Hamlet: The Dream

Shakespeare went to sleep one night, and had a dream. In his dream a man named Claudius had killed his brother and married his wife in order to become king. Claudius’ nephew was to revenge his father's death. Shakespeare woke up gasping for air. He was sweaty and anxious. That night, he couldn't go back to sleep.
The next day, William decided to go to his good friend Freud, a well known psychologist to ask him how he would interpret his dream.

"To interpret your dream,” said Freud, you must "furnish me with the unconscious thoughts which lie behind the dream-content" of yours. Otherwise, my "interpretation is seriously restricted." Shakespeare, decided to head home.

William’s dreams got weirder as the nights went by. In one dream, as he looked at his reflection on a window, he realized all his hair was gone. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed, and started walking fast, avoiding strangers that walked by. He started having recurring dreams of his father, who had died months prior. And a few dreams were about his dead son, Hamnet.

Shakespeare started dreaming the same things over and over. He either dreamt of Claudius, his father, or his son. Sometimes, parts of one dream would merge with another. He would dream that Claudius’ nephew was his own son. But whenever the dead king (in Shakespeare’s dream, his own father) was mentioned, William switched places with his son, and found himself in the nephew’s body.

Waking up in the middle of the night, after having an exhausting dream, became routine for Shakespeare. He knew he had to do something about it. He started to write all his dreams down. After a month, he gathered all his writings and made a play out of them. It took him two years to write this play, which he called “Hamlet.”

Writing “Hamlet” was no easy task. It was hard to include creative features in this anthology of dreams. This is why, some consider this tragic masterpiece, “an artistic failure.” Another problem William had with the dream, was making it all make sense. Hamlet, the character, faced some feelings he couldn't understand, just as Shakespeare’s head was full of dreams which didn’t make sense. Since Shakespeare didn’t understand his own dream, interpreting the play is no easy task.

As soon as Shakespeare finished with the play, he went back to Freud. “In here lie all my unconscious thoughts,” Shakespeare said. “Now, interpret my dreams. Tell me what I have to do in order to have normal nights again.” Freud took his time reading "Hamlet." He read it at least three times. Keeping in mind his theories of dreams, childhood sexual desires and such, Freud reached the following conclusion:

“Hamlet is able to do anything but take vengeance upon the man who did away with his father and has taken his father's place with his mother- the man who shows him in realization the repressed desires of his own childhood. The loathing which should have driven him to revenge is thus replaced by self-reproach, by conscientious scruples, which tell him that he himself is no better than the murderer whom he is required to punish.”

He was amazed that his friend William would have come up with such a complicated phychological issue to represent his own dilemmas. The recent death of Shakespeare’s father would explain the revival or many childish feelings towards this parental figure. (Idea of Georg Brandes.) Amazingly enough, Freud didn’t have to tell Shakespeare anything in order for the dreams to stop. After writing "Hamlet", the troublesome dreams faded away and Shakespeare’s nights went back to normality.