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Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams was considered by him to be his masterwork, and in my opinion it remains one of the great books of Western civilization, a permanent member of the so-called Western canon. Although there have been a variety of attempts to attack its basic premises, the bulk of evidence remains, even in the light of the explosion in our knowledge about the neurophysiology of dreaming, that Freud was basically correct in his approach, attempting to show that dreams have a meaning, and that this meaning could be understood. Of course there have been many attempted emendations of Freud's basic approach to dream interpretation since the publication of this work in 1900, and there is no time to examine all these in a brief book review. But a study of the original text of The Interpretation of Dreams offers a basic introduction to many of Freud's most important operational principles, which he first developed in the treatment of neurotic symptoms, and then learned to apply to the dreams of his patients and, finally, courageously, to his own dreams.
The new translation of this work has been produced by a scholar of German retired from University College in London, and it wisely has omitted material added in later editions, especially the unfortunate chapter on dream symbols that Freud was persuaded to add by that shady individual, Wilhelm Stekel. As of this writing there is no evidence from laboratory studies of sleep and dreams that can be considered conclusive in refuting Freud's basic approach, although it is possible to interpret neurophysiological sleep experiments in a somewhat different way if one finds Freud's work for other reasons unacceptable. I believe there is no better place to begin the study of psychoanalysis than with this volume, and even the philosophy of science paradoxes that it entails are of great fascination because, as Crick writes, “We may wonder, first, whether the theory is too powerful for its own good. As Freud's theo