“I May Allow Myself to do This”: Conflict in Freud’s Writing of The Interpretation of Dreams

Abstract

An autobiographical interpretation of latent meanings in Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams is undertaken in order to explore oedipal themes in Freud’s writing and their role in his resistance to writing the book. By looking at how the book performs its message, in presenting a collection of Freud’s personal dreams that talk to each other and inspire meaning-making, we can see how readers are drawn into the role of interpreters/analysts. This process makes the oedipal myth palpable long before Freud mentions it. It also illustrates an analytic process that analysts are all required to follow. Finally, the process reveals something in Freud that could be apprehended only after his ideas were conveyed—the unending process of interpretation, in which every conclusion gives rise to new ideas, inspiring new conclusions.

Freud’s Red Thread: Explorations of the Unconscious Sense of Guilt

“…It is the rudder that steers us into oedipal conflict, only to be intensified by it as a result. While Freud would explain Dostoevsky’s unconscious guilt by virtue of his underlying oedipal dynamics, I would argue that the subversive power of creating original art played its own role in inhibiting Dostoevsky, just as we can witness in Freud’s experience of writing The Interpretation of Dreams the immense burden of unconscious guilt (Ackerman 2019). 7 This points to the sacrificial role of unconscious guilt that Freud conveyed in his story of hurling his slipper toward the marble Venus statue in the wake of his daughter’s recovery.…”