Dreams, the Final Frontier

Citation:  Tierney, John. “When Did Your Dreams Come True?” The New York Times , The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2009, tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/when-did-your- dreams-come-true/#:~:text=For%20both%20dreams%2C%20we%20asked,dream%20that%20had%20come%20true.  Summary: The New York Times conducted a survey of its readers, asking which dream theory they believed in out of four options. 51% indicated that they believed in Freudian dream theory. They then asked the respondents if they could recall a dream that they'd had which came true. 33% could.  Author: John Tierney is a journalist. Supposedly he wanted to be a scientist but went with journalist because  with peer review, it was an easier way to get his articles out there.  Key terms: Dreams, Statistics of dreams, Poll, Freud Quotes: "As in our other research, the Freudian theory proved most popular: a majority of your readers (51.0%) reported believing the Freudian theory of dreaming to be most true. . ....

 My Argument: Freud's dream theory as seen in his work, "The Interpretation of Dreams" was influenced by his Jewish upbringing and several Jewish works of literature such as the Zohar.  Counterargument: Many sources claim that Freud had little to no relationship with Judaism, including Freud himself. He even wrote an entire book, " Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices" which illustrated how foolish he thought organized and traditional religions were. He also referred to himself as a "G-dless Jew." (Kaplan, p. 2) However: several biographies have been written about Freud's upbringing and it simply cannot be the case that he had no relationship with Judaism. The Freud family was part of a Hasidic Jewish community and Freud is known to have attended a Jewish University and was actually renowned for his knowledge of the Tanakh and surrounding Jewish texts. Piecing together what we know he learned with what we know of his dream theory (and entire...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnNJwUlLzR0   The Documentary, " Freud’s Unconscious - The Psychoanalysis of a Dream, and Its Dreamer" has many insightful things to say about how Freud interpreted dreams. There was quite a bit of mention of his childhood and how it impacted his future dreams. Interestingly, there was only a very slight allusion to his Jewish upbringing even though the importance of childhood was heavily discussed. The reference to his Jewishness was a book which was present in Freud's house growing up, a copy of the Philipson Bible which is actually the Tanakh, a compilation of Jewish Literature (including the Old Testament) which vastly predates any bible. The narrator claims that his memory of the book is a key biographical moment of Freud's life, and yet did not mention Judaism at all, something else that is doubtlessly a key biographical factor in how we view Freud. The vast majority of the documentary was dedicated to analyzing a dream Freud had ...

 My main case to illustrate my claim that Freud was influenced by Jewish Dream interpretation is a story found in the Talmud involving Rabbi Eliezer, a Jewish sage. In the story, a woman comes to him, and tells him her dream. The granary of her house cracked. Rabbi Eliezer interpreted it to mean that she would bear a son, and she did. This happened several more times, the same dream and the same interpretation, and she birthed several sons. One day, Rabbi Eliezer was absent, so she brought her dream to his disciples instead. They interpreted the dream to mean that her husband would die, and then he did. Rabbi Eliezer found out what happened and told his students, "You killed that poor man!" From this story in the Talmud, it is learned that the meaning of dreams depends on their interpretation.  The way this helps my argument, is that this is a story Freud would have learned, as we know he studied the Talmud in his youth. Incidentally, the moral of the story is also Freud'...

 My theoretical frame is based off of Freud's Jewishness. The article "Freud's Dream of Interpretation" by Ken Freiden openly discusses Freud's issues with Jewish dream interpretation, which gives a great counterpoint. However, articles such as  “Soaring on the Wings of the Wind: Freud, Jews and Judaism.” by Robert Kaplan and "  The Hidden Freud : His Hassidic Roots" by Joseph Berke discuss Freud's Jewish upbringing. Using all the sources together , I'm teasing out definitive proof that Freud's theories were directly influenced by Jewish works, and sometimes even taken directly from them. Not only that, but Freud, despite all his disdain for Judaism, was the absolute epitome of a Jew. Sources: Frieden, Ken. Freud's Dream of Interpretation, State University of New York Press, 1990.           ProQuest Ebook Central , http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/ detail.action?              ...

Citation: Wineman, Aryeh. “A HASIDIC VIEW OF DREAMS, TORAH-TEXT, AND THE LANGUAGE OF ALLUSION.” Hebrew Studies , vol. 52, no. 1, National Association of Professors of Hebrew in Institutions of Higher Learning, 2011, pp. 353–62, doi:10.1353/hbr.2011.0031. Summary: This text gathers different Hasidic views and sources on dreaming. For example, there's various superstitions such as being asleep is equal to being 1/60th dead. There is also cases discussed from the Zohar and the Ohr Yitzchok, two Jewish texts which are extremely important to the Hasidic community. It goes over the text in the Torah as well, and discusses Hasidic views of the dreams that appear in Genesis. Author: Aryeh Wineman has written several books about hasidic Judaism. Many of them focus on more spiritual and mystical interpretations and stories. He is also a rabbi, which makes him something of an expert. Key terms: hasidic judaism, kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), zohar (book of Jewish mysticism) Qu otes: ". . ....