immediately accosted by a security worker, who was under the impression that I was trying to steal. I wasn’t, by the way.
So then I get this creepy pat down, and he makes me take off my peacoat, and then the rainjacket I’m wearing under it, and then the jacket I’m wearing under that, and then my sweatshirt (I don’t know why I had so many layers on), and goes through all my clothes. Finally I get sick of all the prodding, grab my stuff, scream that I’m never coming back to Anita’s again, and stomp out of the store. From there we walk up the street towards our hotel, and my teeth start all coming loose. Next up, I’m sobbing in the shower (in my clothes, for some reason) as all my teeth fall out, and Lauren blaming the security guard at Anita’s, meaning we go upstairs to the dentist (yeah, upstairs), and he says he can fix my teeth, but then we have to meet that guy at the restaurant, and I can’t go because I don’t have any teeth. Also, while I was in the shower in my clothes, Lauren came in and demanded to borrow my soaking wet sweater, which was kind of weird, but I gave it to her anyway, because that’s what you do as a friend or whatever. I think she also laughed at my teeth, but in a very sympathetic way.
Freud would probably tell me this means I need some action or something, because I’m dreaming of being assaulted in a clothing store.
Personally, I’d say this was just a major stress dream, because I have a lot of shit to do today, and way less time than I’d like. Just like the other two days, actually…
I probably shouldn’t even be blogging…but I did say I’d post later, and who doesn’t want to hear about the terrible mishaps of Dream-Asterisk. That said, cataloguing all of this has made me realize that I have some pretty fucked-up dreams. Until they’re together, they’re weird, but no big deal. Together, they’re pretty messed up. That said, they by no means state that I’d like to kill off my mother, get with anybody on the University faculty, or get it on in a mall. Thanks Freud!
Happy sleeping everybody,
~Asterisk
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