xplore Freud’s theories on Dreams, look at the work of two artists/photographers related to psychoanalysis and dreams.
Dreams are defined as a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep; from fantasies to nightmares the content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, however they have been a topic of scientific, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Sigmund Freud explored the concept of dreams, psychoanalysing the philosophy and the functions they perform in our unconscious minds through self-analysis and patient development. In this essay I will investigate the theories he discusses in his book The Interpretation of Dreams, which emphasizes the role of the unconscious mind, one of the underlying principles of Freudian psychology. Applying his ideologies to my own practice and existing art productions that respond and reflect the ideas of psychoanalysis and dreams, I will explore the personal adaption progressed from Freud’s revolutionary theories.
Freud is known as the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical technique applied for treating psychopathology through dialogue, creating an entirely new approach to ‘the understanding of the human personality’. He developed a theory that we as humans have an unconscious, in which our impulses are in conflict for supremacy with the defences against them. In 1897, Freud began a self-analysis of his own unconscious, attempting to read his own dreams and the meanings they explored, and in 1900 his major work ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ was published.
The Interpretation of Dreams follows Freud’s studies into the psychoanalysis of dreams, beginning with the simple discussions had with his patients. He noticed that the associations these people had whilst dreaming included material from their past and information from these previously lived moments was integrated into their sleeping unconscious, which Freud labelled day residue. Discussing dreams and their meanings with Freud opened up new areas of psychic explorations for his patients which would often lead to sudden incite for the dreamer and a relief of symptoms that had be plaguing the individual. This theory alone could be argued as the purpose of dreams, however Freud believed sleep was best when it was completely dreamless and in 1916 stated ‘a dreamless sleep is the best, the only proper one. There ought to be no mental activity in sleep’. However, it was concluded that dreams served a single purpose, they were a reflexive and physiologic process that was designed to keep people asleep. Dreams function only to be protectors of sleep. In his book Freud writes that ‘there is only one useful task, only one function, that can be described to a dream, and that is the guarding of sleep from interruption’. To explore this psychoanalysis, Freud refers back to his self-analysis, explaining that our infant and waking lives are full of emotions, drives, wishes and experiences that our minds cannot handle consciously and as a result, the loaded psychic material is supressed to the unconscious: ‘there is in fact no better analogy for repression, by which something in the mind is at once made inaccessible and preserved’. Freud identified that the problem is during the night there is less automatic repression, so the infantile feelings, traumas and wishes would surface so intensely we repeatedly wake up. From this, he proposed that each of us have a sensor whose job is to keep such material in the unconscious, so we can stay asleep. Nonetheless strong enough insensible material can boil up against the censor. The Interpretation of Dreams describes the solution Sigmund Freud concluded and practiced; dream work. This results when some material is ‘smuggled’ as Freud described it, past the censor into the conscious mind but in an altered, less intense form. This he said allowed sleep to continue as the pressure of the unconscious materials decreases whilst the ability of the individual to sleep is maintained. This material that slips past the censor was labelled by Freud as the manifest content of the dream as it is what we consciously remember about a dream when we awaken. This process involves a series of shifts in psychic material which transformed thoughts into visual memories. Dream work therefor accomplishes censorship, editing and compromise which allows the person to ‘dissipate the sleep disturbing tension associated with infantile wishes by smuggling them past the censor into the pre-conscious and conscious mind’. Freud concluded that presenting the patients latent dream thoughts back to them creates the possibility of revealing true insights and allow an actual process of psychological work to begin.
Freud’s theory was the first psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams and is still the most recognised. Despite their being newer and debatably more scientifically justifiable reflections of our dreams, Freud’s writing is still seen as significantly important in many mediums of work. When Sigmund Freud started writing and teaching his experiences and the importance of exploring memory and the unconscious mind, his intention was to revolutionize the medical world. For the era, his ideas were seen as ‘radical’ and for this reason had an impact on all types of artists. The Interpretation of Dreams spurred and influenced some of the art world’s greatest movements from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism and the Automatiste Revolution. Artists throughout these mediums all responded to Freud’s theories of the subconscious mind producing diverse responses to dreams and psychoanalysis that featured reflections of abstract hallucinations and statements of freedom.
Surrealism is defined as ‘a twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary’, literally meaning ‘above and beyond reality’. Surrealists rejected a rational view believing in capturing the beauty of the unconventional. The founding fundamentals of the movement were greatly influenced by the work Sigmund Freud published on dreams as they sought a revolution against the constraints of the rational mind; and by extension, the rules of a society they saw as oppressive. Freud’s writings about subconscious thoughts being symbolically represented in our dreams and the belief that to fully understands ourselves we must explore deep into our dreams message, inspired creatives to follow the theory, reading and reflecting their interpretation of dreams.
Along with the work of Sigmund Freud, Surrealism also developed out of the writing of poet Andre Breton who wrote the Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924. His work highlighted the importance of the dream state in art and writing, defining Surrealism as: ‘psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express the actual functioning of a thought’. Breton described the movement as being absent from any control exercised by reason and exempt from aesthetic or moral concern.
There are two main styles of Surrealist artwork, the first group worked automatically without thought, defining their work aesthetic as surreal automatism. They work in a style in which the body moves freely and isn’t consciously controlled by the mind like breathing and blinking, depicting the workings of the subconscious mind. Freud used a method called ‘free association’ to help patients discuss their dreams, using automatic drawing to explore their unconscious mind. This idea was adopted my many surrealists as an artistic method, painting and creating whatever they thought whilst not thinking. Artists such as Joan Miro worked to achieve this in their art, through abstraction and without references to objects, people, places or things.
Joan Miro is described as a pioneer of Surrealism, gaining the attention of Andre Breton and his followers for his piece titled The Hunter (Catalan Landscape). Originally a poet, Miro’s artistic pursuit was a challenge against traditional painting and an attack on the bourgeois society that produced it. He was the first to develop and apply a distinctively symbolic language of simplified shapes and abstract forms. This style reflected Breton’s embrace of dream imagery and ‘psychic automatism’, using the practice to give creative license to his unconscious mind through the unmediated painting. Miro incorporated this method and style into his work for the rest of his career. His paintings closely followed the values of Freud’s writings and the concerns of the Surrealists, giving visual definition to the young movement before ground breaking Surrealist artists like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte, influencing generations of artists to come.
Joan Miro’s painting The hunter (Catalan Landscape) is a fundamental piece of Surrealism history and reflects the ideas behind the movement and the revolutionary writings of Sigmund Freud. This piece creates a perfect reflection of the real and the imaginary, capturing the visual thoughts of his unconscious mind and responding to Freud’s ideas of dream work. The Hunter features a coloured canvas, a landscape filled with personal symbols and evocations of life on his family’s farm. As a simple render of his unconscious thoughts, Miro used free association to explore his supressed dream state, resulting in an influential abstract painting that can only be understood fully by the painter, Joan Miro. Within the piece, Miro describes, is a tree trunk sprouting a leaf and a hunter carrying a freshly killed rabbit and by which ‘renders the everydayness of the farm with a poetic intensity’. This work explores Freud’s ideas of psychoanalysis through the reflection of the unconscious material surfacing so we can interpret their meaning and develop a better understanding of ourselves. It was this surrealist approach of automatism, or free association, that attracted the attention of the founder of Surrealism, Andre Brenton who deemed Miro’s art as ‘an important stage in the development of surrealist art’.
The second style of Surrealist art, whilst still following an abstract response, used familiar everyday objects painted and photographed in a formal, realistic aesthetic however, juxtaposed these elements in unexpected and impossible settings, the way they may occur in a dream. The movement described this style of work as a ‘spontaneous method of irrational behaviour’ and whilst still being a significantly recognisable style of the movement, differs greatly from the work of surrealistic automatism. Whilst artists like Joan Miro use free association to reflect whatever their subconscious portrays, artists like Salvador Dali use Freud’s method of interpreting and understanding what their unconscious portrays, to create art that represents contextually what occurs in a dream. Freud found that our dreams were built from material from our past and information from previously lived moments which he labelled as ‘day residue’ and this ideology is the influence behind the second style of Surrealism.
Rene Magritte’s dream like aesthetic raised questions about representation and appropriation, gaining him many followers in the Surrealism movement and influencing a whole new style of abstract art. Magritte’s eerie and atmospheric paintings evoke an appealing sense of mystery and encourage an exploration of one’s own psyche, apparent in this piece titled The Son of Man. The realistically painted elements reflect a sense of possibility and a connection to the unconscious thoughts and dreams of the creator, making it an almost relatable art form. The simplicity the work possesses Freud’s theory of an individual understanding an unconscious thought, Magritte interpreting his own for us as viewers to question the meaning. The Son of Man is perhaps Rene Magritte’s most well-known work which essentially focuses on the covering of his face by the apple. He said: ‘you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see’.
Undeniably, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, not only impacted the scientific world but revolutionized all mediums of art, paving the way for new methods and influencers to explore the idea of psychoanalysis. The simple ideology of an unconscious mind lead to one of the most significant movements of the twentieth century, an art style still very relevant today. The Freudian theory was essentially the understanding that some emotions, wishes and dreams are so strong they cannot be repressed by our unconscious minds, resulting in subconscious thoughts surfacing in our dreams. Freud found that dreams were indirect and to understand why we were having them we must look deep into ourselves.
In a contemporary time where anything can be described as art, it is hard not to see responses and reflections of Sigmund Freud’s work everywhere. Exploring his theories and understanding the work he did allowed me to see the impact it had on society, not just the art world. Freud has and now always will be associated to the Surrealist movement for his inspiration of self-freedom and his work with the unconscious mind is apparent throughout, however, it is undisputable that his work hasn’t influenced further. Psychoanalysis opened up ideas of an unconscious mind, self-discovery and artistic freedom, elements present in photography today. The fashion industry, trying to set trends and style, has never been as popular as it is currently, and photography plays a large role in the influence they set. From collage to composition, the idea of an abstract state and dream-like fantasy is portrayed across the brands. The music industry, creating visually engaging videos to accompany their music, have become increasingly creative and represented ideas of an altered mind. Advertisement campaigns have designed abstract art to engage viewers and essentially raise awareness.
In conclusion, the ideas of Sigmund Fraud in The Interpretation of Dreams have been explored across many platforms and mediums and has influenced many movements and artists. The basic idea of a an unknown subconscious has resonated across decades and influenced all forms of artists, making Freud not only the father of psychanalysis, but a fundamental part of art, even today.
References
Bbc.co.uk. (2018). BBC – History – Sigmund Freud. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/freud_sigmund.shtml [Accessed 29 Nov. 2018].
Freud, S. and Brill, A. (1900). The interpretation of dreams.
Verywell Mind. (2018). Why Freud's Interpretation of Dreams Is a Classic Psychology Text. [online] Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-interpretation-of-dreams-by-sigmund-freud-2795855 [Accessed 29 Nov. 2018].
YouTube. (2018). Freudian Dream Theory v1.1. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/c2Qcmhsvcms [Accessed 29 Nov. 2018].
Cohen, A. (2018). What You Need to Know about René Magritte. [online] Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rene-magritte [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018].
Mann, J. (2018). What You Need to Know about Joan Miró, Pioneer of Surrealism. [online] Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-joan-miro-pioneer-surrealism [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018].