Books The Interpretation of Dreams: Illustrated Book by Sigmund Freud  by Sigmund Freud (Author)

"The Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud is a groundbreaking work first published in 1899, which introduced his theory of psychoanalysis and dream interpretation. Freud proposed that dreams are a window into the unconscious mind, revealing hidden desires, thoughts, and motivations that the conscious mind suppresses.

The book distinguishes between the manifest content of a dream (the actual storyline or images recalled) and the latent content (the underlying symbolic meaning). Freud introduced the concept that dreams serve as wish fulfillment, representing unconscious wishes in disguised forms. The process called "dream work" transforms latent content into the manifest content through mechanisms like displacement, condensation, and symbolization.

Freud also developed the method of free association to uncover the latent content, involving the dreamer speaking freely about elements of the dream to unlock unconscious meanings. The work became fundamental to psychoanalytic theory and influenced many fields beyond psychology, including literature and art.