The attempt by a psychotherapist to interpret a person’s dreams to reveal symbolic meaning to dream episodes.
The systematic study of the content of dreams as a way of understanding a person’s unconscious mind. Dream analysis has been used in psychiatry and psychology since the time of Sigmund Freud, who called dreams the “royal road to the unconscious” and saw them as the acceptable expression of otherwise unacceptable and repressed emotions, particularly about sex. Contemporary psychoanalysts emphasize sexuality less, but still see dreams as symbolic representations of feelings and emotional conflicts in waking life. Dream analysis seeks to understand the symbols in dreams and make this understanding available to the individual as a way of improving his or her life.
Analyzing an individual’s dreams is a component of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy. This method, originally introduced by Sigmund Freud, is grounded on the concept that suppressed emotions and ideas are unconsciously expressed in dreams, albeit in a veiled manner.