Rating: 
Summary: Good edition of the Book.
Review: This edition of "Interpretation of Dreams" hits all the marks-it has extensive introductory notes, bibliography, and a more than adequate index. Moreover, specific dreams in the text are referenced in a separate index. They also have the English translations of the foreign-language footnotes, which is always helful for those of us who only speak three and not seven languages. The editors understand all facets of "user friendly," which means that this book not only friendly to the user, but friendly for use. It has every bell and whistle that any student, scholar, or savant could want in a book, which is a rare thing.Moreover, the cover art is very eye catching, since the blurred water-color profiles have a dream-like quality about them, reinforcing, but not distracting from the books subject and contents. In many ways, the book is the cover. I admire the heavy secondary research Freud put into his book. Keeping in mind Freud's ideas were gestating in the late 1800's, when there was none of the perfected scientific research and research methods that we have today. Like Darwin, Galileo, or Newton, Freud did so much with so little in the way of technological gizmos. This adds even a greater luster to his genius. However, there are two issues I have with Dr. Freud's methodology. First, his has a very odd universe of sampling, namely himself and his neurotic patients (136, 138). First of all, relying on his own dreams for analysis tends to make his research solipsistic, which is to say we may be looking more at Freud than his research and conclusions. Moreover, relying on neurotic patients does not yield statistically balanced data. His skewed sampling leads to a skewed conclusion. Secondly, Freud comes to the reductionist conclusion that all dreams are wish fulfillment. Keeping in mind the strange and limited universe of sampling, it is no wonder that Freud came to this rather odd conclusion. Part of the problem is that Freud completely ignored the creativity aspect of dreams. The classic example of the creativity in dreams is Elias Howe's invention of the sewing machine needle. He was an English inventor trying to invent the sewing machine. He had all the parts in place expect the needle, which was giving him problems. He fell asleep at his inventor's table and dreamt cannibals were chasing him, whose spears that had holes in the tops. He woke up and put the hole in the top of the machine needle, and presto! A new industry. I recognize that this book is an essential the historical literature of psychology. And I have no qualms about typical and ubiquitous Freudian sexology. Sex, or better yet reproduction, is a power drive in humanity, although I do not concede that it is the one and only drive.
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