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A new era of dream
research began in 1953 with the discovery of R.E.M (rapid eye movement). With continued
discoveries, it forced a re-evaluation of past developed theories of dream psychology. The
modern dream theories were developed less than seventy years ago with Sigmund Freud’s
first book named Interpretation of Dreams. Dream psychology became a popular
subject for decades, and new theories were developed. Some of Adler’s theories are
compared with Freud and other psychologists. The
Adlerian theory follows Freud’s in that it accepts the idea that dreams present
hidden desires, tendencies, and "personal cognative patterns." It considers the
meanings, dreams use such as condensation, displacement, distortion, and representation by
opposites. And also, some dreams are "wish-fulfillment dreams."
The Adlerian theory disagreed, however, with Sigmund
Freud’s "notion of censor." He called it, "Nothing else than the
greater distance from reality that prevails in sleep." The reason Adler uses this
interpretation is because he thinks " the dreamer uses autistic mental processes
rather than socially learned and consensual ones." In another perspective, Adler
claims, "one function of the dream is self-deception, a concept certainly very
close to Sigmund Freud’s censor."
It is not mentioned much, but there are actually three points
where the Adlerian theory agrees with the theories of Carl Jung. In the first point,
dreams are like any other psychic phenomenon. From the second point, symbols do not have a
fixed meaning, but Adler says, "it must be understood within the metaphorical content
of the dream." The final Adlerian theory is referring to the concern of future
orientation of the dream, thus, "dreams have a prospective function…an
anticipation of future conscious achievements, something like a preliminary exercise or
sketch…" |
