Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who dedicated  much of his life’s work to dream interpretations and later become known as the father of psychoanalysis. In his essay ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ Freud discusses Sophocles’ story of Oedipus Rex. The story of Oedipus tends to move audiences quite deeply simply for the fact that Oedipus’ story “might have been ours” (816, Freud). The story of Oedipus follows the life of a young man who fulfills a tragic oracle, saying he would later kill his father and bring disaster on his family and city. The prophecy proves true- Oedipus kills his father, marries and has children with his mother- all beyond his knowledge.  Freud uses this tale and examined the patterns of young children who were passing through the five stages of  psychosexual development. He discovered that during the third stage, or phallic stage (ages 3-6), the child is unconsciously drawn to the opposite sex parent. Freud suggests that both sexes experience this complex differently- the boy in a form of castration anxiety and the girl’s in a form of penis envy. In this phase of development, the male child creates a competition with  the father for possession of the mother and a young female child will create competition with the mother for possession of the father. Freud casts the idea that all humans children will direct their first sexual impulses towards the mother and the first hatred/murderous wish against the father. The story of Oedipus shows us the confirmation of our own childhood wishes.

Freud notes that Shakespeare’s Hamlet has similar Oedipal messages as Sophocles’ Oedipus. He contrasts these texts due to the secular advance of repression and the emotional life of mankind. Although Oedipus and Hamlet behold the same root feelings for their father and mother- “In Oedipus, the child’s wishful fantasy that underlies it is brought into the open and realized as it would be in a dream. In Hamlet, (his emotions) remain repressed; and- just as the case is in neurosis- we only learn of its existence from its inhibiting consequences” (817, Freud).

I found the relationships between these two texts quite interesting. If young children hold primal desires towards the parent of the opposite text- I wonder if the experiences held with that parent would entirely determine the type of relationships that child will seek for the rest of its life? We know that Sophocles and Hamlet’s situations concluded bleakly.

In Lacan’s piece “The Mirror Stage as a Formative Function of the I”, he discusses what he refers to as the “mirror stage” in which an infant sees his or her image in a mirror and how this image relates to the child’s concept of “self”. Lacan challenges the Descartian idea: “I think, therefore I am”. He proposes instead that when an infant reaches 6-18 months of age, there is an instance where he or she realizes that the person staring back at them in the mirror is in fact his or herself. Lacan refers to this as the “Ideal-I” because it is an unadulterated sense of self. This pre-lingual image is not tainted with language or social constructs.

However, Lacan refers to this image as “fictional”. This is because this self that we establish as infants is in fact just an image in a mirror. It has no reflection of the other things that make up the self such as things that exist in our unconscious. This made me think of the concept of a life story which is something we have recently discussed in my personality psychology class. The life story is an internalized, evolving cognitive structure or script that we tell about our selves that gives our life meaning and helps us have a sense of identity. This story is not necessarily 100% fact. It is based on our skewed perspectives of all the things we have experienced. In this way, our life story could be considered fictional and so the image of our self, or our “Ideal-I” from the very beginning, becomes the protagonist of our life story.

Interestingly enough, Lacan also points out that this image infants see in the mirror does not entirely reflect who they are—the image seems whole and complete while they seem to be fragmented in the way that they are unable to control their limbs and hold themselves up properly. And so, the infant will strive to match the image they perceived in the mirror and this continues throughout his or her life even though this image is in fact a fantasy. This misrecognition (and the joke from the novel that Prof. Allred shared with the class) reminds me of the way bloggers on tumblr (a social blogging website) or other social networking sites will reblog/post an image (a screenshot from a movie/show, meme, etc) and tag it: #me, #about me, #gpoy (gratuitous picture of yourself), etc. That’s not to say that the image of an incompetent Patrick from Spongebob with a wooden board nailed to his head ( a silly but real example) is an actual photograph of themselves but that it reflects one aspect of their “self” as does the image in a mirror.

Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of dreams is significantly less revolutionary today than it was at the time of its release. In the modern day the principles of Freudian psychoanalysis are well assimilated into our thinking. We very often attempt to interpret our dreams, although our bases aren’t always linked in Freudian psychoanalysis, it’s definitely not uncommon for us. Freud’s ideas are still fascinating however because off their ability to compartmentalize the conscious mind and then involve those compartmentalization’s in the process of analysis.

I have so many questions about Freud’s methodology and his interpretations of dreams. The nature of dreams is something that I think is open to discussion just as much as their interpretation. Dreams vary from the unclear to the at times very obvious. I have very often had dreams that have few relatively few things that I believe are up for interpretation. There are no obscure signs, things get laid out very simple and very plainly.

In this particular writing Freud also sows the seeds that explain and constitute what would come to be known as Freudian psychoanalysis. From a purely literary standpoint that information makes this article worth analyzing. Understanding Freud’s prevalence in respects to the time period is implicit to understanding the effect that he would have until the present day. The body of work presented here becomes the basis for work in a ridiculous number of fields. It takes a seat at the table of psychology, innovating the field and as a result transcends into literary criticism. This transcendence provided a structure under which literature would be dissected and analyzed from then on. This analysis extends beyond the realm of dreams and follows the logic that in the same way our subconscious presents us with supplemental objects of our desires while dreaming that the same practices extend further into our daily lives, not surprisingly influencing writing as well. It is under this lens than many authors including Freud himself have been and still continue to be studied under.

With Freud’s compartmentalization of the conscious I think we must also ask, how much of the subconscious and how much of the conscious, the id, the ego or the super ego, is involved at any particular moment of dreaming? Out limited understandings tell us that some people have dreams in which their consciousnesses play very active roles such as in lucid dreaming. I guess I have much more question than analysis with the interpretation of something that to me is still very far from the realm of comprehension. While Freud is an excellent guide into what was at the time (and is still somewhat) a dark and incomprehensible field, it is still something that winds up asking many more questions than it answers, but I can only wonder if that was ever its intention.

                In Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, he outlines the premise of the Oedipus complex. Freud states that the difference between those children who develop normally and those who do not is that psychoneurotic children display “on a magnified scale feelings of love and hatred to their parents which occur less obviously and less intensely in the minds of most children” (814). It makes sense that parents would be influential in a child’s development. For better or worse, our parents are among our first and most persistent relationships. Freud evidences his hypothesis by drawing on the well-known play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. His relation of Oedipus Rex follows with his own analysis. He likens psychoanalysis to the unfolding of the plot. It unfolds in stops and starts and halting steps that approach a revelation (815). Freud defines psychoanalysis as the process of revealing parts of the unconscious (815). Alternately, this defines literature as embedded with secrets of the unconscious and therefore a fitting source to draw his evidence from.

He puts forth the traditional reading of Oedipus Rex as a “tragedy of destiny” where the major theme is the inescapable nature of one’s fate. He states, “the lesson which, it is said, the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy is submission to the divine will and realization of his own impotence” (815). Freud questions this traditional reading of the text because of the failure of other tragedies of destiny (816). He supposes that the primary factor in the continued reception of these texts is a recognition in ourselves of the same “sexual impulses” and desires. Freud states that Oedipus “merely shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes” (816). His theory of sexual desire towards a parent doesn’t seem so far-fetched because of the significance of our relationships with our parents but that the jealousy against the father should be so pervasive that “our first hatred and our first murderous wish [is] against our father” seems too extreme to be a typical case (816). If I understand correctly, it would seem to cast our most basic inner nature as something very dark.  Although I may not fully embrace the idea of all human beings coming into the world as “blank slates”, I also can’t embrace what seems to me to be an extreme alternative. This excerpt, providing only a partial explanation of Freud’s theories, I have to wonder if there are no shades of grey for Freud.

Freud further evidences the universality of Oedipus’s repressed sexual impulses through an excerpt of Oedipus Rex in which Jocasta, Oedipus’s unwitting mother and wife, assuages his fears by telling him that many men have dreamt of lying with their mothers but that it means nothing (817). This point to the importance of dreams in addition to literature as a source for the revelation of the unconscious. Freud notes that the same dreams Jocasta speaks of are present today.

Hamlet is analyzed under the same Oedipus theory. He states that the difference between Oedipus and Hamlet resides in their “mental life” which demonstrates “the secular advance of repression in the emotional life of mankind” (817). He portrays Hamlet’s story as the modern treatment of the same sexual impulses present in Oedipus Rex in which Hamlet’s desires are repressed and manifest in “its inhibiting consequences” (817). He again relates the traditional interpretation of the text through Hamlet’s character as an over thinker whose actions are “paralyzed” by thought. However, in order to negate this traditional reading, he highlights instances of both Hamlet’s impulsive and “premeditated” action in the text. He surmises that the “paralyzing” effect on Hamlet must therefore be inherent in the “nature” of the particular undertaking of exacting revenge against his uncle for killing his father and marrying his mother. He identifies with his uncle in much the same way that Freud states the audience identifies with Oedipus. His uncle is “the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized” (818). He uses Hamlet’s conversations with Ophelia to support this through his expression of “distaste for sexuality” (818). Freud also parallels this through what he sees as Shakespeare’s increasing distaste of sexuality apparent in some of his later works. He states, “for it can only be the poet’s own mind which confronts us in Hamlet” (818). Instead of divorcing the author from their work, Freud intertwines the author and his/her writings and effectively makes the author’s work a reflection of their own psyche.

Some thoughts on the Oedipus complex as outlined in the excerpt:

The usage of the binary of “normal” and “psychoneurotic” stands out. This might be nitpicky but “normal” is a relative term in my mind and these two terms appear to be extremes that leave little room for variation.

Is this theory only applicable to a “normative” family with a present mother and father as opposed to a family considered to be non-traditional such as one with one or both parents being absent? Did Freud delve into different family structures?

The revision of Freud’s Oedipus complex is perhaps a way of diluting the extreme nature of his hypothesis by deeming the incest symbolic. This might very well be our own way of dealing with the unconscious desires that Freud names. Transforming the nature of the incest is potentially the use of repression by adding degrees of separation between us and a very taboo subject… something similar to the displacement in dreams? However, I like some of the insights other classmates had in seeing the Oedipus Complex in action… in our choices of romantic partners. It’s a widely held belief that women with absent or damaging fathers look for men like their fathers and I’ve heard men say they are interested in a woman because she reminds them of their mothers so perhaps there’s some merit in these observations.

                In Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Foucault comprises a history of the treatment of sex in society. Foucault begins with the 17^th century which is commonly seen as an “age of repression” marked by the censorship of sex. He states that “in order to gain mastery over [sex] in reality, it had first been necessary to subjugate it at the level of language, […], and extinguish the words that rendered it too visibly present” (1502). This speaks to the social construction of language and language’s power to help construct the world around us. In order to master a concept, you must control it figuratively through its representation in language. Though there was seemingly more censorship in the 17^th century, Foucault asserts that there was also a “multiplication if discourses concerning sex in the field of exercise of power itself: an institutional incitement to speak about it…” (1503). The increase of discourses surrounding sex on the institutional level which has a dual function of gathering knowledge and exercising power. The accumulation of knowledge engaged in by an institution on the subject of sex specifies its categories.

                Foucault zeroes in on the effects of confession and the influence of the Catholic Pastoral on sexuality. Sex was mostly about the physical details of the sexual act such as the places touched and positions held. As discretion became favored the “scope” of the confession began to expand and encompass not just the “flesh” but the “thoughts, desires, voluptuous imaginings, delectations, combined movements of the body and soul” that might accompany a sin of the flesh (1505).  Sexual acts became more significant as they were merely an extension of inward processes -specifically desire. Sex is successfully re-constructed as belonging to the “whole man”. It was a unification of the external (actions) with the internal (thoughts and desires) (1504). An increased emphasis on self-reflection and examination caused not only the subject to be vigilant but others as well. He states that “under the authority of a language that had been carefully expurgated so that it was no longer directly named, […], by a discourse that aimed to allow it no obscurity, no respite” (1504). This emphasizes power of language as a tool to construct and re-construct the concept of sex. By transforming desire into discourse but prohibiting the use of the word sex it increases the associations which in turn makes the concept a more concrete construction and more present in reality – an expanding web of associations.

                My understanding of the “mill of speech” from its mention in the text is that language is transformative. Discourse transformed the external into the internal and sought “ways of rendering [sex] morally acceptable and technically useful” (1504). Foucault uses the figure of Marquis de Sade as an example of “transforming sex into discourse” (1504). Scandalous literature is put forth as a type of case study in how the passions related (sex and desire) are present in reality through human actions and/or the inward workings of human beings. Sade states, “Your narrations must be decorated with the most numerous and searching details; the precise way and extent to which we may judge how the passion you describe relates to human manners…” (1504-1505). This connotes a probe into human nature and is in keeping with the previously established tradition of confession.

      I really enjoyed reading Freud as he explains the concepts of dreams and their underlying meaning. This semester I am taking psychology and we went over Freud and his theories. We took things literally as dreams having an underlying meaning. An example that has occurred frequently in my dreams is the dream of my teeth cracking and falling out. According to my psychology class Freud saw this dream as a result of my priorities falling apart and not being able to speak my mind. 

        However reading this article also brought other topics to my attention. The concept of our dreams being filtered when we wake up. The concept of our dreams being filtered demonstrates that our conscious mind suppresses some of our desires. Freud brings up the concept of our ideas being suppressed and our desires being halted by our own mind. 

       When we wake up from a dream I believe we forget 90% of our dreams in the first 10 minutes being awake. Now at this time we lose a lot of information and can recall certain points in our dreams, at this point we condense our dreams into a form we can remember. 

      In class we discussed how our childhood creates certain primal urges as we grow up. An example that everyone is somewhat recognizable is the concept of a cougar. If a boy lost his mother at a very young age it is very common for him to date older women that would fit the “mother” role in his life. This goes into the concept of the Oedipus story, where he goes and becomes attached to his mother in a sexual way. Some people will never publicly express that they would want to have sexual intentions with their mothers, however I think everyone in some way do follow this.  There is a very famous saying that I actually believe to be true which is a man grows up to marry his own mother in a metaphorical way. I think men are drawn to girlfriend’s that have characteristics of their mother. They may not see it at first, but for example Eminem in some of his songs demonstrate that he has dated women that resemble his own mother. Freud’s concept can be found in a number of places. I really enjoyed reading this because I can still find topics that can relate it to today.

Dreams and desires manifest themselves in many different ways for different people. Women who are cougars simply enjoy the unwavering attention that young men give to women, party due to their young age and ignorance as to what an actual relationship entails.

The dream of unwavering youthful love has latent content much like in Hamlet. While the manifest content of that kind of dream is the relationship, the latent content is the desire to own the relationship in a masculine sense for these women who would not be afforded such domination from a man their age or older.

I quite liked that comment because it not only brings in Freud but also the previous reading of Taboo and Sex. While we may be quick to judge these desires, we must also be aware of where they stem from and how we like the unconscious mind attempt to censor our the real world; we displace strange desires into the realm of taboo and dismiss it by disfiguring something very real.

A response to reinforce Jcastillos cougar comment. 

Go cougars?

What Freud brilliantly realizes is that we mar our unconscious so that it better fits into the reality that we prefer. The paradoxical nature of our minds is that reality within our minds is a completely different entity from the material world (the physical), yet we accept what we know, even though it is a censored version of what is real.

This semiotic approach to dreams allows those who would like to interpret the meaning of their dreams to look past what they saw in the dream, and trace back the origins of those images to what created them in the unconscious.

The condensation of latent content of dreams is equitable not only to the dream itself but of the unconscious in general as well. What we call the unconscious is actually the primordial soup of all apparent perception we have (the obvious portion of our minds and experience). When Freud says that the unconscious is condensed, is because what creates the visible is the workings of our mind that we just allow to happen.

In the unconscious our minds ‘displace’ what it deems to be harmful to us, and rather than allowing the self to deal with this threat it displaces the agony that this element represents with something else (something kinder to our sensibilities).

In order to circumvent the shields displacement we must learn that like a rebus puzzle a dream has a language of its own despite it seeming with direction. Interpreting dreams as symbols that allude to other things that are at the core of the original meaning of it we can more deeply read our dreams and discover their actual content.

            Sigmund Freud has caught my attention with his reading of Interpretation of Dreams. He talks about the reading of Oedipus Rex to show us that according to him we as humans try to resist the taboo of incest. As he brings up the meaning behind the story of the prophecy of how he ends up killing his father and marries his mother. This is what Freud says to a T of our primal exotic desire for our mother and as well to get rid of the father, but that we try to resist these desires. When I read this in high school, I did not care much for this book especially how my classmate read it in such a funny voice and because at that point the common disease of “senioritis” had gotten to me. I understood some of the book because the teacher explained the book to, us but I did not see this “primitive actions” that has been explained in class.

            When this was explained, I was the student to talk about “nowadays primitive actions.” It is rare that I talk in class, but when I explained the “daddy issues” that women have from missing a father figure in their life and the “cougar fetish” that men have towards older women, I never that of people responding the way they did, such as making Josie choke up on trying to participating and saying “WOW.” As you say there is no right or wrong answer in this course, but getting a reaction like that, did what I have to say go too far? I mean it is somewhat true, according to Freud, because though men do not kill their fathers and have sexual relations with their mothers, going after older women is not a comfortable “norm” in society and relates to the “incest taboo.”

            Oedipus Rex is not the only piece of literature that supports how we try to have “primal repression.” Hamlet is another work that I read, well skimmed, in high school that has murder of family in it. Hamlet kills many people in the process of trying to kill his uncle, the new king since he married the queen, who happens to be the wife of his brother who he murdered for the throne. The difference between Hamlet and Oedipus Rex is that Oedipus blinds himself to punish himself for acting upon these “primal actions” while Hamlet is killed following his mother’s death and tells someone to not commit suicide to tell his story. To me, I never really thought of these works of literature interesting. My opinion has changed after reading Freud and from our class discussion on Tuesday explains our “primal repression.”