The Interpretation of Dreams (Oxford World's Classics)
One hundred years ago Sigmund Freud published The Interpretations of Dreams, a book that, like Darwin's The Origin of Species, revolutionized our understanding of human nature. Now this groundbreaking new translation--the first to be based on the original text published in November 1899--brings us a more readable, more accurate, and more coherent picture of Freud's masterpiece.
The first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams is much shorter than its subsequent editions; each time the text was reissued, from 1909 onwards, Freud added to it. The most significant, and in many ways the most unfortunate addition, is a 50-page section devoted to the kind of mechanical reading of dream symbolism--long objects equal male genitalia, etc.--that has gained popular currency and partially obscured Freud's more profound insights into dreams. In the original version presented here, Freud's emphasis falls more clearly on the use of words in dreams and on the difficulty of deciphering them. Without the strata of later additions, readers will find here a clearer development of Freud's central ideas--of dream as wish-fulfillment, of the dream's manifest and latent content, of the retelling of dreams as a continuation of the dreamwork, and much more. Joyce Crick's translation is lighter and faster-moving than previous versions, enhancing the sense of dialogue with the reader, one of Freud's stylistic strengths, and allowing us to follow Freud's theory as it evolved through difficult cases, apparently intractable counter-examples, and fascinating analyses of Freud's own dreams.
The restoration of Freud's classic is a major event, giving us in a sense a new work by one of this century' most startling, original, and influential thinkers. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Community Reviews
I'm currently 7/8s through the book though I do intend to finish it. My thoughts of this are essentially crystallized - as I get to the end my thoughts become more clear.
1. The science in this book is absurd. The issue is not that Freud has no evidence for his theory - in fact, the argument he makes is quite compelling - the issue is that he has a "builder" mentality rather than a "philosopher" mentality. He has compelling though not comprehensive evidence for discerning a pattern in dreams, but he has absolutely no reason to describe the "character" or "behavior" of the psyche. It is disheartening to read him come across quite plausible explanations for dreams and then make wild assumptions about memory and psyche and neuroses.
2. Speaking of which, Freud himself is very neurotic; he says he is not arrogant or touched by ambition but as one reads "Interpretation" it's so clear that he is. I admire Freud for his honesty and putting so much of his personal details in the book (remember, this is still the Victorian era), but it's amusing that he's not aware of his eccentricities and to then observe he projects his own quirks onto his hypothesis.
3. This book was difficult to read. When I first read (and did not complete) this book at 17 or so, I remember falling asleep with this on my lap in my school's armchair. I am much older, and my reading IQ has not helped me to find this book any easier to read. Freud loves ill-defined words, and he loves stringing ill-defined words into long, winding sentences where the reader is confused what relation one word has to another. I am not surprised Freud is ill-received in the "scientific" community; for someone who pretends to a scientific background, citing often his experience as a doctor and a professor, he has the worst tendencies for scientific writing. He is not deliberately obscuring his material, but it strikes me that he is making his claims more complicated than they should be, when science is about simplifying, simplifying, simplifying.
So, why is this a 7? Because I can't help but think this book, indeed, is valuable. It's an extremely interesting book even when it makes no definitive conclusion - in fact, a lot of the claims in the book haven't been put to rest, i.e. proven true nor false.
The compelling bit about "Interpretation" is that, in reading his description of a dream, the meaning of the dream does, in fact, become clear. Sure, you can English anything to make sense, but his interpretations make very good sense, particularly his work with neurotic patients. Freud splitting the mind into "layers" is not just a crackpot theory; when looking at the "narrative" of dreams, it actually makes a lot of sense.
And that's the thing about "Interpretation": you don't really arrive at anywhere conclusive, but you do get the sense you have learned about a phenomenon, that happens to be extremely tricky to test for and conclude concerning. I wouldn't call the book a waste; again, I do think a lot of the book is poorly-written, but Freud's speculations are interesting when they are not extremely off the mark. I feel like I should put this lower, like a 6, and yet because it's quite interesting to think about I'm leaving it at a 7. This would be a far, far better book if Freud merely compiled dreams, provided interpretations for them, then described the after-effects of the interpretations, and gave an empirical explanation for the possible explanation of dreams without attempting a jot to analyze the psyche anatomically - and his scientific "style", so to speak, paved the way, unfortunately, for future psychoanalysts to make a joke of his research by defining an anatomy for which there is no evidence to believe exists.
Edit: just read the last eighth. It's just babbling. Knocking this down to 6.
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