The Interpretation of Dreams

In 1900, psychanalyst Sigmund Freud published his book "The Interpretation of Dreams." This book was his breakthrough publication on the idea of dream interpretation. Most of what Freud has to say involves interpretation of his own dreams and revolves around the idea that dreams are based on a person's wishes (unfulfilled or not) and stem primarily from a sexual nature. Freud also presented his famous idea of the Oedipus complex in this book.


Freud summarized his book in the first paragraph of Chapter one:
"In the following pages I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or cooperation is responsible for our dreams. This done, my investigation will terminate, as it will have reached the point where the problem of the dream merges into more comprehensive problems, and to solve these we must have recourse to material of a different kind."

Here is a clip of Freud describing his work as a psychoanalyst:


kristen

sources:
http://litsum.com/interpretation-of-dreams/
http://www.psychwww.com/books/interp/chap05d.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_interpretation_of_dreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj2JFI4BsRQ&feature=related