Freud and Jung on Dreams

Dreams are fascinating. Some people really believe in dreams, some have a scientific explanation for dreams, others view them form the religious perspective. In Islam, only the dreams of the pious can be considered a sign, where as the dreams of the average Muslim are probably games played by satan.

Carl Jung is a Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology known as Jungian psychology. Sigmund Freud is an Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression.

According to Jung, dreams reflect the conscious feelings of the dreamer; it cannot be detached from the everyday life of the dreamer. According to him, these conscious thoughts will cluster together with the unconscious and dreams act as the medium to express the repressed thoughts.

Similarly, Freud argues that dreams are a form of releasing and fulfilling suppressed feelings. His view is that if a desire or want is unfulfilled while the dreamer is awake, the mind will react and convert it into a visual fantasy to allow the dreamer to satisfy his desire.

Of course this is a very brief description of their thoughts; there is more to than what is written here. My point is that probably, to a certain extent these men could be right, our dreams represent something that we want, hate, fear or hope but cannot achieve in real life, it’s a fulfilling process.

I personally don’t really believe in dreams, especially bad ones …