Psychoanalytic Reading Attempt: Advertisement As A Dream

Abstract

Consumption is not only for satisfying the needs, now it has become a process based on a lack of “desire”. Consumption constitutes identity formation in a symbolic order and therefore meaning of one's life is being consumed. Advertisements constantly encourage consumption with using visual simulacrums which are based upon on lacks of desires. Hence advertisements texts do not reflect the actual properties of objects since these texts aim to create a world of dreams in human minds. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, interpreted the visible contents of dreams and he especially emphasized hidden meanings of the dreams. In The Interpretation of Dreams Freud analyzed dreams in different aspects, and he disclosed that interpretation of dreams are the “king way” constituted by the unconscious activities of the subject. In this thesis advertisements are treated as dream texts and these texts are analyzed to reveal actual meanings of hidden contents. In this study, it is claimed that the themes and the concepts used by Freud in his dream analysis method (visible content, the hidden content, impregnating of wıshes, signs, unconscious desires, free association, distortion of dreams, the first and second spiritual agent, the dream-process, condensation, displacement, representation, secondary revision and defense mechanisms) can be adapted to advertisements analysis and the interpretation of advertisements is "the royal road" to a knowledge of our culture.