The Interpretation of Dreams.

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS. Sigmund Freud. 1900/2001. Read by Robert Whitfield. 13-1.5 hour tapes. Blackstone Audio. #2841. 0-7861-2080-0. $85.95. Vinyl; content notes. SA

Many of Freud's concepts have passed so completely into our worldview that they sound obvious. Contemporary listeners to this fine reading should remember that in 1900 these ideas were revolutionary, even scandalous. What are dreams and where do they come from? Dreams, said Freud, are not absurd fragments of mental activity, but have a secret meaning, their elements combining according to special rules. In dreams, things are seldom what they seem; memory selects details as far back as earliest childhood and as recently as the day before. Like phobias and obsessions, dreams are clues to abnormal psychological structures; and always, they are the fulfillment of a wish. For his copious examples, Freud often drew on his own dreams and family anecdotes, making the treatise something of a self-portrait. Revelations that our professor used cocaine and promoted it as a medical remedy may surprise modern audiences. Today, also, some of the interpretations seem like comic flights of word association. Yet the genius of the work still dazzles.

This audiobook provides the full text translated from the German, along with the original introduction and the prefaces to the second and third editions. Even read at a brisk pace, as here, it is long. But Whitfield, award-winning actor and accomplished narrator, tackles the text with energy and authority. One could not ask for a more elegant, smooth, or precise rendition of this landmark book, the foundation of psychoanalysis.

Helen Elizabeth Woodman, Andover, NH