Research Blog 9: Argument/Counterargument

 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 book's worth) it becomes clearer and clearer that much of Freud's thoughts were influenced by what he learned when he was younger. It is also likely that he was not as far removed from Judaism as he would have liked us to think, as he married a Jewish woman and all of his children remained Jewish as well.

Sources:

Freud, Sigmund, and James Strachey. The Interpretation of Dreams. Avon Books, 1998. 

H., Berke, Joseph. The Hidden Freud : His Hassidic Roots : His Hassidic Roots, Taylor &

Francis Group, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=2068804.

Kaplan, Robert. “Soaring on the Wings of the Wind: Freud, Jews and Judaism.” Australian

and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 17, no. 4, Informa UK Ltd, 2009, pp. 318–25, doi:10.1080/10398560902870957.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Subject of Dreams

Image
    The tentative topic that I would like to explore is dreams. Although everyone dreams, scientists have yet to know why. Some theories are that dreams show us our deeper desires, they act as a link between our conscious and unconscious minds. (Freud, S., 1949) Another theory is that dreams are a sort of practice run our mind foists upon us to help keep us sharp for situations that may arise when we're awake. Some researchers think there is no reason at all. ( Revonsuo, A) Th e mystery of dreams runs even deeper than not knowing the reason for them. We don't recall most of the dreams we have; about 95% of them are forgotten by the time we wake up. What effect would remembering more of our dreams have on us? What about lucid dreaming?      There is also a supernatural aspect to dreams. In many cultures dreams are actually prophetic visions and entirely interpretable. Some people would even take certain substances to induce such visions. There are modern cases of people who drea
Read more

Literature review: Freud's Dream of Interpretation

Image
  Citation: Frieden, Ken.  Freud's Dream of Interpretation , State University of New York Press, 1990.  ProQuest Ebook      Central , https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rutgers-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3408353. Summary: Ken Frieden writes a summary of and commentary on Sigmund Freud's own book, "The Interpretation of Dreams." He focuses on Freud's reactions to instances of dream interpretation mentioned in the Old Testament, particularly Joseph and Daniel. The work is also critical of Freud's theories, as Frieden points out that the whole point of Freud's work was to establish dream interpretation as a legitimate practice, and he sometimes seems to contradict himself.  Author: Ken Frieden is  a professor of Judaic studies at Syracuse University. He is involved in the Departments of English, Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, and Religion. Frieden writes about Jewish literature.  He has written and published several of his own works, as well as e
Read more

Literature review 5: When Did Your Dreams Come True?

Image
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. . ." "Ei
Read more