Freud's Interpretation of Dreams: A Reappraisal

Freud always regarded The Interpretation of Dreams, and in particular  its thesis that dreams fulfill wishes, as his landmark contribution and  the scaffolding of his subsequent work. Susan Sugarman, after carefully  examining the text and scrutinizing a range of Freud's other works,  shows that the dreams book is not and cannot be that scaffolding. For,  not only does his argument on dreams falter, but his reasoning elsewhere  – in his case histories, his accounts of phenomena of ordinary waking  life, and even his avowedly speculative writing – displays a strength  and precision his account of dreams lacks. She concludes by exploring  what is then left of the dreams theory and Freud's overall vision of the  mind.