who developed theories about the power of the part of the mind called the unconscious
Unconscious mind The concept was popularized by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In psychoanalytic theory, unconscious processes are understood to be directly represented in dreams, as well as in slips of the tongue and jokes.
Content (Freudian dream analysis) Dreams embody the involuntary occurrences within the mind throughout various stages of sleep. Throughout the early part of the twentieth century, psychologist Sigmund Freud made incredible advances in the study and analysis of dreams. Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) used an evolutionary biological perspective to infer that these nightly visions are a product of one’s individual psyche. As the “royal road to the unconscious”, dreams allow for accessibility to parts of the mind that are inaccessible through conscious thought. According to his psychoanalytic theory, dreams—like most psychological experiences—can be understood through two distinct levels: manifest and latent. Modern research continuously proves that dreams contain fundamentally meaningful information. Therefore, appropriate interpretations of these two layers can facilitate assistance in understanding, “whether, when, and how unconscious processes are truly relevant to daily life” (Friedman & Schustack, 2012).