Dreams

This chapter is divided into three parts. Freud’s ideas are outlined in the first part, which are then related to consumption in the following two parts. In part one, three dreams are used to introduce Freud’s understanding of the dream process. The dream of Irma illustrates the role played by processes of condensation and displacement, acting in concert to shape the manifest content of the dream into a rebus requiring decoding by analysis. The dream of la belle bouchère illustrates the role played by identification, which Freud draws on in his analysis to demonstrate that a dream always fulfils a wish, even when appearing to deny it. Finally, the peculiar hallucinatory nature of dreams is discussed through Freud’s analysis of the dream of the burning child, which also illustrates the role played by regression in the dream process. The second part touches on the recruitment of Freud’s ideas by commercial interests during the 1940s and 1950s in seeking to market the consumer dream. This concludes with a brief discussion of the furore created in the late 1950s surrounding the use of subliminal advertising. The final part addresses some of the criticisms that have been levelled against Freud’s theory of dreams, focusing specifically on Hans Eysenck, who amongst others, contributed to the death of Freud’s ideas in the USA.1 There follows a discussion of recent evidence in relation to the role played by unconscious processes in consumer behaviour; it concludes that these are in line with a psychoanalytic understanding.