Bizarre dreams Freud

Freud correctly assumed that the failure of self-reflection in dreams that results in our delusional belief that we are awake, can fly, or survive surely deadly falls from vertiginous heights was akin to psychosis. As such we accurately regard it as primary process thinking, which is by definition narcissistic, omnipotent, and uncritical. But why does it have this character And by what mechanisms Certainly not to defend consciousness from invasion (because consciousness is invaded by primary processes in this case ). It seems far more likely that this failure to test reality is the outcome of an organic deficit related to two other deficit conditions of dreaming, the disorientation that creates bizarreness and the amnesia that creates dream forgetting. 

Freud ignored two important predecessors. One was David Hartley, who ascribed the bizarre nature of dreams to too many associations he had a functional theory to go with his hypothesis, a hypothesis that was probably correct. Dreaming, for Hartley, served to loosen associations that were otherwise inclined to become obsessively fixed. And that would be madness, Hartley asserted. Certainly, dreaming is a hyperassociative state (i.e. a state in which many, many associations are made), as Freud could have quickly determined had he examined dream reports before rushing to interpret them. 

Freud s model of the unconscious was similar to Victorian sexual behaviour the unconscious was seen as compelling, but sneaky and devious. In dreams, the unconscious wishes were always trying to disrupt consciousness, just as duplicitous sexual behaviour of waking was designed to dupe social convention. Thus, Freud s dream theory adopted the fatally flawed assumptions of disguise and censorship as the basis of dream bizarreness. The primary drive of the dream had to be expurgated or laundered and converted into the apparent nonsense of dream bizarreness. 

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