Freud links together responsibility with dreams and says that we must hold ourselves responsible for our dreams, for that with which we come face to face in our dreams. Dreaming is thus, for Freud, the sphere in which responsibility dwells.
In Some Additional Notes on Dream Interpretation as a Whole, Freud discusses how the “content of the dream” arises from out of, and belongs to, one’s “own being” and says that one “must assume responsibility for” the content of one’s dreams, that is, for the impulses in one’s dreams.
“What else is one to do with them? Unless the content of the dream (rightly understood) is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being. If I seek to classify the impulses that are present in me according to social standards into good and bad, I must assume responsibility for both sorts; and if, in defense, I say that what is unknown, unconscious and repressed in me is not my ‘ego’ then I shall not be basing my position on psychoanalysis, I shall not have accepted its conclusions – and I shall perhaps be taught better by the criticisms of my fellow men, by the disturbances in my actions and the confusion in my feelings. I shall perhaps learn that what I am disavowing not only ‘is’ in me but sometimes ‘acts’ from out of me as well”
Sigmund Freud, Some Additional Notes on Dream Interpretation as a Whole
But does not that which reveals itself to oneself in one’s own dream dwell in a site that both exceeds and evades one’s conscious awareness? How could then one hold oneself responsible for that with which one comes face to face in one’s dream? How could one assume responsibility for that which does not belong to one’s conscious awareness and for that which one cannot control?
What Freud means is thus not that one should condemn and criticize oneself for one’s dream whose contents exceed and escape one’s power, but rather that the dream and its contents should themselves be the beginning of a certain relation into which oneself enters with one’s self, a revealing relation bringing together into the same place oneself with what used to evade and escape oneself.
Dreams reveal and open up to view that which conceals itself and is thus hidden. One should then own what has finally revealed itself in its opening itself up to one’s own view as part of oneself. The relation linking together one’s self with itself is thus a relation of revealing, admitting, and acknowledging.
This relation brings one closer to oneself, since its origin is revealing and rendering known, occurring as coming face to face with what used to be unknown, hidden, and concealed. By recognizing that which reveals itself to oneself as part of oneself, one could then learn how to redirect or reform one’s impulses. Assuming responsibility for the impulses in one’s dreams means acknowledging that which reveals itself and hence learning how to redirect and reform it.
Hence, holding oneself responsible for the content of one’s dreams does not mean either blaming and criticizing oneself for what one cannot control or distancing oneself from what does not belong to one’s own conscious awareness, but rather expanding the conscious part of oneself by bringing into it what has finally revealed itself in a dream through entering in a relation with it, a relation of owning, admitting, and acknowledging.
According to Freud, if we do not hold ourselves responsible for the impulses in our dreams, that is, if we do not recognize these impulses and own them, and if they are left unconscious and hidden, they will finally evade us and escape into public space and, at that moment, others will then blame and criticize us.
Heidegger’s Thrownness and Freud’s Dreams
In Being and Time, Heidegger says that we find ourselves already thrown into that which we did not choose or decide. And that into which we are thrown is that through which we must pass in our experiencing, understanding, and thinking of the world. We are thrown into that from which escaping is impossible, and that into which we are thrown decides our own impossibilities and possibilities. (The article, What does Heidegger mean by “Dasein’s thrownness”?, introduces and explains what Heidegger means by ”thrownness”)
Hence, thinking our own thrownness and that into which we are thrown as our own possibilities and impossibilities is neither simple nor straightforward. The second division of Being and Time attempts to think and question how Dasein could hold itself responsible for its own thrownness into that which it did not choose. That is, thinking responsibility is thinking from out of our own thrownness into the world.
Dreaming is also a certain kind of thrownness— although Freud never used the word “thrownness”— taking place as finding oneself in that which one did not choose, that is, one’s dream. Both Heidegger and Freud ask the same questions: Should one assume responsibility for that which one did not create, for that which we cannot control? How could one hold oneself responsible for what one did not choose, for what cannot be controlled? How could we think from out of that which exceeds us toward ourselves and our existence? Both Freud and Heidegger say that we always find ourselves already placed in a certain network of significance whose origin, beginning, and scope lie beyond us.
The difference between Freud and Heidegger is neither the thrownness itself into a specific world of meanings nor the event of finding ourselves, of being found by ourselves, thrown into what precedes and controls us, but rather that into which we are thrown, the world of meanings into which we are thrown.
Heidegger’s thrownness is a thrownness into a certain history, tradition, heritage, etc. That is, Heidegger’s thrownness is a thrownness into what is known, apparent, and clear. And although thinking one’s existence from out of this thrownness is neither simple nor straightforward, it remains a thinking of that which is certain in its surrounding of oneself.
The Freudian thrownness, on the other hand, is a thrownness into a dream whose origin is unconsciousness, obscurity, and repression. In the dream, we are thrown into what is idiosyncratic, elusive, and elsewhere, revealing by concealing itself, rendering itself known by obscuring itself. Freud radicalizes the notion of finding oneself already in that which one did not either choose or decide and hence expands and problematizes what is meant by responsibility.
The webpage ”Sigmund Freud” contains other articles explaining and introducing Freud’s thought.