In this email, I’m going to talk about dreams. More specifically, I’ll be exploring the mystery of why we dream and why it’s so important to pay attention to our dreams. But first, let me tell you this.
The other day, I had the strangest dream.
I dream that I’m travelling to Egypt. There, I try to record a fragment of the landscape to send to my friend, capturing a specific section of a place. But as I walk through a corridor, I suddenly appear somewhere completely different. Now, I’m travelling with other friends, and it seems like we’re in Andorra. We wander through its streets, exploring the city.
During our walk, we come across a shop that is a mix between a bookshop and a café. There also seems to be a gym inside, and there, I see Leo Margets, the famous poker player, running on a treadmill. For a moment, she looks at me as if she recognises me.
Later, at the house where we’re staying, my friend mentions that people are waiting to use the shared bathroom, as the one in her suite isn’t working. I peek out and see a small queue forming in front of the door.
In another scene of the dream, I enter a shop and buy the trilogy of a romantasy book series. Suddenly, I run into Stefan, the character from The Vampire Diaries, and show him the books.
And then, I wake up.
Let’s be honest, dreams are fucking weird.
What was that all about?
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that dreams weren’t just random nonsense. He saw them as the royal road to the unconscious, a glimpse into our deepest, most hidden thoughts. While you sleep, your mind gets to work, processing fears, desires, and conflicts you might not even realise you have. According to Freud, every dream has meaning, even the ones that seem utterly absurd.
So, why do we dream? And more importantly, what can we learn from our dreams? Apart from the fact that The Vampire Diaries series was absolutely dreadful? Let’s dive in.
Dreams as wish fulfilment
Freud’s theory was simple yet revolutionary: dreams are a way for your mind to express wishes that your waking self cannot handle.
He believed that we all have desires, some conscious, some buried deep, and that dreams offer a disguised way for those desires to come to light.
But why the disguise?
If you have ever had a dream that left you feeling a bit unsettled, or downright horrified, you might understand. Freud argued that some wishes are unacceptable to our conscious minds, too embarrassing, too uncomfortable, or simply too much to deal with. So, the mind dresses them up in symbols, metaphors, and strange storylines, making them more digestible.
Take, for example, the famous dream of Irma’s injection. This dream was not just another case study, it was the turning point that led Sigmund Freud to his groundbreaking theory on dreams.
It was THE DREAM.
It happened in 1895, on a summer night that Freud would later describe as life-changing. At the time, Freud was still refining his ideas about the human mind, trying to understand how unconscious thoughts shape our emotions and behaviours. One of his main interests was hysteria, a condition widely misunderstood at the time, often dismissed as exaggerated nervousness, particularly in women. Freud believed that hysteria was not merely a physical ailment but had deep psychological roots, linked to repressed memories and unexpressed emotions.
One of his patients was a woman he called Irma, a pseudonym. She had been undergoing treatment with Freud, but her progress was slow, and she eventually decided to stop therapy. Freud, dedicated but also highly self-critical, could not shake off the feeling that he had failed her.
Was he a bad doctor? Had he overlooked something?
These worries must have been playing on his mind when he went to sleep that night.
And then came the dream.
The dream of Irma’s injection
In the dream, Freud is at a grand party, surrounded by many guests. Among them is Irma. He pulls her aside and immediately notices that she looks unwell. Concerned, he examines her throat and sees strange white patches and unusual formations inside her mouth, signs of illness.
Then, a wave of anxiety washes over him. Has he misdiagnosed her? Has he been careless in his treatment?
Then, something shifts.
A group of doctors suddenly appears, Freud’s colleagues and friends. One of them, Otto, steps forward. Freud realises that Otto was the one who recently gave Irma an injection. Suddenly, it all makes sense, Irma’s illness is not Freud’s fault, Otto used a contaminated syringe.
Freud is off the hook. The responsibility is no longer his.
Upon waking, Freud was struck by the vividness of the dream. Instead of dismissing it, he meticulously analysed each element.
What he discovered changed everything.
Why is this dream so important?
Freud realised that his dream had a clear psychological function, to relieve him of guilt.
Just imagine, we would all love for every doctor to have that level of self-criticism and awareness of the tricks their own mind plays on them. If only!
Freud had been worried that he had failed as a doctor, but his unconscious mind had constructed a narrative that shifted the blame onto someone else, in this case, Otto.
This was a breakthrough.
If Freud’s own mind could shape a dream to protect him from unpleasant emotions, then surely other dreams worked in a similar way.
Dreams, he concluded, were not just random nonsense. They were meaningful, constructed by the mind to process emotions, relieve internal conflicts, and fulfil hidden desires.
Yes, even if those desires were inconvenient or uncomfortable.
With this discovery, Freud laid the foundation for his revolutionary theory, dreams are a form of wish fulfilment.
They take our deepest thoughts, especially the ones we suppress in waking life, and present them in symbolic, disguised ways while we sleep.
And just like that, modern dream analysis was born.
This is how dreams work, according to Freud. They fulfil wishes, sometimes in ways that are obvious, sometimes in ways that need a bit of decoding.
Now.
As for my own dream, I’m still trying to figure out its meaning.
But let me tell you, I won’t find it in those so-called dictionaries of dreams, where I can supposedly look up why I’m dreaming about flying or losing my teeth.
Freud saw dreams as a bridge between our conscious and unconscious selves.
And to get really practical, one thing is clear, dreams give us insight.
They highlight fears, bring up unresolved emotions, and sometimes even help us solve problems.
If you’re curious to dive even deeper into the meaning of dreams, why not go straight to the source? Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is the book that changed everything, a deep yet fascinating look into why we dream and what our unconscious is trying to tell us.
Sweet dreams.
Love,
Noemi
P.S.: If you’ve ever wondered what your dreams mean, this book is a must-read. Grab your copy here.
