Sigmund Freud *0002




This gentleman was the one who got me interested in sexuality from an early age. Back in 9th grade, I was constantly holed up in the school library, utterly absorbed in his brilliant case studies on psychotherapeutic treatments using association techniques. A truly great man.

He argued that most psychological problems stem from sexual issues. And honestly, given the atmosphere of Victorian Europe where women were forced into extreme modesty, it seems quite reasonable—almost historically empirical—to suppose that such issues arose from women’s repressed sexual freedom. Or at least, that’s the kind of conclusion I think I might be inclined to possibly agree with. Maybe.
But the "woman problem" isn’t just a women’s issue. Problems of a particular class don’t stay confined to that class. Society is an organism—when one part breaks down, the effects ripple across the whole. Ignore it like it’s none of your business, and you’ll end up with a metaphorical smack in the mouth.

He was the first to study and analyze dreams academically and introduced them as a whole new concept. His Interpretation of Dreams once inspired me with a burning conviction to start keeping a dream journal. But that turned out to be maddeningly difficult—blink for a second, and it vanished like smoke in the wind. So I only ended up recording a few dreams. It felt like something—or someone—was deliberately sabotaging the effort.

Around the year 2000, after watching The Matrix for the first time, I started wondering if dreams were traces left behind after logging out of the Matrix. Maybe we’re all doing necessary work in the original world, but those hours are so encrypted that even the core agent—me—can’t decipher or remember them.
You can die from not sleeping. In other words, sleep is essential for life. If human life is composed of both body and mind (and a person in a vegetative state, with no consciousness, can’t function as a proper living being), then sleep—and dreams—are like food for the soul. So the fact that Freud built a systematic academic framework around sleep and dreams makes him a truly extraordinary person.

He’s the one who planted in me the dream of becoming a psychologist. The idea of hearing people’s secret stories through counseling sounded like a life full of thrilling possibilities. More than anything, by introducing the concept of the unconscious, he was to the mind what Darwin was to the body: the great revealer of hidden truth. If Darwin unveiled the secrets of physical evolution, then Freud uncovered the mysteries of the inner world.

Beyond his academic achievements, one thing that makes him truly admirable is this:
Even after undergoing multiple surgeries for oral cancer in his later years, he refused to rely on medication. He needed a clear mind to pursue his scholarly convictions, and so he endured the pain and stood firm in his beliefs to the very end. That kind of resolve is something I deeply respect.

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