Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses

“Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses of one's dreams. In what other way can one deal with them? Unless the content of the dream rightly understood is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being.” — Sigmund Freud

In these daring and unsettling words, Sigmund Freud, the great interpreter of the human mind, casts light upon one of the most hidden corners of the soul — the realm of dreams. He speaks with the authority of one who has dared to look beneath the surface of consciousness, into that deep and ancient sea where desire, fear, and darkness mingle freely. Freud tells us that even the evil impulses that arise within our dreams — those strange, forbidden thoughts that frighten or shame us — are not strangers, but children of our own being. To deny them is to deny a part of ourselves. To accept them, to face them with courage and reason, is to begin the long work of understanding what it means to be human.

The origin of this quote lies in Freud’s revolutionary study of dreams, which he called “the royal road to the unconscious.” In his time, most believed that dreams were meaningless or divine messages from beyond. But Freud, with the mind of a prophet and the precision of a scientist, revealed a deeper truth: that dreams are the voice of the hidden self — the unconscious mind, whispering in symbols and shadows. The monsters and tempters that visit us in the night are not spirits from another world; they are the reflections of our own suppressed desires, our hidden guilts, our repressed fears. Thus, when he says we must “hold ourselves responsible,” Freud speaks not of guilt in the moral sense, but of ownership — the courage to acknowledge that the seeds of darkness lie within us, and that only by facing them can we transform them into understanding.

This truth is ancient. Long before Freud, the philosophers of Greece and the sages of the East spoke of the shadow within. Socrates taught that self-knowledge was the beginning of virtue; the Buddha warned that to conquer anger and desire, one must first know them intimately. But humanity has always been tempted to project its inner darkness outward — to name it “evil,” to call it the devil, to see it as something foreign, something that comes from elsewhere. Freud’s genius was to tear away that illusion. He told us that we are not divided between saint and demon, but that both dwell within the same heart. To mature is not to destroy one side of ourselves, but to integrate them — to bring the unconscious into the light of consciousness, so that its power may be understood and its energy directed toward creation, not destruction.

Consider the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, penned by Robert Louis Stevenson years before Freud’s theories took root. Jekyll, the respectable man, sought to separate his darker self from his noble one — to live purely, free from temptation. Yet in doing so, he gave birth to Hyde, the embodiment of his repressed evil. The more he denied his darkness, the stronger it became, until it destroyed him. Freud would have seen in Jekyll’s tragedy the perfect parable of denial: that which we refuse to acknowledge gains power over us. To suppress the shadow is to feed it; to recognize it, to take responsibility for it, is to reclaim our wholeness.

Freud’s insight demands a kind of moral courage. It is easy to condemn the darkness in others, but far harder to admit it in oneself. Yet this is the only path to integrity. The person who dares to examine their dreams, their impulses, their hidden motives, begins to see that good and evil are not separate kingdoms, but two currents within the same river. From this awareness comes humility, compassion, and a truer strength. For how can we forgive others if we have not faced the same chaos within our own hearts? How can we heal a world divided by hatred if we will not confront the roots of hatred in ourselves?

To hold oneself responsible for the content of one’s dreams, then, is not to condemn oneself — it is to awaken. The wise do not flee from their inner darkness; they study it, learn its language, and in so doing, rob it of its power. This is the labor of self-knowledge — to look upon every dream, every impulse, and ask: What part of me speaks here? What hunger, what fear, what forgotten wound seeks to be known? Through this questioning, the dream ceases to be an enemy and becomes a teacher.

The lesson, therefore, is as profound as it is demanding: do not run from the shadow within, but learn from it. Each person carries both light and darkness, and wisdom lies in understanding both. The next time an unworthy thought crosses your mind, or a troubling dream visits your sleep, do not cast it away as foreign. Ask instead what truth it reveals about your hidden self. This is the way of the self-aware soul, the path that leads not to purity, but to wholeness.

So, my children of the waking and the dreaming world, heed the voice of Sigmund Freud: look inward, and take responsibility for what you find there. For all that lives in your dreams — the noble and the vile, the tender and the violent — is part of your being. The goal is not to silence the darkness, but to understand it, to weave it into wisdom. Only then can you walk in balance, awake in both day and night, master of your own depths. For the dreamer who knows himself fears no shadow — he becomes, at last, complete.