Mortal Secrets

This is intoxicating speculation. If we excavate our dreams, to the lowest level, we will find the remains of our ancestors. Freud's evolutionary psychology comes perilously close to mysticism: 'Every dream has at least one point where it eludes explanation - a sort of umbilicus linking it to the unknown.'

it is individuals at the top of social hierarchies who set cultural agendas. As such, the Viennese preoccupation with the allure of nerves was not a trivial phenomenon. It was a glimpse of the future. A prophecy concerning the shape of the modern mind.

The id does not care about facts or evidence. The id's favourite literature is 'fake news'.

There is, Freud asserted, an intimate relationship between 'the story of the patient's suffering and the symptoms of their illness'. Hysteria is a disguised narrative. It will only be truly understood if traumatic experiences are ordered, like chapters in a book.

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, like so much of Freud's writing, transcends its apparent purpose and makes a super ordinate point about self-understanding. Small things matter. The humdrum and the mundane are as telling - perhaps even more so - as prizes, major undertakings, feats and exploits. Even something as inconsequential as dropping a

Uncovering a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship is a relatively rare occurrence in clinical practice. Given how the mind works, it is much more likely that the causes of a symptom will be convergent and complex. Many experiences (in childhood, adolescence and adulthood) will create memories (accessible, partially accessible or inaccessib

The means by which the latent content of a dream is disguised Freud termed the 'dream work'. He identified several mechanisms. Condensation or 'compression' occurs when two or more images are combined without loss of meaning or implication. A figure might appear, for example, who is simultaneously the sleeper's mother and wife. Displacement occurs

The Interpretation of Dreams was, in many respects, the original surrealist manifesto, pre-dating André Breton's by over twenty years.

We must reclaim as much of ourselves as we can. We must discover a personal morality shaped by experience rather than 'tribal' prohibitions. We must wrestle our minds free of prehistory so that we can make better, rational choices.