10 Historical Figures That Appeared In Star Trek

10. Sigmund Freud

"What did the counsellor say to the hologram? 'You’re projecting!'" ~ Tom Paris, Someone to Watch Over Me

Sigmund 'it's-probably-phallic' Freud has only ever made one physical appearance in Star Trek – in holographic form in The Next Generation episode Phantasms. Data's having some funky dreams (yes, he can do that), and so he does the logical thing and goes to seek advice from the simulation of a psychoanalyst who died over 400 years ago. Of course, Data is polymorphously perverse, sexually frustrated, hates his father, wants to "possess" his mother, and his id is battling it out with his ego. Classic Sigmund! Almost a full house on the Freud bingo.

Turns out it was all interphasic alien organisms which had been sucking the life out of the crew and ship's systems. Data's positronic sub-processor (his unconscious, if you will) detected the "high-frequency interphasic signatures" from the creatures, which his dream program then represented in symbolic form. Clear? The real Freud would have had a field day! Oh, and by the way, anyone for some Troi-shaped cellular peptide cake? Worf says it's delicious!

Aside from these oneiric escapades, Freud only gets a mention by name in two other episodes of Star Trek over the years. Captain Janeway brings him up in Voyager's Concerning Flight, and Doctor Crusher hypothesises about a supposed meeting between Freud and Gertrude Stein on The Orient Express in the TNG episode Emergence. In the Discovery episode Su'Kal, Sylvia Tilly does also quip to Osyraa that "a certain 19th century neurologist would say that you've just proven the idea of projection".

Now, tell me about your mother..