The meaning is always
determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer.
determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer.
Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud
But you know
that only a mother can commit this crime upon her newly born child? "
"That is true. "[4] "And under what circumstances did you dream; what
happened on the evening before? " "I would rather not tell you that; it
is a delicate matter. " "But I must have it, otherwise we must forgo the
interpretation of the dream. " "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the
night, not at home, but at the house of a lady who means very much to
me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between us.
Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you. " "The woman
is married? " "Yes. " "And you do not wish her to conceive a child? " "No;
that might betray us. " "Then you do not practice normal coitus? " "I take
the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation. " "Am I permitted to
assume that you did this trick several times during the night, and that
in the morning you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded? " "That
might be the case. " "Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By
means of it you secure the assurance that you have not begotten a child,
or, what amounts to the same thing, that you have killed a child. I can
easily demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago
we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the
inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long as no
impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and
the semen meet and a foetus is formed is punished as a crime? In
connection with this, we also recalled the mediaeval controversy about
the moment of time at which the soul is really lodged in the foetus,
since the concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point on.
Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts
infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane. "
"Strangely enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during the
afternoon. " "Another echo of your dream. And now I shall demonstrate to
you another subordinate wish-fulfillment in your dream. You walk in
front of your house with the lady on your arm. So you take her home,
instead of spending the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The
fact that the wish-fulfillment, which is the essence of the dream,
disguises itself in such an unpleasant form, has perhaps more than one
reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you will see
that I note interrupted coitus as one of the factors which cause the
development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent with this that if
after repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you should be left in
an uncomfortable mood, which now becomes an element in the composition
of your dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state of mind to
conceal the wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide
has not yet been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to
females, occur to you? " "I shall confess to you that I was involved in
such an affair years ago. Through my fault a girl tried to protect
herself from the consequences of a _liaison_ with me by securing an
abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but I was
naturally for a long time worried lest the affair might be discovered. "
"I understand; this recollection furnished a second reason why the
supposition that you had done your trick badly must have been painful to
you. "
A young physician, who had heard this dream of my colleague when it was
told, must have felt implicated by it, for he hastened to imitate it in
a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another subject.
The day before he had handed in a declaration of his income, which was
perfectly honest, because he had little to declare. He dreamt that an
acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and
informed him that all the other declarations of income had passed
uncontested, but that his own had awakened general suspicion, and that
he would be punished with a heavy fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed
fulfillment of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income.
It likewise recalls the story of the young girl who was advised against
accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper who would
surely treat her to blows after they were married.
The answer of the girl was: "I wish he _would_ strike me! " Her wish to
be married is so strong that she takes into the bargain the discomfort
which is said to be connected with matrimony, and which is predicted for
her, and even raises it to a wish.
If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem
flatly to contradict my theory, in that they contain the denial of a
wish or some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of
"counter wish-dreams," I observe that they may all be referred to two
principles, of which one has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a
large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives inspiring
these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams
regularly occur in the course of my treatment if the patient shows a
resistance against me, and I can count with a large degree of certainty
upon causing such a dream after I have once explained to the patient my
theory that the dream is a wish-fulfillment. [5] I may even expect this
to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfill the wish that I may
appear in the wrong. The last dream which I shall tell from those
occurring in the course of treatment again shows this very thing. A
young girl who has struggled hard to continue my treatment, against the
will of her relatives and the authorities whom she had consulted, dreams
as follows: _She is forbidden at home to come to me any more. She then
reminds me of the promise I made her to treat her for nothing if
necessary, and I say to her: "I can show no consideration in money
matters. "_
It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfillment of a
wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem, the
solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the
words which she puts into my mouth? Of course I have never told her
anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one who has the
greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark
about me. It is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should
remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely
in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her being
ill.
The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is
danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in my own case. In
the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component,
which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic
component into its opposite. Such people are called "ideal" masochists,
if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon
them, but in humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious
that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams,
which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfillment, affording
satisfaction for their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A
young man, who has in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards
whom he was homosexually inclined, but who had undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which consists of three
parts: (1) _He is "insulted" by his brother. _ (2) _Two adults are
caressing each other with homosexual intentions. _ (3) _His brother has
sold the enterprise whose management the young man reserved for his own
future. _ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the most
unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might
be translated: It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make
that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments
which he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice--until
further objection can be raised--to make it seem credible that even
dreams with a painful content are to be analyzed as the fulfillments of
wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of
interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which one does not
like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams
arouse is simply identical with the antipathy which endeavors--usually
with success--to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such
subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its
unpleasantness, we find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But
this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not
preclude the existence of a wish; every one has wishes which he would
not like to tell to others, which he does not want to admit even to
himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the
disagreeable character of all these dreams with the fact of dream
disfigurement, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and
that the wish-fulfillment in them is disguised until recognition is
impossible for no other reason than that a repugnance, a will to
suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of the dream or in
relation to the wish which the dream creates. Dream disfigurement,
then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. We shall take
into consideration everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams
has brought to light if we reword our formula as follows: _The dream is
the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish_.
Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams with painful
content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of which under dreams of
wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can
settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they
may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in
their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which
we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained by the dream
content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis, we become
aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than
the fear in a phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia
depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a
window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window,
but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so
great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater than
is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to
the phobia applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the
anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it
and comes from another source.
On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear,
discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a little
essay on "The Anxiety Neurosis,"[6] I maintained that neurotic fear has
its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has
been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied.
From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more
clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams
is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content has been
transformed into fear.
[1] To sit for the painter. Goethe: "And if he has no backside, how can
the nobleman sit? "
[2] I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the
psychopathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary
representation and of being torn from all connection with the subject,
cannot have a very enlightening influence. If these passages are capable
of throwing light upon the intimate relations between the dream and the
psychoneuroses, they have served the purpose for which I have taken them
up.
[3] Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred
supper.
[4] It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a
recollection of the omitted portions appear only in the course of the
analysis. These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish the
key to the interpretation. _Cf. _ below, about forgetting in dreams.
[5] Similar "counter wish-dreams" have been repeatedly reported to me
within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their first
encounter with the "wish theory of the dream. "
[6] See _Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses_, p. 133,
translated by A. A. Brill, _Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases_,
Monograph Series.
V
SEX IN DREAMS
The more one is occupied with the solution of dreams, the more willing
one must become to acknowledge that the majority of the dreams of adults
treat of sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only one
who really analyzes dreams, that is to say, who pushes forward from
their manifest content to the latent dream thoughts, can form an opinion
on this subject--never the person who is satisfied with registering the
manifest content (as, for example, Nacke in his works on sexual dreams).
Let us recognize at once that this fact is not to be wondered at, but
that it is in complete harmony with the fundamental assumptions of dream
explanation. No other impulse has had to undergo so much suppression
from the time of childhood as the sex impulse in its numerous
components, from no other impulse have survived so many and such intense
unconscious wishes, which now act in the sleeping state in such a manner
as to produce dreams. In dream interpretation, this significance of
sexual complexes must never be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be
exaggerated to the point of being considered exclusive.
Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that
they are even to be taken bisexually, inasmuch as they result in an
irrefutable secondary interpretation in which they realize homosexual
feelings--that is, feelings that are common to the normal sexual
activity of the dreaming person. But that all dreams are to be
interpreted bisexually, seems to me to be a generalization as
indemonstrable as it is improbable, which I should not like to support.
Above all I should not know how to dispose of the apparent fact that
there are many dreams satisfying other than--in the widest sense--erotic
needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst, convenience, &c. Likewise the
similar assertions "that behind every dream one finds the death
sentence" (Stekel), and that every dream shows "a continuation from the
feminine to the masculine line" (Adler), seem to me to proceed far
beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.
We have already asserted elsewhere that dreams which are conspicuously
innocent invariably embody coarse erotic wishes, and we might confirm
this by means of numerous fresh examples. But many dreams which appear
indifferent, and which would never be suspected of any particular
significance, can be traced back, after analysis, to unmistakably sexual
wish-feelings, which are often of an unexpected nature. For example,
who would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the
interpretation had been worked out? The dreamer relates: _Between two
stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors
are closed. My wife leads me a little way along the street up to the
little house, and pushes in the door, and then I slip quickly and easily
into the interior of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards. _
Any one who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of
course, immediately perceive that penetrating into narrow spaces, and
opening locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and will
easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from
behind (between the two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow
slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to
the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it
is only consideration for the wife which is responsible for the
detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the
previous day a young girl had entered the household of the dreamer who
had pleased him, and who had given him the impression that she would not
be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house
between the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin
in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of that
city.
If with my patients I emphasize the frequency of the Oedipus dream--of
having sexual intercourse with one's mother--I get the answer: "I cannot
remember such a dream. " Immediately afterwards, however, there arises
the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has
been dreamed repeatedly by the patient, and the analysis shows it to be
a dream of this same content--that is, another Oedipus dream. I can
assure the reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with the
mother are a great deal more frequent than open ones to the same effect.
There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is
always laid upon the assurance: "I have been there before. " In this case
the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can indeed be
asserted with such certainty of no other locality that one "has been
there before. "
A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with
passing through narrow spaces or with staying, in the water, are based
upon fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's
womb, and about the act of birth. The following is the dream of a young
man who in his fancy has already while in embryo taken advantage of his
opportunity to spy upon an act of coition between his parents.
_"He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window, as in the Semmering
Tunnel. At first he sees an empty landscape through this window, and
then he composes a picture into it, which is immediately at hand and
which fills out the empty space. The picture represents a field which is
being thoroughly harrowed by an implement, and the delightful air, the
accompanying idea of hard work, and the bluish-black clods of earth make
a pleasant impression. He then goes on and sees a primary school opened
. . . and he is surprised that so much attention is devoted in it to the
sexual feelings of the child, which makes him think of me. "_
Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient, which was turned to
extraordinary account in the course of treatment.
_At her summer resort at the . . . Lake, she hurls herself into the dark
water at a place where the pale moon is reflected in the water. _
Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their interpretation is
accomplished by reversing the fact reported in the manifest dream
content; thus, instead of "throwing one's self into the water," read
"coming out of the water," that is, "being born. " The place from which
one is born is recognized if one thinks of the bad sense of the French
"la lune. " The pale moon thus becomes the white "bottom" (Popo), which
the child soon recognizes as the place from which it came. Now what can
be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born at her summer resort?
I asked the dreamer this, and she answered without hesitation: "Hasn't
the treatment made me as though I were born again? " Thus the dream
becomes an invitation to continue the cure at this summer resort, that
is, to visit her there; perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion
to the wish to become a mother herself. [1]
Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from the
work of E. Jones. _"She stood at the seashore watching a small boy, who
seemed to be hers, wading into the water. This he did till the water
covered him, and she could only see his head bobbing up and down near
the surface. The scene then changed to the crowded hall of a hotel. Her
husband left her, and she 'entered into conversation with' a
stranger. "_ The second half of the dream was discovered in the analysis
to represent a flight from her husband, and the entering into intimate
relations with a third person, behind whom was plainly indicated Mr.
X. 's brother mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the dream
was a fairly evident birth phantasy. In dreams as in mythology, the
delivery of a child _from_ the uterine waters is commonly presented by
distortion as the entry of the child _into_ water; among many others,
the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known
illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water
at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening she had
experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy going into the
water induced a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of the
water, carrying him into the nursery, washing him and dressing him, and
installing him in her household.
The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning
the elopement, which belonged to the first half of the underlying latent
content; the first half of the dream corresponded with the second half
of the latent content, the birth phantasy. Besides this inversion in
order, further inversions took place in each half of the dream. In the
first half the child _entered_ the water, and then his head bobbed; in
the underlying dream thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then
the child left the water (a double inversion). In the second half her
husband left her; in the dream thoughts she left her husband.
Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking
forward to her first confinement. From a place in the floor of the house
a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path,
amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there
immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost
resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the
dreamer, to whom she has always stood in maternal relationship.
Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save,
especially to save from the water, is equivalent to giving birth when
dreamed by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when the dreamer is
a man.
Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before
going to bed, and which occasionally even disturb our sleep, originate
in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are the nightly visitors
who have awakened the child to set it on the chamber so that it may not
wet the bed, or have lifted the cover in order to see clearly how the
child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have been able to induce an
exact recollection of the nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of
these anxiety dreams. The robbers were always the father, the ghosts
more probably corresponded to feminine persons with white night-gowns.
When one has become familiar with the abundant use of symbolism for the
representation of sexual material in dreams, one naturally raises the
question whether there are not many of these symbols which appear once
and for all with a firmly established significance like the signs in
stenography; and one is tempted to compile a new dream-book according to
the cipher method. In this connection it may be remarked that this
symbolism does not belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to
unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses, and it is to be
found in greater perfection in the folklore, in the myths, legends, and
manners of speech, in the proverbial sayings, and in the current
witticisms of a nation than in its dreams.
The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in order to give a disguised
representation to its latent thoughts. Among the symbols which are used
in this manner there are of course many which regularly, or almost
regularly, mean the same thing. Only it is necessary to keep in mind the
curious plasticity of psychic material. Now and then a symbol in the
dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according
to its real meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a peculiar
set of recollections, may create for himself the right to use anything
whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that
way. Nor are the most frequently used sexual symbols unambiguous every
time.
After these limitations and reservations I may call attention to the
following: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) in most cases really
represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is
the prince or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and
umbrellas (on account of the stretching-up which might be compared to an
erection! all elongated and sharp weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes,
are intended to represent the male member. A frequent, not very
intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account of the
rubbing and scraping? ). Little cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and
stoves correspond to the female part. The symbolism of lock and key has
been very gracefully employed by Uhland in his song about the "Grafen
Eberstein," to make a common smutty joke. The dream of walking through a
row of rooms is a brothel or harem dream. Staircases, ladders, and
flights of stairs, or climbing on these, either upwards or downwards,
are symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth walls over which
one is climbing, facades of houses upon which one is letting oneself
down, frequently under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human
body, and probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward
climbing of little children on their parents or foster parents. "Smooth"
walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one is holding on firmly to
some projection from a house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women,
perhaps on account of the opposition which does away with the bodily
contours. Since "bed and board" (_mensa et thorus_) constitute marriage,
the former are often put for the latter in the dream, and as far as
practicable the sexual presentation complex is transposed to the eating
complex. Of articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be
definitely interpreted as the male genital. In dreams of men one often
finds the cravat as a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only
because cravats hang down long, and are characteristic of the man, but
also because one can select them at pleasure, a freedom which is
prohibited by nature in the original of the symbol. Persons who make use
of this symbol in the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and
possess regular collections of them. All complicated machines and
apparatus in dream are very probably genitals, in the description of
which dream symbolism shows itself to be as tireless as the activity of
wit. Likewise many landscapes in dreams, especially with bridges or with
wooded mountains, can be readily recognized as descriptions of the
genitals. Finally where one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may
think of combinations made up of components having a sexual
significance. Children also in the dream often signify the genitals, as
men and women are in the habit of fondly referring to their genital
organ as their "little one. " As a very recent symbol of the male genital
may be mentioned the flying machine, utilization of which is justified
by its relation to flying as well as occasionally by its form. To play
with a little child or to beat a little one is often the dream's
representation of onanism. A number of other symbols, in part not
sufficiently verified are given by Stekel, who illustrates them with
examples. Right and left, according to him, are to be conceived in the
dream in an ethical sense. "The right way always signifies the road to
righteousness, the left the one to crime. Thus the left may signify
homosexuality, incest, and perversion, while the right signifies
marriage, relations with a prostitute, &c.
The meaning is always
determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer. " Relatives
in the dream generally play the role of genitals. Not to be able to
catch up with a wagon is interpreted by Stekel as regret not to be able
to come up to a difference in age. Baggage with which one travels is the
burden of sin by which one is oppressed. Also numbers, which frequently
occur in the dream, are assigned by Stekel a fixed symbolical meaning,
but these interpretations seem neither sufficiently verified nor of
general validity, although the interpretation in individual cases can
generally be recognized as probable. In a recently published book by W.
Stekel, _Die Sprache des Traumes_, which I was unable to utilize, there
is a list of the most common sexual symbols, the object of which is to
prove that all sexual symbols can be bisexually used. He states: "Is
there a symbol which (if in any way permitted by the phantasy) may not
be used simultaneously in the masculine and the feminine sense! " To be
sure the clause in parentheses takes away much of the absoluteness of
this assertion, for this is not at all permitted by the phantasy. I do
not, however, think it superfluous to state that in my experience
Stekel's general statement has to give way to the recognition of a
greater manifoldness. Besides those symbols, which are just as frequent
for the male as for the female genitals, there are others which
preponderately, or almost exclusively, designate one of the sexes, and
there are still others of which only the male or only the female
signification is known. To use long, firm objects and weapons as symbols
of the female genitals, or hollow objects (chests, pouches, &c. ), as
symbols of the male genitals, is indeed not allowed by the fancy.
It is true that the tendency of the dream and the unconscious fancy to
utilize the sexual symbol bisexually betrays an archaic trend, for in
childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and the same genitals
are attributed to both sexes.
These very incomplete suggestions may suffice to stimulate others to
make a more careful collection.
I shall now add a few examples of the application of such symbolisms in
dreams, which will serve to show how impossible it becomes to interpret
a dream without taking into account the symbolism of dreams, and how
imperatively it obtrudes itself in many cases.
1. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male genital): (a fragment
from the dream of a young woman who suffered from agoraphobia on account
of a fear of temptation).
"I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a straw hat of peculiar
shape, the middle piece of which is bent upwards and the side pieces of
which hang downwards (the description became here obstructed), and in
such a fashion that one is lower than the other. I am cheerful and in a
confidential mood, and as I pass a troop of young officers I think to
myself: None of you can have any designs upon me. "
As she could produce no associations to the hat, I said to her: "The hat
is really a male genital, with its raised middle piece and the two
downward hanging side pieces. " I intentionally refrained from
interpreting those details concerning the unequal downward hanging of
the two side pieces, although just such individualities in the
determinations lead the way to the interpretation. I continued by saying
that if she only had a man with such a virile genital she would not have
to fear the officers--that is, she would have nothing to wish from them,
for she is mainly kept from going without protection and company by her
fancies of temptation. This last explanation of her fear I had already
been able to give her repeatedly on the basis of other material.
It is quite remarkable how the dreamer behaved after this
interpretation. She withdrew her description of the hat, and claimed not
to have said that the two side pieces were hanging downwards. I was,
however, too sure of what I had heard to allow myself to be misled, and
I persisted in it. She was quiet for a while, and then found the courage
to ask why it was that one of her husband's testicles was lower than the
other, and whether it was the same in all men. With this the peculiar
detail of the hat was explained, and the whole interpretation was
accepted by her. The hat symbol was familiar to me long before the
patient related this dream. From other but less transparent cases I
believe that the hat may also be taken as a female genital.
2. The little one as the genital--to be run over as a symbol of sexual
intercourse (another dream of the same agoraphobic patient).
"Her mother sends away her little daughter so that she must go alone.
She rides with her mother to the railroad and sees her little one
walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid being run
over. She hears the bones crackle. (From this she experiences a feeling
of discomfort but no real horror. ) She then looks out through the car
window to see whether the parts cannot be seen behind. She then
reproaches her mother for allowing the little one to go out alone. "
Analysis. It is not an easy matter to give here a complete
interpretation of the dream. It forms part of a cycle of dreams, and can
be fully understood only in connection with the others. For it is not
easy to get the necessary material sufficiently isolated to prove the
symbolism. The patient at first finds that the railroad journey is to be
interpreted historically as an allusion to a departure from a sanatorium
for nervous diseases, with the superintendent of which she naturally was
in love. Her mother took her away from this place, and the physician
came to the railroad station and handed her a bouquet of flowers on
leaving; she felt uncomfortable because her mother witnessed this
homage. Here the mother, therefore, appears as a disturber of her love
affairs, which is the role actually played by this strict woman during
her daughter's girlhood. The next thought referred to the sentence: "She
then looks to see whether the parts can be seen behind. " In the dream
facade one would naturally be compelled to think of the parts of the
little daughter run over and ground up. The thought, however, turns in
quite a different direction. She recalls that she once saw her father in
the bath-room naked from behind; she then begins to talk about the sex
differentiation, and asserts that in the man the genitals can be seen
from behind, but in the woman they cannot. In this connection she now
herself offers the interpretation that the little one is the genital,
her little one (she has a four-year-old daughter) her own genital. She
reproaches her mother for wanting her to live as though she had no
genital, and recognizes this reproach in the introductory sentence of
the dream; the mother sends away her little one so that she must go
alone. In her phantasy going alone on the street signifies to have no
man and no sexual relations (coire = to go together), and this she does
not like. According to all her statements she really suffered as a girl
on account of the jealousy of her mother, because she showed a
preference for her father.
The "little one" has been noted as a symbol for the male or the female
genitals by Stekel, who can refer in this connection to a very
widespread usage of language.
The deeper interpretation of this dream depends upon another dream of
the same night in which the dreamer identifies herself with her brother.
She was a "tomboy," and was always being told that she should have been
born a boy. This identification with the brother shows with special
clearness that "the little one" signifies the genital. The mother
threatened him (her) with castration, which could only be understood as
a punishment for playing with the parts, and the identification,
therefore, shows that she herself had masturbated as a child, though
this fact she now retained only in memory concerning her brother. An
early knowledge of the male genital which she later lost she must have
acquired at that time according to the assertions of this second dream.
Moreover the second dream points to the infantile sexual theory that
girls originate from boys through castration. After I had told her of
this childish belief, she at once confirmed it with an anecdote in which
the boy asks the girl: "Was it cut off? " to which the girl replied, "No,
it's always been so. "
The sending away of the little one, of the genital, in the first dream
therefore also refers to the threatened castration. Finally she blames
her mother for not having been born a boy.
That "being run over" symbolizes sexual intercourse would not be evident
from this dream if we were not sure of it from many other sources.
3. Representation of the genital by structures, stairways, and shafts.
(Dream of a young man inhibited by a father complex. )
"He is taking a walk with his father in a place which is surely the
Prater, for the _Rotunda_ may be seen in front of which there is a small
front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the balloon,
however, seems quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all
for; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father. They come
into a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to
pull off a big piece of this, but first looks around to see if any one
is watching. He tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak to
the watchman, and then he can take without any further difficulty as
much as he wants to. From this court a stairway leads down into a shaft,
the walls of which are softly upholstered something like a leather
pocketbook. At the end of this shaft there is a longer platform, and
then a new shaft begins. . . . "
Analysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable
from a therapeutic point of view. They follow in the analysis without
offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that
point on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed
himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my genital, the captive balloon in
front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried. " We must,
however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which
is regularly associated by the child with the genital, the smaller front
structure is the scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what this is
all for--that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the
genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs should be
turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a
questioning on the side of the father has never taken place in reality,
we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally,
as follows: "If I had only asked my father for sexual enlightenment. "
The continuation of this thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived
symbolically in the first instance, but originates from his father's
place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for
another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing
anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered
his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the
questionable practices upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the
continuation of the above dream thought ("if I had only asked him")
would be: "He would have deceived me just as he does his customers. " For
the pulling off, which serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the
dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This is not
only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that
the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its opposite ("Why one can do it
quite openly"). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that
the onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the
questioning in the first scene of the dream. The shaft he at once
interprets as the vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the
walls. That the act of coition in the vagina is described as a going
down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found true
in other instances[2].
The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer
platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. He
had for some time consorted with women sexually, but had then given it
up because of inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again
with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct
toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident
that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject
has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and his
dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so
that one might think of a reference to the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman,
reported by B. Dattner. )
. . . Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a
policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a
church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there
was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest. [6] The policeman was
furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak. [7] The two vagrants, who
went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins
sack-like aprons. [8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This
road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became
thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it
spread out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank. )
For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the
same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream.
"I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl,
whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the
bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman? )
I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find
myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the
child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my
genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very
distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways.
During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if
in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a
green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the
painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday
present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that
cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very
indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the
stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the
pollution. "
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of
the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some
pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the
dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly
took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however,
was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian
servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child "was made on the
stairs. " The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual
occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the
home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for sexual
relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In
witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers,
the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar steps. "
These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream
content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily
reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also
utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had
spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first
become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among
other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to
become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very
rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he
hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down,"
as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the
beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual
excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer
used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he
satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in
the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus,
the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is
shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual
excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this
is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the
sadistic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing,
indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous
excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in
the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the
middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of
pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream
interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured
undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole
stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for coitus. Freud lays
stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons
for the sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream
especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express
assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most
pronounced feature in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from
their real significance, also have the value of "Weibsbilder" (literally
_woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by
the fact that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as
the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That
cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prostitution
complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the
thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent
complex (to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the
staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into
childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its
prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy
was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs
accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation
would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence
provoked the following dream:
"His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and
for not practicing the _Etudes_ of Moscheles and Clementi's _Gradus ad
Parnassum_. " In relation to this he remarked that the _Gradus_ is only a
stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a
scale.
It is correct to say that there is no series of associations which
cannot be adapted to the representation of sexual facts. I conclude with
the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his
habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
_Preliminary statement. _--On the day before the dream he had given a
student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium
is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic
influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the
course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his
hand.
Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus
with particular clearness, but he has substituted himself for the
magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude. He keeps repeating
to himself, "This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are
beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting soft. " Then he reaches
down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he
takes his legs out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself,
"That cannot be. . . . Yes, it must be so, it has been done correctly. "
Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he
wants to tell it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the analysis of the
dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats
continually, "Phenyl, phenyl. "_
II. _He is in . . . ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is
to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous with a certain lady, but he
does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too
late now; when you get there it will be half-past twelve. " The next
instant he sees the whole family gathered about the table--his mother
and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness.
Then he says to himself, "Well, if we are eating already, I certainly
can't get away. "_
Analysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference
to the lady whom he is to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed
during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he
gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to
the chemist: "That isn't right," because the magnesium was still
unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything
about it: "It certainly isn't right. " He himself must be this student;
he is as indifferent towards his analysis as the student is towards his
synthesis; the _He_ in the dream, however, who accomplishes the
operation, is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me with his
indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the analysis (synthesis) is
made. For it is a question of the success of the treatment. The legs in
the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at
a dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so
closely that she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing against
her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs
as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In
this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is
at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards
the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work.
Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers
to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day. . . .
The rendezvous had actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to
oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects (that is, with
masturbation) corresponds with his resistance.
that only a mother can commit this crime upon her newly born child? "
"That is true. "[4] "And under what circumstances did you dream; what
happened on the evening before? " "I would rather not tell you that; it
is a delicate matter. " "But I must have it, otherwise we must forgo the
interpretation of the dream. " "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the
night, not at home, but at the house of a lady who means very much to
me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between us.
Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you. " "The woman
is married? " "Yes. " "And you do not wish her to conceive a child? " "No;
that might betray us. " "Then you do not practice normal coitus? " "I take
the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation. " "Am I permitted to
assume that you did this trick several times during the night, and that
in the morning you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded? " "That
might be the case. " "Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By
means of it you secure the assurance that you have not begotten a child,
or, what amounts to the same thing, that you have killed a child. I can
easily demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago
we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the
inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long as no
impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and
the semen meet and a foetus is formed is punished as a crime? In
connection with this, we also recalled the mediaeval controversy about
the moment of time at which the soul is really lodged in the foetus,
since the concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point on.
Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts
infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane. "
"Strangely enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during the
afternoon. " "Another echo of your dream. And now I shall demonstrate to
you another subordinate wish-fulfillment in your dream. You walk in
front of your house with the lady on your arm. So you take her home,
instead of spending the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The
fact that the wish-fulfillment, which is the essence of the dream,
disguises itself in such an unpleasant form, has perhaps more than one
reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you will see
that I note interrupted coitus as one of the factors which cause the
development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent with this that if
after repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you should be left in
an uncomfortable mood, which now becomes an element in the composition
of your dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state of mind to
conceal the wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide
has not yet been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to
females, occur to you? " "I shall confess to you that I was involved in
such an affair years ago. Through my fault a girl tried to protect
herself from the consequences of a _liaison_ with me by securing an
abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but I was
naturally for a long time worried lest the affair might be discovered. "
"I understand; this recollection furnished a second reason why the
supposition that you had done your trick badly must have been painful to
you. "
A young physician, who had heard this dream of my colleague when it was
told, must have felt implicated by it, for he hastened to imitate it in
a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another subject.
The day before he had handed in a declaration of his income, which was
perfectly honest, because he had little to declare. He dreamt that an
acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and
informed him that all the other declarations of income had passed
uncontested, but that his own had awakened general suspicion, and that
he would be punished with a heavy fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed
fulfillment of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income.
It likewise recalls the story of the young girl who was advised against
accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper who would
surely treat her to blows after they were married.
The answer of the girl was: "I wish he _would_ strike me! " Her wish to
be married is so strong that she takes into the bargain the discomfort
which is said to be connected with matrimony, and which is predicted for
her, and even raises it to a wish.
If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem
flatly to contradict my theory, in that they contain the denial of a
wish or some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of
"counter wish-dreams," I observe that they may all be referred to two
principles, of which one has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a
large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives inspiring
these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams
regularly occur in the course of my treatment if the patient shows a
resistance against me, and I can count with a large degree of certainty
upon causing such a dream after I have once explained to the patient my
theory that the dream is a wish-fulfillment. [5] I may even expect this
to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfill the wish that I may
appear in the wrong. The last dream which I shall tell from those
occurring in the course of treatment again shows this very thing. A
young girl who has struggled hard to continue my treatment, against the
will of her relatives and the authorities whom she had consulted, dreams
as follows: _She is forbidden at home to come to me any more. She then
reminds me of the promise I made her to treat her for nothing if
necessary, and I say to her: "I can show no consideration in money
matters. "_
It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfillment of a
wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem, the
solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the
words which she puts into my mouth? Of course I have never told her
anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one who has the
greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark
about me. It is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should
remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely
in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her being
ill.
The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is
danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in my own case. In
the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component,
which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic
component into its opposite. Such people are called "ideal" masochists,
if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon
them, but in humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious
that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams,
which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfillment, affording
satisfaction for their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A
young man, who has in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards
whom he was homosexually inclined, but who had undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which consists of three
parts: (1) _He is "insulted" by his brother. _ (2) _Two adults are
caressing each other with homosexual intentions. _ (3) _His brother has
sold the enterprise whose management the young man reserved for his own
future. _ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the most
unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might
be translated: It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make
that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments
which he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice--until
further objection can be raised--to make it seem credible that even
dreams with a painful content are to be analyzed as the fulfillments of
wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of
interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which one does not
like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams
arouse is simply identical with the antipathy which endeavors--usually
with success--to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such
subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its
unpleasantness, we find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But
this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not
preclude the existence of a wish; every one has wishes which he would
not like to tell to others, which he does not want to admit even to
himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the
disagreeable character of all these dreams with the fact of dream
disfigurement, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and
that the wish-fulfillment in them is disguised until recognition is
impossible for no other reason than that a repugnance, a will to
suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of the dream or in
relation to the wish which the dream creates. Dream disfigurement,
then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. We shall take
into consideration everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams
has brought to light if we reword our formula as follows: _The dream is
the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish_.
Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams with painful
content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of which under dreams of
wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can
settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they
may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in
their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which
we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained by the dream
content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis, we become
aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than
the fear in a phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia
depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a
window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window,
but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so
great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater than
is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to
the phobia applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the
anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it
and comes from another source.
On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear,
discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a little
essay on "The Anxiety Neurosis,"[6] I maintained that neurotic fear has
its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has
been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied.
From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more
clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams
is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content has been
transformed into fear.
[1] To sit for the painter. Goethe: "And if he has no backside, how can
the nobleman sit? "
[2] I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the
psychopathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary
representation and of being torn from all connection with the subject,
cannot have a very enlightening influence. If these passages are capable
of throwing light upon the intimate relations between the dream and the
psychoneuroses, they have served the purpose for which I have taken them
up.
[3] Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred
supper.
[4] It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a
recollection of the omitted portions appear only in the course of the
analysis. These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish the
key to the interpretation. _Cf. _ below, about forgetting in dreams.
[5] Similar "counter wish-dreams" have been repeatedly reported to me
within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their first
encounter with the "wish theory of the dream. "
[6] See _Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses_, p. 133,
translated by A. A. Brill, _Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases_,
Monograph Series.
V
SEX IN DREAMS
The more one is occupied with the solution of dreams, the more willing
one must become to acknowledge that the majority of the dreams of adults
treat of sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only one
who really analyzes dreams, that is to say, who pushes forward from
their manifest content to the latent dream thoughts, can form an opinion
on this subject--never the person who is satisfied with registering the
manifest content (as, for example, Nacke in his works on sexual dreams).
Let us recognize at once that this fact is not to be wondered at, but
that it is in complete harmony with the fundamental assumptions of dream
explanation. No other impulse has had to undergo so much suppression
from the time of childhood as the sex impulse in its numerous
components, from no other impulse have survived so many and such intense
unconscious wishes, which now act in the sleeping state in such a manner
as to produce dreams. In dream interpretation, this significance of
sexual complexes must never be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be
exaggerated to the point of being considered exclusive.
Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that
they are even to be taken bisexually, inasmuch as they result in an
irrefutable secondary interpretation in which they realize homosexual
feelings--that is, feelings that are common to the normal sexual
activity of the dreaming person. But that all dreams are to be
interpreted bisexually, seems to me to be a generalization as
indemonstrable as it is improbable, which I should not like to support.
Above all I should not know how to dispose of the apparent fact that
there are many dreams satisfying other than--in the widest sense--erotic
needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst, convenience, &c. Likewise the
similar assertions "that behind every dream one finds the death
sentence" (Stekel), and that every dream shows "a continuation from the
feminine to the masculine line" (Adler), seem to me to proceed far
beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.
We have already asserted elsewhere that dreams which are conspicuously
innocent invariably embody coarse erotic wishes, and we might confirm
this by means of numerous fresh examples. But many dreams which appear
indifferent, and which would never be suspected of any particular
significance, can be traced back, after analysis, to unmistakably sexual
wish-feelings, which are often of an unexpected nature. For example,
who would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the
interpretation had been worked out? The dreamer relates: _Between two
stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors
are closed. My wife leads me a little way along the street up to the
little house, and pushes in the door, and then I slip quickly and easily
into the interior of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards. _
Any one who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of
course, immediately perceive that penetrating into narrow spaces, and
opening locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and will
easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from
behind (between the two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow
slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to
the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it
is only consideration for the wife which is responsible for the
detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the
previous day a young girl had entered the household of the dreamer who
had pleased him, and who had given him the impression that she would not
be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house
between the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin
in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of that
city.
If with my patients I emphasize the frequency of the Oedipus dream--of
having sexual intercourse with one's mother--I get the answer: "I cannot
remember such a dream. " Immediately afterwards, however, there arises
the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has
been dreamed repeatedly by the patient, and the analysis shows it to be
a dream of this same content--that is, another Oedipus dream. I can
assure the reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with the
mother are a great deal more frequent than open ones to the same effect.
There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is
always laid upon the assurance: "I have been there before. " In this case
the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can indeed be
asserted with such certainty of no other locality that one "has been
there before. "
A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with
passing through narrow spaces or with staying, in the water, are based
upon fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's
womb, and about the act of birth. The following is the dream of a young
man who in his fancy has already while in embryo taken advantage of his
opportunity to spy upon an act of coition between his parents.
_"He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window, as in the Semmering
Tunnel. At first he sees an empty landscape through this window, and
then he composes a picture into it, which is immediately at hand and
which fills out the empty space. The picture represents a field which is
being thoroughly harrowed by an implement, and the delightful air, the
accompanying idea of hard work, and the bluish-black clods of earth make
a pleasant impression. He then goes on and sees a primary school opened
. . . and he is surprised that so much attention is devoted in it to the
sexual feelings of the child, which makes him think of me. "_
Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient, which was turned to
extraordinary account in the course of treatment.
_At her summer resort at the . . . Lake, she hurls herself into the dark
water at a place where the pale moon is reflected in the water. _
Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their interpretation is
accomplished by reversing the fact reported in the manifest dream
content; thus, instead of "throwing one's self into the water," read
"coming out of the water," that is, "being born. " The place from which
one is born is recognized if one thinks of the bad sense of the French
"la lune. " The pale moon thus becomes the white "bottom" (Popo), which
the child soon recognizes as the place from which it came. Now what can
be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born at her summer resort?
I asked the dreamer this, and she answered without hesitation: "Hasn't
the treatment made me as though I were born again? " Thus the dream
becomes an invitation to continue the cure at this summer resort, that
is, to visit her there; perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion
to the wish to become a mother herself. [1]
Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from the
work of E. Jones. _"She stood at the seashore watching a small boy, who
seemed to be hers, wading into the water. This he did till the water
covered him, and she could only see his head bobbing up and down near
the surface. The scene then changed to the crowded hall of a hotel. Her
husband left her, and she 'entered into conversation with' a
stranger. "_ The second half of the dream was discovered in the analysis
to represent a flight from her husband, and the entering into intimate
relations with a third person, behind whom was plainly indicated Mr.
X. 's brother mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the dream
was a fairly evident birth phantasy. In dreams as in mythology, the
delivery of a child _from_ the uterine waters is commonly presented by
distortion as the entry of the child _into_ water; among many others,
the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known
illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water
at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening she had
experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy going into the
water induced a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of the
water, carrying him into the nursery, washing him and dressing him, and
installing him in her household.
The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning
the elopement, which belonged to the first half of the underlying latent
content; the first half of the dream corresponded with the second half
of the latent content, the birth phantasy. Besides this inversion in
order, further inversions took place in each half of the dream. In the
first half the child _entered_ the water, and then his head bobbed; in
the underlying dream thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then
the child left the water (a double inversion). In the second half her
husband left her; in the dream thoughts she left her husband.
Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking
forward to her first confinement. From a place in the floor of the house
a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path,
amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there
immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost
resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the
dreamer, to whom she has always stood in maternal relationship.
Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save,
especially to save from the water, is equivalent to giving birth when
dreamed by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when the dreamer is
a man.
Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before
going to bed, and which occasionally even disturb our sleep, originate
in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are the nightly visitors
who have awakened the child to set it on the chamber so that it may not
wet the bed, or have lifted the cover in order to see clearly how the
child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have been able to induce an
exact recollection of the nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of
these anxiety dreams. The robbers were always the father, the ghosts
more probably corresponded to feminine persons with white night-gowns.
When one has become familiar with the abundant use of symbolism for the
representation of sexual material in dreams, one naturally raises the
question whether there are not many of these symbols which appear once
and for all with a firmly established significance like the signs in
stenography; and one is tempted to compile a new dream-book according to
the cipher method. In this connection it may be remarked that this
symbolism does not belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to
unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses, and it is to be
found in greater perfection in the folklore, in the myths, legends, and
manners of speech, in the proverbial sayings, and in the current
witticisms of a nation than in its dreams.
The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in order to give a disguised
representation to its latent thoughts. Among the symbols which are used
in this manner there are of course many which regularly, or almost
regularly, mean the same thing. Only it is necessary to keep in mind the
curious plasticity of psychic material. Now and then a symbol in the
dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according
to its real meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a peculiar
set of recollections, may create for himself the right to use anything
whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that
way. Nor are the most frequently used sexual symbols unambiguous every
time.
After these limitations and reservations I may call attention to the
following: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) in most cases really
represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is
the prince or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and
umbrellas (on account of the stretching-up which might be compared to an
erection! all elongated and sharp weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes,
are intended to represent the male member. A frequent, not very
intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account of the
rubbing and scraping? ). Little cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and
stoves correspond to the female part. The symbolism of lock and key has
been very gracefully employed by Uhland in his song about the "Grafen
Eberstein," to make a common smutty joke. The dream of walking through a
row of rooms is a brothel or harem dream. Staircases, ladders, and
flights of stairs, or climbing on these, either upwards or downwards,
are symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth walls over which
one is climbing, facades of houses upon which one is letting oneself
down, frequently under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human
body, and probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward
climbing of little children on their parents or foster parents. "Smooth"
walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one is holding on firmly to
some projection from a house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women,
perhaps on account of the opposition which does away with the bodily
contours. Since "bed and board" (_mensa et thorus_) constitute marriage,
the former are often put for the latter in the dream, and as far as
practicable the sexual presentation complex is transposed to the eating
complex. Of articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be
definitely interpreted as the male genital. In dreams of men one often
finds the cravat as a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only
because cravats hang down long, and are characteristic of the man, but
also because one can select them at pleasure, a freedom which is
prohibited by nature in the original of the symbol. Persons who make use
of this symbol in the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and
possess regular collections of them. All complicated machines and
apparatus in dream are very probably genitals, in the description of
which dream symbolism shows itself to be as tireless as the activity of
wit. Likewise many landscapes in dreams, especially with bridges or with
wooded mountains, can be readily recognized as descriptions of the
genitals. Finally where one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may
think of combinations made up of components having a sexual
significance. Children also in the dream often signify the genitals, as
men and women are in the habit of fondly referring to their genital
organ as their "little one. " As a very recent symbol of the male genital
may be mentioned the flying machine, utilization of which is justified
by its relation to flying as well as occasionally by its form. To play
with a little child or to beat a little one is often the dream's
representation of onanism. A number of other symbols, in part not
sufficiently verified are given by Stekel, who illustrates them with
examples. Right and left, according to him, are to be conceived in the
dream in an ethical sense. "The right way always signifies the road to
righteousness, the left the one to crime. Thus the left may signify
homosexuality, incest, and perversion, while the right signifies
marriage, relations with a prostitute, &c.
The meaning is always
determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer. " Relatives
in the dream generally play the role of genitals. Not to be able to
catch up with a wagon is interpreted by Stekel as regret not to be able
to come up to a difference in age. Baggage with which one travels is the
burden of sin by which one is oppressed. Also numbers, which frequently
occur in the dream, are assigned by Stekel a fixed symbolical meaning,
but these interpretations seem neither sufficiently verified nor of
general validity, although the interpretation in individual cases can
generally be recognized as probable. In a recently published book by W.
Stekel, _Die Sprache des Traumes_, which I was unable to utilize, there
is a list of the most common sexual symbols, the object of which is to
prove that all sexual symbols can be bisexually used. He states: "Is
there a symbol which (if in any way permitted by the phantasy) may not
be used simultaneously in the masculine and the feminine sense! " To be
sure the clause in parentheses takes away much of the absoluteness of
this assertion, for this is not at all permitted by the phantasy. I do
not, however, think it superfluous to state that in my experience
Stekel's general statement has to give way to the recognition of a
greater manifoldness. Besides those symbols, which are just as frequent
for the male as for the female genitals, there are others which
preponderately, or almost exclusively, designate one of the sexes, and
there are still others of which only the male or only the female
signification is known. To use long, firm objects and weapons as symbols
of the female genitals, or hollow objects (chests, pouches, &c. ), as
symbols of the male genitals, is indeed not allowed by the fancy.
It is true that the tendency of the dream and the unconscious fancy to
utilize the sexual symbol bisexually betrays an archaic trend, for in
childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and the same genitals
are attributed to both sexes.
These very incomplete suggestions may suffice to stimulate others to
make a more careful collection.
I shall now add a few examples of the application of such symbolisms in
dreams, which will serve to show how impossible it becomes to interpret
a dream without taking into account the symbolism of dreams, and how
imperatively it obtrudes itself in many cases.
1. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male genital): (a fragment
from the dream of a young woman who suffered from agoraphobia on account
of a fear of temptation).
"I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a straw hat of peculiar
shape, the middle piece of which is bent upwards and the side pieces of
which hang downwards (the description became here obstructed), and in
such a fashion that one is lower than the other. I am cheerful and in a
confidential mood, and as I pass a troop of young officers I think to
myself: None of you can have any designs upon me. "
As she could produce no associations to the hat, I said to her: "The hat
is really a male genital, with its raised middle piece and the two
downward hanging side pieces. " I intentionally refrained from
interpreting those details concerning the unequal downward hanging of
the two side pieces, although just such individualities in the
determinations lead the way to the interpretation. I continued by saying
that if she only had a man with such a virile genital she would not have
to fear the officers--that is, she would have nothing to wish from them,
for she is mainly kept from going without protection and company by her
fancies of temptation. This last explanation of her fear I had already
been able to give her repeatedly on the basis of other material.
It is quite remarkable how the dreamer behaved after this
interpretation. She withdrew her description of the hat, and claimed not
to have said that the two side pieces were hanging downwards. I was,
however, too sure of what I had heard to allow myself to be misled, and
I persisted in it. She was quiet for a while, and then found the courage
to ask why it was that one of her husband's testicles was lower than the
other, and whether it was the same in all men. With this the peculiar
detail of the hat was explained, and the whole interpretation was
accepted by her. The hat symbol was familiar to me long before the
patient related this dream. From other but less transparent cases I
believe that the hat may also be taken as a female genital.
2. The little one as the genital--to be run over as a symbol of sexual
intercourse (another dream of the same agoraphobic patient).
"Her mother sends away her little daughter so that she must go alone.
She rides with her mother to the railroad and sees her little one
walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid being run
over. She hears the bones crackle. (From this she experiences a feeling
of discomfort but no real horror. ) She then looks out through the car
window to see whether the parts cannot be seen behind. She then
reproaches her mother for allowing the little one to go out alone. "
Analysis. It is not an easy matter to give here a complete
interpretation of the dream. It forms part of a cycle of dreams, and can
be fully understood only in connection with the others. For it is not
easy to get the necessary material sufficiently isolated to prove the
symbolism. The patient at first finds that the railroad journey is to be
interpreted historically as an allusion to a departure from a sanatorium
for nervous diseases, with the superintendent of which she naturally was
in love. Her mother took her away from this place, and the physician
came to the railroad station and handed her a bouquet of flowers on
leaving; she felt uncomfortable because her mother witnessed this
homage. Here the mother, therefore, appears as a disturber of her love
affairs, which is the role actually played by this strict woman during
her daughter's girlhood. The next thought referred to the sentence: "She
then looks to see whether the parts can be seen behind. " In the dream
facade one would naturally be compelled to think of the parts of the
little daughter run over and ground up. The thought, however, turns in
quite a different direction. She recalls that she once saw her father in
the bath-room naked from behind; she then begins to talk about the sex
differentiation, and asserts that in the man the genitals can be seen
from behind, but in the woman they cannot. In this connection she now
herself offers the interpretation that the little one is the genital,
her little one (she has a four-year-old daughter) her own genital. She
reproaches her mother for wanting her to live as though she had no
genital, and recognizes this reproach in the introductory sentence of
the dream; the mother sends away her little one so that she must go
alone. In her phantasy going alone on the street signifies to have no
man and no sexual relations (coire = to go together), and this she does
not like. According to all her statements she really suffered as a girl
on account of the jealousy of her mother, because she showed a
preference for her father.
The "little one" has been noted as a symbol for the male or the female
genitals by Stekel, who can refer in this connection to a very
widespread usage of language.
The deeper interpretation of this dream depends upon another dream of
the same night in which the dreamer identifies herself with her brother.
She was a "tomboy," and was always being told that she should have been
born a boy. This identification with the brother shows with special
clearness that "the little one" signifies the genital. The mother
threatened him (her) with castration, which could only be understood as
a punishment for playing with the parts, and the identification,
therefore, shows that she herself had masturbated as a child, though
this fact she now retained only in memory concerning her brother. An
early knowledge of the male genital which she later lost she must have
acquired at that time according to the assertions of this second dream.
Moreover the second dream points to the infantile sexual theory that
girls originate from boys through castration. After I had told her of
this childish belief, she at once confirmed it with an anecdote in which
the boy asks the girl: "Was it cut off? " to which the girl replied, "No,
it's always been so. "
The sending away of the little one, of the genital, in the first dream
therefore also refers to the threatened castration. Finally she blames
her mother for not having been born a boy.
That "being run over" symbolizes sexual intercourse would not be evident
from this dream if we were not sure of it from many other sources.
3. Representation of the genital by structures, stairways, and shafts.
(Dream of a young man inhibited by a father complex. )
"He is taking a walk with his father in a place which is surely the
Prater, for the _Rotunda_ may be seen in front of which there is a small
front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the balloon,
however, seems quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all
for; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father. They come
into a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to
pull off a big piece of this, but first looks around to see if any one
is watching. He tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak to
the watchman, and then he can take without any further difficulty as
much as he wants to. From this court a stairway leads down into a shaft,
the walls of which are softly upholstered something like a leather
pocketbook. At the end of this shaft there is a longer platform, and
then a new shaft begins. . . . "
Analysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable
from a therapeutic point of view. They follow in the analysis without
offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that
point on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed
himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my genital, the captive balloon in
front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried. " We must,
however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which
is regularly associated by the child with the genital, the smaller front
structure is the scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what this is
all for--that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the
genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs should be
turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a
questioning on the side of the father has never taken place in reality,
we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally,
as follows: "If I had only asked my father for sexual enlightenment. "
The continuation of this thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived
symbolically in the first instance, but originates from his father's
place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for
another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing
anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered
his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the
questionable practices upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the
continuation of the above dream thought ("if I had only asked him")
would be: "He would have deceived me just as he does his customers. " For
the pulling off, which serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the
dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This is not
only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that
the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its opposite ("Why one can do it
quite openly"). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that
the onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the
questioning in the first scene of the dream. The shaft he at once
interprets as the vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the
walls. That the act of coition in the vagina is described as a going
down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found true
in other instances[2].
The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer
platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. He
had for some time consorted with women sexually, but had then given it
up because of inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again
with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct
toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident
that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject
has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and his
dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so
that one might think of a reference to the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman,
reported by B. Dattner. )
. . . Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a
policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a
church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there
was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest. [6] The policeman was
furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak. [7] The two vagrants, who
went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins
sack-like aprons. [8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This
road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became
thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it
spread out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank. )
For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the
same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream.
"I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl,
whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the
bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman? )
I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find
myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the
child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my
genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very
distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways.
During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if
in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a
green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the
painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday
present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that
cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very
indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the
stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the
pollution. "
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of
the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some
pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the
dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly
took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however,
was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian
servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child "was made on the
stairs. " The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual
occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the
home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for sexual
relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In
witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers,
the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar steps. "
These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream
content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily
reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also
utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had
spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first
become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among
other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to
become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very
rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he
hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down,"
as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the
beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual
excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer
used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he
satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in
the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus,
the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is
shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual
excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this
is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the
sadistic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing,
indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous
excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in
the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the
middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of
pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream
interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured
undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole
stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for coitus. Freud lays
stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons
for the sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream
especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express
assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most
pronounced feature in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from
their real significance, also have the value of "Weibsbilder" (literally
_woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by
the fact that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as
the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That
cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prostitution
complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the
thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent
complex (to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the
staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into
childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its
prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy
was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs
accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation
would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence
provoked the following dream:
"His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and
for not practicing the _Etudes_ of Moscheles and Clementi's _Gradus ad
Parnassum_. " In relation to this he remarked that the _Gradus_ is only a
stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a
scale.
It is correct to say that there is no series of associations which
cannot be adapted to the representation of sexual facts. I conclude with
the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his
habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
_Preliminary statement. _--On the day before the dream he had given a
student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium
is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic
influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the
course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his
hand.
Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus
with particular clearness, but he has substituted himself for the
magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude. He keeps repeating
to himself, "This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are
beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting soft. " Then he reaches
down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he
takes his legs out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself,
"That cannot be. . . . Yes, it must be so, it has been done correctly. "
Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he
wants to tell it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the analysis of the
dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats
continually, "Phenyl, phenyl. "_
II. _He is in . . . ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is
to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous with a certain lady, but he
does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too
late now; when you get there it will be half-past twelve. " The next
instant he sees the whole family gathered about the table--his mother
and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness.
Then he says to himself, "Well, if we are eating already, I certainly
can't get away. "_
Analysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference
to the lady whom he is to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed
during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he
gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to
the chemist: "That isn't right," because the magnesium was still
unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything
about it: "It certainly isn't right. " He himself must be this student;
he is as indifferent towards his analysis as the student is towards his
synthesis; the _He_ in the dream, however, who accomplishes the
operation, is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me with his
indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the analysis (synthesis) is
made. For it is a question of the success of the treatment. The legs in
the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at
a dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so
closely that she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing against
her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs
as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In
this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is
at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards
the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work.
Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers
to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day. . . .
The rendezvous had actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to
oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects (that is, with
masturbation) corresponds with his resistance.
