II. "A Beautiful Dream"
The dreamer is driving with a great
number of companions in X- street, where there is a modest hostelry
(which is not the case). A theatrical performance is being given in one
of the rooms of the inn. He is first spectator, then actor. Finally the
company is told to change their clothes, in order to return to the city.
Some of the company are shown into rooms on the ground floor, others to
rooms on the first floor. Then a dispute arises. The people upstairs are
annoyed because those downstairs have not yet finished changing, so that
they cannot come down. His brother is upstairs; he is downstairs; and he
is angry with his brother because they are so hurried. (This part
obscure.) Besides, it was already decided, upon their arrival, who was
to go upstairs and who down. Then he goes alone up the hill towards the
city, and he walks so heavily, and with such difficulty, that he cannot
move from the spot. An elderly gentleman joins him and talks angrily of
the King of Italy. Finally, towards the top of the hill, he is able to
walk much more easily.
The difficulty experienced in climbing
the hill was so distinct that for some time after waking he was in doubt
whether the experience was a dream or the reality.
Judged by the manifest content, this
dream can hardly be eulogized. Contrary to the rules, I shall begin the
interpretation with that portion to which the dreamer referred as being
the most distinct.
The difficulty dreamed of, and probably
experienced during the dream- difficulty in climbing, accompanied by
dyspnoea- was one of the symptoms which the patient had actually
exhibited some years before, and which, in conjunction with other
symptoms, was at the time attributed to tuberculosis (probably
hysterically simulated). From our study of exhibition-dreams we are
already acquainted with this sensation of being inhibited in motion,
peculiar to dreams, and here again we find it utilized as material
always available for the purposes of any other kind of representation.
The part of the dream-content which represents climbing as difficult at
first, and easier at the top of the hill, made me think, while it was
being related, of the well- known masterly introduction to Daudet's
Sappho. Here a young man carries the woman he loves upstairs; she is at
first as light as a feather, but the higher he climbs the more she
weighs; and this scene is symbolic of the process of their relation, in
describing which Daudet seeks to admonish young men not to lavish an
earnest affection upon girls of humble origin and dubious antecedents. *
Although I knew that my patient had recently had a love-affair with an
actress, and had broken it off, I hardly expected to find that the
interpretation which had occurred to me was correct. The situation in
Sappho is actually the reverse of that in the dream; for in the dream
climbing was difficult at the first and easy later on; in the novel the
symbolism is pertinent only if what was at first easily carried finally
proves to be a heavy burden. To my astonishment, the patient remarked
that the interpretation fitted in very well with the plot of a play
which he had seen the previous evening. The play was called Rund um Wien
(Round about Vienna), and treated of the career of a girl who was at
first respectable, but who subsequently lapsed into the demimonde, and
formed relations with highly-placed lovers, thereby climbing, but
finally she went downhill faster and faster. This play reminded him of
another, entitled Von Stufe zu Stufe (From Step to Step), the poster
advertising which had depicted a flight of stairs. -
* In estimating the significance of this
passage we may recall the meaning of dreams of climbing stairs, as
explained in the chapter on Symbolism.
To continue the interpretation: The
actress with whom he had had his most recent and complicated affair had
lived in X-street. There is no inn in this street. However, while he was
spending part of the summer in Vienna for the sake of this lady, he had
lodged (German: abgestiegen = stopped, literally stepped off) at a small
hotel in the neighbourhood. When he was leaving the hotel, he said to
the cab-driver: "I am glad at all events that I didn't get any vermin
here!" (Incidentally, the dread of vermin is one of his phobias.)
Whereupon the cab-driver answered: "How could anybody stop there! That
isn't a hotel at all, it's really nothing but a pub!"
The pub immediately reminded him of a
quotation:
Of a wonderful host
I was lately a guest.
But the host in the poem by Uhland is an
apple-tree. Now a second quotation continues the train of thought:
FAUST (dancing with the young witch).
A lovely dream once came to me;
I then beheld an apple-tree,
And there two fairest apples shone:
They lured me so, I climbed thereon.
THE FAIR ONE
Apples have been desired by you,
Since first in Paradise they grew;
And I am moved with joy to know
That such within my garden grow. *
* Faust I.
There is not the slightest doubt what is
meant by the apple-tree and the apples. A beautiful bosom stood high
among the charms by which the actress had bewitched our dreamer.
Judging from the context of the analysis,
we had every reason to assume that the dream referred to an impression
of the dreamer's childhood. If this is correct, it must have referred to
the wet- nurse of the dreamer, who is now a man of nearly thirty years
of age. The bosom of the nurse is in reality an inn for the child. The
nurse, as well as Daudet's Sappho, appears as an allusion to his
recently abandoned mistress.
The (elder) brother of the patient also
appears in the dream- content; he is upstairs, while the dreamer himself
is downstairs. This again is an inversion, for the brother, as I happen
to know, has lost his social position, while my patient has retained
his. In relating the dream-content, the dreamer avoided saying that his
brother was upstairs and that he himself was downstairs. This would have
been to obvious an expression, for in Austria we say that a man is on
the ground floor when he has lost his fortune and social position, just
as we say that he has come down. Now the fact that at this point in the
dream something is represented as inverted must have a meaning; and the
inversion must apply to some other relation between the dream-thoughts
and the dream- content. There is an indication which suggests how this
inversion is to be understood. It obviously applies to the end of the
dream, where the circumstances of climbing are the reverse of those
described in Sappho. Now it is evident what inversion is meant: In
Sappho the man carries the woman who stands in a sexual relation to him;
in the dream-thoughts, conversely, there is a reference to a woman
carrying a man: and, as this could occur only in childhood, the
reference is once more to the nurse who carries the heavy child. Thus
the final portion of the dream succeeds in representing Sappho and the
nurse in the same allusion.
Just as the name Sappho has not been
selected by the poet without reference to a Lesbian practise, so the
portions of the dream in which people are busy upstairs and downstairs,
above and beneath, point to fancies of a sexual content with which the
dreamer is occupied, and which, as suppressed cravings, are not
unconnected with his neurosis. Dream-interpretation itself does not show
that these are fancies and not memories of actual happenings; it only
furnishes us with a set of thoughts and leaves it to us to determine
their actual value. In this case real and imagined happenings appear at
first as of equal value- and not only here, but also in the creation of
more important psychic structures than dreams. A large company, as we
already know, signifies a secret. The brother is none other than a
representative, drawn into the scenes of childhood by fancying
backwards, of all of the subsequent for women's favours. Through the
medium of an experience indifferent in itself, the episode of the
gentleman who talks angrily of the King of Italy refers to the intrusion
of people of low rank into aristocratic society. It is as though the
warning which Daudet gives to young men were to be supplemented by a
similar warning applicable to a suckling child. *
* The fantastic nature of the situation
relating to the dreamer's wet-nurse is shown by the circumstance,
objectively ascertained, that the nurse in this case was his mother.
Further, I may call attention to the regret of the young man in the
anecdote related to p. 222 above (that he had not taken better advantage
of his opportunities with his wet-nurse) as the probable source of his
dream.
In the two dreams here cited I have shown
by italics where one of the elements of the dream recurs in the
dream-thoughts, in order to make the multiple relations of the former
more obvious. Since, however, the analysis of these dreams has not been
carried to completion, it will probably be worth while to consider a
dream with a full analysis, in order to demonstrate the manifold
determination of the dream-content. For this purpose I shall select the
dream of Irma's injection (see chapter II). From this example we shall
readily see that the condensation-work in the dream-formation has made
use of more means than one.
The chief person in the dream-content is
my patient Irma, who is seen with the features which belong to her
waking life, and who therefore, in the first instance, represents
herself. But her attitude, as I examine her at the window, is taken from
a recollection of another person, of the lady for whom I should like to
exchange my patient, as is shown by the dream-thoughts. Inasmuch as Irma
has a diphtheritic membrane, which recalls my anxiety about my eldest
daughter, she comes to represent this child of mine, behind whom,
connected with her by the identity of their names, is concealed the
person of the patient who died from the effects of poison. In the
further course of the dream the Significance of Irma's personality
changes (without the alteration of her image as it is seen in the
dream): she becomes one of the children whom we examine in the public
dispensaries for children's diseases, where my friends display the
differences in their mental capacities. The transition was obviously
effected by the idea of my little daughter. Owing to her unwillingness
to open her mouth, the same Irma constitutes an allusion to another lady
who was examined by me, and, also in the same connection, to my wife.
Further, in the morbid changes which I discover in her throat I have
summarized allusions to quite a number of other persons.
All these people whom I encounter as I
follow up the associations suggested by Irma do not appear personally in
the dream; they are concealed behind the dream-person Irma, who is thus
developed into a collective image, which, as might be expected, has
contradictory features. Irma comes to represent these other persons, who
are discarded in the work of condensation, inasmuch as I allow anything
to happen to her which reminds me of these persons, trait by trait.
For the purposes of dream-condensation I
may construct a composite person in yet another fashion, by combining
the actual features of two or more persons in a single dream-image. It
is in this fashion that the Dr. M of my dream was constructed; he bears
the name of Dr. M, and he speaks and acts as Dr. M does, but his bodily
characteristics and his malady belong to another person, my eldest
brother; a single feature, paleness, is doubly determined, owing to the
fact that it is common to both persons. Dr. R, in my dream about my
uncle, is a similar composite person. But here the dream-image is
constructed in yet another fashion. I have not united features peculiar
to the one person with the features of the other, thereby abridging by
certain features the memory-picture of each; but I have adopted the
method employed by Galton in producing family portraits; namely, I have
superimposed the two images, so that the common features stand out in
stronger relief, while those which do not coincide neutralize one
another and become indistinct. In the dream of my uncle the fair beard
stands out in relief, as an emphasized feature, from a physiognomy which
belongs to two persons, and which is consequently blurred; further, in
its reference to growing grey the beard contains an allusion to my
father and to myself.
The construction of collective and
composite persons is one of the principal methods of dream-condensation.
We shall presently have occasion to deal with this in another
connection.
The notion of dysentry in the dream of
Irma's injection has likewise a multiple determination; on the one hand,
because of its paraphasic assonance with diphtheria. and on the other
because of its reference to the patient whom I sent to the East, and
whose hysteria had been wrongly diagnosed.
The mention of propyls in the dream
proves again to be an interesting case of condensation. Not propyls but
amyls were included in the dream-thoughts. One might think that here a
simple displacement had occured in the course of dream-formation. This
is in fact the case, but the displacement serves the purposes of the
condensation, as is shown from the following supplementary analysis: If
I dwell for a moment upon the word propylen (German) its assonance with
the word propylaeum suggests itself to me. But a propylaeum is to be
found not only in Athens, but also in Munich. In the latter city, a year
before my dream, I had visited a friend who was seriously ill, and the
reference to him in trimethylamin, which follows closely upon propyls,
is unmistakable.
I pass over the striking circumstance
that here, as elsewhere in the analysis of dreams, associations of the
most widely differing values are employed for making thought-connections
as though they were equivalent, and I yield to the temptation to regard
the procedure by which amyls in the dream-thoughts are replaced in the
dream-content by propyls as a sort of plastic process.
On the one hand, here is the group of
ideas relating to my friend Otto, who does not understand me, thinks I
am in the wrong, and gives me the liqueur that smells of amyls; on the
other hand, there is the group of ideas- connected with the first by
contrast- relating to my Berlin friend who does understand me, who would
always think that I was right, and to whom I am indebted for so much
valuable information concerning the chemistry of sexual processes.
What elements in the Otto group are to
attract my particular attention are determined by the recent
circumstances which are responsible for the dream; amyls belong to the
element so distinguished, which are predestined to find their way into
the dream-content. The large group of ideas centering upon William is
actually stimulated by the contrast between William and Otto, and those
elements in it are emphasized which are in tune with those already
stirred up in the Otto group. In the whole of this dream I am
continually recoiling from somebody who excites my displeasure towards
another person with whom I can at will confront the first; trait by
trait I appeal to the friend as against the enemy. Thus amyls in the
Otto group awakes recollections in the other group, also belonging to
the region of chemistry; trimethylamin, which receives support from
several quarters, finds its way into the dream-content. Amyls, too,
might have got into the dream-content unchanged, but it yields to the
influence of the William group, inasmuch as out of the whole range of
recollections covered by this name an element is sought out which is
able to furnish a double determination for amyls. Propyls is closely
associated with amyls; from the William group comes Munich with its
propylaeum. Both groups are united in propyls- propylaeum. As though by
a compromise, this intermediate element then makes its way into the
dream-content. Here a common mean which permits of a multiple
determination has been created. It thus becomes palpable that a multiple
determination must facilitate penetration into the dream-content. For
the purpose of this mean-formation a displacement of the attention has
been unhesitatingly effected from what is really intended to something
adjacent to it in the associations.
The study of the dream of Irma's
injection has now enabled us to obtain some insight into the process of
condensation which occurs in the formation of dreams. We perceive, as
peculiarities of the condensing process, a selection of those elements
which occur several times over in the dream-content, the formation of
new unities (composite persons, mixed images), and the production of
common means. The purpose which is served by condensation, and the means
by which it is brought about, will be investigated when we come to study
in all their bearings the psychic processes at work in the formation of
dreams. Let us for the present be content with establishing the fact of
dream-condensation as a relation between the dream-thoughts and the
dream-content which deserves attention.
The condensation-work of dreams becomes
most palpable when it takes words and means as its objects. Generally
speaking, words are often treated in dreams as things, and therefore
undergo the same combinations as the ideas of things. The results of
such dreams are comical and bizarre word-formations.
1. A colleague sent an essay of his, in
which he had, in my opinion, overestimated the value of a recent
physiological discovery, and had expressed himself, moreover, in
extravagant terms. On the following night I dreamed a sentence which
obviously referred to this essay: "That is a truly norekdal style." The
solution of this word-formation at first gave me some difficulty; it was
unquestionably formed as a parody of the superlatives colossal,
pyramidal; but it was not easy to say where it came from. At last the
monster fell apart into the two names Nora and Ekdal, from two
well-known plays by Ibsen. I had previously read a newspaper article on
Ibsen by the writer whose latest work I was now criticizing in my dream.
2. One of my female patients dreams that
a man with a fair beard and a peculiar glittering eye is pointing to a
sign-board attached to a tree which reads: uclamparia- wet. *
* Given by translator, as the author's
example could not be translated.
Analysis.- The man was rather
authoritative-looking, and his peculiar glittering eye at once recalled
the church of San Paolo, near Rome, where she had seen the mosaic
portraits of the Popes. One of the early Popes had a golden eye (this is
really an optical illusion, to which the guides usually call attention).
Further associations showed that the general physiognomy of the man
corresponded with her own clergyman (pope), and the shape of the fair
beard recalled her doctor (myself), while the stature of the man in the
dream recalled her father. All these persons stand in the same relation
to her; they are all guiding and directing the course of her life. On
further questioning, the golden eye recalled gold- money- the rather
expensive psycho-analytic treatment, which gives her a great deal of
concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold cure for alcoholism- Herr D,
whom she would have married, if it had not been for his clinging to the
disgusting alcohol habit- she does not object to anyone's taking an
occasional drink; she herself sometimes drinks beer and liqueurs. This
again brings her back to her visit to San Paolo (fuori la mura) and its
surroundings. She remembers that in the neighbouring monastery of the
Tre Fontane she drank a liqueur made of eucalyptus by the Trappist monks
of the monastery. She then relates how the monks transformed this
malarial and swampy region into a dry and wholesome neighbourhood by
planting numbers of eucalyptus trees. The word uclamparia then resolves
itself into eucalyptus and malaria, and the word wet refers to the
former swampy nature of the locality. Wet also suggests dry. Dry is
actually the name of the man whom she would have married but for his
over-indulgence in alcohol. The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic
origin (drei = three) and hence, alludes to the monastery of the Three (drei)
Fountains. In talking of Mr. Dry's habit she used the strong expression:
"He could drink a fountain." Mr. Dry jocosely refers to his habit by
saying: "You know I must drink because I am always dry" (referring to
his name). The eucalyptus refers also to her neurosis, which was at
first diagnosed as malaria. She went to Italy because her attacks of
anxiety, which were accompanied by marked rigors and shivering, were
thought to be of malarial origin. She bought some eucalyptus oil from
the monks, and she maintains that it has done her much good.
The condensation uclamparia- wet is,
therefore, the point of junction for the dream as well as for the
neurosis.
3. In a rather long and confused dream of
my own, the apparent nucleus of which is a sea-voyage, it occurs to me
that the next port is Hearsing, and next after that Fliess. The latter
is the name of my friend in B, to which city I have often journeyed. But
Hearsing is put together from the names of the places in the
neighbourhood of Vienna, which so frequently end in "ing": Hietzing,
Liesing, Moedling (the old Medelitz, meae deliciae, my joy; that is, my
own name, the German for joy being Freude), and the English hearsay,
which points to calumny, and establishes the relation to the indifferent
dream-stimulus of the day- a poem in Fliegende Blatter about a
slanderous dwarf, Sagter Hatergesagt (Saidhe Hashesaid). By the
combination of the final syllable ing with the name Fliess, Vlissingen
is obtained, which is a real port through which my brother passes when
he comes to visit us from England. But the English for Vlissingen is
Flushing, which signifies blushing, and recalls patients suffering from
erythrophobia (fear of blushing), whom I sometimes treat, and also a
recent publication of Bechterew's, relating to this neurosis, the
reading of which angered me. *
* The same analysis and synthesis of
syllables- a veritable chemistry of syllables- serves us for many a jest
in waking life. "What is the cheapest method of obtaining silver? You go
to a field where silverberries are growing and pick them; then the
berries are eliminated and the silver remains in a free state."
[Translator's example]. The first person who read and criticized this
book made the objection- with which other readers will probably agree-
that "the dreamer often appears too witty." That is true, so long as it
applies to the dreamer; it involves a condemnation only when its
application is extended to the interpreter of the dream. In waking
reality I can make very little claim to the predicate witty; if my
dreams appear witty, this is not the fault of my individuality, but of
the peculiar psychological conditions under which the dream is
fabricated, and is intimately connected with the theory of wit and the
comical. The dream becomes witty because the shortest and most direct
way to the expression of its thoughts is barred for it: the dream is
under constraint. My readers may convince themselves that the dreams of
my patients give the impression of being quite as witty (at least, in
intention), as my own, and even more so. Nevertheless, this reproach
impelled me to compare the technique of wit with the dream-work.
4. Upon another occasion I had a dream
which consisted of two separate parts. The first was the vividly
remembered word Autodidasker: the second was a faithful reproduction in
the dream- content of a short and harmless fancy which had been
developed a few days earlier, and which was to the effect that I must
tell Professor N, when I next saw him: "The patient about whose
condition I last consulted you is really suffering from a neurosis, just
as you suspected." So not only must the newly- coined Autodidasker
satisfy the requirement that it should contain or represent a compressed
meaning, but this meaning must have a valid connection with my resolve-
repeated from waking life- to give Professor N due credit for his
diagnosis.
Now Autodidasker is easily separated into
author (German, Autor), autodidact, and Lasker, with whom is associated
the name Lasalle. The first of these words leads to the occasion of the
dream- which this time is significant. I had brought home to my wife
several volumes by a well-known author who is a friend of my brother's,
and who, as I have learned, comes from the same neighbourhood as myself
(J. J. David). One evening she told me how profoundly impressed she had
been by the pathetic sadness of a story in one of David's novels (a
story of wasted talents), and our conversation turned upon the signs of
talent which we perceive in our own children. Under the influence of
what she had just read, my wife expressed some concern about our
children, and I comforted her with the remark that precisely such
dangers as she feared can be averted by training. During the night my
thoughts proceeded farther, took up my wife's concern for the children,
and interwove with it all sorts of other things. Something which the
novelist had said to my brother on the subject of marriage showed my
thoughts a by-path which might lead to representation in the dream. This
path led to Breslau; a lady who was a very good friend of ours had
married and gone to live there. I found in Breslau Lasker and Lasalle,
two examples to justify the fear lest our boys should be ruined by
women, examples which enabled me to represent simultaneously two ways of
influencing a man to his undoing. * The Cherchez la femme, by which
these thoughts may be summarized, leads me, if taken in another sense,
to my brother, who is still married and whose name is Alexander. Now I
see that Alex, as we abbreviate the name, sounds almost like an
inversion of Lasker, and that this fact must have contributed to send my
thoughts on a detour by way of Breslau.
* Lasker died of progressive paralysis;
that is, of the consequences of an infection caught from a woman
(syphilis); Lasalle, also a syphilitic, was killed in a duel which he
fought on account of the lady whom he had been courting.
But the playing with names and syllables
in which I am here engaged has yet another meaning. It represents the
wish that my brother may enjoy a happy family life, and this in the
following manner: In the novel of artistic life, L'OEuvre, which, by
virtue of its content, must have been in association with my dream-
thoughts, the author, as is well-known, has incidentally given a
description of his own person and his own domestic happiness, and
appears under the name of Sandoz. In the metamorphosis of his name he
probably went to work as follows: Zola, when inverted (as children are
fond of inverting names) gives Aloz. But this was still too undisguised;
he therefore replaced the syllable Al, which stands at the beginning of
the name Alexander, by the third syllable of the same name, sand, and
thus arrived at Sandoz. My autodidasker originated in a similar fashion.
My phantasy- that I am telling Professor
N that the patient whom we have both seen is suffering from a neurosis-
found its way into the dream in the following manner: Shortly before the
close of my working year, I had a patient in whose case my powers of
diagnosis failed me. A serious organic trouble- possibly some alterative
degeneration of the spinal cord- was to be assumed, but could not be
conclusively demonstrated. It would have been tempting to diagnose the
trouble as a neurosis, and this would have put an end to all my
difficulties, but for the fact that the sexual anamnesis, failing which
I am unwilling to admit a neurosis, was so energetically denied by the
patient. In my embarrassment I called to my assistance the physician
whom I respect most of all men (as others do also), and to whose
authority I surrender most completely. He listened to my doubts, told me
he thought them justified, and then said: "Keep on observing the man, it
is probably a neurosis." Since I know that he does not share my opinions
concerning the aetiology of the neuroses, I refrained from contradicting
him, but I did not conceal my scepticism. A few days later I informed
the patient that I did not know what to do with him, and advised him to
go to someone else. Thereupon, to my great astonishment, he began to beg
my pardon for having lied to me: he had felt so ashamed; and now he
revealed to me just that piece of sexual aetiology which I had expected,
and which I found necessary for assuming the existence of a neurosis.
This was a relief to me, but at the same time a humiliation; for I had
to admit that my consultant, who was not disconcerted by the absence of
anamnesis, had judged the case more correctly. I made up my mind to tell
him, when next I saw him, that he had been right and I had been wrong.
This is just what I do in the dream. But
what sort of a wish is fulfilled if I acknowledge that I am mistaken?
This is precisely my wish; I wish to be mistaken as regards my fears-
that is to say, I wish that my wife, whose fears I have appropriated in
my dream-thoughts, may prove to be mistaken. The subject to which the
fact of being right or wrong is related in the dream is not far removed
from that which is really of interest to the dream- thoughts. We have
the same pair of alternatives, of either organic or functional
impairment caused by a woman, or actually by the sexual life- either
tabetic paralysis or a neurosis- with which latter the nature of
Lasalle's undoing is indirectly connected.
In this well-constructed (and on careful
analysis quite transparent) dream, Professor N appears not merely on
account of this analogy, and my wish to be proved mistaken, or the
associated references to Breslau and to the family of our married friend
who lives there, but also on account of the following little dialogue
which followed our consultation: After he had acquitted himself of his
professional duties by making the above- mentioned suggestion, Dr. N
proceeded to discuss personal matters. "How many children have you
now?"- "Six."- A thoughtful and respectful gesture.- "Girls, boys?"-
"Three of each. They are my pride and my riches."- "Well, you must be
careful; there is no difficulty about the girls, but the boys are a
difficulty later on as regards their upbringing." I replied that until
now they had been very tractable; obviously this prognosis of my boys'
future pleased me as little as his diagnosis of my patient, whom he
believed to be suffering only from a neurosis. These two impressions,
then, are connected by their continuity, by their being successively
received; and when I incorporate the story of the neurosis into the
dream, I substitute it for the conversation on the subject of
upbringing, which is even more closely connected with the
dream-thoughts, since it touches so closely upon the anxiety
subsequently expressed by my wife. Thus, even my fear that N may prove
to be right in his remarks on the difficulties to be met with in
bringing up boys is admitted into the dream-content, inasmuch as it is
concealed behind the representation of my wish that I may be wrong to
harbour such apprehensions. The same phantasy serves without alteration
to represent both the conflicting alternatives.
Examination-dreams present the same
difficulties to interpretation that I have already described as
characteristic of most typical dreams. The associative material which
the dreamer supplies only rarely suffices for interpretation. A deeper
understanding of such dreams has to be accumulated from a considerable
number of examples. Not long ago I arrived at a conviction that
reassurances like "But you already are a doctor," and so on, not only
convey a consolation but imply a reproach as well. This would have run:
"You are already so old, so far advanced in life, and yet you still
commit such follies, are guilty of such childish behaviour." This
mixture of self- criticism and consolation would correspond with the
examination- dreams. After this it is no longer surprising that the
reproaches in the last analysed examples concerning follies and childish
behaviour should relate to repetitions of reprehensible sexual acts.
The verbal transformations in dreams are
very similar to those which are known to occur in paranoia, and which
are observed also in hysteria and obsessions. The linguistic tricks of
children, who at a certain age actually treat words as objects, and even
invent new languages and artificial syntaxes, are a common source of
such occurrences both in dreams and in the psychoneuroses.
The analysis of nonsensical
word-formations in dreams is particularly well suited to demonstrate the
degree of condensation effected in the dream-work. From the small number
of the selected examples here considered it must not be concluded that
such material is seldom observed or is at all exceptional. It is, on the
contrary, very frequent, but, owing to the dependence of dream
interpretation on psychoanalytic treatment, very few examples are noted
down and reported, and most of the analyses which are reported are
comprehensible only to the specialist in neuropathology.
When a spoken utterance, expressly
distinguished as such from a thought, occurs in a dream, it is an
invariable rule that the dream-speech has originated from a remembered
speech in the dream- material. The wording of the speech has either been
preserved in its entirety or has been slightly altered in expression.
frequently the dream-speech is pieced together from different
recollections of spoken remarks; the wording has remained the same, but
the sense has perhaps become ambiguous, or differs from the wording. Not
infrequently the dream-speech serves merely as an allusion to an
incident in connection with which the remembered speech was made. *
* In the case of a young man who was
suffering from obsessions, but whose intellectual functions were intact
and highly developed, I recently found the only exception to this rule.
The speeches which occurred in his dreams did not originate in speeches
which he had heard had made himself, but corresponded to the undistorted
verbal expression of his obsessive thoughts, which came to his waking
consciousness only in an altered form.
Table of
Contents
THE DREAM-WORK
Condensation
I.
II. "A Beautiful Dream"
B. The Work of Displacement
C. The Means of Representation in Dreams
D. Regard for Representability
E. Representation in Dreams by Symbols: Some
Further Typical Dreams
The hat as the symbol of a man (of the male
genitals):
The little one as the genital organ. Being run
over as a symbol of sexual intercourse.
Representation of the genitals by buildings,
stairs, and shafts.
The male organ symbolized by persons and the
female by a landscape.
Castration dreams of children.
A modified staircase dream.
The sensation of reality and the
representation of repetition.
The question of symbolism in the dreams of
normal persons.
Dream of a chemist.
Examples- Arithmetic and Speech in Dreams
Absurd Dreams- Intellectual Performances in
Dreams
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
The Affects in Dreams
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
The Secondary Elaboration