Its obvious meaning concerns sexuality. On the other hand, every actual sexual image points to the present situation of the dreamer. Often other energies, like love or fear, power and money express themselves in the form of sexual symbols. Freud makes a very clear distinction between genital sexuality and general sexuality. On one hand, he took a broader view: “First, sexuality is freed from a much too narrow connection to the genitals and seen in a much wider sense as a pleasure-seeking bodily function, which is only secondarily put to the service of procreation. Secondly,” Freud continues in his Self Portrait, “sexual stirrings are all those merely tender and friendly emotions for which our language coined the many-faceted word 4Love.”’ What this means is that, for Freud, sexuality is pleasure-seeking, all-encompassing, and expressed by the whole body, internally and externally. He was of the opinion that sexual urges and the tender feelings of love are connected and that one part is not to be withheld at the expense of the other. In that sense it is a question of “separating sexuality from the genitals,” of sensuality, of saying goodbye to the notion of “always searching for one part only,” when so much more is worth having. At the same time, Freud emphasizes the difference between general, unorganized sexuality and genital sexuality.
It is only in the genital phase that “the full expression” of all drives / urges (and not only part of them) is achieved.
See Also: Erection, Intercourse, Sexuality.
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