One of the classic examples that backs up this interpretation made by Freud can be seen in the movie American Beauty (1999) in which the main character Lester Burnham is found having a dream about one of his daughter's friends whom which he is finding himself to be sexually attracted towards and this attraction is represented by symbols within the dream. The young woman can be seen completely naked covered in rose petals, the red petals representing passion and romance, and them being flowers can be seen as representing a basic natural urge that Lester is experiencing towards the young woman. What is important to not from the movie and as the backstory of how Lester got to this point in the first place is that Lester is very unhappy with his life, the attraction he is feeling almost awakens him and makes him even more aware of how unhappy he is and it is a turning point in the movie. This dream is almost his way of defying the suppressiveness of suburban life that he is feeling throughout the beginning of the film. It can be safely stated that the film was created to show how even the ideal suburban family isn't always as ideal of some would think, it can be underlined with the symptoms of depression and denial and can lead to a lot of unhealthy behavior. But, this unhealthy behavior and the dream that Lester experiences only help back up Freud's theory of that there is always a hidden meaning behind content in a dream (manifest content represents latent content).
Monday, March 28, 2016
Dreaming: The True Wake Up Call
We all have dreamed, whether that means we've dreamt of a situation quite plain and even realistic or we've dreamt of a situation that is downright crazy. We've all been there. In the chapter over Freud's Dream Theory taken from Appignanesi, Zarete, and Engelhardt's book Freud for Beginners, we look closer at dreams through Freud's interpretation of what they could mean. According to Freud, dreams are made of two things: latent and manifest content. The manifest content within the dream is forced to express the latent idea by using symbols and this leads to the conclusion that dreams are only a partial or censored expression of a wish. No matter how normal or how crazy a dream may seem to according to Freud it doesn't stop there, there is always some kind of deeper meaning behind the content and dreams and can represent thoughts deep within one's psyche.
One of the classic examples that backs up this interpretation made by Freud can be seen in the movie American Beauty (1999) in which the main character Lester Burnham is found having a dream about one of his daughter's friends whom which he is finding himself to be sexually attracted towards and this attraction is represented by symbols within the dream. The young woman can be seen completely naked covered in rose petals, the red petals representing passion and romance, and them being flowers can be seen as representing a basic natural urge that Lester is experiencing towards the young woman. What is important to not from the movie and as the backstory of how Lester got to this point in the first place is that Lester is very unhappy with his life, the attraction he is feeling almost awakens him and makes him even more aware of how unhappy he is and it is a turning point in the movie. This dream is almost his way of defying the suppressiveness of suburban life that he is feeling throughout the beginning of the film. It can be safely stated that the film was created to show how even the ideal suburban family isn't always as ideal of some would think, it can be underlined with the symptoms of depression and denial and can lead to a lot of unhealthy behavior. But, this unhealthy behavior and the dream that Lester experiences only help back up Freud's theory of that there is always a hidden meaning behind content in a dream (manifest content represents latent content).
One of the classic examples that backs up this interpretation made by Freud can be seen in the movie American Beauty (1999) in which the main character Lester Burnham is found having a dream about one of his daughter's friends whom which he is finding himself to be sexually attracted towards and this attraction is represented by symbols within the dream. The young woman can be seen completely naked covered in rose petals, the red petals representing passion and romance, and them being flowers can be seen as representing a basic natural urge that Lester is experiencing towards the young woman. What is important to not from the movie and as the backstory of how Lester got to this point in the first place is that Lester is very unhappy with his life, the attraction he is feeling almost awakens him and makes him even more aware of how unhappy he is and it is a turning point in the movie. This dream is almost his way of defying the suppressiveness of suburban life that he is feeling throughout the beginning of the film. It can be safely stated that the film was created to show how even the ideal suburban family isn't always as ideal of some would think, it can be underlined with the symptoms of depression and denial and can lead to a lot of unhealthy behavior. But, this unhealthy behavior and the dream that Lester experiences only help back up Freud's theory of that there is always a hidden meaning behind content in a dream (manifest content represents latent content).
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