Telepathy throws no new light on the nature of dreams, nor does the dream bear witness for the reality of telepathy.Sigmund Freud: Dreams and the Occult
FREUD'S LIFE
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is credited as being the founder
of psychoanalysis. His work has had a profound influence in
several areas of life - science, culture and art have all been
affected by Freud's psychoanalytic philosophies.
In 1881, Freud obtained his doctorate in medicine and began practice in the psychiatric ward of the Vienna General Hospital. In 1887 he began experimenting with the use of hypnosis in the treatment of his patients.
FREUD AND THE OCCULT
During the course of his work as a therapist, Freud often came in contact with patients who claimed to have had occult experiences. He took a great interest in the study of occult phenomena in private. Publicly, however, he rejected and renounced it as nothing but superstitious nonsense.But phenomena like premonitions, telepathy, premonitory dreams and things he referred to as "remarkable coincidences" and "uncanny experiences" fascinated him. Indeed, he wrote numerous books and papers on these subjects. The occult mystified him.
Spurred on by his curiosity, he visited a psychic with a friend and was amazed about how much information the psychic seemed to know. He put this knowledge down to the psychic's telepathic abilities.
Freud seems to have been pulled back and forth in a debate with himself regarding the validity of the occult. In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life he dismissed things like omens, prophetic dreams, telepathic experiences and manifestations of supernatural forces, saying all these things could be explained by other means.
However, he never could completely dismiss telepathy. He said it was physiological rather than psychic and could be explained by the transfer of tangible thought waves. But even here he later changed his mind and admitted that telepathy might have some psychic validity.
FREUD AND DREAMS
"Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious."
So claimed Sigmund Freud. He believed that dreams were the pathway to experiences buried beneath the conscious mind. He said that in childhood everyone had forbidden sexual desire, things so frightening they couldn't be faced in conscious thought. Often these dreams involved one's mother, and thus we have the Oedipus complex. He claimed these hidden desires and impulses manifested in dreams as strange creatures and frightening events.
Dreams are clues to the unconscious self. We know things deep in the unconscious that we are unaware of in conscious thought.. When a person is asleep, his defenses are lowered allowing those things hidden or forgotten to surface. Sometimes a combination of these things
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