Interpretation of Dreams
Published in 1899 but ignored for several years, THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS eventually came to be seen as a breakthrough in the understanding the human mind. Freud himself considered it his seminal work. In his treatise, Freud introduced the then unknown concept of the unconscious, which was to become the basis for all Freudian theory and a major influence on subsequent research. Underlying his analysis of dream theory--a mixture of historical approaches, case studies, and his own methodology--is Freud`s belief that dreams have literal meanings that can reveal the structure of psychic life. He differentiates between the manifest content of the actual dream and dream`s latent content, which is a window into the unconscious. He also postulates the existence of a universal symbolic language of dreams, explores his theory of wish-fulfillment, and formulates for the first time the then-shocking concept of childhood sexuality. THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS was a major force in dispelling the combination of ignorance, confusion, and superstition with which the human mind was regarded, and, though advances in neurology have cast doubts on some of Freud`s conclusions, many of his insights are still regarded with respect.

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