Question

Review any of the dreams that Freud relates in Dream Psychology, and discuss the storytelling elements and patterns you see there.

How are they similar to stories being told?

Do your dreams fall into certain story patterns?

Answer 1

Most of us experience dreams as a story. A dream from Freud's Dream analysis is, - A father had been watching day and night beside the sick-bed of his child. After the child died, he retired to rest in an adjoining room, but left the door ajar so that he could look from his room into the next, where the child's body lay surrounded by tall candles. An old man, who had been installed as a watcher, sat beside the body, murmuring prayers. After sleeping for a few hours the father dreamed that the child was standing by his bed, clasping his arm and crying reproachfully: "7father, don't you see that I am burning?" The father woke up and noticed a bright light coming from the adjoining room. Rushing in, he found that the old man had fallen asleep, and the sheets and one arm of the beloved body were burnt by a fallen candle.

In the above dream there is obviously story telling eliments and patterns.Story telling eliments are -1) Settings 2) characters and 3) symbols. Here in the above dream, according to Freud, "I am burning," was may be associated with the fever from which the child died. Thus Burning is the symbol of fever. Freud told that, dreams are basically come from unfulfilled wishes, and anxiety.This dream, according to Freud, followed the pattern of anxiety.

Yes, ofcourse my dreams fall into a certain pattern.The pattern of dreams for every person may different but for one person the pattern of dream is similar.Some may see dreams from excessive anxiety, some from past memories, some from unconscious wishes. But they obviously follow a pattern.