A good deal of the dream work consists in the
creation
of those
frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions.
frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions.
Dream Psychology by Sigmund Freud
.
.
"_
This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It
appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd.
Mrs. E. L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms, nor to
my knowledge have I ever desired any more cordial relationship. I have
not seen her for a long time, and do not think there was any mention of
her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process.
Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I
will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without
criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an
advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the
ideas which link themselves to each fragment.
_Company; at table or table d'hote. _ The recollection of the slight
event with which the evening of yesterday ended is at once called up. I
left a small party in the company of a friend, who offered to drive me
home in his cab. "I prefer a taxi," he said; "that gives one such a
pleasant occupation; there is always something to look at. " When we were
in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc so that the first sixty
hellers were visible, I continued the jest. "We have hardly got in and
we already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table
d'hote. It makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me
of my debt. It seems to me to mount up too quickly, and I am always
afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at
table d'hote the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must
look after myself. " In far-fetched connection with this I quote:
"To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go. "
Another idea about the table d'hote. A few weeks ago I was very cross
with my dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort,
because she was not sufficiently reserved with some neighbors with whom
I wished to have absolutely nothing to do. I begged her to occupy
herself rather with me than with the strangers. That is just as if I had
_been at a disadvantage at the table d'hote_. The contrast between the
behavior of my wife at the table and that of Mrs. E. L. in the dream now
strikes me: _"Addresses herself entirely to me. "_
Further, I now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little
scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly
courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer
to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is
replaced by the unfamiliar E. L.
Mrs. E. L. is the daughter of a man to whom I _owed money_! I cannot help
noticing that here there is revealed an unsuspected connection between
the dream content and my thoughts. If the chain of associations be
followed up which proceeds from one element of the dream one is soon led
back to another of its elements. The thoughts evoked by the dream stir
up associations which were not noticeable in the dream itself.
Is it not customary, when some one expects others to look after his
interests without any advantage to themselves, to ask the innocent
question satirically: "Do you think this will be done _for the sake of
your beautiful eyes_? " Hence Mrs. E. L. 's speech in the dream. "You have
always had such beautiful eyes," means nothing but "people always do
everything to you for love of you; you have had _everything for
nothing_. " The contrary is, of course, the truth; I have always paid
dearly for whatever kindness others have shown me. Still, the fact that
_I had a ride for nothing_ yesterday when my friend drove me home in his
cab must have made an impression upon me.
In any case, the friend whose guests we were yesterday has often made me
his debtor. Recently I allowed an opportunity of requiting him to go by.
He has had only one present from me, an antique shawl, upon which eyes
are painted all round, a so-called Occhiale, as a _charm_ against the
_Malocchio_. Moreover, he is an _eye specialist_. That same evening I
had asked him after a patient whom I had sent to him for _glasses_.
As I remarked, nearly all parts of the dream have been brought into this
new connection. I still might ask why in the dream it was _spinach_
that was served up. Because spinach called up a little scene which
recently occurred at our table. A child, whose _beautiful eyes_ are
really deserving of praise, refused to eat spinach. As a child I was
just the same; for a long time I loathed _spinach_, until in later life
my tastes altered, and it became one of my favorite dishes. The mention
of this dish brings my own childhood and that of my child's near
together. "You should be glad that you have some spinach," his mother
had said to the little gourmet. "Some children would be very glad to get
spinach. " Thus I am reminded of the parents' duties towards their
children. Goethe's words--
"To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go"--
take on another meaning in this connection.
Here I will stop in order that I may recapitulate the results of the
analysis of the dream. By following the associations which were linked
to the single elements of the dream torn from their context, I have been
led to a series of thoughts and reminiscences where I am bound to
recognize interesting expressions of my psychical life. The matter
yielded by an analysis of the dream stands in intimate relationship with
the dream content, but this relationship is so special that I should
never have been able to have inferred the new discoveries directly from
the dream itself. The dream was passionless, disconnected, and
unintelligible. During the time that I am unfolding the thoughts at the
back of the dream I feel intense and well-grounded emotions. The
thoughts themselves fit beautifully together into chains logically bound
together with certain central ideas which ever repeat themselves. Such
ideas not represented in the dream itself are in this instance the
antitheses _selfish, unselfish, to be indebted, to work for nothing_. I
could draw closer the threads of the web which analysis has disclosed,
and would then be able to show how they all run together into a single
knot; I am debarred from making this work public by considerations of a
private, not of a scientific, nature. After having cleared up many
things which I do not willingly acknowledge as mine, I should have much
to reveal which had better remain my secret. Why, then, do not I choose
another dream whose analysis would be more suitable for publication, so
that I could awaken a fairer conviction of the sense and cohesion of the
results disclosed by analysis? The answer is, because every dream which
I investigate leads to the same difficulties and places me under the
same need of discretion; nor should I forgo this difficulty any the
more were I to analyze the dream of some one else. That could only be
done when opportunity allowed all concealment to be dropped without
injury to those who trusted me.
The conclusion which is now forced upon me is that the dream is a _sort
of substitution_ for those emotional and intellectual trains of thought
which I attained after complete analysis. I do not yet know the process
by which the dream arose from those thoughts, but I perceive that it is
wrong to regard the dream as psychically unimportant, a purely physical
process which has arisen from the activity of isolated cortical elements
awakened out of sleep.
I must further remark that the dream is far shorter than the thoughts
which I hold it replaces; whilst analysis discovered that the dream was
provoked by an unimportant occurrence the evening before the dream.
Naturally, I would not draw such far-reaching conclusions if only one
analysis were known to me. Experience has shown me that when the
associations of any dream are honestly followed such a chain of thought
is revealed, the constituent parts of the dream reappear correctly and
sensibly linked together; the slight suspicion that this concatenation
was merely an accident of a single first observation must, therefore,
be absolutely relinquished. I regard it, therefore, as my right to
establish this new view by a proper nomenclature. I contrast the dream
which my memory evokes with the dream and other added matter revealed by
analysis: the former I call the dream's _manifest content_; the latter,
without at first further subdivision, its _latent content_. I arrive at
two new problems hitherto unformulated: (1) What is the psychical
process which has transformed the latent content of the dream into its
manifest content? (2) What is the motive or the motives which have made
such transformation exigent? The process by which the change from latent
to manifest content is executed I name the _dream-work_. In contrast
with this is the _work of analysis_, which produces the reverse
transformation. The other problems of the dream--the inquiry as to its
stimuli, as to the source of its materials, as to its possible purpose,
the function of dreaming, the forgetting of dreams--these I will discuss
in connection with the latent dream-content.
I shall take every care to avoid a confusion between the _manifest_ and
the _latent content_, for I ascribe all the contradictory as well as the
incorrect accounts of dream-life to the ignorance of this latent
content, now first laid bare through analysis.
The conversion of the latent dream thoughts into those manifest deserves
our close study as the first known example of the transformation of
psychical stuff from one mode of expression into another. From a mode of
expression which, moreover, is readily intelligible into another which
we can only penetrate by effort and with guidance, although this new
mode must be equally reckoned as an effort of our own psychical
activity. From the standpoint of the relationship of latent to manifest
dream-content, dreams can be divided into three classes. We can, in the
first place, distinguish those dreams which have a _meaning_ and are, at
the same time, _intelligible_, which allow us to penetrate into our
psychical life without further ado. Such dreams are numerous; they are
usually short, and, as a general rule, do not seem very noticeable,
because everything remarkable or exciting surprise is absent. Their
occurrence is, moreover, a strong argument against the doctrine which
derives the dream from the isolated activity of certain cortical
elements. All signs of a lowered or subdivided psychical activity are
wanting. Yet we never raise any objection to characterizing them as
dreams, nor do we confound them with the products of our waking life.
A second group is formed by those dreams which are indeed self-coherent
and have a distinct meaning, but appear strange because we are unable to
reconcile their meaning with our mental life. That is the case when we
dream, for instance, that some dear relative has died of plague when we
know of no ground for expecting, apprehending, or assuming anything of
the sort; we can only ask ourself wonderingly: "What brought that into
my head? " To the third group those dreams belong which are void of both
meaning and intelligibility; they are _incoherent, complicated, and
meaningless_. The overwhelming number of our dreams partake of this
character, and this has given rise to the contemptuous attitude towards
dreams and the medical theory of their limited psychical activity. It is
especially in the longer and more complicated dream-plots that signs of
incoherence are seldom missing.
The contrast between manifest and latent dream-content is clearly only
of value for the dreams of the second and more especially for those of
the third class. Here are problems which are only solved when the
manifest dream is replaced by its latent content; it was an example of
this kind, a complicated and unintelligible dream, that we subjected to
analysis. Against our expectation we, however, struck upon reasons which
prevented a complete cognizance of the latent dream thought. On the
repetition of this same experience we were forced to the supposition
that there is an _intimate bond, with laws of its own, between the
unintelligible and complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties
attending communication of the thoughts connected with the dream_.
Before investigating the nature of this bond, it will be advantageous to
turn our attention to the more readily intelligible dreams of the first
class where, the manifest and latent content being identical, the dream
work seems to be omitted.
The investigation of these dreams is also advisable from another
standpoint. The dreams of _children_ are of this nature; they have a
meaning, and are not bizarre. This, by the way, is a further objection
to reducing dreams to a dissociation of cerebral activity in sleep, for
why should such a lowering of psychical functions belong to the nature
of sleep in adults, but not in children? We are, however, fully
justified in expecting that the explanation of psychical processes in
children, essentially simplified as they may be, should serve as an
indispensable preparation towards the psychology of the adult.
I shall therefore cite some examples of dreams which I have gathered
from children. A girl of nineteen months was made to go without food
for a day because she had been sick in the morning, and, according to
nurse, had made herself ill through eating strawberries. During the
night, after her day of fasting, she was heard calling out her name
during sleep, and adding: "_Tawberry, eggs, pap_. " She is dreaming that
she is eating, and selects out of her menu exactly what she supposes she
will not get much of just now.
The same kind of dream about a forbidden dish was that of a little boy
of twenty-two months. The day before he was told to offer his uncle a
present of a small basket of cherries, of which the child was, of
course, only allowed one to taste. He woke up with the joyful news:
"Hermann eaten up all the cherries. "
A girl of three and a half years had made during the day a sea trip
which was too short for her, and she cried when she had to get out of
the boat. The next morning her story was that during the night she had
been on the sea, thus continuing the interrupted trip.
A boy of five and a half years was not at all pleased with his party
during a walk in the Dachstein region. Whenever a new peak came into
sight he asked if that were the Dachstein, and, finally, refused to
accompany the party to the waterfall. His behavior was ascribed to
fatigue; but a better explanation was forthcoming when the next morning
he told his dream: _he had ascended the Dachstein_. Obviously he
expected the ascent of the Dachstein to be the object of the excursion,
and was vexed by not getting a glimpse of the mountain. The dream gave
him what the day had withheld. The dream of a girl of six was similar;
her father had cut short the walk before reaching the promised objective
on account of the lateness of the hour. On the way back she noticed a
signpost giving the name of another place for excursions; her father
promised to take her there also some other day. She greeted her father
next day with the news that she had dreamt that _her father had been
with her to both places_.
What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy
wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply
and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.
The following child-dream, not quite understandable at first sight, is
nothing else than a wish realized. On account of poliomyelitis a girl,
not quite four years of age, was brought from the country into town, and
remained over night with a childless aunt in a big--for her, naturally,
huge--bed. The next morning she stated that she had dreamt that _the
bed was much too small for her, so that she could find no place in it_.
To explain this dream as a wish is easy when we remember that to be
"big" is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The bigness of the
bed reminded Miss Little-Would-be-Big only too forcibly of her
smallness. This nasty situation became righted in her dream, and she
grew so big that the bed now became too small for her.
Even when children's dreams are complicated and polished, their
comprehension as a realization of desire is fairly evident. A boy of
eight dreamt that he was being driven with Achilles in a war-chariot,
guided by Diomedes. The day before he was assiduously reading about
great heroes. It is easy to show that he took these heroes as his
models, and regretted that he was not living in those days.
From this short collection a further characteristic of the dreams of
children is manifest--_their connection with the life of the day_. The
desires which are realized in these dreams are left over from the day
or, as a rule, the day previous, and the feeling has become intently
emphasized and fixed during the day thoughts. Accidental and indifferent
matters, or what must appear so to the child, find no acceptance in the
contents of the dream.
Innumerable instances of such dreams of the infantile type can be found
among adults also, but, as mentioned, these are mostly exactly like the
manifest content. Thus, a random selection of persons will generally
respond to thirst at night-time with a dream about drinking, thus
striving to get rid of the sensation and to let sleep continue. Many
persons frequently have these comforting _dreams_ before waking, just
when they are called. They then dream that they are already up, that
they are washing, or already in school, at the office, etc. , where they
ought to be at a given time. The night before an intended journey one
not infrequently dreams that one has already arrived at the destination;
before going to a play or to a party the dream not infrequently
anticipates, in impatience, as it were, the expected pleasure. At other
times the dream expresses the realization of the desire somewhat
indirectly; some connection, some sequel must be known--the first step
towards recognizing the desire. Thus, when a husband related to me the
dream of his young wife, that her monthly period had begun, I had to
bethink myself that the young wife would have expected a pregnancy if
the period had been absent. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. Its
meaning is that it shows the wish realized that pregnancy should not
occur just yet. Under unusual and extreme circumstances, these dreams
of the infantile type become very frequent. The leader of a polar
expedition tells us, for instance, that during the wintering amid the
ice the crew, with their monotonous diet and slight rations, dreamt
regularly, like children, of fine meals, of mountains of tobacco, and of
home.
It is not uncommon that out of some long, complicated and intricate
dream one specially lucid part stands out containing unmistakably the
realization of a desire, but bound up with much unintelligible matter.
On more frequently analyzing the seemingly more transparent dreams of
adults, it is astonishing to discover that these are rarely as simple as
the dreams of children, and that they cover another meaning beyond that
of the realization of a wish.
It would certainly be a simple and convenient solution of the riddle if
the work of analysis made it at all possible for us to trace the
meaningless and intricate dreams of adults back to the infantile type,
to the realization of some intensely experienced desire of the day. But
there is no warrant for such an expectation. Their dreams are generally
full of the most indifferent and bizarre matter, and no trace of the
realization of the wish is to be found in their content.
Before leaving these infantile dreams, which are obviously unrealized
desires, we must not fail to mention another chief characteristic of
dreams, one that has been long noticed, and one which stands out most
clearly in this class. I can replace any of these dreams by a phrase
expressing a desire. If the sea trip had only lasted longer; if I were
only washed and dressed; if I had only been allowed to keep the cherries
instead of giving them to my uncle. But the dream gives something more
than the choice, for here the desire is already realized; its
realization is real and actual. The dream presentations consist chiefly,
if not wholly, of scenes and mainly of visual sense images. Hence a kind
of transformation is not entirely absent in this class of dreams, and
this may be fairly designated as the dream work. _An idea merely
existing in the region of possibility is replaced by a vision of its
accomplishment. _
II
THE DREAM MECHANISM
We are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also
taken place in intricate dreams, though we do not know whether it has
encountered any possible desire. The dream instanced at the
commencement, which we analyzed somewhat thoroughly, did give us
occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis
brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table, and that I
did not like it; in the dream itself _exactly the opposite_ occurs, for
the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention. But
can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than
that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dream has it?
The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have never had anything for
nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream:
"You have always had such beautiful eyes. " Some portion of the
opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be
therefore derived from the realization of a wish.
Another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have
in common is still more noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the
number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dream, if
written down, with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis, and of which
but a trace can be refound in the dream itself. There can be no doubt
that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or
_condensation_. It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the
extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis,
the more deeply you are impressed by it. There will be found no factor
in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or
more directions, no scene which has not been pieced together out of two
or more impressions and events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind
of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions;
at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the
bathers as if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one, made up
out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two
pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream. The two
pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the
Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an
Italian master. The little incident was that I once witnessed a lady,
who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men's hour, being helped
out of the water by the swimming-master. The scene in the dream which
was selected for analysis led to a whole group of reminiscences, each
one of which had contributed to the dream content. First of all came the
little episode from the time of my courting, of which I have already
spoken; the pressure of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to
the "under the table," which I had subsequently to find a place for in
my recollection. There was, of course, at the time not a word about
"undivided attention. " Analysis taught me that this factor is the
realization of a desire through its contradictory and related to the
behavior of my wife at the table d'hote. An exactly similar and much
more important episode of our courtship, one which separated us for an
entire day, lies hidden behind this recent recollection. The intimacy,
the hand resting upon the knee, refers to a quite different connection
and to quite other persons. This element in the dream becomes again the
starting-point of two distinct series of reminiscences, and so on.
The stuff of the dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the
formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application.
There must be one or more common factors. The dream work proceeds like
Francis Galton with his family photographs. The different elements are
put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture
stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other. This process
of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar
vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of
dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses _uncertainty_, as
to _either_--_or_ read _and_, _taking_ each section of the apparent
alternatives as a separate outlet for a series of impressions.
When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream
work takes the trouble to create a something, in order to make a common
presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two
dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making
such a change in the actual expression of one idea as will meet a slight
responsive recasting in the form of the other idea. The process is
analogous to that of rhyme, when consonance supplies the desired common
factor.
A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those
frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary
from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts
which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give
rise to them. In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like
case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree
with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I
struck upon the thought: _I should like to have something for nothing_.
But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced
by another one: "I should like to enjoy something free of cost. "[1] The
word "kost" (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table
d'hote; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the
dream. At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their
mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "Just taste it. " That the
dream work should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is
certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the
occurrence is quite usual.
Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its
content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and
which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and
mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable
with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's thought
and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever
formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion. Every one knows such images
in his own dreams; manifold are their origins. I can build up a person
by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by
giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can also
visualize one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to
another. There is a meaning in all these cases when different persons
are amalgamated into one substitute. Such cases denote an "and," a "just
like," a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view,
a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule,
however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by
analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of
the "combined" person.
The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rules for its
solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents,
examples of which I need scarcely adduce. Their strangeness quite
disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects
of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they
represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary
detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination.
Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says
simply: _All these things have an "x" in common_. The decomposition of
these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an
interpretation of the dream. Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with
one of my former university tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a
rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a combination
of lecture-room and moving staircase. I will not pursue the further
result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on
my lap an object in shape like a top-hat, which, however, was made of
transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: "He
who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land. " By a
slight turn the _glass hat_ reminded me of _Auer's light_, and I knew
that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and
independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of
Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaining in
Vienna. In the dream I was traveling with my invention, with the, it is
true, rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is peculiarly adept
at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed
image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall
flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is
her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms
resembling camellias (contrast with chastity: La dame aux Camelias).
A great deal of what we have called "dream condensation" can be thus
formulated. Each one of the elements of the dream content is
_overdetermined_ by the matter of the dream thoughts; it is not derived
from one element of these thoughts, but from a whole series. These are
not necessarily interconnected in any way, but may belong to the most
diverse spheres of thought. The dream element truly represents all this
disparate matter in the dream content. Analysis, moreover, discloses
another side of the relationship between dream content and dream
thoughts. Just as one element of the dream leads to associations with
several dream thoughts, so, as a rule, the _one dream thought represents
more than one dream element_. The threads of the association do not
simply converge from the dream thoughts to the dream content, but on the
way they overlap and interweave in every way.
Next to the transformation of one thought in the scene (its
"dramatization"), condensation is the most important and most
characteristic feature of the dream work. We have as yet no clue as to
the motive calling for such compression of the content.
In the complicated and intricate dreams with which we are now concerned,
condensation and dramatization do not wholly account for the difference
between dream contents and dream thoughts. There is evidence of a third
factor, which deserves careful consideration.
When I have arrived at an understanding of the dream thoughts by my
analysis I notice, above all, that the matter of the manifest is very
different from that of the latent dream content. That is, I admit, only
an apparent difference which vanishes on closer investigation, for in
the end I find the whole dream content carried out in the dream
thoughts, nearly all the dream thoughts again represented in the dream
content. Nevertheless, there does remain a certain amount of difference.
The essential content which stood out clearly and broadly in the dream
must, after analysis, rest satisfied with a very subordinate role among
the dream thoughts. These very dream thoughts which, going by my
feelings, have a claim to the greatest importance are either not present
at all in the dream content, or are represented by some remote allusion
in some obscure region of the dream. I can thus describe these
phenomena: _During the dream work the psychical intensity of those
thoughts and conceptions to which it properly pertains flows to others
which, in my judgment, have no claim to such emphasis_. There is no
other process which contributes so much to concealment of the dream's
meaning and to make the connection between the dream content and dream
ideas irrecognizable. During this process, which I will call _the dream
displacement_, I notice also the psychical intensity, significance, or
emotional nature of the thoughts become transposed in sensory vividness.
What was clearest in the dream seems to me, without further
consideration, the most important; but often in some obscure element of
the dream I can recognize the most direct offspring of the principal
dream thought.
I could only designate this dream displacement as the _transvaluation of
psychical values_. The phenomena will not have been considered in all
its bearings unless I add that this displacement or transvaluation is
shared by different dreams in extremely varying degrees. There are
dreams which take place almost without any displacement. These have the
same time, meaning, and intelligibility as we found in the dreams which
recorded a desire. In other dreams not a bit of the dream idea has
retained its own psychical value, or everything essential in these dream
ideas has been replaced by unessentials, whilst every kind of transition
between these conditions can be found. The more obscure and intricate a
dream is, the greater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of
displacement in its formation.
The example that we chose for analysis shows, at least, this much of
displacement--that its content has a different center of interest from
that of the dream ideas. In the forefront of the dream content the main
scene appears as if a woman wished to make advances to me; in the dream
idea the chief interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested love
which shall "cost nothing"; this idea lies at the back of the talk about
the beautiful eyes and the far-fetched allusion to "spinach. "
If we abolish the dream displacement, we attain through analysis quite
certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most
disputed--as to what provokes a dream at all, and as to the connection
of the dream with our waking life. There are dreams which at once expose
their links with the events of the day; in others no trace of such a
connection can be found. By the aid of analysis it can be shown that
every dream, without any exception, is linked up with our impression of
the day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say of the day previous
to the dream. The impressions which have incited the dream may be so
important that we are not surprised at our being occupied with them
whilst awake; in this case we are right in saying that the dream carries
on the chief interest of our waking life. More usually, however, when
the dream contains anything relating to the impressions of the day, it
is so trivial, unimportant, and so deserving of oblivion, that we can
only recall it with an effort. The dream content appears, then, even
when coherent and intelligible, to be concerned with those indifferent
trifles of thought undeserving of our waking interest. The depreciation
of dreams is largely due to the predominance of the indifferent and the
worthless in their content.
Analysis destroys the appearance upon which this derogatory judgment is
based. When the dream content discloses nothing but some indifferent
impression as instigating the dream, analysis ever indicates some
significant event, which has been replaced by something indifferent
with which it has entered into abundant associations. Where the dream is
concerned with uninteresting and unimportant conceptions, analysis
reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with
the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual. _It is only
the action of displacement if what is indifferent obtains recognition in
the dream content instead of those impressions which are really the
stimulus, or instead of the things of real interest_. In answering the
question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the
dream, in the daily troubles, we must say, in terms of the insight given
us by replacing the manifest latent dream content: _The dream does never
trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our concern
during the day, and trivialities which do not trouble us during the day
have no power to pursue us whilst asleep_.
What provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed? The
really unimportant event, that a friend invited me to a _free ride in
his cab_. The table d'hote scene in the dream contains an allusion to
this indifferent motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi
parallel with the table d'hote. But I can indicate the important event
which has as its substitute the trivial one. A few days before I had
disbursed a large sum of money for a member of my family who is very
dear to me. Small wonder, says the dream thought, if this person is
grateful to me for this--this love is not cost-free. But love that shall
cost nothing is one of the prime thoughts of the dream. The fact that
shortly before this I had had several _drives_ with the relative in
question puts the one drive with my friend in a position to recall the
connection with the other person. The indifferent impression which, by
such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another
condition which is not true of the real source of the dream--the
impression must be a recent one, everything arising from the day of the
dream.
I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the
consideration of a remarkable process in the formation of dreams in
which condensation and displacement work together towards one end. In
condensation we have already considered the case where two conceptions
in the dream having something in common, some point of contact, are
replaced in the dream content by a mixed image, where the distinct germ
corresponds to what is common, and the indistinct secondary
modifications to what is distinctive. If displacement is added to
condensation, there is no formation of a mixed image, but a _common
mean_ which bears the same relationship to the individual elements as
does the resultant in the parallelogram of forces to its components. In
one of my dreams, for instance, there is talk of an injection with
_propyl_. On first analysis I discovered an indifferent but true
incident where _amyl_ played a part as the excitant of the dream. I
cannot yet vindicate the exchange of amyl for propyl. To the round of
ideas of the same dream, however, there belongs the recollection of my
first visit to Munich, when the _Propyloea_ struck me. The attendant
circumstances of the analysis render it admissible that the influence of
this second group of conceptions caused the displacement of amyl to
propyl. _Propyl_ is, so to say, the mean idea between _amyl_ and
_propyloea_; it got into the dream as a kind of _compromise_ by
simultaneous condensation and displacement.
The need of discovering some motive for this bewildering work of the
dream is even more called for in the case of displacement than in
condensation.
Although the work of displacement must be held mainly responsible if the
dream thoughts are not refound or recognized in the dream content
(unless the motive of the changes be guessed), it is another and milder
kind of transformation which will be considered with the dream thoughts
which leads to the discovery of a new but readily understood act of the
dream work. The first dream thoughts which are unravelled by analysis
frequently strike one by their unusual wording. They do not appear to be
expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers; rather are they
expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative
language of the poets. It is not difficult to find the motives for this
degree of constraint in the expression of dream ideas. The dream content
consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream ideas must, in the
first place, be prepared to make use of these forms of presentation.
Conceive that a political leader's or a barrister's address had to be
transposed into pantomime, and it will be easy to understand the
transformations to which the dream work is constrained by regard for
this _dramatization of the dream content_.
Around the psychical stuff of dream thoughts there are ever found
reminiscences of impressions, not infrequently of early
childhood--scenes which, as a rule, have been visually grasped. Whenever
possible, this portion of the dream ideas exercises a definite influence
upon the modelling of the dream content; it works like a center of
crystallization, by attracting and rearranging the stuff of the dream
thoughts. The scene of the dream is not infrequently nothing but a
modified repetition, complicated by interpolations of events that have
left such an impression; the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate
and unmixed reproductions of real scenes.
The dream content does not, however, consist exclusively of scenes, but
it also includes scattered fragments of visual images, conversations,
and even bits of unchanged thoughts. It will be perhaps to the point if
we instance in the briefest way the means of dramatization which are at
the disposal of the dream work for the repetition of the dream thoughts
in the peculiar language of the dream.
The dream thoughts which we learn from the analysis exhibit themselves
as a psychical complex of the most complicated superstructure. Their
parts stand in the most diverse relationship to each other; they form
backgrounds and foregrounds, stipulations, digressions, illustrations,
demonstrations, and protestations. It may be said to be almost the rule
that one train of thought is followed by its contradictory. No feature
known to our reason whilst awake is absent. If a dream is to grow out of
all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which
condenses it extremely, to an inner shrinking and displacement, creating
at the same time fresh surfaces, to a selective interweaving among the
constituents best adapted for the construction of these scenes. Having
regard to the origin of this stuff, the term _regression_ can be fairly
applied to this process. The logical chains which hitherto held the
psychical stuff together become lost in this transformation to the dream
content. The dream work takes on, as it were, only the essential content
of the dream thoughts for elaboration. It is left to analysis to restore
the connection which the dream work has destroyed.
The dream's means of expression must therefore be regarded as meager in
comparison with those of our imagination, though the dream does not
renounce all claims to the restitution of logical relation to the dream
thoughts. It rather succeeds with tolerable frequency in replacing these
by formal characters of its own.
By reason of the undoubted connection existing between all the parts of
dream thoughts, the dream is able to embody this matter into a single
scene. It upholds a _logical connection_ as _approximation in time and
space_, just as the painter, who groups all the poets for his picture of
Parnassus who, though they have never been all together on a mountain
peak, yet form ideally a community. The dream continues this method of
presentation in individual dreams, and often when it displays two
elements close together in the dream content it warrants some special
inner connection between what they represent in the dream thoughts. It
should be, moreover, observed that all the dreams of one night prove on
analysis to originate from the same sphere of thought.
The causal connection between two ideas is either left without
presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one
after the other. This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the
beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its end the hypothesis.
The direct _transformation_ of one thing into another in the dream seems
to serve the relationship of _cause_ and _effect_.
The dream never utters the _alternative "either-or,"_ but accepts both
as having equal rights in the same connection. When "either-or" is used
in the reproduction of dreams, it is, as I have already mentioned, to be
replaced by "_and_. "
Conceptions which stand in opposition to one another are preferably
expressed in dreams by the same element. [2] There seems no "not" in
dreams. Opposition between two ideas, the relation of conversion, is
represented in dreams in a very remarkable way. It is expressed by the
reversal of another part of the dream content just as if by way of
appendix. We shall later on deal with another form of expressing
disagreement. The common dream sensation of _movement checked_ serves
the purpose of representing disagreement of impulses--a _conflict of the
will_.
Only one of the logical relationships--that of _similarity, identity,
agreement_--is found highly developed in the mechanism of dream
formation. Dream work makes use of these cases as a starting-point for
condensation, drawing together everything which shows such agreement to
a _fresh unity_.
These short, crude observations naturally do not suffice as an estimate
of the abundance of the dream's formal means of presenting the logical
relationships of the dream thoughts. In this respect, individual dreams
are worked up more nicely or more carelessly, our text will have been
followed more or less closely, auxiliaries of the dream work will have
been taken more or less into consideration. In the latter case they
appear obscure, intricate, incoherent. When the dream appears openly
absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of
purpose. Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it
expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas.
Absurdity in the dream denotes _disagreement, scorn, disdain_ in the
dream thoughts. As this explanation is in entire disagreement with the
view that the dream owes its origin to dissociated, uncritical cerebral
activity, I will emphasize my view by an example:
_"One of my acquaintances, Mr. M----, has been attacked by no less a
person than Goethe in an essay with, we all maintain, unwarrantable
violence. Mr. M---- has naturally been ruined by this attack. He
complains very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for
Goethe has not diminished through this personal experience. I now
attempt to clear up the chronological relations which strike me as
improbable. Goethe died in 1832. As his attack upon Mr. M---- must, of
course, have taken place before, Mr. M---- must have been then a very
young man. It seems to me plausible that he was eighteen. I am not
certain, however, what year we are actually in, and the whole
calculation falls into obscurity. The attack was, moreover, contained
in Goethe's well-known essay on 'Nature. '"_
The absurdity of the dream becomes the more glaring when I state that
Mr. M---- is a young business man without any poetical or literary
interests. My analysis of the dream will show what method there is in
this madness. The dream has derived its material from three sources:
1. Mr. M----, to whom I was introduced at a dinner-party, begged me one
day to examine his elder brother, who showed signs of mental trouble. In
conversation with the patient, an unpleasant episode occurred. Without
the slightest occasion he disclosed one of his brother's _youthful
escapades_. I had asked the patient the _year of his birth_ (_year of
death_ in dream), and led him to various calculations which might show
up his want of memory.
2. A medical journal which displayed my name among others on the cover
had published a _ruinous_ review of a book by my friend F---- of Berlin,
from the pen of a very _juvenile_ reviewer. I communicated with the
editor, who, indeed, expressed his regret, but would not promise any
redress. Thereupon I broke off my connection with the paper; in my
letter of resignation I expressed the hope that our _personal relations
would not suffer from this_. Here is the real source of the dream. The
derogatory reception of my friend's work had made a deep impression upon
me. In my judgment, it contained a fundamental biological discovery
which only now, several years later, commences to find favor among the
professors.
3. A little while before, a patient gave me the medical history of her
brother, who, exclaiming "_Nature, Nature! _" had gone out of his mind.
The doctors considered that the exclamation arose from a study of
_Goethe's_ beautiful essay, and indicated that the patient had been
overworking. I expressed the opinion that it seemed more _plausible_ to
me that the exclamation "Nature! " was to be taken in that sexual meaning
known also to the less educated in our country. It seemed to me that
this view had something in it, because the unfortunate youth afterwards
mutilated his genital organs. The patient was eighteen years old when
the attack occurred.
The first person in the dream-thoughts behind the ego was my friend who
had been so scandalously treated. _"I now attempted to clear up the
chronological relation. "_ My friend's book deals with the chronological
relations of life, and, amongst other things, correlates _Goethe's_
duration of life with a number of days in many ways important to
biology. The ego is, however, represented as a general paralytic (_"I
am not certain what year we are actually in"_). The dream exhibits my
friend as behaving like a general paralytic, and thus riots in
absurdity. But the dream thoughts run ironically. "Of course he is a
madman, a fool, and you are the genius who understands all about it. But
shouldn't it be the _other way round_? " This inversion obviously took
place in the dream when Goethe attacked the young man, which is absurd,
whilst any one, however young, can to-day easily attack the great
Goethe.
I am prepared to maintain that no dream is inspired by other than
egoistic emotions. The ego in the dream does not, indeed, represent only
my friend, but stands for myself also. I identify myself with him
because the fate of his discovery appears to me typical of the
acceptance of _my own_. If I were to publish my own theory, which gives
sexuality predominance in the aetiology of psychoneurotic disorders (see
the allusion to the eighteen-year-old patient--_"Nature, Nature! "_), the
same criticism would be leveled at me, and it would even now meet with
the same contempt.
When I follow out the dream thoughts closely, I ever find only _scorn_
and _contempt_ as _correlated with the dream's absurdity_. It is well
known that the discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the Lido in
Venice gave Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the
skull. My friend plumes himself on having as a student raised a hubbub
for the resignation of an aged professor who had done good work
(including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy), but who,
on account of _decrepitude_, had become quite incapable of teaching. The
agitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the German
Universities an _age limit_ is not demanded for academic work. _Age is
no protection against folly. _ In the hospital here I had for years the
honor to serve under a chief who, long fossilized, was for decades
notoriously _feebleminded_, and was yet permitted to continue in his
responsible office. A trait, after the manner of the find in the Lido,
forces itself upon me here. It was to this man that some youthful
colleagues in the hospital adapted the then popular slang of that day:
"No Goethe has written that," "No Schiller composed that," etc.
We have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work. In addition to
condensation, displacement, and definite arrangement of the psychical
matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity--one which is,
indeed, not shared by every dream. I shall not treat this position of
the dream work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readiest
way to arrive at a conception of it is to take for granted, probably
unfairly, that it _only subsequently influences the dream content which
has already been built up_. Its mode of action thus consists in so
coordinating the parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent
whole, to a dream composition. The dream gets a kind of facade which, it
is true, does not conceal the whole of its content.
This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It
appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd.
Mrs. E. L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms, nor to
my knowledge have I ever desired any more cordial relationship. I have
not seen her for a long time, and do not think there was any mention of
her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process.
Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I
will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without
criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an
advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the
ideas which link themselves to each fragment.
_Company; at table or table d'hote. _ The recollection of the slight
event with which the evening of yesterday ended is at once called up. I
left a small party in the company of a friend, who offered to drive me
home in his cab. "I prefer a taxi," he said; "that gives one such a
pleasant occupation; there is always something to look at. " When we were
in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc so that the first sixty
hellers were visible, I continued the jest. "We have hardly got in and
we already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table
d'hote. It makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me
of my debt. It seems to me to mount up too quickly, and I am always
afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at
table d'hote the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must
look after myself. " In far-fetched connection with this I quote:
"To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go. "
Another idea about the table d'hote. A few weeks ago I was very cross
with my dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort,
because she was not sufficiently reserved with some neighbors with whom
I wished to have absolutely nothing to do. I begged her to occupy
herself rather with me than with the strangers. That is just as if I had
_been at a disadvantage at the table d'hote_. The contrast between the
behavior of my wife at the table and that of Mrs. E. L. in the dream now
strikes me: _"Addresses herself entirely to me. "_
Further, I now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little
scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly
courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer
to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is
replaced by the unfamiliar E. L.
Mrs. E. L. is the daughter of a man to whom I _owed money_! I cannot help
noticing that here there is revealed an unsuspected connection between
the dream content and my thoughts. If the chain of associations be
followed up which proceeds from one element of the dream one is soon led
back to another of its elements. The thoughts evoked by the dream stir
up associations which were not noticeable in the dream itself.
Is it not customary, when some one expects others to look after his
interests without any advantage to themselves, to ask the innocent
question satirically: "Do you think this will be done _for the sake of
your beautiful eyes_? " Hence Mrs. E. L. 's speech in the dream. "You have
always had such beautiful eyes," means nothing but "people always do
everything to you for love of you; you have had _everything for
nothing_. " The contrary is, of course, the truth; I have always paid
dearly for whatever kindness others have shown me. Still, the fact that
_I had a ride for nothing_ yesterday when my friend drove me home in his
cab must have made an impression upon me.
In any case, the friend whose guests we were yesterday has often made me
his debtor. Recently I allowed an opportunity of requiting him to go by.
He has had only one present from me, an antique shawl, upon which eyes
are painted all round, a so-called Occhiale, as a _charm_ against the
_Malocchio_. Moreover, he is an _eye specialist_. That same evening I
had asked him after a patient whom I had sent to him for _glasses_.
As I remarked, nearly all parts of the dream have been brought into this
new connection. I still might ask why in the dream it was _spinach_
that was served up. Because spinach called up a little scene which
recently occurred at our table. A child, whose _beautiful eyes_ are
really deserving of praise, refused to eat spinach. As a child I was
just the same; for a long time I loathed _spinach_, until in later life
my tastes altered, and it became one of my favorite dishes. The mention
of this dish brings my own childhood and that of my child's near
together. "You should be glad that you have some spinach," his mother
had said to the little gourmet. "Some children would be very glad to get
spinach. " Thus I am reminded of the parents' duties towards their
children. Goethe's words--
"To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
To guilt ye let us heedless go"--
take on another meaning in this connection.
Here I will stop in order that I may recapitulate the results of the
analysis of the dream. By following the associations which were linked
to the single elements of the dream torn from their context, I have been
led to a series of thoughts and reminiscences where I am bound to
recognize interesting expressions of my psychical life. The matter
yielded by an analysis of the dream stands in intimate relationship with
the dream content, but this relationship is so special that I should
never have been able to have inferred the new discoveries directly from
the dream itself. The dream was passionless, disconnected, and
unintelligible. During the time that I am unfolding the thoughts at the
back of the dream I feel intense and well-grounded emotions. The
thoughts themselves fit beautifully together into chains logically bound
together with certain central ideas which ever repeat themselves. Such
ideas not represented in the dream itself are in this instance the
antitheses _selfish, unselfish, to be indebted, to work for nothing_. I
could draw closer the threads of the web which analysis has disclosed,
and would then be able to show how they all run together into a single
knot; I am debarred from making this work public by considerations of a
private, not of a scientific, nature. After having cleared up many
things which I do not willingly acknowledge as mine, I should have much
to reveal which had better remain my secret. Why, then, do not I choose
another dream whose analysis would be more suitable for publication, so
that I could awaken a fairer conviction of the sense and cohesion of the
results disclosed by analysis? The answer is, because every dream which
I investigate leads to the same difficulties and places me under the
same need of discretion; nor should I forgo this difficulty any the
more were I to analyze the dream of some one else. That could only be
done when opportunity allowed all concealment to be dropped without
injury to those who trusted me.
The conclusion which is now forced upon me is that the dream is a _sort
of substitution_ for those emotional and intellectual trains of thought
which I attained after complete analysis. I do not yet know the process
by which the dream arose from those thoughts, but I perceive that it is
wrong to regard the dream as psychically unimportant, a purely physical
process which has arisen from the activity of isolated cortical elements
awakened out of sleep.
I must further remark that the dream is far shorter than the thoughts
which I hold it replaces; whilst analysis discovered that the dream was
provoked by an unimportant occurrence the evening before the dream.
Naturally, I would not draw such far-reaching conclusions if only one
analysis were known to me. Experience has shown me that when the
associations of any dream are honestly followed such a chain of thought
is revealed, the constituent parts of the dream reappear correctly and
sensibly linked together; the slight suspicion that this concatenation
was merely an accident of a single first observation must, therefore,
be absolutely relinquished. I regard it, therefore, as my right to
establish this new view by a proper nomenclature. I contrast the dream
which my memory evokes with the dream and other added matter revealed by
analysis: the former I call the dream's _manifest content_; the latter,
without at first further subdivision, its _latent content_. I arrive at
two new problems hitherto unformulated: (1) What is the psychical
process which has transformed the latent content of the dream into its
manifest content? (2) What is the motive or the motives which have made
such transformation exigent? The process by which the change from latent
to manifest content is executed I name the _dream-work_. In contrast
with this is the _work of analysis_, which produces the reverse
transformation. The other problems of the dream--the inquiry as to its
stimuli, as to the source of its materials, as to its possible purpose,
the function of dreaming, the forgetting of dreams--these I will discuss
in connection with the latent dream-content.
I shall take every care to avoid a confusion between the _manifest_ and
the _latent content_, for I ascribe all the contradictory as well as the
incorrect accounts of dream-life to the ignorance of this latent
content, now first laid bare through analysis.
The conversion of the latent dream thoughts into those manifest deserves
our close study as the first known example of the transformation of
psychical stuff from one mode of expression into another. From a mode of
expression which, moreover, is readily intelligible into another which
we can only penetrate by effort and with guidance, although this new
mode must be equally reckoned as an effort of our own psychical
activity. From the standpoint of the relationship of latent to manifest
dream-content, dreams can be divided into three classes. We can, in the
first place, distinguish those dreams which have a _meaning_ and are, at
the same time, _intelligible_, which allow us to penetrate into our
psychical life without further ado. Such dreams are numerous; they are
usually short, and, as a general rule, do not seem very noticeable,
because everything remarkable or exciting surprise is absent. Their
occurrence is, moreover, a strong argument against the doctrine which
derives the dream from the isolated activity of certain cortical
elements. All signs of a lowered or subdivided psychical activity are
wanting. Yet we never raise any objection to characterizing them as
dreams, nor do we confound them with the products of our waking life.
A second group is formed by those dreams which are indeed self-coherent
and have a distinct meaning, but appear strange because we are unable to
reconcile their meaning with our mental life. That is the case when we
dream, for instance, that some dear relative has died of plague when we
know of no ground for expecting, apprehending, or assuming anything of
the sort; we can only ask ourself wonderingly: "What brought that into
my head? " To the third group those dreams belong which are void of both
meaning and intelligibility; they are _incoherent, complicated, and
meaningless_. The overwhelming number of our dreams partake of this
character, and this has given rise to the contemptuous attitude towards
dreams and the medical theory of their limited psychical activity. It is
especially in the longer and more complicated dream-plots that signs of
incoherence are seldom missing.
The contrast between manifest and latent dream-content is clearly only
of value for the dreams of the second and more especially for those of
the third class. Here are problems which are only solved when the
manifest dream is replaced by its latent content; it was an example of
this kind, a complicated and unintelligible dream, that we subjected to
analysis. Against our expectation we, however, struck upon reasons which
prevented a complete cognizance of the latent dream thought. On the
repetition of this same experience we were forced to the supposition
that there is an _intimate bond, with laws of its own, between the
unintelligible and complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties
attending communication of the thoughts connected with the dream_.
Before investigating the nature of this bond, it will be advantageous to
turn our attention to the more readily intelligible dreams of the first
class where, the manifest and latent content being identical, the dream
work seems to be omitted.
The investigation of these dreams is also advisable from another
standpoint. The dreams of _children_ are of this nature; they have a
meaning, and are not bizarre. This, by the way, is a further objection
to reducing dreams to a dissociation of cerebral activity in sleep, for
why should such a lowering of psychical functions belong to the nature
of sleep in adults, but not in children? We are, however, fully
justified in expecting that the explanation of psychical processes in
children, essentially simplified as they may be, should serve as an
indispensable preparation towards the psychology of the adult.
I shall therefore cite some examples of dreams which I have gathered
from children. A girl of nineteen months was made to go without food
for a day because she had been sick in the morning, and, according to
nurse, had made herself ill through eating strawberries. During the
night, after her day of fasting, she was heard calling out her name
during sleep, and adding: "_Tawberry, eggs, pap_. " She is dreaming that
she is eating, and selects out of her menu exactly what she supposes she
will not get much of just now.
The same kind of dream about a forbidden dish was that of a little boy
of twenty-two months. The day before he was told to offer his uncle a
present of a small basket of cherries, of which the child was, of
course, only allowed one to taste. He woke up with the joyful news:
"Hermann eaten up all the cherries. "
A girl of three and a half years had made during the day a sea trip
which was too short for her, and she cried when she had to get out of
the boat. The next morning her story was that during the night she had
been on the sea, thus continuing the interrupted trip.
A boy of five and a half years was not at all pleased with his party
during a walk in the Dachstein region. Whenever a new peak came into
sight he asked if that were the Dachstein, and, finally, refused to
accompany the party to the waterfall. His behavior was ascribed to
fatigue; but a better explanation was forthcoming when the next morning
he told his dream: _he had ascended the Dachstein_. Obviously he
expected the ascent of the Dachstein to be the object of the excursion,
and was vexed by not getting a glimpse of the mountain. The dream gave
him what the day had withheld. The dream of a girl of six was similar;
her father had cut short the walk before reaching the promised objective
on account of the lateness of the hour. On the way back she noticed a
signpost giving the name of another place for excursions; her father
promised to take her there also some other day. She greeted her father
next day with the news that she had dreamt that _her father had been
with her to both places_.
What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy
wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply
and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.
The following child-dream, not quite understandable at first sight, is
nothing else than a wish realized. On account of poliomyelitis a girl,
not quite four years of age, was brought from the country into town, and
remained over night with a childless aunt in a big--for her, naturally,
huge--bed. The next morning she stated that she had dreamt that _the
bed was much too small for her, so that she could find no place in it_.
To explain this dream as a wish is easy when we remember that to be
"big" is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The bigness of the
bed reminded Miss Little-Would-be-Big only too forcibly of her
smallness. This nasty situation became righted in her dream, and she
grew so big that the bed now became too small for her.
Even when children's dreams are complicated and polished, their
comprehension as a realization of desire is fairly evident. A boy of
eight dreamt that he was being driven with Achilles in a war-chariot,
guided by Diomedes. The day before he was assiduously reading about
great heroes. It is easy to show that he took these heroes as his
models, and regretted that he was not living in those days.
From this short collection a further characteristic of the dreams of
children is manifest--_their connection with the life of the day_. The
desires which are realized in these dreams are left over from the day
or, as a rule, the day previous, and the feeling has become intently
emphasized and fixed during the day thoughts. Accidental and indifferent
matters, or what must appear so to the child, find no acceptance in the
contents of the dream.
Innumerable instances of such dreams of the infantile type can be found
among adults also, but, as mentioned, these are mostly exactly like the
manifest content. Thus, a random selection of persons will generally
respond to thirst at night-time with a dream about drinking, thus
striving to get rid of the sensation and to let sleep continue. Many
persons frequently have these comforting _dreams_ before waking, just
when they are called. They then dream that they are already up, that
they are washing, or already in school, at the office, etc. , where they
ought to be at a given time. The night before an intended journey one
not infrequently dreams that one has already arrived at the destination;
before going to a play or to a party the dream not infrequently
anticipates, in impatience, as it were, the expected pleasure. At other
times the dream expresses the realization of the desire somewhat
indirectly; some connection, some sequel must be known--the first step
towards recognizing the desire. Thus, when a husband related to me the
dream of his young wife, that her monthly period had begun, I had to
bethink myself that the young wife would have expected a pregnancy if
the period had been absent. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. Its
meaning is that it shows the wish realized that pregnancy should not
occur just yet. Under unusual and extreme circumstances, these dreams
of the infantile type become very frequent. The leader of a polar
expedition tells us, for instance, that during the wintering amid the
ice the crew, with their monotonous diet and slight rations, dreamt
regularly, like children, of fine meals, of mountains of tobacco, and of
home.
It is not uncommon that out of some long, complicated and intricate
dream one specially lucid part stands out containing unmistakably the
realization of a desire, but bound up with much unintelligible matter.
On more frequently analyzing the seemingly more transparent dreams of
adults, it is astonishing to discover that these are rarely as simple as
the dreams of children, and that they cover another meaning beyond that
of the realization of a wish.
It would certainly be a simple and convenient solution of the riddle if
the work of analysis made it at all possible for us to trace the
meaningless and intricate dreams of adults back to the infantile type,
to the realization of some intensely experienced desire of the day. But
there is no warrant for such an expectation. Their dreams are generally
full of the most indifferent and bizarre matter, and no trace of the
realization of the wish is to be found in their content.
Before leaving these infantile dreams, which are obviously unrealized
desires, we must not fail to mention another chief characteristic of
dreams, one that has been long noticed, and one which stands out most
clearly in this class. I can replace any of these dreams by a phrase
expressing a desire. If the sea trip had only lasted longer; if I were
only washed and dressed; if I had only been allowed to keep the cherries
instead of giving them to my uncle. But the dream gives something more
than the choice, for here the desire is already realized; its
realization is real and actual. The dream presentations consist chiefly,
if not wholly, of scenes and mainly of visual sense images. Hence a kind
of transformation is not entirely absent in this class of dreams, and
this may be fairly designated as the dream work. _An idea merely
existing in the region of possibility is replaced by a vision of its
accomplishment. _
II
THE DREAM MECHANISM
We are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also
taken place in intricate dreams, though we do not know whether it has
encountered any possible desire. The dream instanced at the
commencement, which we analyzed somewhat thoroughly, did give us
occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis
brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table, and that I
did not like it; in the dream itself _exactly the opposite_ occurs, for
the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention. But
can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than
that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dream has it?
The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have never had anything for
nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream:
"You have always had such beautiful eyes. " Some portion of the
opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be
therefore derived from the realization of a wish.
Another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have
in common is still more noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the
number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dream, if
written down, with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis, and of which
but a trace can be refound in the dream itself. There can be no doubt
that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or
_condensation_. It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the
extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis,
the more deeply you are impressed by it. There will be found no factor
in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or
more directions, no scene which has not been pieced together out of two
or more impressions and events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind
of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions;
at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the
bathers as if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one, made up
out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two
pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream. The two
pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the
Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an
Italian master. The little incident was that I once witnessed a lady,
who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men's hour, being helped
out of the water by the swimming-master. The scene in the dream which
was selected for analysis led to a whole group of reminiscences, each
one of which had contributed to the dream content. First of all came the
little episode from the time of my courting, of which I have already
spoken; the pressure of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to
the "under the table," which I had subsequently to find a place for in
my recollection. There was, of course, at the time not a word about
"undivided attention. " Analysis taught me that this factor is the
realization of a desire through its contradictory and related to the
behavior of my wife at the table d'hote. An exactly similar and much
more important episode of our courtship, one which separated us for an
entire day, lies hidden behind this recent recollection. The intimacy,
the hand resting upon the knee, refers to a quite different connection
and to quite other persons. This element in the dream becomes again the
starting-point of two distinct series of reminiscences, and so on.
The stuff of the dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the
formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application.
There must be one or more common factors. The dream work proceeds like
Francis Galton with his family photographs. The different elements are
put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture
stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other. This process
of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar
vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of
dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses _uncertainty_, as
to _either_--_or_ read _and_, _taking_ each section of the apparent
alternatives as a separate outlet for a series of impressions.
When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream
work takes the trouble to create a something, in order to make a common
presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two
dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making
such a change in the actual expression of one idea as will meet a slight
responsive recasting in the form of the other idea. The process is
analogous to that of rhyme, when consonance supplies the desired common
factor.
A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those
frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary
from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts
which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give
rise to them. In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like
case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree
with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I
struck upon the thought: _I should like to have something for nothing_.
But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced
by another one: "I should like to enjoy something free of cost. "[1] The
word "kost" (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table
d'hote; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the
dream. At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their
mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "Just taste it. " That the
dream work should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is
certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the
occurrence is quite usual.
Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its
content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and
which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and
mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable
with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's thought
and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever
formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion. Every one knows such images
in his own dreams; manifold are their origins. I can build up a person
by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by
giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can also
visualize one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to
another. There is a meaning in all these cases when different persons
are amalgamated into one substitute. Such cases denote an "and," a "just
like," a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view,
a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule,
however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by
analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of
the "combined" person.
The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rules for its
solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents,
examples of which I need scarcely adduce. Their strangeness quite
disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects
of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they
represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary
detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination.
Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says
simply: _All these things have an "x" in common_. The decomposition of
these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an
interpretation of the dream. Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with
one of my former university tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a
rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a combination
of lecture-room and moving staircase. I will not pursue the further
result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on
my lap an object in shape like a top-hat, which, however, was made of
transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: "He
who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land. " By a
slight turn the _glass hat_ reminded me of _Auer's light_, and I knew
that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and
independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of
Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaining in
Vienna. In the dream I was traveling with my invention, with the, it is
true, rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is peculiarly adept
at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed
image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall
flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is
her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms
resembling camellias (contrast with chastity: La dame aux Camelias).
A great deal of what we have called "dream condensation" can be thus
formulated. Each one of the elements of the dream content is
_overdetermined_ by the matter of the dream thoughts; it is not derived
from one element of these thoughts, but from a whole series. These are
not necessarily interconnected in any way, but may belong to the most
diverse spheres of thought. The dream element truly represents all this
disparate matter in the dream content. Analysis, moreover, discloses
another side of the relationship between dream content and dream
thoughts. Just as one element of the dream leads to associations with
several dream thoughts, so, as a rule, the _one dream thought represents
more than one dream element_. The threads of the association do not
simply converge from the dream thoughts to the dream content, but on the
way they overlap and interweave in every way.
Next to the transformation of one thought in the scene (its
"dramatization"), condensation is the most important and most
characteristic feature of the dream work. We have as yet no clue as to
the motive calling for such compression of the content.
In the complicated and intricate dreams with which we are now concerned,
condensation and dramatization do not wholly account for the difference
between dream contents and dream thoughts. There is evidence of a third
factor, which deserves careful consideration.
When I have arrived at an understanding of the dream thoughts by my
analysis I notice, above all, that the matter of the manifest is very
different from that of the latent dream content. That is, I admit, only
an apparent difference which vanishes on closer investigation, for in
the end I find the whole dream content carried out in the dream
thoughts, nearly all the dream thoughts again represented in the dream
content. Nevertheless, there does remain a certain amount of difference.
The essential content which stood out clearly and broadly in the dream
must, after analysis, rest satisfied with a very subordinate role among
the dream thoughts. These very dream thoughts which, going by my
feelings, have a claim to the greatest importance are either not present
at all in the dream content, or are represented by some remote allusion
in some obscure region of the dream. I can thus describe these
phenomena: _During the dream work the psychical intensity of those
thoughts and conceptions to which it properly pertains flows to others
which, in my judgment, have no claim to such emphasis_. There is no
other process which contributes so much to concealment of the dream's
meaning and to make the connection between the dream content and dream
ideas irrecognizable. During this process, which I will call _the dream
displacement_, I notice also the psychical intensity, significance, or
emotional nature of the thoughts become transposed in sensory vividness.
What was clearest in the dream seems to me, without further
consideration, the most important; but often in some obscure element of
the dream I can recognize the most direct offspring of the principal
dream thought.
I could only designate this dream displacement as the _transvaluation of
psychical values_. The phenomena will not have been considered in all
its bearings unless I add that this displacement or transvaluation is
shared by different dreams in extremely varying degrees. There are
dreams which take place almost without any displacement. These have the
same time, meaning, and intelligibility as we found in the dreams which
recorded a desire. In other dreams not a bit of the dream idea has
retained its own psychical value, or everything essential in these dream
ideas has been replaced by unessentials, whilst every kind of transition
between these conditions can be found. The more obscure and intricate a
dream is, the greater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of
displacement in its formation.
The example that we chose for analysis shows, at least, this much of
displacement--that its content has a different center of interest from
that of the dream ideas. In the forefront of the dream content the main
scene appears as if a woman wished to make advances to me; in the dream
idea the chief interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested love
which shall "cost nothing"; this idea lies at the back of the talk about
the beautiful eyes and the far-fetched allusion to "spinach. "
If we abolish the dream displacement, we attain through analysis quite
certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most
disputed--as to what provokes a dream at all, and as to the connection
of the dream with our waking life. There are dreams which at once expose
their links with the events of the day; in others no trace of such a
connection can be found. By the aid of analysis it can be shown that
every dream, without any exception, is linked up with our impression of
the day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say of the day previous
to the dream. The impressions which have incited the dream may be so
important that we are not surprised at our being occupied with them
whilst awake; in this case we are right in saying that the dream carries
on the chief interest of our waking life. More usually, however, when
the dream contains anything relating to the impressions of the day, it
is so trivial, unimportant, and so deserving of oblivion, that we can
only recall it with an effort. The dream content appears, then, even
when coherent and intelligible, to be concerned with those indifferent
trifles of thought undeserving of our waking interest. The depreciation
of dreams is largely due to the predominance of the indifferent and the
worthless in their content.
Analysis destroys the appearance upon which this derogatory judgment is
based. When the dream content discloses nothing but some indifferent
impression as instigating the dream, analysis ever indicates some
significant event, which has been replaced by something indifferent
with which it has entered into abundant associations. Where the dream is
concerned with uninteresting and unimportant conceptions, analysis
reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with
the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual. _It is only
the action of displacement if what is indifferent obtains recognition in
the dream content instead of those impressions which are really the
stimulus, or instead of the things of real interest_. In answering the
question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the
dream, in the daily troubles, we must say, in terms of the insight given
us by replacing the manifest latent dream content: _The dream does never
trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our concern
during the day, and trivialities which do not trouble us during the day
have no power to pursue us whilst asleep_.
What provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed? The
really unimportant event, that a friend invited me to a _free ride in
his cab_. The table d'hote scene in the dream contains an allusion to
this indifferent motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi
parallel with the table d'hote. But I can indicate the important event
which has as its substitute the trivial one. A few days before I had
disbursed a large sum of money for a member of my family who is very
dear to me. Small wonder, says the dream thought, if this person is
grateful to me for this--this love is not cost-free. But love that shall
cost nothing is one of the prime thoughts of the dream. The fact that
shortly before this I had had several _drives_ with the relative in
question puts the one drive with my friend in a position to recall the
connection with the other person. The indifferent impression which, by
such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another
condition which is not true of the real source of the dream--the
impression must be a recent one, everything arising from the day of the
dream.
I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the
consideration of a remarkable process in the formation of dreams in
which condensation and displacement work together towards one end. In
condensation we have already considered the case where two conceptions
in the dream having something in common, some point of contact, are
replaced in the dream content by a mixed image, where the distinct germ
corresponds to what is common, and the indistinct secondary
modifications to what is distinctive. If displacement is added to
condensation, there is no formation of a mixed image, but a _common
mean_ which bears the same relationship to the individual elements as
does the resultant in the parallelogram of forces to its components. In
one of my dreams, for instance, there is talk of an injection with
_propyl_. On first analysis I discovered an indifferent but true
incident where _amyl_ played a part as the excitant of the dream. I
cannot yet vindicate the exchange of amyl for propyl. To the round of
ideas of the same dream, however, there belongs the recollection of my
first visit to Munich, when the _Propyloea_ struck me. The attendant
circumstances of the analysis render it admissible that the influence of
this second group of conceptions caused the displacement of amyl to
propyl. _Propyl_ is, so to say, the mean idea between _amyl_ and
_propyloea_; it got into the dream as a kind of _compromise_ by
simultaneous condensation and displacement.
The need of discovering some motive for this bewildering work of the
dream is even more called for in the case of displacement than in
condensation.
Although the work of displacement must be held mainly responsible if the
dream thoughts are not refound or recognized in the dream content
(unless the motive of the changes be guessed), it is another and milder
kind of transformation which will be considered with the dream thoughts
which leads to the discovery of a new but readily understood act of the
dream work. The first dream thoughts which are unravelled by analysis
frequently strike one by their unusual wording. They do not appear to be
expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers; rather are they
expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative
language of the poets. It is not difficult to find the motives for this
degree of constraint in the expression of dream ideas. The dream content
consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream ideas must, in the
first place, be prepared to make use of these forms of presentation.
Conceive that a political leader's or a barrister's address had to be
transposed into pantomime, and it will be easy to understand the
transformations to which the dream work is constrained by regard for
this _dramatization of the dream content_.
Around the psychical stuff of dream thoughts there are ever found
reminiscences of impressions, not infrequently of early
childhood--scenes which, as a rule, have been visually grasped. Whenever
possible, this portion of the dream ideas exercises a definite influence
upon the modelling of the dream content; it works like a center of
crystallization, by attracting and rearranging the stuff of the dream
thoughts. The scene of the dream is not infrequently nothing but a
modified repetition, complicated by interpolations of events that have
left such an impression; the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate
and unmixed reproductions of real scenes.
The dream content does not, however, consist exclusively of scenes, but
it also includes scattered fragments of visual images, conversations,
and even bits of unchanged thoughts. It will be perhaps to the point if
we instance in the briefest way the means of dramatization which are at
the disposal of the dream work for the repetition of the dream thoughts
in the peculiar language of the dream.
The dream thoughts which we learn from the analysis exhibit themselves
as a psychical complex of the most complicated superstructure. Their
parts stand in the most diverse relationship to each other; they form
backgrounds and foregrounds, stipulations, digressions, illustrations,
demonstrations, and protestations. It may be said to be almost the rule
that one train of thought is followed by its contradictory. No feature
known to our reason whilst awake is absent. If a dream is to grow out of
all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which
condenses it extremely, to an inner shrinking and displacement, creating
at the same time fresh surfaces, to a selective interweaving among the
constituents best adapted for the construction of these scenes. Having
regard to the origin of this stuff, the term _regression_ can be fairly
applied to this process. The logical chains which hitherto held the
psychical stuff together become lost in this transformation to the dream
content. The dream work takes on, as it were, only the essential content
of the dream thoughts for elaboration. It is left to analysis to restore
the connection which the dream work has destroyed.
The dream's means of expression must therefore be regarded as meager in
comparison with those of our imagination, though the dream does not
renounce all claims to the restitution of logical relation to the dream
thoughts. It rather succeeds with tolerable frequency in replacing these
by formal characters of its own.
By reason of the undoubted connection existing between all the parts of
dream thoughts, the dream is able to embody this matter into a single
scene. It upholds a _logical connection_ as _approximation in time and
space_, just as the painter, who groups all the poets for his picture of
Parnassus who, though they have never been all together on a mountain
peak, yet form ideally a community. The dream continues this method of
presentation in individual dreams, and often when it displays two
elements close together in the dream content it warrants some special
inner connection between what they represent in the dream thoughts. It
should be, moreover, observed that all the dreams of one night prove on
analysis to originate from the same sphere of thought.
The causal connection between two ideas is either left without
presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one
after the other. This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the
beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its end the hypothesis.
The direct _transformation_ of one thing into another in the dream seems
to serve the relationship of _cause_ and _effect_.
The dream never utters the _alternative "either-or,"_ but accepts both
as having equal rights in the same connection. When "either-or" is used
in the reproduction of dreams, it is, as I have already mentioned, to be
replaced by "_and_. "
Conceptions which stand in opposition to one another are preferably
expressed in dreams by the same element. [2] There seems no "not" in
dreams. Opposition between two ideas, the relation of conversion, is
represented in dreams in a very remarkable way. It is expressed by the
reversal of another part of the dream content just as if by way of
appendix. We shall later on deal with another form of expressing
disagreement. The common dream sensation of _movement checked_ serves
the purpose of representing disagreement of impulses--a _conflict of the
will_.
Only one of the logical relationships--that of _similarity, identity,
agreement_--is found highly developed in the mechanism of dream
formation. Dream work makes use of these cases as a starting-point for
condensation, drawing together everything which shows such agreement to
a _fresh unity_.
These short, crude observations naturally do not suffice as an estimate
of the abundance of the dream's formal means of presenting the logical
relationships of the dream thoughts. In this respect, individual dreams
are worked up more nicely or more carelessly, our text will have been
followed more or less closely, auxiliaries of the dream work will have
been taken more or less into consideration. In the latter case they
appear obscure, intricate, incoherent. When the dream appears openly
absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of
purpose. Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it
expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas.
Absurdity in the dream denotes _disagreement, scorn, disdain_ in the
dream thoughts. As this explanation is in entire disagreement with the
view that the dream owes its origin to dissociated, uncritical cerebral
activity, I will emphasize my view by an example:
_"One of my acquaintances, Mr. M----, has been attacked by no less a
person than Goethe in an essay with, we all maintain, unwarrantable
violence. Mr. M---- has naturally been ruined by this attack. He
complains very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for
Goethe has not diminished through this personal experience. I now
attempt to clear up the chronological relations which strike me as
improbable. Goethe died in 1832. As his attack upon Mr. M---- must, of
course, have taken place before, Mr. M---- must have been then a very
young man. It seems to me plausible that he was eighteen. I am not
certain, however, what year we are actually in, and the whole
calculation falls into obscurity. The attack was, moreover, contained
in Goethe's well-known essay on 'Nature. '"_
The absurdity of the dream becomes the more glaring when I state that
Mr. M---- is a young business man without any poetical or literary
interests. My analysis of the dream will show what method there is in
this madness. The dream has derived its material from three sources:
1. Mr. M----, to whom I was introduced at a dinner-party, begged me one
day to examine his elder brother, who showed signs of mental trouble. In
conversation with the patient, an unpleasant episode occurred. Without
the slightest occasion he disclosed one of his brother's _youthful
escapades_. I had asked the patient the _year of his birth_ (_year of
death_ in dream), and led him to various calculations which might show
up his want of memory.
2. A medical journal which displayed my name among others on the cover
had published a _ruinous_ review of a book by my friend F---- of Berlin,
from the pen of a very _juvenile_ reviewer. I communicated with the
editor, who, indeed, expressed his regret, but would not promise any
redress. Thereupon I broke off my connection with the paper; in my
letter of resignation I expressed the hope that our _personal relations
would not suffer from this_. Here is the real source of the dream. The
derogatory reception of my friend's work had made a deep impression upon
me. In my judgment, it contained a fundamental biological discovery
which only now, several years later, commences to find favor among the
professors.
3. A little while before, a patient gave me the medical history of her
brother, who, exclaiming "_Nature, Nature! _" had gone out of his mind.
The doctors considered that the exclamation arose from a study of
_Goethe's_ beautiful essay, and indicated that the patient had been
overworking. I expressed the opinion that it seemed more _plausible_ to
me that the exclamation "Nature! " was to be taken in that sexual meaning
known also to the less educated in our country. It seemed to me that
this view had something in it, because the unfortunate youth afterwards
mutilated his genital organs. The patient was eighteen years old when
the attack occurred.
The first person in the dream-thoughts behind the ego was my friend who
had been so scandalously treated. _"I now attempted to clear up the
chronological relation. "_ My friend's book deals with the chronological
relations of life, and, amongst other things, correlates _Goethe's_
duration of life with a number of days in many ways important to
biology. The ego is, however, represented as a general paralytic (_"I
am not certain what year we are actually in"_). The dream exhibits my
friend as behaving like a general paralytic, and thus riots in
absurdity. But the dream thoughts run ironically. "Of course he is a
madman, a fool, and you are the genius who understands all about it. But
shouldn't it be the _other way round_? " This inversion obviously took
place in the dream when Goethe attacked the young man, which is absurd,
whilst any one, however young, can to-day easily attack the great
Goethe.
I am prepared to maintain that no dream is inspired by other than
egoistic emotions. The ego in the dream does not, indeed, represent only
my friend, but stands for myself also. I identify myself with him
because the fate of his discovery appears to me typical of the
acceptance of _my own_. If I were to publish my own theory, which gives
sexuality predominance in the aetiology of psychoneurotic disorders (see
the allusion to the eighteen-year-old patient--_"Nature, Nature! "_), the
same criticism would be leveled at me, and it would even now meet with
the same contempt.
When I follow out the dream thoughts closely, I ever find only _scorn_
and _contempt_ as _correlated with the dream's absurdity_. It is well
known that the discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the Lido in
Venice gave Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the
skull. My friend plumes himself on having as a student raised a hubbub
for the resignation of an aged professor who had done good work
(including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy), but who,
on account of _decrepitude_, had become quite incapable of teaching. The
agitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the German
Universities an _age limit_ is not demanded for academic work. _Age is
no protection against folly. _ In the hospital here I had for years the
honor to serve under a chief who, long fossilized, was for decades
notoriously _feebleminded_, and was yet permitted to continue in his
responsible office. A trait, after the manner of the find in the Lido,
forces itself upon me here. It was to this man that some youthful
colleagues in the hospital adapted the then popular slang of that day:
"No Goethe has written that," "No Schiller composed that," etc.
We have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work. In addition to
condensation, displacement, and definite arrangement of the psychical
matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity--one which is,
indeed, not shared by every dream. I shall not treat this position of
the dream work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readiest
way to arrive at a conception of it is to take for granted, probably
unfairly, that it _only subsequently influences the dream content which
has already been built up_. Its mode of action thus consists in so
coordinating the parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent
whole, to a dream composition. The dream gets a kind of facade which, it
is true, does not conceal the whole of its content.
