3 Review(s)

Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud is the defining book on dream analysis that changed the way people perceived dreams and dream-symbolism. First published in 1899 in German as Die Traumdeutung, the book had a slow run. But as Freud’s theories gained acceptance, so did the book, and today it is considered a must read for any psychoanalyst, if only to understand the significance of what Freud did by bringing the subconscious mind out into the limelight. The book has undergone eight revisions in Freud’s lifetime, and in each of these revisions he added more material to the book. In the third reprint, the 50 page section where Freud has interpreted dream symbolism in a highly sexual and very literal manner was added. This addition has by far become the best known feature of Freudian psychoanalysis, and it has, in many ways, obscured the tremendous insight that Freud had into the world of the subconscious. In this translated version of the first print of Freud’s work, the emphasis is clearly on the on the use of words in dreams and on the difficulty of deciphering them. The central theories in Freud’s analysis, which are of the dream's manifest and latent content, of the retelling of dreams as a continuation of the dream work, of dream as wish-fulfillment, is highlighted here without the shadows of later day additions which pushed these wonderfully original ideas into the corner. Joyce Crick’s translation follows Freud’s method of engaging the reader in dialogue and is fast paced and easy to read. Sigismund Schlomo Freud, aka Sigmund Freud, was an Austrian neurologist who is known as the Father of Psychology and Psychoanalysis. His theories such as the existence of libido, the Oedipus complex, and therapeutic techniques such as free association and transference, have been recognized, critiqued, and debated worldwide, and are still the subjects of many academic debates. Joyce Crick, a former Senior Lecturer at University College, London, in German, was awarded the Schlegel Tieck Prize for her translated version of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.