One of the first reports of Freud’s work and writings in Australia…

The Register, Adelaide, Thursday 4 May 1911, p.4. According to the newer theories of dreams, that which we perceive in a dream is a symbol. Professor Sigmund Freud, of Vienna, holds that behind the symbolism of dreams there lies ultimately a wish: and he believes that this wish is tinged by elements that go back to the dreamer’s infantile days. As Freud views the mechanism of dreams it is far from exhibiting a disordered mental activity, but is the outcome of a wish or a desire, which is driven back by a kind pf inhibition or censure, and is seeking new forms of expression. Thus, in Freud’s view, we never dream of anything without wishing in some irregular conscious or subconscious way to do so. This theory is not accepted without reserve by other psychologists, who urge that just as some unrelated picture or scene—observed perhaps many years ago— sometimes appear on the surface of consciousness, so may dream images arise. Such images come to the surface of consciousness as unexpectedly or disconnectedly as a minute bubble might arise and break on the surface of an actual stream from old organic material silently disintegrating in the depths beneath. The slight disintegration or alteration of a minute cell in the brain would produce a similar effect sleeping or waking.