The typical contents of Freud’s and Jung’s dreams

Abstract

Freud (1900) listed many typical dreams, defined as dreams with the same manifest content. Jung (1944) differentiates the typical dream, in the manifest content, and the typical motif, an archetypical expression of psychic core contents and conflicts. From the viewpoint of the continuity hypothesis Domhoff (1996) analysed 28 dreams reported by Freud and 31 dreams reported by Jung (1961), showing that the differences between the two dream series are in continuity with the lives of the two theorists. From the same perspective, the analysis of five dreams of Sigmund Freud demonstrates that Freud himself linked these dreams to significant experiences, events and feelings of his waking life (Schredl, 2008). The main objective of the present study is to verify the frequency of typical contents in Freud’s (32 dreams) and Jung’s dreams (33 dreams). The research is carried out through three methods: 1) The list of typical dreams in Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams (1900), 2) the Typical Dreams Questionnaire (Zadra & Nielsen, 1999); 3) The grid of Categories of Typical Contents (Maggiolini, Cagnin, Crippa, Persico, & Rizzi, 2010). The analysis with the list of typical dreams proposed by Freud (1900) shows that 12% of the Freud’s sample has a typical content. With the TDQ 48% of Freud’s and 63% of Jung’s dreams has some typical content. The third method finds 91% of typical contents in Freud’s and 100% in Jung’s dreams. The relevance of typical contents in the dream narrative opens a new perspective on dream interpretation.