ABSTRACT
Systematic research on Freud’s dream theory has been frequently hindered by the conviction that its hypothesis cannot be tested empirically. Actually, the studies on children’s dreams that I am presenting here are evidence of the contrary. These studies point out that it is possible to test empirically Freud’s hypotheses on the early forms of dreaming and that these tests are not irrelevant for an empirical judgement of certain more general statements of Freud’s dream theory. This methodological result is the most important one to me. Certainly, from a theoretical and methodological standpoint, I have developed the belief that without an appropriate study and systematization of the Freudian dream theory, identifying research hypotheses correctly derived from the original ones is a difficult task. However, considering the vastness and complexity of Freud’s work, this is not surprising. The studies that I have presented here also allowed us to find a first empirical support of certain Freudian observations and hypotheses on children’s dreams. Particularly, the characteristics observed by Freud on the dreams of his children (i.e., brevity, lack of bizarreness, direct wish-fulfilment, etc.) received 196confirmation through the analysis of larger samples of dream reports collected in a more systematic way The same hypothesized relationship between the increase of dream bizarreness and the development of the superego functions of the personality received substantial support, which encourages a more in-depth study of the disguise-censorship model. This second, empirical result, I believe represents an interesting point of departure. My purpose was to try to define a methodological way to test Freud’s hypotheses on children’s dreams and, at same time, to collect some preliminary data to begin to appraise the empirical value of these hypotheses. Therefore, I regard this work as a project in progress, which will require further development through additional studies. My hope is that other authors will be able to appraise in further studies the reliability of the characteristics of children’s dreams found here.
