Paige Schlee
1547152
Formations of the Psyche
Lecturer: Terry Ball
“Distortion is the overall effect of the dream work” (Freud). Describe and explain how the
specific mechanisms of the dream work distort the material in dreams. Use some of Freud’s
examples by way of illustration
Sigmund Freud's theories, and his treatment of patients, were controversial in the 19th
century Vienna, and remain fiercely debated today. Freud's ideas are often discussed and
analyzed as works of literature, philosophy, and general culture. You must not dwell on the
manifest content and latent content of dreams, but understand the process of the ‘the dreamwork”. The manifest content of the dream expresses what is too obvious, so you must dig deeper
symbolically. The reason to dig deeper is because the dream is a disguise. The latent content or
‘dream-thoughts’ of the dream is not able to be seen, but hanging about somewhere below. It is
the dream-thoughts that help define the meaning of dreams not the manifest content. The actual
being of the dream is the development of the dream-work. You must psychoanalysis or break
down the process of the dream since the content (manifest and latent) are not what divulges the
unconscious. More so, these two terms of content must be examined in relation towards each
other. The actual process of the dream work is what exposes the unconscious. The dream
content and dream-thoughts are two different versions of the same subject, but each is expressed
in a different language. You must compare the dream-contents record of the dream-thoughts
from the separate version and the original version. Once you are able to learn the dreamthoughts you are able to comprehend them. The dream-content is a bit more difficult to
understand, since each character in a dream must be switched individually into the actual
language of the dream-thoughts. The characters need to be read and interpreted through their
symbolic relation to be completely understood.
The disguised wish can be conveyed through two characteristics that are organized and
constructed through the unconscious. Condensation and displacement are our two major
characteristics that produce a few formations of the unconscious. Jacques Lacan develops an
alter meaning to Freud’s condensation and displacement. His approach to the linguistic
reformation of the unconscious was a certain kind of separation that carries through research
today. Jacques defines condensation as metaphorical substitution and displacement as a
metonymical combination (Cf. Grosz, Ch. 4). The function of the metaphorical substitution is to
suppress words and the function of the metonymical combination is to combine words. Also, the
metaphor or similarities corresponds with repression and the metonym or differences correspond
with displacement.
Condensation simply condenses different ideas into one. Condensation’s work is being
used when the dream-thoughts and dream-content are being compared. One idea of how
condensation was brought about is ‘by omission: that is, that the dream is not a faithful
translation or point-for-point projection of the dream thoughts, but a highly incomplete and
fragmentary version of them. …take it as a provisional starting-point and go on to a further
question’ (Freud, Sigmund. (1900).The Interpretation of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The
Dream-Work: The Work of Condensation (p. 281). London, England: Vintage Books). An
example of immense condensation is the dream of the Botanical Monograph. In a book, Freud
had written a monograph about a type of plants. As he turned over a folded plate he found a
dried sample of the plant. Particular elements of the dream arose and connected with previous
actions that took place prior to the dream. As he passed by a book shop he had seen a
monograph on the Cyclamen plant in the window, the written works about cocaine connected
with the ‘botanical monograph’, the cocaine concept related to a few events like the University
laboratory and the eye surgeon, Dr. Konigstein, who helped with the written works of cocaine,
and the actual instigator of the dream was the conversation with the doctor over colleagues
medical expenses. The word ‘botanical’ lead him to a professor’s name, Gartner, which made
him think of the word Gardener. This professor led him to the laboratory where he had a
conversation with Dr. Konigstein. A look of his patient Flora developed as lady Frau L in his
dream because he told her a story of some flowers that were gone and led him to thoughts of his
wife’s favorite flowers. His conversation with Dr. Konigstein consisted of him explaining his
favorite hobbies, which led him to joking about artichokes being his favorite flower. The word
‘monograph’ deals with Freud’s particular studies and expenses of his favorite hobbies. One
explanation of Freud’s dream: ‘each of the elements of the dream’s content turns out to have
been ‘overdetermined’-to have been represented in the dream-thoughts many times over’ (Freud,
Sigmund. (1900).The Interpretation of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The Dream-Work: The
Work of Condensation (p. 283). London, England: Vintage Books). Condensation creatively
combines things in our imagination that normally would be strange to link together, so two latent
thoughts joined together can be combined into one manifest dream.
Displacement shifts the content below the surface to a well obscured allusion, so the
important element is now a somewhat insignificant one. Displacement is when an idea’s
importance or interest is likely to be separated from it and simply passed on to other ideas.
Allusions are what change the original idea by unusual outer happenings. The allusions are able
to connect to the elements they replace by outer and far-off relations in displacement.
Displacement is associated with two other words that start with a d and these terms will help us
understand the unconscious wish, ‘wish that I wish I didn’t have’. Displacement has the ability
to distort dreams and condensation has the effect of distortion. According to Freud, he claims we
distort dreams with displacement because every dream is ultimately the fulfillment of a wish. He
questions how distressing and anxiety dreams can be a wish-fulfillment and this leads us to
asking the reason behind dream-distortion. You must analysis other dreams to better understand
distortion among dreams. He gives the example of his own dream for an apprenticeship.
I.
…My friend R. was my uncle.-I had a great feeling of affection for him.
II.
I saw before me his face, somewhat changed. It was as though if had been dream
out lengthways. A yellow beard that surrounded it stood out especially clearly.
(Freud, Sigmund. (1900).The Interpretation of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The Dream-Work:
The Work of Condensation (p. 137). London, England: Vintage Books)
In 1887, Freud was greatly honored and surprised to have the possibility for a promotion to a
professorship at his university by such prestigious men of the university. He had a visit from one
friend who also had the opportunity in the past, but was turned down because the man was
Jewish, so Freud being Jewish as well felt he had no chance for the promotion. Later that
morning, Freud had this dream with friend R and his uncle, but felt the dream was complete
nonsense. He decided to diagnose the dream since it would not leave his mind after he resisted
it. He interpreted that R was his uncle – Josef who he always believed was a bad man, but
actually just a simpleton. The figure of friend R had an elongated yellow beard just like his
Uncle Josef. Through his dream the male face he saw was at times his friend R’s and his uncle’s
as well, so he concluded that he had no question of his friend R being a simpleton just like his
uncle. Freud had a conversation with a colleague, N., about the same possible promotion in
apprenticeship a few days prior. N was actually a criminal and at the moment he found this out
he realized what his dream was telling him. These two colleagues who had the opportunity for
the apprenticeship, R as the simpleton and N as a criminal represented his Uncle Josef. He was
free of these two dilemmas, so he had hopes again! Freud was capable of not believing R as a
simpleton and N as a criminal, but the dream stated that he only wished that it might be so. He
strangely expressed affection towards his friend R once he discovered he was his uncle in the
dream, but was put off once he analyzed the dream because he never had feelings towards his
uncle of any kind before. He eventually realized that this affection he felt towards R (Uncle
Josef) was a disagreement with thoughts to the latent content, but actually held the true
explanation of the dream. He made the point that resisting a dream and calling it complete
nonsense is the actually moment when you must interpret that dream to the fullest. The affection
in the dream clearly supplied the reason of distortion because the dream was distorted to its
opposite and not in the latent content. The wish-fulfillment in the dream was disguised, so there
was the idea to develop resistance against the actual wish. Due to the resistance among the wish
it was only able to express itself in a distorted way. In conclusion of the dream, ‘…distortion
was shown in this case to be deliberate and to be a means of dissimulation’ (Freud, Sigmund.
(1900).The Interpretation of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The Dream-Work: The Work of
Condensation (p. 141). London, England: Vintage Books). Distortion is brought about by two
psychical forces; compromise-formation and superego censors. Compromise-formation
constructs the wish that’s expressed by the dream in the end and the superego censors
defensively censors upon the dream-wish, so distortion is brought upon the wish. Certain
phrases within dreams can develop similar relations and be the primary foundation for the
assembling of the dream. These phrases in the dream-work will not let already existing parallels
into the dream because of censorship due to resistance. Condensation is to blame for this
relation of similarity. The covering figures in our dreams relate and are found in situations
which usually pertain to the figure or to who the figure represents. The features of the figure
seem strange or odd, but not ordinary to the distressed, so a somewhat new figure is formed. The
name of the figure may be the relation or a feature may belong to a person of relation. The
feature relation was present in Freud’s apprenticeship dream of his Uncle Josef and figure R.
These kinds of representation of a person’s identification can avoid the censorship due to
resistance and put cruel circumstances on the dream-work.
The compromise is between the unconscious and the conscious, so it is between the wish
and the defense against the wish. The products of unconscious process are in the formations of
the unconscious. The methods in the unconscious processes are the same for all formations like
dreams, symptoms, and all the rest. The works within these processes are defined as dreamwork. The dream-work is when the unconscious development produces dreams. (Ball, Terry.
(2010) Parapraxes Note Handouts: Failures of Repression. Formations of the Psyche. Dublin,
DBS).
“The dream-work makes use of dreaming as a form of repudiation, and so confirms the discovery
that dreams are wish-fulfilments.” –Sigmund Freud, (Freud, Sigmund. (1900).The Interpretation
of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The Dream-Work: The Work of Condensation (p. 137).
London, England: Vintage Books)
Ball, Terry. (2010) Parapraxes Note Handouts: Failures of Repression. Formations of the Psyche.
Dublin, DBS
Freud, Sigmund. (1900).The Interpretation of Dreams: First Part, Volume IV. The Dream-Work:
The Work of Condensation (p. 137). London, England: Vintage Books