Mind and Dreams: Freud’s Layers of the Mind and the Psychology of Dreams.

 

Mind and Dreams

What is a dream?
Why do we dream at all?

Freud described dreams as the handiwork of our subconscious sometimes even our deepest, most hidden unconscious mind. To understand Freud’s theory of dreams, we must first understand the different layers of the mind.

The Three Layers of the Mind

Freud divided the human mind into three distinct levels.

1. The Conscious Mind
This is the most familiar layer the alert, wakeful part of our mind. It’s the one we use to make decisions, act on them, and navigate daily life. It helps us judge situations instantly, like when we look both ways before crossing the street. Our conscious mind warns us of danger and guides us toward safe, precise decisions. In that sense, it is the hardest-working part of the mind handling countless small decisions and solving problems throughout the day.

2. The Subconscious Mind
Think of this as our storehouse of memories those that are not in our immediate awareness but can be recalled when needed. We can bring them into the conscious mind and use them to act effectively.
For example, perhaps you learned to swim as a child, but haven’t been in a pool for years. The moment you step into the water, the skill returns almost effortlessly. That’s your subconscious at work preserving experiences with precision, ready to activate them even after many years.
This is different from mere “knowledge.” You could know how to swim by watching someone, but without actual practice, you wouldn’t truly be able to swim. The subconscious retains lived experience, not just theoretical memory.

Another modern example is typing. In the beginning, you have to look at each key. But over time, your fingers instinctively find their place. An expert typist can chat with someone while typing without consciously thinking about the keys. Here, the conscious mind is engaged in conversation, while the subconscious takes care of the typing.

3. The Unconscious Mind
This is the deepest, darkest layer beyond our direct reach. We cannot access its contents at will, but its existence is undeniable. Every sight, sound, sensation everything we experience is instantly recorded by the mind. This recording is automatic and lightning-fast, sorting information and sending it to the appropriate layer.
The conscious mind keeps only what it considers important. Less important details are sent to the subconscious, and the rest sink into the unconscious. Some memories bypass the subconscious entirely, going straight into the unconscious faces we see only once, fleeting moments we instantly forget.

The unconscious is vast. We may know where it begins at the fading edges of memory but not where it ends. It contains everything we have seen yet cannot recall, and perhaps much more.

The Unconscious in Action

Is there proof that the unconscious mind truly exists? Let me share a story I once read in school.

A boy, returning home from school, loses his beloved fountain pen a gift from his father. Heartbroken, he tells no one. That night, he dreams the pen is lying at the roots of a banyan tree along the path to school. The next morning, he rushes there and finds the pen exactly where he saw it in the dream.

At the time, the story was labeled “miraculous.” But in truth, the boy had been sitting under that very tree with a friend the previous day, when the pen slipped from his pocket. He had been so absorbed in conversation that he neither noticed nor cared in that moment. His conscious mind dismissed it instantly, and the memory sank into the unconscious. Later, as he obsessed over the loss in his sleep, the unconscious returned the memory through a dream.

The Nature of Dreams

Sometimes in dreams we see strangers or places we believe we’ve never encountered. Yet often, these are faces we once glimpsed in passing details our conscious mind ignored but our unconscious stored away. Dreams cannot show us anything truly beyond our experience. They weave together what we have seen, heard, or imagined based on reality.

Some say dreams are simply the expression of suppressed desires. This is partly true repressed wishes can appear in dreams but dreams can also reveal our most active hopes, joys, fears, and anxieties.

Writers often speak of waking from a dream with the solution to a story problem. When they go to bed thinking about the problem, the conscious mind shuts down in sleep, giving the subconscious a quiet, uninterrupted space to work. This is known as the incubation effect and it often leads to brilliant breakthroughs.

On the other hand, dreams can also reflect our fears and unwanted possibilities. Students, after an exam, sometimes dream they’ve failed not because they desire it, but because they fear it. Nightmares often come from the opposite of desire showing us exactly what we hope never happens.

The Endless Mystery of the Mind

In the end, we can try to analyze the mind with logic, but we will never fully know it. The mind is an eternal reservoir of mystery, limitless in scope, forever journeying toward the infinite.