"It is a mistake to believe that a science consists of nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand only made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form and a need to replace the religious catechism by something else, even if it be a scientific one." Throughout "Interpretation of Dreams," Freud attempts to explain that dreams are fulfillment of wishes. From personal experiences, Freud examines dreams and concludes from his interpretations that dreams are fulfillments. His attempt to develop a scientific theory lacks the scientific validity required by common science today. Freud's ideas are ingenious, but his data is limited.
Freud defines dreams as, "psychical phenomena of complete validity - fulfillments of wishes; they can be inserted into the chain of intelligible waking mental acts; they are constructed by highly complicated activity of the mind" (Freud 330).
Sigmund Freud Quote
Sigmund Freud
English: aFreud's most well known example of wish fulfillment is his 19-month old daughter. After being sick with an upset stomach all day, she is heard sayings, "stwawbewwies, wild stwawbewies, omblet, pudden!" (Freud 336). Examples like these are what Freud bases his entire theory on; personal experiences of his family and friends. Freud states that young children show evidence of wish fulfillment to a greater extent than adults.
"The dreams of young children are frequently pure wish fulfillments and are in that case quite interesting compared with the dreams of adults. They raise no problems for solution; but on the other hand they are of inestimable importance in proving that, in their essential nature, dreams represent fulfillments of wishes" (Freud 334).
Freud believes that the reason children show wish fulfillment more than adults is because of there pure minds. Children always want, and when they don't get what they want...