The Meaning Of Dream By Sigmund Freud

Improved Essays
No one truly understand the meaning to why we dream. Some researchers believe that dreams are random and meaningless activities of the brain. While others believe its necessary for people’s mental and emotional health. The most known well dream theory is one that is constructed by Sigmund Freud. The foundation of Freud’s theory lies on the idea that dreaming allows people to fulfill the desires that they are not able to express in the real world. Dreams permits the unconscious mind to play these objectionable thoughts and desires that constitutes to our repressed behavior. Freud developed a structural model of the mind comprising the entities id, ego, and superego. The id meets people’s basic needs; the ego deals with reality trying to meet …show more content…
In this dream, Raskolnikov as a child, is walking with his father past a tavern and they encounter a group of drunken man. The owner of the mare, Mikolka, felt that the horse was of no use for its inability to push an overloaded cart. As they approach these group of man, young Raskolnikov witnesses the murder of the horse and feels remorse for it. The horse in the dream symbolizes Alyona and the reason for Mikolka’s brutal action represents Raskolnikov’s desire to kill Alyona. In this dream, Raskolnikov’s id and superego conflicts with one another. Raskolnikov knows it is morally wrong to kill a person, but he feels the need to kill Alyona Ivanova because he thinks that she is not doing any good for society. All that she is doing is taking the wealth of the poor so that she can become a wealthy woman. He felt that her death would benefit society in a way that her wealth can be put to good cause and be distributed to those in …show more content…
It has become evident that Raskolnikov was in a frenzy with himself after the murder of Alyona Ivanova and Lizaveta Ivanovna. He was aware of the fact that he should not have done such thing, but somehow convinced himself that it was his duty to kill for the sake of society. Hence in his first dream, he referred back to his innocent days as a child to illustrate the side of him that did not want to kill Ivanova. One can believe that Raskolnikov’s dreams represented his true feelings of his criminal act and due to his self-less act he faced the consequence of being slowly eaten by guilt. Dream two and three can support this and has showed Raskolnikov that he may not be the extraordinary man that he thought he was. Finally, the last dream convinced Raskolnikov that he is no extraordinary man and is no better than anyone

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    My dreams that I recorded in my dream journal best follow the descriptions of Freud and Cartwright’s theories and the information processing theory in that my dreams contain manifest and latent content and they are also closely related to my waking life and the situations or problems in which I have been involved. Sigmund Freud’s dream theory claims that dreams contain images that can sometimes have a significant meaning relating to the person’s life. These different images may serve as a symbol which represents a deeper meaning than just an object that happens to appear in dreams. This is where Freud’s idea of manifest and latent content comes into his theory. Manifest content is described as the actual remembered story line of our dreams, while latent content is the underlying and more hidden meaning of the dream.…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For sure, each human being sleeps, each human being is able to see some dreams, but how many of us think why we have dreams? Why sometimes we can see something really good and peaceful or conversely sometimes we have nightmares? Dreams are not just a part of our usual sleep; dreams which we can see and remember have scientific meaning too. Firs of all, what is a dream? Dream is a sequence of our ideas, imagination, emotions and sensations in the mind which we have during different stages of sleep.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When Razumikhin states, “he’s not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanely cold and callous, as if there really were two opposite characters in him” it is quite evident that even though Raskolnikov is incessantly undermined by his own self hate, he is attempting to attain some sense of morality. Hence, since Raskolnikov’s own kins were shocked when Razumikhin asserted this statement to them, it is evident that Raskolnikov’s seemingly split personality and indecision were the effects of him having committed the murder, and the decision of whether to confess or not came as a result. Thus, this is one of the many instances in the novel that corroborates the belief that Raskolnikov is a crucial morally ambiguous character in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “But hardly had he succeeded in regaining a straight face than he glanced again, as if involuntarily, at Razumikhin, and broke down once more: the smothered laughter burst out all the more uncontrollably for the powerful restraint he had put on it before” (Dostoevsky 210). In an attempt to maintain his facade of an innocent man, Raskolnikov intentionally laughs at Razumikhin as they approach Porfiry’s door. Fearful that Porfiry will deceive him, Raskolnikov presents himself as a carefree man to dissolve any of Porfiry’s impressions. The calculated “involuntary” glances he shares with Razumikhin reveal the extent to which he can play the role of an innocent man (Dostoevsky 210).…

    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The ability to distinguish a good person from an evil person is usually a simple task. Although in most literary works, it can be more difficult to differentiate between the two. In society people are quick to draw a line between good and evil but as people grow and face new experiences that line can become blurred and morals and values begin to change. In the novel, Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov can be branded as a morally ambiguous character. Raskolnikov can be viewed as morally ambiguous because he is portrayed as if he has two different personalities.…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Superman Does Not Dream

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Superman does not Dream In Part 3 of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov once again wrestles with his emotions after his murder of Alyona and constant evasion of the police. The police just found a piece of Raskolnikov's writing from about two month before. He describes his belief for the need of some great being to be above the law, in order to make their society more safe. Once reminded of his old writing, Raskolnikov begins to wrestle with himself whether he truly could consider himself the superman.…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Raskolnikov Guilt

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Development of Guilt in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment Ideally, when committing a felony, the criminals main concern is not getting caught. In Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, the poverty-stricken, ill man Raskolnikov proves otherwise; it is not the punishment that provokes fear, it is the guilt and psychological instability that will drive the convict to insanity. Set in the late eighteenth century in St. Petersburg, Russia, Raskolnikov is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to murder his pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanova. After convincing himself that he is a “superman”, a man who is so exceptional that moral law does not apply to him, Raskolnikov murders Alyona and her sister, Elizaveta and spends the rest of the novel facing…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    As Mikolka continues to savagely beat his mare “and he lashes, and lashes, no longer knowing why,” this foreshadows his fear of losing control as he attempts to do away with Alyona the pawnbroker. However, through the dream we are given wisdom of his schismatic reasoning. In the dream, he…

    • 1703 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Due to the fact that he views himself as a superior being, Raskolnikov believes he has the right to murder the pawnbroker, but after doing so he is consumed by a guilty conscience and starts to rethink his superiority. Raskolnikov becomes unwilling to accept the fact that he might not be extraordinary, so he constantly tries to convince himself that the murder was justified. In this part of Crime and Punishment Raskolnikov represents the ideals of Nihilism and Utilitarianism. His relation to Nihilism makes him reject all meaning in life and create his own moral code, which leads him to carry out the murder. He doesn’t value family or relationships, and he rejects values and emotions.…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Petersburg, failing to realize that what he perceives as rational thoughts and ideas are not as concrete as he believes. Throughout the story, Raskonlnikov’s mind proves to hold him back from acting under his own free will, by constantly contradicting himself and applying incorrect insinuations to the everyday world. In one instance, Rodya strolls down the street, muttering to himself, “Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In Sigmund Freud’s piece, On Dreams, Freud analyzes the dreams of himself and others in order in order to find the purpose of dreams in terms of his own psychoanalytic definition of the mind, in which psychological forces of pleasure seeking and restraint are at constant ends. Freud determines that the principle function of dreams is to fulfill the wishes of the id, or “pleasure principle” which wants instant gratification, so that the ego, the part of the brain that thinks about long term success, can get rest. However if one digs deeper into Freud’s inability to fully disclose his own dreams, and sees that when he “discove(red) the solution of the dream all kinds of things were revealed which (he) was unwilling to admit even to (himself).”…

    • 1610 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On one hand, Raskolnikov forged a theory in which a part of mankind is put above another. This suggests that he doesn't see fair equality, and that he believes some men to be born into being extraordinary men while others are able to achieve the title. Raskolnikov commits a murder to test his theory, showing that there is a part of him that is evil enough to carry out a damning…

    • 1030 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Raskolnikov places himself on a pedestal, equating his power and prominence with Napoleon, someone who he believes is “capable of evolving something new” and has “never hesitated to shed blood” in this pursuit. (Dostoevsky, p. 220). He rationalizes his crime by claiming that he is like Napoleon, one of the extraordinary men who “in virtue of their innate power” are “criminals”. (Dostoevsky, p. 220). However, one of the most vivid and gruesome scenes in the novel, Raskolnikov’s dream involving the slaughter of an innocent mare, demonstrates that Raskolnikov has fallen short of this ideal.…

    • 1601 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Psychology Of Dreams Essay

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages

    First, I am going to start out with the definition of Psychology. Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions. Speaking of the human mind and its functions, dreams, what are they? Dreams are a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep. Dreams are very mysterious, they are the “royal road to… the unconscious,” a famed psychologist once said (Sigmund Freud).…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freud dreams: In ancient times, dreams were believed to be gifts from the gods in which glimpses to the future and life direction were given. Freud preferred to look at dreams with a more scientific base. He believed dreams were the unconscious leaking the repressed desires of the dreamer. As a child dreamer, a wish fulfilment would be very clear such as eating a cookie, this rarely required interpretation. Adults, being more complex, required a sensitive exploration by the dreamer and analyst to unravel the true meaning.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays