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Almost two decades ago, while speaking of dreams as a subject for psychoanalytic investigation, Freud expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of interest in the dream among analysts. In his “New Introductory Lectures” he accused psychoanalysts of behaving as though there were “nothing more to say” about the subject and “as though the whole subject of dream theory were finished and done with”. He is said to have documented his dissatisfaction by the gradual disappearance of a column that the “Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse” had devoted to contributions on various aspects of dream theory. However, a recent critical study of “Post-Freudian” psychoanalytic contributions in the form of a compilation of “subordinate subjects” by R. Fliess (5) hopes to vindicate the analyst and prove that interest in the dream has indeed been revived.
It is necessary, however, that there should be more than a subordinate approach to overcome an already existing impasse in regard to substantial contributions to dream theory. A distinct tendency exists for dream students to overlook relationships between the dream and reality ego except to consider the latter as a source of stimuli that partake in the manifest dream content and/or start a train of thought in the nature of a wish which is reflected in the latent thought content. Much more could be learned about the function of dreams if we were to focus more attention on the effect that dreams have on the wakening ego. In many instances dreams have a teleological purpose which is more important to the general welfare of an individual than the striving of dream work toward maintaining a state of undisturbed slumber through means of attempting wish-fulfillment.
Sleep is a physiological state that is as vital to the homeostasis of an organism as the function of an organ such as, say, the kidney. This structure is an extremely efficient structure insofar as contributing to the recuperative ability of a fatigued individual is conce