Pierce Arnold - Freud's Unhelpful Analysis 4/23/2026

I may not know very much about Sigmund Freud, but the exposure to him that I got in Joseph Campbell’s book as well as what I know about him from general cultural osmosis gives me a much less than positive impression. Specifically I greatly dislike his over sexualization of every aspect of life. My only theory is that he had a hyper sexualized brain, and merely projected that mentality on everyone he encountered. The most frustrating example of his perverted way of thinking was the example in the introduction to “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” with the gay man who dreamt of the fallen log in the fire. Freud’s analysis, of course, was that the log was a phallic symbol and represented the man’s inner turmoil with coming to terms with his sexuality and the conflict it placed in his life. My question to Freud then would be, if I have a similar dream involving a fallen branch, or a lamppost, or literally any other cylindrical shape, would that indicate that I too am a homosexual? If so then I suppose Freud would have to claim that every single person on earth who dreams about much of anything is attracted sexually to men, and if not then it seems like a textbook case of creating a diagnosis only after you already know the disease. Finding symbolism in dreams, as best I can guess, would only really be helpful if it helped you understand something that you previously didn’t, and so interpreting this limb as a homosexual tell would only be useful if that information was something that wasn’t already clear. I can just imagine Freud telling this man that the log means that the man has homosexual turmoil and the man just saying “now tell me something that I don’t know”.