(女兒一年前的作文)

進入未知：釋夢

    自第一個舊石器時代人在地球上行走起，人類一直對夢和它們的起源着迷。剛開始，人類不能有效地將夢與現實區分，認為夢是意識生命的延伸。古代文明將夢看作神的信息並努力地去解釋他們，希望從中發現信息的內在含義。祭司和巫師也會搜索夢以尋找具特別意義的符號。這些信息通常被當作預言，於是部落就急忙為很快要發生的災難或意外的好運作準備。在古希臘和羅馬，軍隊常常伴隨着夢境翻譯人員，在古埃及，那些有能力生動做夢的人會獲得特殊地位。在中世紀時代，夢想被認為是來自魔鬼的邪惡誘惑，趁人們在最薄弱的睡眠時機下手。然而到了19世紀，夢在科學觀中發生了巨大變化。夢被認為是來源於體細胞，如消化不良引起，從而失去了其重要性和解釋的需要。在十九世紀後期，一位心理學的重要人物，弗洛伊德，發表了一部論著，<<夢的解析>>，書裡拒絕了夢的宗教和軀體的觀念。這本書因提出: 夢是重要的心靈創作，而不是毫無意義的夜間活動或神的啟示， 而成為心理學的一個里程碑。

在夢的解析里，弗洛伊德討論了夢的結構和功能以及形成過程，他通常採用解釋夢例來支持他的理論。他指出，“夢想的可能來源：

（一）最近的和心理上重要的經歷，這些直接表現在夢中

（二）最近的幾次重大經歷，由夢連成一個整體

（三）最近的一個或多個重要的經驗在夢裡和一個當時的無關經驗混合

（四）一個主觀的重要經歷(如一連串的思緒），這些經常在夢中和最近的無關係的印象被表現出來。

上面提到的重要經歷與重要心理思想有關，並通過一系列關聯與無意識思維產生關係。這一組夢想思維在夢裡由一個接一個的夢元素表達出來。夢元素本身往往是不重要的，但它們的心理意義通過與夢想思維連接表現出來。因此，正如弗洛伊德斷言，夢由兩個主要組成部分：一是外表內容，即做夢者在夢裡實際看到或聽到的影像；二是潛在內容，或被代表的思維。由於可進行眾多的連接，許多潛在內容數量通常明顯大於外表內容。在解釋夢的過程中，人們必須通過追蹤連接外表內容的影像從前向後推，以此來確定潛在內容。根據弗洛伊德的說法，“當解釋工作完成時，夢就被看作實現了一個願望”。

通過幾個夢境，特別是兒童的，弗洛伊德認為兒童心理審核機能充分充分發育，他演示了如何這是可能的，並得出結論，夢往往是一種是被壓抑的願望之一，它在夢裡被扭曲地實現，因此使得夢想不愉快，而不是實現完全的願望。

在潛在夢想能發展成為外表夢想之前，有幾個關鍵過程必須發生。第一個也是最明顯的是這些過程的凝聚工作。利用樣本夢的解釋，弗洛伊德表明，“每一個夢的內容元素原來是超定，也就是說，它是一個結點，享受在夢裡思想多方面的代表權”（弗洛伊德269）。在凝聚工作即將完成時，另一個同樣重要的程序是開始工作，這是流失過程，其中的夢想元素的心理值被修改，以避免心理審核。這個心理審核壓制某些夢想元素，因為做夢者不希望那些元素出現，夢者會減輕其強度，並給予新的價值，通過對自決的方式，從小型值元素，這些新的價值觀隨後進入夢的內容”（弗洛伊德290）。第三個因素是控制夢的形成是其展示性方面。因為夢想不是抽象思維能力的展示，它塑造成形象化的語言，通過視覺形象和具體的影象來表現。即使在前面提到的三個進程已經完成，夢仍可能脫節，荒謬。這種困境得到解決，方法是，儘管有時不完全，在夢的最後階段形成時，進行二次擬訂。在夢的碎片不容易流動的地方，這個功能可添加它從夢想收集的材料，使夢想似乎更為連貫和比較完整。在他的論述的最後一節，弗洛伊德描述了將精神刺激轉換成有意識的思考或運動的儀器。

這個儀器，他把他稱作Y系統，包括感知系統，記憶系統，無意識和前意識。當感知系統探測到刺激，系統將它轉移到第一個存儲系統，感知變成一個“記憶痕跡。” 記憶痕跡又通過各種記憶系統往下傳，且記憶系統通過從最基本的到更加複雜的關聯(如聲音，影象，符號等)改變記憶痕跡。最後，到達潛意識，再傳輸到前意識。再轉換成意識。雖然正常思維是這種方式，但夢想通過逆向過程，即回歸過程而形成。弗洛伊德認為，（弗洛伊德265）“在回歸里，夢想思維的結構被分解成原材料。”通過對夢的親近觀察並通過比前人更詳細的對夢的討論，弗洛伊德讓公眾更好地理解夢及他們的形成。

在弗洛伊德的<<釋夢>>的論點慢慢徹底改變了人們對夢想的看法，儘管他的很多理論被現代心理學家拋棄，但他有關夢和無意識的觀點，極大地影響了哲學家，藝術家和其他心理學家。弗洛伊德認為<<夢的解釋>>是他最偉大的作品之一，然而，當它第一次出版時，它並沒有如弗洛伊德曾希望的那樣引起人們的興趣和注意。事實上，“第一次出版只印刷600份..且花了8年才賣完。對它評論有但不多，大多是不利的。直到1913年才有第一本英文翻譯。但弗洛伊德的“無意識不能被控制”的觀

點沒有被廣泛接受，尤其是在美國，它被認為是對人的自由意志的攻擊

原文：

Into the Unknown: Dreams and the Unconscious

Since the first Paleolithic peoples walked the earth, humankind has always been fascinated by dreams and their origins. The first humans could not effectively distinguish dreams from reality, and considered them extensions of conscious life. Ancient civilizations saw dreams as messages from the gods and endeavored to interpret them in order to discover the contents of the messages. Priests and shamans would search the dreams to find symbols that held special meanings. The messages were usually prophetic and communities would rush to prepare for either an impending calamity or unexpected good fortune. In ancient Greece and Rome, armies were often accompanied by dream interpreters, and in ancient Egypt, those with the ability to dream especially vividly were given a special status. During medieval times, dreams were considered evil temptations from the devil targeted at individuals who, in their sleeping state, were at their weakest. During the 19th century, however, the scientific views on dreams changed dramatically. Dreams were said to be caused by somatic sources such as indigestion and thus lost their importance and need for interpretation. In the late 1800's, a significant figure in psychology published a treatise that rejected both the religious and somatic views on dreams. The Interpretation of Dreams, written by Sigmund Freud, established itself as a milestone in psychology by proposing that dreams are significant psychic creations rather than meaningless nighttime activities or products of divine inspiration.

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud discusses the structure and function of the dream as well the process by which it is formed, often using sample dream interpretations to support his claims. He states, "The source of a dream may be:

(a) A recent and psychologically significant experience, which is directly   represented in the dream

(b) Several recent, significant experiences, which are united by the dream into a whole

(c) One or more recent and significant experiences which are represented in the dream by the mention of a contemporary but indifferent experience

(d) A subjective significant experience (a recollection, train of thought), which is regularly represented in the dream by the mention of a recent but indifferent impression" (Freud 160).

The above mentioned significant experiences are related to psychologically important thoughts, which are in turn related to other unconscious thoughts through a series of associations. This collection of dream thoughts is represented in the dream by a succession of dream elements. The dream elements themselves are often unimportant, but gain their psychological significance through their connection with noteworthy dream thoughts. Therefore, as Freud asserts, there are two main components of a dream: the manifest content, or the images that the dreamer actually sees and hears in his or her dream, and the latent content, or the thoughts that are being represented. Since there is a multitude of connections that can be made, the latent content is often much greater in volume than the manifest content. To determine the latent content, one must trace the connections backward from the dream images in the manifest content in the process of dream interpretation. According to Freud, "when the work of interpretation has been completed the dream may be recognized as the fulfillment of a wish" (Freud 111).

Through the analysis of several dreams, especially those of children, whose psychological censors Freud considered not fully developed, he demonstrated how this is possible, and came to the conclusion that the dream wish is often a repressed one and its fulfillment in the dream is consequently distorted so that the dream seems unpleasant and not at all like a wish fulfillment.

Before the latent dream thoughts can develop into the manifest dream content, there are a number of key processes that must take place. The first and most obvious of these processes is the condensation work. Using the interpretation of a sample dream, Freud shows that "every element of the dream content turns out to be over-determined that is, it is a nodal point, enjoying a manifold representation in the dream thoughts" (Freud 269). While the work of condensation is being completed, another equally important procedure is at work, this being the process of displacement, in which the psychological values of the dream elements are changed in order to avoid the resistance of the censor. This censor represses dream elements that represent thoughts that the dreamer would find undesirable by stripping them of their intensity and "creates new values, by way of over-determination, from elements of small value, these new values subsequently getting into the dream content" (Freud 290). The third factor that controls the formation of the dream is its regard for presentability. Because the dream is not capable of presenting abstract thoughts, it molds them into figurative language that is easily represented by visual and concrete dream images. Even after the three processes previously mentioned have been accomplished, the dream may still be disjointed and nonsensical. This dilemma is solved, though sometimes incompletely, by the final process in dream formation, the secondary elaboration. Where the fragments of the dream do not flow together easily, this function adds material it has gathered from the dream thoughts so that the dream appears to be more coherent and less fragmented. In the final section of his treatise, Freud describes the psychic apparatus that transforms stimuli into conscious thought or movement.

The separate components of this apparatus, which he calls the ^-systems, include the perception system, the memory systems, the unconscious, and the preconscious. When the perception system detects the stimuli, it transfers it to the first memory system, where the perception is changed into a "memory trace." The memory trace is passed on through the various memory systems, which alter it through a series of associations, the first being the most basic and the later ones more complex. Finally, it reaches the unconscious, which transmits it to the preconscious. After being transferred from the preconscious, the unconscious thought is now a conscious one. While normal thinking proceeds in this fashion, dreams are formed by reversing the process, that is, by its regression. Freud maintains that "the structure of the dream thoughts is in the regression broken up into its raw material" (Freud 265). By taking an intimate look at dreams and discussing them in greater detail than those before him, Freud gives the public a better understanding of dreams and the way they are formed.

Freud's arguments in The Interpretation of Dreams slowly revolutionized the way people regarded dreams, and although many of his theories were later dismissed by modern psychologists, his ideas regarding dreams and the unconscious greatly influenced philosophers, artists, and other psychologists alike. Freud considered The Interpretation of Dreams to be one of his greatest works; however, when it was first published, it did not gamer the attention and interest that Freud had hoped it would. In fact, "only 600 copies were printed of the first edition... and these took eight years to sell. Reviews, and there were not many, were mostly unfavorable, and the first English translation, by AA Brill, was not released until 1913" (Butler-Bowden). The idea that the unconscious is unable to be controlled was not widely accepted, especially in the U.S., as it was seen as an attack on human free will.