Sigmund Freud and Dreams

Vincent Van Gogh, the greatest painter that now has becoming a legend (after his death) once says, ''I dream my painting and I paint my dream.'' This show how brilliant his art intuition and imagination, for it takes a genius to paint a dream. Why so? In order to paint dream, at least the person need to have two things. First, he need to remember. Second, he need to have a clear picture of the dream in his head. The great mind like Jordan Peterson admit that he think better with words rather than with picture, and most of the people who think with image is a visionary person, as Peterson put it. Well, we can conclude that Van Gogh was a dreamer, a genius, a visionary.  But what fascinate me beside Van Gogh and his idea of painting his dream is the concept of dream itself. It take me awhile to digest what Darian Leader when he explore deep on this subject in his classic book, Why Can't we sleep? for those who are not familiar with the term surround the subject will be lost in space. 

Why need to think deep about dream? dream is just dream. If we have a good dream, then probably our day will be great. If we have a horrible dream, somehow, it ruins the fresh new day that somehow we hope for better day ahead apart from trouble that shakes our mood. For us modern people, we do not even try to pause to ponder the significance of dream. People in the past believes that dream is a way that God use to communicate to them, at least one of the way. Can we make a conclusion that since modern people do not really concern much about God compare to their own worldly pursuit, so that so we can deduce, dream also is just nothing.To think more that meets the eye is useless and kind of wasting time for certain. Yet, intriguingly, I found out that Sigmund Freud, a quite hardcore atheist saw dream as somewhat special. He even wrote a book call the interpretation of dreams. 

I cannot say that since people in the past believe dream is come from God, and hence, by writing book about dream and its interpretation, he was actually claiming himself as divine, this way of thinking is too much and over the top, I guess. The reason behind the writing this book is definitely more scientific. As Freud himself wrote in his book that he would like to find the rationale and bold endeavor to explain the meaning of dream in human mind, and also the nature of the physic forces which operate behind everything about dream, which somehow create a strange and obscure imaginary. 

Freud come to a conclusion that dreams is motivated by wish or desire. Dream is also triggered by external stimuli, and dream can more or less give us some information about the dreamer in certain extent. Freud therefore argue that dream is not random and can come in disguise form to convey the inner-unconsciousness thought that is yet to be fulfilled. Base on this line of thinking, and also as he has been analyzed thousand of dreams, he then conclude that we can interpret dream within a larger context of that person, yes dreams are interpret-able according to Him. For the dream that appear to have no meaning, he will argue that it just hidden, and the dream is not meaningless. 

The question we can raise is this, how scientific is Freud claim? can we can that for all things that is appear to be meaningless with this mantra, hidden? However, if we say that every obscurity contain hidden meaning, then it's already presuppose that ''all'' dreams that are seems to be meaningless in its plot and imaginary is always have meaning. Its like saying a bubbling baby is always and always, either say he is hungry, need attention or something that yet to be discovered by parents or language expert. In reality, babies could just bubbling without trying to communicate everything. Making sound rather than conveying any idea through their undeveloped language. Adult often do that. That is why it is logical to ask this, what if dream could sometimes appear meaningless and random too, even it comes out less frequent than vivid dream or ''hidden'' one? 

In his book Freud's theory of Dream part III, Michael T. Michael deal with the scientifically of Freud's theory. Micheal come to a conclusion that Freud thesis fall into the category between science and pseudo-science. Michael attack the foundation of Freud's dream framework. Freud use  Metapsychology to frame his argument and thus scientifically speaking, his conclusion is actually not purely scientific. The concept of mind as reflex apparatus and mental energy are not found it base on neuroscience. Moreover, although Freud's method of interpretation can somehow bring together the ''jigsaw puzzle'' of dream into a big and clearer picture, the problem that still remain is on the issue of "justification."

Here comes the one million dollar question, then who can justify the interpretation of the dream? since it seems that everyone can comes out with their own version of  dream interpretation especially when the dreamers themselves cannot grasp the meaning and even pattern of their own dreaming. Can we say that at best its only our subjective interpretation? but if yes, why not we say it is just people opinion rather than interpretation? To bring Grunbuam's conclusion, Freud's method of interpretation of dream is basically falsifiable and hence at the basic level is not scientific. Nonetheless, having said that, I think we need a further research to make a really firm conclusion about Freud theory of dream. Some modern founding today even support Freud's idea but some rather skeptical. Micheal T. Michael word is the best for our closing, “Freud’s theory may be still unproven, but it is in much finer fettle than has been thought.”