Freud’s interpretation of his own dreams in “The interpretation of dreams”: a continuity hypothesis perspective

Abstract

From Freud’s statement that the manifest or remembered dream is a disguised fulfillment of a suppressed or repressed wish and the extensive use of sexual interpretations, one might infer that dreams do not relate directly to the conscious waking life of the dreamer – as stated by the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. The five dreams of Sigmund Freud presented in this paper demonstrate that Freud himself linked these dreams (as his other dreams) to significant experiences, events, feelings of his waking life: his professional life with all the worries of being a pioneer in the field of psychotherapy, his relations to colleagues, to his father and to his son, and health problems. This claim does not refute Freud’s dream theory but supports modern dream research in investigating the direct relationship between waking life and dream content as well as the factors affecting this continuity.