Dream, Wish-Fulfillment, Virtual Reality Principle

Granting Freud that a dream is an expression of a wish, that it is also fulfilling seems to obtain exclusively in a specific case--in an erotic dream that terminates in emission.  In other words, his concept of a dream as wish-fulfillment conflates 'oneiric' and 'onanistic'.  It also clarifies what constitutes the satisfaction of the Reality Principle--an internally consistent set of images, e. g. there is no essential distinction between an erotic dream and actual coitus, according to this concept of Fulfillment.  Accordingly, a more accurate term might be the Virtual Reality Principle.

Dream, Wish-Fulfillment, Psyche

Implicit in Freud's concept of a dream as wish-fulfillment are the main constituents of his concept of the Psyche--the Id as the source of the wish, the Superego as the source of the taboo of real fulfillment of the wish, and the Ego as the source of the diversion of the wish to a harmless fulfillment.  In turn, from those components, he develops a theory of society, including concepts of civilization, religion, and history.  However, many dreams are merely vague products of a reflux of images from the day's events, in combination with routine physical sleeptime motions.  Accordingly, the generalization of the concept of dream as wish-fulfillment is inadequate, as is, therefore, the system founded on it.

Dream and Interpretation

On the rare occasions in which it is even briefy possible to examine the content of a dream experience, in evidence are two main components: images, and a description.  Now, usually in dream interpretation, the relation of the images to the description is conceived as mediated by recognition--an image is taken as resembling some other images that are well-defined, and, so, classified as the latter.  However, the images in a dream are actually very unclear and indistinct, which means that recognition cannot explain how they can be easily associated with any other.  So, it is perhaps possible that the images are the products of the terms, not vice versa.  Anyway, at minimum, the classification is problematic, suggesting that the first stage of 'dream interpretation' is the process of image-classification itself, and, thus, that a study of the experience must first explain that stage.  Once that is established, the task of the psychoanalyst is to diagnose the classification, i. e. to explain why one associates those vague images with specific more definite previous ones, an obviously very difficult task.  In any case, what is commonly conceived by 'dream interpretation' is actually an interpretation of an interpretation of some vague images.  For example, the interpretation of 'someone dreaming about a cigar' is, more fundamentally, that of 'someone calling a dream-image a "cigar"'.  One implication of such an analysis is that it renders more implausible a cardinal Freudian thesis that a dream-image might be the product of symbolization, a difficult implication to refute.

Narcissism and Others

Egoism vs. Altruism is, contrary to common opinion, a false dichotomy, because Self and Other are not mutually exclusive.  Rather, as can be easily verified in ordinary experience, interest is less or more comprehensive, the object of which can range from oneself, to oneself plus one other, to plus several others, etc., as the Utilitarian calculus recognizes.  Freud presupposes that mutual exclusivity in his derivation of Secondary Narcissism from Primary Narcissism: the latter encompasses the entire world, while the scope of the former is the individual Ego detached from the rest of the world.  But, he fails to consider the possibility of degrees of withdrawal obtaining between the two stages, and, therefore, the possibility of a Narcissism that includes interest in at least some others.  Tha

Conscientiousness, Conscience, Ego

One's awareness that one is dreaming is an instance of Conscientiousness, a homeostatic self-monitoring process that is ingredient in all motility but only becomes salient in certain experiences, e. g. when one is learning to do something new, when extraordinary care is required etc.  In contrast, what is usually called Conscience is Conscientiousness in social contexts, i. e. the former is a special case of the latter.  Now, in terms of Freud's Psychic model, while Conscience is a manifestation of the Superego, Conscientiousness is a function of the Ego.  Thus, the Superego is a special case of the Ego, not, as Freud conceives it, a distinct Psychic principle.  The reason he separates them is that he fails to recognize that there is an immediate Ego-awareness of Motility that is more fundamental than that of the Id, e. g. he fails to analyze the Libido as constituted by a sequence of processes, including some rudimentary motility, which cannot be accomplished without the self-monitoring that manifests Conscientiousness.

Dream, Reflection, Narcissism

According to Freud, a dream is a medium of wish-fulfillment, either literally or symbolically.  However, one problem for that hypothesis is the perhaps most uncanny of dream-experiences--that in which one is aware that one is dreaming, including the variation in which one dreams of waking up.  The problem is two-fold for Freud, since the content does not reduce to an example of wish-fulfillment, and the subject of the awareness requires, at minimum, a modification of his concept of the function of Ego beyond that of mediating between Id and Superego.  It also suggests an inadequacy in his diagnosis of Narcissism.  For, one traditional characterization of the awareness of what one is doing is Reflection, a term which is also commonly used to describe the object of Narcissus' perception in the water.  Accordingly, Narcissism could be diagnosed as a deficient mode of Reflection.

Dream, Image, Motion

The sight of a dog's legs moving while it is sleeping sometimes prompts speculation that it is dreaming of running.  Now, two analyses of that speculation are possible--either that the dream imagery is causing the movement of the legs, or the converse.  Underlying the two analyses are two different Psychic models--either motion requires some image to stimulate it, or images are concomitants, in some respect, of motility.  An example of the latter type attributes to the organism an ever-present homeostatic body image, in which an image of running represents a change of position of the legs, compounded with associated images, e. g. a familiar location that becomes the scene of the running.  But, if two accounts of the structure of the dreams of dogs are possible, then, so, too, are they possible for human dreams.  So, one criticism of Freud's method of interpreting dreams is that it arbitrarily presupposes one of two possible models of the Psyche, i. e. the first of the above two.