Decoding the Night: A Guided Reading of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams
- Buy now
- Learn more
- Discussions
Course Description

Course Description: Decoding the Night: A Guided Reading of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams
Introduction: Entering Freud's Dream World

Introduction: Why This Book Changed Everything
Section 1: Before We Open the Book: The World of the Dream

Lecture 1.1: Vienna Fin-de-Siècle: The Culture of Repression
Lecture 1.2: The Personal Stakes: Freud's Self-Analysis
Lecture 1.3: The Book's Structure: A Guided Tour
Lecture 1.4: The Scientific Claim: Is Psychoanalysis a Science?
Lecture 1.5: Key Terminology: A Glossary for Our Reading
Section 2: The Core Argument: A Dream is a Wish Fulfilled

Lecture 2.1: The Central Thesis in a Nutshell
Lecture 2.2: Children's Dreams: The Wish in its Purest Form
Lecture 2.3: The Problem of Anxiety Dreams
Lecture 2.4: Manifest vs. Latent Content: The Story vs. The Meaning
Lecture 2.5: The Censor: The Mind's Internal Gatekeeper
Section 3: Following Freud's Footsteps (Reading Chapters I & II)

Lecture 3.1: Reading Chapter I: The Scientific Literature
Lecture 3.2: Freud's Rhetoric: Positioning Himself as the Final Answer
Lecture 3.3: Reading Chapter II: The Method of Interpretation
Lecture 3.4: Case Study: The Dream of Irma's Injection
Lecture 3.5: Introducing Free Association: The "Royal Road" in Practice
Lecture 3.6: Problematic Element: How "Free" is Free Association?
Section 4: The Heart of the Matter (Reading Chapters III & IV)

Lecture 4.1: Reading Chapter III: The Dream is a Wish-Fulfillment
Lecture 4.2: The "Guardian of Sleep": The Function of the Wish
Lecture 4.3: Reading Chapter IV: Dream-Distortion
Lecture 4.4: The Dream as a Psychic Compromise
Lecture 4.5: Problematic Element: Is Every Dream a Wish?
Section 5: The Dream Factory (Reading Chapter V)

Lecture 5.1: The Raw Material: Where Do Dreams Come From?
Lecture 5.2: The "Day's Residue": How Yesterday's Trivialities Fuel Our Dreams
Lecture 5.3: Infantile Memories: The Deepest Source of Dream Wishes
Lecture 5.4: Bodily Stimuli: Does a Full Bladder Cause a Dream?
Lecture 5.5: Typical Dreams: Exploring Universal Fantasies
Lecture 5.6: The Dream of the Death of a Loved One: Introducing the Oedipus Complex
Section 6: The Engine Room of the Mind (Reading Chapter VI)

Lecture 6.1: The "Dream-Work" (Traumarbeit): The Heart of the Theory
Lecture 6.2: Condensation: The Art of Psychic Compression
Lecture 6.3: Displacement: The Censor's Master Tool
Lecture 6.4: Considerations of Representability: Turning Thoughts into Pictures
Lecture 6.5: Symbolism: The Universal Language of the Unconscious?
Lecture 6.6: Secondary Revision: The Ego's Attempt to Create a Coherent Story
Section 7: The Grand Theory (Reading Chapter VII)

Lecture 7.1: The Psychology of the Dream-Processes: The Final Chapter
Lecture 7.2: The Topographic Model: Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious
Lecture 7.3: The Two Principles of Mental Functioning: Pleasure vs. Reality
Lecture 7.4: Regression: Why We Hallucinate in Dreams
Lecture 7.5: A Complete Map of the Mind: How the Dream Explains Everything
Section 8: The Critical Lens: Reading Freud's Flaws

Lecture 8.1: The Problem of Evidence: A Science of One?
Lecture 8.2: The Scientific Critique: Popper's Falsifiability and Grünbaum's Logic
Lecture 8.3: The Feminist Critique: A Phallocentric Theory of Dreams?
Lecture 8.4: The Historical Critique: Freud as a "Biologist of the Mind" (Sulloway)
Lecture 8.5: The Personal Critique: Did Freud Impose His Own Story on Humanity?
Section 9: The Enduring Echo: Why The Dream Still Matters

Lecture 9.1: A New Way of Thinking: Freud and the "Hermeneutics of Suspicion" (Ricoeur)
Lecture 9.2: The Influence on Art: Surrealism and the Dreamscape
Lecture 9.3: The Influence on Literature: Stream of Consciousness (Joyce, Woolf)
Lecture 9.4: The Influence on Film: From Hitchcock's "Spellbound" to "Inception"
Lecture 9.5: The Dream in Modern Therapy: Its Role Today
Lecture 9.6: The Dream in a Post-Freudian World: Do We Still Believe Him?
Conclusion: Closing the Book

Conclusion: What We Have Learned: Freud's Enduring Lesson

Section 8: The Critical Lens: Reading Freud's Flaws

5 Lessons