The Interpretation of Dreams

Regarded as one of Freud's most significant works, this book introduces the concept that dreams are a way to explain the unconscious. For dreaming in itself as a phenomenon requires investigation, because why does it occur at all?

The main idea is that dreams are a result of the unconscious process of wish construction and that there is both a way to interpret the very content remembered and played out within the dream, and the underlying meaning of the dream itself.

The book explores a number of dreams, both from Freud himself and patient case studies, to explain the ideas of symbolism, direct prophecy and the foretelling of future events. The foundation of what would later become one of Freud's more famous, and arguably infamous theories, the Oedipus Complex, is explored here also.