Sigmund Freud’s work in psychotherapetures, and the effective results gained in connection with his “psycho-analytic method”, have attracted wide attention among psychiatrists and the medical fraternity. In the coarse of his many psycho-analyses Freud has been much impressed by the important fact that the forgotten experiences resuscitated by this means bear a striking resemblance to the content of dream life, and this led him to adopt the theory of Dreams presented in “The Interpretation of Dreams” (The Nation p.81).

In his book the Interpretation of Dreams, Freud draws the conclusion that dreams are personal psychological events. Freud also states that dreams are fulfillment of wishes. To reinforce these beliefs he offers many examples of his own dreams as well as the dreams of his family members.

Freud offers an example from a recurrent dream he often has. He explains that this dream only happens when he eats anchovies or any other highly salted foods in the evening. He then develops a thirst in the night which wakes him up. He states:

But my waking is preceded by a dream; and this always has the same content, namely that I am drinking. I dream I am swallowing down water in great gulps, and it has the delicious taste that nothing can equal but a cool drink when one is parched with thirst. Then I wake up and have a real drink (Freud pg. 311).

Here Freud’s simple dream is occasioned by the thirst which he becomes aware of when he wakes. His thirst is really his wish for a drink, and his dream shows his wish was fulfilled.

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