The Interpretation of Dreams is a book by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. The book introduces Freud’s theory of the unconscious with respect to dream interpretation, and also first discusses what would later become the theory of the Oedipus complex. Freud said of this work, “Insight such as this falls to one’s lot but once in a lifetime.”

Freud describes three main types of dreams in this book: 1. Direct prophecies received in the dream (chrematismos, oraculum); 2. The foretelling of a future event (orama, visio); 3. The symbolic dream, which requires interpretation (Interpretation of Dreams 5). Much of Freud’s sources for analysis are in literature. Many of his most important dreams are his own — his method is inaugurated with an analysis of his dream “Irma’s injection” — but many also come from patient case studies.

Sigmund Freud (6 May 1856-23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the clinical analysis of symptom formation and the mechanisms of repression as well as for elaboration of his theory of the unconscious as an agency disruptive of conscious states of mind. Freud’s work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture.