He is a prophet who preached modernity with his insight into the innards of human mind. So it is no exaggeration to aver
that he is one among the pioneering personalities who brought the world from its shroud of ignorance and misgivings to light. While attending a honorary meeting conducted to felicitate him, Freud declined the title of being discoverer of subconscious mind, instead he chose to call himself as an observer of mind.
Yes indeed he was a fanatic observer of human mind and found certain missing links and subtle workings of mind at different level. This knowledge was a path breaking one in the long history of mental health studies. Up until, people took
dreams for messages sent by heavenly bodies to the mortals as decrees either from God or Satan. The age was waiting for a prophet to set things in order by lashing the light of awareness to the murkier mystery called mind.
When he first introduced his concepts on mind there were not many takers for him, instead he met with scathing attack from the moral policing religious personalities. More than any other thinker of bygone era, Freud had to face severe
criticism for his concept of different stages in growth and character formation. He spoke incessantly of the libidinal factor as the reason behind the human energy and propagated a new notion that sex is the vital force behind all human activities on earth. Though there was severe criticism, his views found currency.
This book on dreams are of a revealing one where one finds it wonderful that human dreams are something theoretical and it has nothing do with God or Divine. He put God and the like away from his theoretical sphere and chose to be imaginative and realistic. He is here analyzing dreams as though they are a certain chemical components. There are several case studies in the work, like one day man came to his clinic complaining a special dream in which he had the vision of giant lizard creeping. Freud, as usual, put him to a rigorous study. He could find the reason for such a weird dream that man had once saw a picture of Lizard some where in book and this became the subject of the dream. The book in discussion can really provide us a rare glimpse into the universe of Freud and the ways in which the modern psychology found its progress. The book is a must read.