[Dream interpretation as access to the unconscious?--An experimental psychological evaluation]

An experiment was carried out to test Freud's assumption that the elements of the manifest dream are in particular closeness to the repressed unconscious and that free associations starting from them should therefore encounter quickly successively growing resistance. 30 female subjects were asked to associate to parts of their own dreams and of those of a control subject. Skin conductance reactions (SCR) were assessed during these procedures. The areas below the SCR curves, considered as a measure for psychophysiological activation, were significantly greater during associations to own dreams. In addition, SCR values rose significantly more often in the course of associations to the persons' own dreams than to those of other subjects. The correlation between subjectively perceived emotionality and integrated SCR values proved to be high. This justifies the use of the variable as an indicator of affective arousal. Although the experimental condition was necessarily only a rather incomplete realisation of the psychoanalytic situation, our results clearly support Freud's theory.