ABSTRACT
Seen within a semiological and linguistic context, Freud's theoretical treatment of dreams assumes even greater value. In elaborating this point, we shall make convenient, critical reference to the veritably pioneering monograph of Marshall Edelson (1973), who rightly pictures Freud the dream theorist as the forerunner of modern semiology. 1 Accordingly, Edelson specifies that when ‘Freud describes the dream as a kind of rebus, he is clearly concerned, and perhaps the first semiologist to state the problem so explicitly, with the translation of the symbolic forms of one symbolic system into those of another symbolic system’ (p. 252), i.e. the translation of the verbal latent dream into the predominant visuality of the manifest dream. Edelson's own guiding interest is to harmonize Freudian and Chomskian tenets, to establish an isomorphism between linguistic deep and surface structures and the dual structure of oneiric activity itself. Hence, ‘the semantically interpreted deep structures underlying dreams are identical with those underlying linguistic forms generated in waking consciousness’ (p. 234). All in all, Edelson's own text merits close attention insofar as it makes a daring attempt in semiological innovation, incorporates a sensitive reading of The Interpretation of Dreams, and recurrently offers stimulating questions for further speculation and research.
