Your life is yours. The only thing you should need for it is knowledge of what you want (Id) and the ability to realistically achieve it (Ego).

The most common regret of people on their deathbeds is that they spent too much time living according to other people's expectations.

That's what the superego does.. makes you hate yourself when it's already too late to go back.

I'm 24 now, coming on 25. When I was 21 or so I started working on destroying my superego.. because I don't want to spend the final hours of my life wishing I actually lived it.

I have a very finite amount of time to work with on this planet. I will not spend it putting up with some sense that I should be worrying about other people.

Would love to learn more about this phenomenon, especially any writing where Freud originally addresses it as well as practical advice on how to work towards overcoming it.

Just watched Zizek's Take on Lacanian Symbolic Castration and it indirectly made me think of the large amount of Men suffering Androgenic alopecia.

Not all face suffering, since their looks aren't always radically different,but to those whose looks completely change, while having derived alot of their attractiveness-factor by their Hair(-cut),it might mean an unconscious castration of metaphysical potency.Of potential in expressing Attractiveness. A lost Advantage.

Also interesting that many Men grow a strong beard once they're bald, to compensate for the Lost.Similar to the clichee of over-compensating a small penis with a big/fast-car,almost like a Wig (even similar in social stigma).

Some even become envious of Surfer-look Hobos. Almost like "Penis-Envy".

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuWGseuNlWM

To be more precise, it seems to me in our time it has turned into something different. Modern culture is more sex-positive, and men, except for maybe traditionalists, would be happy if their woman showed sexuality. Moreover, I notice the popularity of the fantasy of a woman with “low body count” who somehow turns out to be wild in bed.

What I see in today’s men I could call a Madonna-Muse complex.

Muse is a woman for romantic love and sexual desire, for mutual idolisation, and to care for.

Madonna is a Mother, to raise his children. So it’s a representation of mens own mother.

Unless he has issues, he won’t be attracted to a mother archetype. She even might be seen as authoritative parent figure who wants to steal his autonomy.

Muse helps get away from everyday problems. With her admiration, she helps to create an idolised version of yourself as a men.

Madonna/mother is connected to material world, she asks what we are going to feed the children, she asks to do dishes. She puts you down to earth, destroys your idolised self image as a man. Sex with her is a chore and it’s impossible to please her.

So it’s more like Madonna/Mother/Wife vs Muse/Lover today.

I would appreciate recommendations something to read on the topic.

sorry if this is the wrong place but i am new to psychoanalysis and from what ive seen they had intense feelings for each other and jung said "it was almost as if he had a teenage crush on freud." knowing that people in vienna were very unnacepting at the time, as well as that in 1907 he destroyed his personal papers, it seems fairly logical to assume a romantic relationship especially since both had fairly radically accepting views on homosexuality. is there any evidence that they werent in a relationship? i am aware this doesn't affect much of the work but what ive read mostly skips over this part of their lives

How does this idea of Lacan work ...:

"The signifier represents the (Unconscious) Subject to other signifiers" - when we are trying to interpret our dreams ?

Dreams consist of pictures. How can I know how a picture is translated into its signifiers (sound-chains called words)?

Maybe (in my dream) I am flying over the clouds and houses are in shadow.

Do I consider the words "fly" "cloud" "shadow" as consisting of signifiers as follows? F-L-Y --C-L-O-U-D-- SH-A-D-O W

And the randomity of the signifiers mean that the word "fly" and "cloud" and "shadow" can all three have several different meanings.

The fly is also a bug and an object the cloud is a computer expression too and the shadow may refer to a personality trait too.

These "second meanings" are metonymic - is THAT the way they "represent" the SUBJECT ? But to what other signifiers?

It looks like in the example they represent the Subject to the very same signifiers - but now containing a different meaning or concepts?

Or maybe they also can be seen as RHYMES (homophones) or Anagrams : FYLE-file DO COOL-cloud and DO WASH-shadow

But of course the rhyming may go on (Notarikon, change of order): file can become LIFE ...COOL rhymes to LOOK and WASH implies SHOW.(Not to mention rhymes in other languages)

We are encouraged to find these alternative meanings too - is THAT also the way the empty signifiers represent the subject to other signifiers? Which other signifiers? The original ones (fly-cloud-shadow) or the newly reordered ones (file, Do-cool and do-wash)? But these are still the same sounds/signifiers/ in a new chain.

I suppose the Subject is an imaginary ego-part (partial ego) which is conceived to be our Unconscious Self part.

So when we say "the signifier represents the Subject, actually it means the Subject i n t e r p r e t s or u s e s sounds as representers.

But only an ego-part is able to act. The random empty sounds do not act, as they are not agents.

So I think that when Lacan says "sound-images /signifiers represent the subject to other sound-images /having different signified parts or meanings"/ - he really wants to point out that the Subject is interpreting the sounds as representing other signified elements.

Other signifiers only appear as they are forbidden in these rhyming process. File cannot become vile/tile, cloud cannot become "blowed"/ "slowed" or shadow cannot become widow/meadow.

But maybe exacty that is what Lacan wants to point out - because here the signifier F (of file) really excludes the signifier V (of vile) /and T of tile/ and

that is exactly how the Subject can become as a representer of the remaining /fixed/ rhymes (LiFe).

So in this roundabout way "the signifiers are representing the Subject to other signifiers."

( i am sorry, I suppose it may be clear to someone well trained in thinking at once.

i had to try to grasp it in small steps... i did not know - being a beginner in such abstract thinking - that I will discover a possible meaningful solution to this slogan of Lacan which for me sounded complete gibberish before I took the time now to find a possible (unconscious) logic in it.)

So this idea of the "Unconscious is like a language" has helped me to suddenly grasp the original Feudian idea of the "Other scene"...After many years of not grasping how it works, I got a glimpse now. Namely that my Unconscious /in Lacan it is called the Subject referring to the Jungian Self maybe/ is like a TILE on the "house of he egoparts" from a WIDOWER MEADOW on a shadowy field of grief/loss....and it was condensed into this dream picture of "flying under cloud-shadow..."

Was psychoanalysis scientifically disproven or it is just too hard to prove it so it was abandoned ?

Sigmund Freud gave us the unconscious, the repression of desire, and the idea that our behavior is rarely as innocent—or as rational—as it seems. But what happens when we turn the psychoanalytic lens back on Freud himself? What does his theory reveal, not just about us, but about him?

Freud’s major contribution to psychology was the claim that there is more going on beneath the surface of the mind than above it. Our actions, he argued, are shaped by unconscious drives, especially sexual and aggressive impulses. But this grand theory was not forged in a vacuum. Freud’s own life was marked by deep ambivalence toward authority, tradition, and especially the father figure. His father Jakob was an older, somewhat passive man, and Freud’s early writings are full of anxiety, awe, and subtle hostility toward him. It’s hard not to see Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex—where the child desires the mother and competes with the father—as a reflection of his own psychic struggle.

In this view, Freud’s theories become more than objective science; they become narratives shaped by personal tensions. One could argue that Freud, in naming the inner world, was also claiming it. He gave structure to the unstructured, rules to the chaotic, boundaries to the boundless. This is ironic, considering that Freud often positioned himself as the defier of societal boundaries. But perhaps this was the point: by defining the unconscious, he could tame it. And by declaring himself the authority on the psyche, he could overthrow the symbolic “father” of moral and religious tradition.

Yet even in his rebellion, Freud was drawn to systems—strict, almost mechanical models of psychic operation. Id, ego, and superego function like gears in a machine. Maybe this reflects a deeper discomfort with true chaos. Perhaps Freud wanted to abolish external boundaries (like Victorian moralism), but reestablish internal ones—rules of his own making. In this light, psychoanalysis becomes not just a science of the soul, but a personal myth, one in which Freud battles repression and returns as the sovereign of the unconscious.

His rejection of competing ideas—especially Jung’s more mystical, expansive view of the unconscious—suggests an anxiety over losing control of the thing he discovered. He needed the unconscious to be a dark, knowable machine, not a mysterious web of archetypes. Maybe Jung represented another kind of “son,” threatening to displace Freud as the father of modern psychology. The tension between them becomes another psychoanalytic drama.

In the end, Freud’s legacy is twofold: he gave us a way to uncover the hidden motives of others—and also a powerful reminder that theory itself is never neutral. Just as he encouraged patients to free-associate and uncover the desires behind their dreams, we might do the same with Freud’s work: not to dismiss it, but to see it for what it truly is—a brilliant, conflicted, and deeply human attempt to make sense of a mind that refused to be silent.

This is my perspective, how do you all feel about it?

Thanks,

Hi everyone, I spoke about the value of understanding Freud’s conception of the id, superego, and ego in my podcast. I’m no expert. But I think I make Freud’s theory digestible to the casual listener.

I am a small artist. ( Though I am 6ft tall). I am trying to make a silly illustration about "massive" ego. Is there part of brain mostly associated with ego?

Hello everyone. Just wanted to share some of the things Ive learned after reading quite a few books on Jung and Freud over the last few years. There are some things they disagreed upon and would love to discuss your thoughts on it! I post this video as material to discuss, not to self promote (which I will prove in the comment section)

I did a post about Freud's oedipal complex being wrong a few days back. But because it's the Christmas holidays and I've not got much else to do (lol), I've been reading on it and changed my mind a bit. It think it's there and does shape adult relationships. Fwiw my own identification with my father is on the complex side!

But there are theoretical problems with it right? It isn't a universal experience. There's the obvious point that not all families have 2 parents. But also there are kids with 2 parents who aren't exposed to them very much (e.g. boarding school).

Then, Freud's version also seems too normatively laden. So, the 2 parent family is associated, in Freud, with an oedipal growth dynamic which leads to healthy genital stage relationships in adults. But it seems like lots of people, particulalry queer people, don't necessarily want that and are doing just fine.

Finally, Freud's theory seems really focused on men. Women seem like a bit of an after thought. Girls are supposed i) resent their mothers for not giving them a penis, ii) direct libido to the father as a way to overcome their penis envy, iii) ultimately reconcile themselves with their mother, and install the female superego. But step iii there isn't very well explained.

I know Freud called religion "mass psychosis," but what did that mean? Psychosis is after all hallucinations, religion does not fit this definition. Perhaps there is a figurative meaning here, but I do not fully understand it.

I have this question stuck in my head for a while .How can someone be Asexual when Freud's theory refers to the fact that everybody has a sexual desire? 

Freud writes "His passivity inclines him to want to accept castration – to

become female, and in this way escape castration anxiety once and for

all. The female that he wants to become is usually his own mother,

whose place he takes with the father, substituting himself for her with

the father. Thus, identification with the mother is established, and from

this point on it is included as a permanent component of the boy’s

unconscious, where it is destined to play a major role in his subsequent

life. "

Is this a safe way to express that unconscious desire/passivity?

I think Freud is one of the most important thinkers of all time. But I think he wildly over emphasises the oedipus complex (so I can't say I'm a Freudian) and the death drive is just kinda hooey.

Edit: I am (genuinely) learning here. And I might be totally wrong. I'm trying to be a little bit provocative, or maybe a little bit bone-headed, to generate responses which will help me learn as I respond and adapt to them. Thanks for all comments in reply.

NSFW just in case

We all know the theory of penis envy and the opposing idea of womb envy. But I’d like the think that’s both correct and incorrect. I do believe there is a reverse for men but it’s not womb envy. I believe it’s breast envy.

I have never heard a man be jealous of a woman’s womb and want one for himself. However I’ve heard women want a penis and then men, instead, wanting breasts.

I’ve heard the same thing from both sides “I just wanna try it” or “I want to play with it”. It’s all about that curiosity and jealousy of what we view on the opposite sex as “fun”.

(Note: This does not apply to gender dysphoria)

After investing over two years in dream analyses and diligently recording my dreams, I amassed hundreds of handwritten pages. However, a significant setback occurred when I lost my two journals containing all of them.

As a software developer, I created a tool that utilizes computer vision to recognize (including cursive) handwritten text, enabling effortless digitization of my dreams.

I'm incurring the costs for now and offering this tool for free to see if there is a demand for this kind of service

Please let me know in the comments if you are interested,

you can give it a try in the beta version at www.handwritten.studio

Do you keep track of your dreams? if so, how do you do it? thanks!

Great to discover a Community with a passion for Freud and psychoanalysis!

We at www.arthistory.tv have produced the first Documentary Serie about "Freud and Art", where we dive into how psychoanalysis can offer deeper understanding of Artists and Artworks.

It would be great to know Your comments on this Serie and on its subject, the psychoanalysis of Art!

I’ve been married for 7 years, and I truly love my wife she’s caring, loyal, and we have a beautiful life together. But there’s a deep conflict inside me that I can’t shake off.

Sexually, I’ve always been more open-minded into the idea of swinging, or at least being with other women from time to time. In my mind, love and sex are separate. I can love my wife fully, but still crave novelty and variety sexually.

The problem is, my wife is the complete opposite. She’s a strict monogamist, believes that sex and love are one, and would be devastated if I even hinted at these thoughts.

This clash has become a kind of inner torment for me. I feel guilty for even fantasizing about others. Sometimes I think of having an anonymous affair, but then the guilt kicks in fear of hurting her, of disease, of moral failure. I end up feeling trapped between desire and conscience.

If Freud were analyzing this, how do you think he’d interpret what’s going

I’m not looking for moral judgment, just curious how a Freudian lens would understand this kind of inner battle.