How far does Freud's idea of the Unconscious and dream analysis go back in history?

-- Jeff Coviello (jmcovie@aol.com), March 05, 2002

Answers

Both have long histories. There are several nice histories of the unconscious.

Henri Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (New York: Basic Books, 1970). This focuses on Freud and post-Freudian theories, but includes earlier material, including quite a bit on nineteenth- century dream theories. He includes summaries of two famous nineteenth-century works: Eduard Von Hartmann, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869) and Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869), Psyche.

Lancelot Law Whyte, The Unconscious Before Freud (Basic Books, 1960)

Erich Kahler, The Tower and the Abyss (New York: George Braziller, 1957). Kahler, a literary critic, suggests that the Jungian collective unconscious should be called the generic unconscious, so that collective unconscious can refer to that in the unconscious which comes from participation in the collective.

Kahler has a wonderful history of the unconscious in Kahler, E. (1967). Varieties of the unconscious. In E. Kahler, Out of the labyrinth: Essays in clarification (R. & C. Winston, Trans.; pp. 121- 160). New York: George Braziller. (Original work published 1960- 1961). This includes both dynamic and cognitive ideas of the unconscious, and is as far as I'm concerned one of the best histories available.

I published a summary of the unconscious in 19th-century dream theories in my dissertation, which is summarized in: Hendrika Vande Kemp, "The Dream in Periodical Literature, 1860-1910," The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1981, 17, 88-113. The dissertation references extensive work on dreams before Freud.

For a couple anthologies that will introduce you to an overview of the history of dreams, see

Woods, R. L. (Ed.). (1947). The world of dreams: An anthology: The mystery, grandeur, terror, meaning and psychology of dreams, as told by the world's great writers, philosophers, theologians, historians, scholars, scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists; from ancient time to today. New York: Random House.

Woods, R. L., & Greenhouse, H. B. (Eds.). (1974). The new world of dreams. New York: Macmillan.

Literature on dreams prior to Freud is so extensive that my bibliography on classical sources is 13 pages long. I'd be glad to share it.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), March 05, 2002.

P.S. The "classic" though dated history of dreams is Wolff, W. (1952). The dream—mirror of conscience.: A history of dream interpretation from 2000BC and a new theory of dream synthesis. New York: Grune & Stratton.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), March 06, 2002.

Jeff...for centuries, a lot of Sicilians stuffed clumps of dough with cheese and tomatoes and baked them in an oven.

It wasn't until 1934, however, after Cesare Batolemente invented the first circular cheese w/tomatoe-sauce pie and NAMED it, that the rest of the world was able to understand the concept of "pizza" as we know it today.

A metaphor that occurred to me while thinking that just about any response might claim to be historically accurate:-)

-- visualize me (visualizeme@webtv.net), March 07, 2002.