Dream Psychology
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Title: Dream Psychology Psychoanalysis for Beginners
Author: Sigmund Freud
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Dream Psychology
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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR BEGINNERS BY PROF. DR. SIGMUND FREUD
AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY M.D. EDER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDRÉ TRIDON Author of "Psychoanalysis, its History, Theory and
Practice." "Psychoanalysis and Behavior" and "Psychoanalysis, Sleep and Dreams"
NEW YORK THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 1920
THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
INTRODUCTION
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The medical profession is justly conservative. Human life should not be considered as the proper material for
wild experiments.
Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast
changing conditions.
Remember the scornful reception which first was accorded to Freud's discoveries in the domain of the
unconscious.
When after years of patient observations, he finally decided to appear before medical bodies to tell them
modestly of some facts which always recurred in his dream and his patients' dreams, he was first laughed at
and then avoided as a crank.
The words "dream interpretation" were and still are indeed fraught with unpleasant, unscientific associations.
They remind one of all sorts of childish, superstitious notions, which make up the thread and woof of dream
books, read by none but the ignorant and the primitive.
The wealth of detail, the infinite care never to let anything pass unexplained, with which he presented to the
public the result of his investigations, are impressing more and more serious-minded scientists, but the
examination of his evidential data demands arduous work and presupposes an absolutely open mind.
This is why we still encounter men, totally unfamiliar with Freud's writings, men who were not even
interested enough in the subject to attempt an interpretation of their dreams or their patients' dreams, deriding
Freud's theories and combatting them with the help of statements which he never made.
Some of them, like Professor Boris Sidis, reach at times conclusions which are strangely similar to Freud's,
but in their ignorance of psychoanalytic literature, they fail to credit Freud for observations antedating theirs.
Besides those who sneer at dream study, because they have never looked into the subject, there are those who
do not dare to face the facts revealed by dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth
about ourselves and only very free minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception is a plant which withers fast
in the pellucid atmosphere of dream investigation.
Dream Psychology
The weakling and the neurotic attached to his neurosis are not anxious to turn such a powerful searchlight
upon the dark corners of their psychology.
Freud's theories are anything but theoretical.
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He was moved by the fact that there always seemed to be a close connection between his patients' dreams and
their mental abnormalities, to collect thousands of dreams and to compare them with the case histories in his
possession.
He did not start out with a preconceived bias, hoping to find evidence which might support his views. He
looked at facts a thousand times "until they began to tell him something."
His attitude toward dream study was, in other words, that of a statistician who does not know, and has no
means of foreseeing, what conclusions will be forced on him by the information he is gathering, but who is
fully prepared to accept those unavoidable conclusions.
This was indeed a novel way in psychology. Psychologists had always been wont to build, in what Bleuler
calls "autistic ways," that is through methods in no wise supported by evidence, some attractive hypothesis,
which sprung from their brain, like Minerva from Jove's brain, fully armed.
After which, they would stretch upon that unyielding frame the hide of a reality which they had previously
killed.
It is only to minds suffering from the same distortions, to minds also autistically inclined, that those empty,
artificial structures appear acceptable molds for philosophic thinking.
The pragmatic view that "truth is what works" had not been as yet expressed when Freud published his
revolutionary views on the psychology of dreams.
Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his interpretation of dreams.
First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some detail of the
dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states
and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena
coming from nowhere and leading nowhere.
Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought, after noting down all his mannerisms
and the apparently insignificant details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the conclusion
that there was in every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or
unconscious.
Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider them as absurd
and unintelligible; the universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained
observer.
Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which puritanical
hypocrisy has always tried to minimize, if not to ignore entirely.
Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic visions of
our sleep and the symbolic actions of the mentally deranged.
There were, of course, many other observations which Freud made while dissecting the dreams of his patients,
Dream Psychology
but not all of them present as much interest as the foregoing nor were they as revolutionary or likely to wield
as much influence on modern psychiatry.
Other explorers have struck the path blazed by Freud and leading into man's unconscious. Jung of Zurich,
Adler of Vienna and Kempf of Washington, D.C., have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions
which have brought that study into fields which Freud himself never dreamt of invading.
One fact which cannot be too emphatically stated, however, is that but for Freud's wishfulfillment theory of
dreams, neither Jung's "energic theory," nor Adler's theory of "organ inferiority and compensation," nor
Kempf's "dynamic mechanism" might have been formulated.
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Freud is the father of modern abnormal psychology and he established the psychoanalytical point of view. No
one who is not well grounded in Freudian lore can hope to achieve any work of value in the field of
psychoanalysis.
On the other hand, let no one repeat the absurd assertion that Freudism is a sort of religion bounded with
dogmas and requiring an act of faith. Freudism as such was merely a stage in the development of
psychoanalysis, a stage out of which all but a few bigoted camp followers, totally lacking in originality, have
evolved. Thousands of stones have been added to the structure erected by the Viennese physician and many
more will be added in the course of time.
But the new additions to that structure would collapse like a house of cards but for the original foundations
which are as indestructible as Harvey's statement as to the circulation of the blood.
Regardless of whatever additions or changes have been made to the original structure, the analytic point of
view remains unchanged.
That point of view is not only revolutionising all the methods of diagnosis and treatment of mental
derangements, but compelling the intelligent, up-to-date physician to revise entirely his attitude to almost
every kind of disease.
The insane are no longer absurd and pitiable people, to be herded in asylums till nature either cures them or
relieves them, through death, of their misery. The insane who have not been made so by actual injury to their
brain or nervous system, are the victims of unconscious forces which cause them to do abnormally things
which they might be helped to do normally.
Insight into one's psychology is replacing victoriously sedatives and rest cures.
Physicians dealing with "purely" physical cases have begun to take into serious consideration the "mental"
factors which have predisposed a patient to certain ailments.
Freud's views have also made a revision of all ethical and social values unavoidable and have thrown an
unexpected flood of light upon literary and artistic accomplishment.
But the Freudian point of view, or more broadly speaking, the psychoanalytic point of view, shall ever remain
a puzzle to those who, from laziness or indifference, refuse to survey with the great Viennese the field over
which he carefully groped his way. We shall never be convinced until we repeat under his guidance all his
laboratory experiments.
We must follow him through the thickets of the unconscious, through the land which had never been charted
because academic philosophers, following the line of least effort, had decided a priori that it could not be
charted.
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Ancient geographers, when exhausting their store of information about distant lands, yielded to an unscientific
craving for romance and, without any evidence to support their day dreams, filled the blank spaces left on
their maps by unexplored tracts with amusing inserts such as "Here there are lions."
Thanks to Freud's interpretation of dreams the "royal road" into the unconscious is now open to all explorers.
They shall not find lions, they shall find man himself, and the record of all his life and of his struggle with
reality.
And it is only after seeing man as his unconscious, revealed by his dreams, presents him to us that we shall
understand him fully. For as Freud said to Putnam: "We are what we are because we have been what we have
been."
Not a few serious-minded students, however, have been discouraged from attempting a study of Freud's dream
psychology.
The book in which he originally offered to the world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a
legal record to be pondered over by scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the
average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel
thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to sift data.
Freud himself, however, realized the magnitude of the task which the reading of his magnum opus imposed
upon those who have not been prepared for it by long psychological and scientific training and he abstracted
from that gigantic work the parts which constitute the essential of his discoveries.
The publishers of the present book deserve credit for presenting to the reading public the gist of Freud's
psychology in the master's own words, and in a form which shall neither discourage beginners, nor appear too
elementary to those who are more advanced in psychoanalytic study.
Dream psychology is the key to Freud's works and to all modern psychology. With a simple, compact manual
such as Dream Psychology there shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the most revolutionary
psychological system of modern times.
ANDRÉ TRIDON. 121 Madison Avenue, New York. November, 1920.
CONTENTS
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I DREAMS HAVE A MEANING 1
II THE DREAM MECHANISM 24
III WHY THE DREAM DISGUISES THE DESIRES 57
IV DREAM ANALYSIS 78
V SEX IN DREAMS 104
VI THE WISH IN DREAMS 135
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VII THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM 164
VIII THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PROCESS--REGRESSION 186
IX THE UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS--REALITY 220
DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
I
DREAMS HAVE A MEANING
In what we may term "prescientific days" people were in no uncertainty about the interpretation of dreams.
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When they were recalled after awakening they were regarded as either the friendly or hostile manifestation of
some higher powers, demoniacal and Divine. With the rise of scientific thought the whole of this expressive
mythology was transferred to psychology; to-day there is but a small minority among educated persons who
doubt that the dream is the dreamer's own psychical act.
But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The
conditions of its origin; its relationship to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of
disturbances which, during the state of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our
waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they engender; then the dream's
evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our
reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it--all these and many other problems have for many hundred years
demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to
the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical
significance of the dream, its position with regard to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological
function; secondly, has the dream a meaning--can sense be made of each single dream as of other mental
syntheses?
Three tendencies can be observed in the estimation of dreams. Many philosophers have given currency to one
of these tendencies, one which at the same time preserves something of the dream's former over-valuation.
The foundation of dream life is for them a peculiar state of psychical activity, which they even celebrate as
elevation to some higher state. Schubert, for instance, claims: "The dream is the liberation of the spirit from
the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter." Not all go so far as this,
but many maintain that dreams have their origin in real spiritual excitations, and are the outward
manifestations of spiritual powers whose free movements have been hampered during the day ("Dream
Phantasies," Scherner, Volkelt). A large number of observers acknowledge that dream life is capable of
extraordinary achievements--at any rate, in certain fields ("Memory").
In striking contradiction with this the majority of medical writers hardly admit that the dream is a psychical
phenomenon at all. According to them dreams are provoked and initiated exclusively by stimuli proceeding
from the senses or the body, which either reach the sleeper from without or are accidental disturbances of his
internal organs. The dream has no greater claim to meaning and importance than the sound called forth by the
ten fingers of a person quite unacquainted with music running his fingers over the keys of an instrument. The
dream is to be regarded, says Binz, "as a physical process always useless, frequently morbid." All the
peculiarities of dream life are explicable as the incoherent effort, due to some physiological stimulus, of
certain organs, or of the cortical elements of a brain otherwise asleep.
But slightly affected by scientific opinion and untroubled as to the origin of dreams, the popular view holds
firmly to the belief that dreams really have got a meaning, in some way they do foretell the future, whilst the
meaning can be unravelled in some way or other from its oft bizarre and enigmatical content. The reading of
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dreams consists in replacing the events of the dream, so far as remembered, by other events. This is done
either scene by scene, according to some rigid key, or the dream as a whole is replaced by something else of
which it was a symbol. Serious-minded persons laugh at these efforts--"Dreams are but sea-foam!"
One day I discovered to my amazement that the popular view grounded in superstition, and not the medical
one, comes nearer to the truth about dreams. I arrived at new conclusions about dreams by the use of a new
method of psychological investigation, one which had rendered me good service in the investigation of
phobias, obsessions, illusions, and the like, and which, under the name "psycho-analysis," had found
acceptance by a whole school of investigators. The manifold analogies of dream life with the most diverse
conditions of psychical disease in the waking state have been rightly insisted upon by a number of medical
observers. It seemed, therefore, a priori, hopeful to apply to the interpretation of dreams methods of
investigation which had been tested in psychopathological processes. Obsessions and those peculiar
sensations of haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as do dreams to our waking
consciousness; their origin is as unknown to consciousness as is that of dreams. It was practical ends that
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impelled us, in these diseases, to fathom their origin and formation. Experience had shown us that a cure and a
consequent mastery of the obsessing ideas did result when once those thoughts, the connecting links between
the morbid ideas and the rest of the psychical content, were revealed which were heretofore veiled from
consciousness. The procedure I employed for the interpretation of dreams thus arose from psychotherapy.
This procedure is readily described, although its practice demands instruction and experience. Suppose the
patient is suffering from intense morbid dread. He is requested to direct his attention to the idea in question,
without, however, as he has so frequently done, meditating upon it. Every impression about it, without any
exception, which occurs to him should be imparted to the doctor. The statement which will be perhaps then
made, that he cannot concentrate his attention upon anything at all, is to be countered by assuring him most
positively that such a blank state of mind is utterly impossible. As a matter of fact, a great number of
impressions will soon occur, with which others will associate themselves. These will be invariably
accompanied by the expression of the observer's opinion that they have no meaning or are unimportant. It will
be at once noticed that it is this self-criticism which prevented the patient from imparting the ideas, which had
indeed already excluded them from consciousness. If the patient can be induced to abandon this self-criticism
and to pursue the trains of thought which are yielded by concentrating the attention, most significant matter
will be obtained, matter which will be presently seen to be clearly linked to the morbid idea in question. Its
connection with other ideas will be manifest, and later on will permit the replacement of the morbid idea by a
fresh one, which is perfectly adapted to psychical continuity.
This is not the place to examine thoroughly the hypothesis upon which this experiment rests, or the deductions
which follow from its invariable success. It must suffice to state that we obtain matter enough for the
resolution of every morbid idea if we especially direct our attention to the unbidden associations _which
disturb our thoughts_--those which are otherwise put aside by the critic as worthless refuse. If the procedure is
exercised on oneself, the best plan of helping the experiment is to write down at once all one's first indistinct
fancies.
I will now point out where this method leads when I apply it to the examination of dreams. Any dream could
be made use of in this way. From certain motives I, however, choose a dream of my own, which appears
confused and meaningless to my memory, and one which has the advantage of brevity. Probably my dream of
last night satisfies the requirements. Its content, fixed immediately after awakening, runs as follows:
_"Company; at table or table d'hôte.... Spinach is served. Mrs. E.L., sitting next to me, gives me her undivided
attention, and places her hand familiarly upon my knee. In defence I remove her hand. Then she says: 'But
you have always had such beautiful eyes.'.... I then distinctly see something like two eyes as a sketch or as the
contour of a spectacle lens...."_
This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It appears to me not only obscure and
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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'hôte._ 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'hôte. 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'hôte 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'hôte. 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'hôte_. 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
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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
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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.
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I shall take every care to avoid a confusion between the manifest and the latent content, for I ascribe all the
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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
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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."
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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
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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.
12
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
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dream. The two pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the Melusine (note the
13
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'hôte. 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'hôte; 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.
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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
14
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 rôle 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
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dream ideas irrecognizable. During this process, which I will call the dream displacement, I notice also the
15
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'hôte scene in the dream contains an allusion to this indifferent
motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi parallel with the table d'hôte. 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
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16
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
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reason whilst awake is absent. If a dream is to grow out of all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a
17
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
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very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for Goethe has not diminished through this personal
18
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 ætiology 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
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Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the skull. My friend plumes himself on having as a
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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 coördinating the parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent whole, to a dream composition. The
dream gets a kind of façade which, it is true, does not conceal the whole of its content. There is a sort of
preliminary explanation to be strengthened by interpolations and slight alterations. Such elaboration of the
dream content must not be too pronounced; the misconception of the dream thoughts to which it gives rise is
merely superficial, and our first piece of work in analyzing a dream is to get rid of these early attempts at
interpretation.
The motives for this part of the dream work are easily gauged. This final elaboration of the dream is due to a
_regard for intelligibility_--a fact at once betraying the origin of an action which behaves towards the actual
dream content just as our normal psychical action behaves towards some proffered perception that is to our
liking. The dream content is thus secured under the pretense of certain expectations, is perceptually classified
by the supposition of its intelligibility, thereby risking its falsification, whilst, in fact, the most extraordinary
misconceptions arise if the dream can be correlated with nothing familiar. Every one is aware that we are
unable to look at any series of unfamiliar signs, or to listen to a discussion of unknown words, without at once
making perpetual changes through our regard for intelligibility, through our falling back upon what is
familiar.
We can call those dreams properly made up which are the result of an elaboration in every way analogous to
the psychical action of our waking life. In other dreams there is no such action; not even an attempt is made to
bring about order and meaning. We regard the dream as "quite mad," because on awaking it is with this
last-named part of the dream work, the dream elaboration, that we identify ourselves. So far, however, as our
analysis is concerned, the dream, which resembles a medley of disconnected fragments, is of as much value as
the one with a smooth and beautifully polished surface. In the former case we are spared, to some extent, the
trouble of breaking down the super-elaboration of the dream content.
All the same, it would be an error to see in the dream façade nothing but the misunderstood and somewhat
arbitrary elaboration of the dream carried out at the instance of our psychical life. Wishes and phantasies are
not infrequently employed in the erection of this façade, which were already fashioned in the dream thoughts;
they are akin to those of our waking life--"day-dreams," as they are very properly called. These wishes and
phantasies, which analysis discloses in our dreams at night, often present themselves as repetitions and
refashionings of the scenes of infancy. Thus the dream façade may show us directly the true core of the
dream, distorted through admixture with other matter.
Beyond these four activities there is nothing else to be discovered in the dream work. If we keep closely to the
definition that dream work denotes the transference of dream thoughts to dream content, we are compelled to
say that the dream work is not creative; it develops no fancies of its own, it judges nothing, decides nothing. It
does nothing but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement, and refashions it for dramatization, to
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which must be added the inconstant last-named mechanism--that of explanatory elaboration. It is true that a
good deal is found in the dream content which might be understood as the result of another and more
20
intellectual performance; but analysis shows conclusively every time that these _intellectual operations were
already present in the dream thoughts, and have only been taken over by the dream content_. A syllogism in
the dream is nothing other than the repetition of a syllogism in the dream thoughts; it seems inoffensive if it
has been transferred to the dream without alteration; it becomes absurd if in the dream work it has been
transferred to other matter. A calculation in the dream content simply means that there was a calculation in the
dream thoughts; whilst this is always correct, the calculation in the dream can furnish the silliest results by the
condensation of its factors and the displacement of the same operations to other things. Even speeches which
are found in the dream content are not new compositions; they prove to be pieced together out of speeches
which have been made or heard or read; the words are faithfully copied, but the occasion of their utterance is
quite overlooked, and their meaning is most violently changed.
It is, perhaps, not superfluous to support these assertions by examples:
1. _A seemingly inoffensive, well-made dream of a patient. She was going to market with her cook, who
carried the basket. The butcher said to her when she asked him for something: "That is all gone," and wished
to give her something else, remarking; "That's very good." She declines, and goes to the greengrocer, who
wants to sell her a peculiar vegetable which is bound up in bundles and of a black color. She says: "I don't
know that; I won't take it."_
The remark "That is all gone" arose from the treatment. A few days before I said myself to the patient that the
earliest reminiscences of childhood are all gone as such, but are replaced by transferences and dreams. Thus I
am the butcher.
The second remark, _"I don't know that"_ arose in a very different connection. The day before she had herself
called out in rebuke to the cook (who, moreover, also appears in the dream): "_Behave yourself properly_; I
don't know _that_"--that is, "I don't know this kind of behavior; I won't have it." The more harmless portion of
this speech was arrived at by a displacement of the dream content; in the dream thoughts only the other
portion of the speech played a part, because the dream work changed an imaginary situation into utter
irrecognizability and complete inoffensiveness (while in a certain sense I behave in an unseemly way to the
lady). The situation resulting in this phantasy is, however, nothing but a new edition of one that actually took
place.
2. A dream apparently meaningless relates to figures. _"She wants to pay something; her daughter takes three
florins sixty-five kreuzers out of her purse; but she says: 'What are you doing? It only cost twenty-one
kreuzers.'"_
The dreamer was a stranger who had placed her child at school in Vienna, and who was able to continue under
my treatment so long as her daughter remained at Vienna. The day before the dream the directress of the
school had recommended her to keep the child another year at school. In this case she would have been able to
prolong her treatment by one year. The figures in the dream become important if it be remembered that time is
money. One year equals 365 days, or, expressed in kreuzers, 365 kreuzers, which is three florins sixty-five
kreuzers. The twenty-one kreuzers correspond with the three weeks which remained from the day of the
dream to the end of the school term, and thus to the end of the treatment. It was obviously financial
considerations which had moved the lady to refuse the proposal of the directress, and which were answerable
for the triviality of the amount in the dream.
3. A lady, young, but already ten years married, heard that a friend of hers, Miss Elise L----, of about the same
age, had become engaged. This gave rise to the following dream:
_She was sitting with her husband in the theater; the one side of the stalls was quite empty. Her husband tells
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her, Elise L---- and her fiancé had intended coming, but could only get some cheap seats, three for one florin
fifty kreuzers, and these they would not take. In her opinion, that would not have mattered very much._
The origin of the figures from the matter of the dream thoughts and the changes the figures underwent are of
interest. Whence came the one florin fifty kreuzers? From a trifling occurrence of the previous day. Her
sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a present from her husband, and had quickly got rid of it by buying
some ornament. Note that 150 florins is one hundred times one florin fifty kreuzers. For the three concerned
with the tickets, the only link is that Elise L---- is exactly three months younger than the dreamer. The scene
in the dream is the repetition of a little adventure for which she has often been teased by her husband. She was
once in a great hurry to get tickets in time for a piece, and when she came to the theater one side of the stalls
was almost empty. It was therefore quite unnecessary for her to have been in such a hurry. Nor must we
overlook the absurdity of the dream that two persons should take three tickets for the theater.
Now for the dream ideas. It was stupid to have married so early; I need not have been in so great a hurry.
Elise L----'s example shows me that I should have been able to get a husband later; indeed, one a hundred
times better if I had but waited. I could have bought three such men with the money (dowry).
[1] "Ich möchte gerne etwas geniessen ohne 'Kosten' zu haben." A a pun upon the word "kosten," which has
two meanings--"taste" and "cost." In "Die Traumdeutung," third edition, p. 71 footnote, Professor Freud
remarks that "the finest example of dream interpretation left us by the ancients is based upon a pun" (from
"The Interpretation of Dreams," by Artemidorus Daldianus). "Moreover, dreams are so intimately bound up
with language that Ferenczi truly points out that every tongue has its own language of dreams. A dream is as a
rule untranslatable into other languages."--TRANSLATOR.
[2] It is worthy of remark that eminent philologists maintain that the oldest languages used the same word for
expressing quite general antitheses. In C. Abel's essay, "Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworter" (1884, the
following examples of such words in England are given: "gleam--gloom"; "to lock--loch"; "down--The
Downs"; "to step--to stop." In his essay on "The Origin of Language" ("Linguistic Essays," p. 240), Abel says:
"When the Englishman says 'without,' is not his judgment based upon the comparative juxtaposition of two
opposites, 'with' and 'out'; 'with' itself originally meant 'without,' as may still be seen in 'withdraw.' 'Bid'
includes the opposite sense of giving and of proffering." Abel, "The English Verbs of Command," "Linguistic
Essays," p. 104; see also Freud, "Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworte"; _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und
Psychopathologische Forschungen_, Band II., part i., p. 179).--TRANSLATOR.
III
WHY THE DREAM DISGUISES THE DESIRES
In the foregoing exposition we have now learnt something of the dream work; we must regard it as a quite
special psychical process, which, so far as we are aware, resembles nothing else. To the dream work has been
transferred that bewilderment which its product, the dream, has aroused in us. In truth, the dream work is only
the first recognition of a group of psychical processes to which must be referred the origin of hysterical
symptoms, the ideas of morbid dread, obsession, and illusion. Condensation, and especially displacement, are
never-failing features in these other processes. The regard for appearance remains, on the other hand, peculiar
to the dream work. If this explanation brings the dream into line with the formation of psychical disease, it
becomes the more important to fathom the essential conditions of processes like dream building. It will be
probably a surprise to hear that neither the state of sleep nor illness is among the indispensable conditions. A
whole number of phenomena of the everyday life of healthy persons, forgetfulness, slips in speaking and in
holding things, together with a certain class of mistakes, are due to a psychical mechanism analogous to that
of the dream and the other members of this group.
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Displacement is the core of the problem, and the most striking of all the dream performances. A thorough
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investigation of the subject shows that the essential condition of displacement is purely psychological; it is in
the nature of a motive. We get on the track by thrashing out experiences which one cannot avoid in the
analysis of dreams. I had to break off the relations of my dream thoughts in the analysis of my dream on p. 8
because I found some experiences which I do not wish strangers to know, and which I could not relate without
serious damage to important considerations. I added, it would be no use were I to select another instead of that
particular dream; in every dream where the content is obscure or intricate, I should hit upon dream thoughts
which call for secrecy. If, however, I continue the analysis for myself, without regard to those others, for
whom, indeed, so personal an event as my dream cannot matter, I arrive finally at ideas which surprise me,
which I have not known to be mine, which not only appear foreign to me, but which are unpleasant, and
which I would like to oppose vehemently, whilst the chain of ideas running through the analysis intrudes upon
me inexorably. I can only take these circumstances into account by admitting that these thoughts are actually
part of my psychical life, possessing a certain psychical intensity or energy. However, by virtue of a particular
psychological condition, the thoughts could not become conscious to me. I call this particular condition
"Repression." It is therefore impossible for me not to recognize some casual relationship between the
obscurity of the dream content and this state of repression--this incapacity of consciousness. Whence I
conclude that the cause of the obscurity is the desire to conceal these thoughts. Thus I arrive at the conception
of the dream distortion as the deed of the dream work, and of displacement serving to disguise this object.
I will test this in my own dream, and ask myself, What is the thought which, quite innocuous in its distorted
form, provokes my liveliest opposition in its real form? I remember that the free drive reminded me of the last
expensive drive with a member of my family, the interpretation of the dream being: I should for once like to
experience affection for which I should not have to pay, and that shortly before the dream I had to make a
heavy disbursement for this very person. In this connection, I cannot get away from the thought that I regret
this disbursement. It is only when I acknowledge this feeling that there is any sense in my wishing in the
dream for an affection that should entail no outlay. And yet I can state on my honor that I did not hesitate for a
moment when it became necessary to expend that sum. The regret, the counter-current, was unconscious to
me. Why it was unconscious is quite another question which would lead us far away from the answer which,
though within my knowledge, belongs elsewhere.
If I subject the dream of another person instead of one of my own to analysis, the result is the same; the
motives for convincing others is, however, changed. In the dream of a healthy person the only way for me to
enable him to accept this repressed idea is the coherence of the dream thoughts. He is at liberty to reject this
explanation. But if we are dealing with a person suffering from any neurosis--say from hysteria--the
recognition of these repressed ideas is compulsory by reason of their connection with the symptoms of his
illness and of the improvement resulting from exchanging the symptoms for the repressed ideas. Take the
patient from whom I got the last dream about the three tickets for one florin fifty kreuzers. Analysis shows
that she does not think highly of her husband, that she regrets having married him, that she would be glad to
change him for some one else. It is true that she maintains that she loves her husband, that her emotional life
knows nothing about this depreciation (a hundred times better!), but all her symptoms lead to the same
conclusion as this dream. When her repressed memories had rewakened a certain period when she was
conscious that she did not love her husband, her symptoms disappeared, and therewith disappeared her
resistance to the interpretation of the dream.
This conception of repression once fixed, together with the distortion of the dream in relation to repressed
psychical matter, we are in a position to give a general exposition of the principal results which the analysis of
dreams supplies. We learnt that the most intelligible and meaningful dreams are unrealized desires; the desires
they pictured as realized are known to consciousness, have been held over from the daytime, and are of
absorbing interest. The analysis of obscure and intricate dreams discloses something very similar; the dream
scene again pictures as realized some desire which regularly proceeds from the dream ideas, but the picture is
unrecognizable, and is only cleared up in the analysis. The desire itself is either one repressed, foreign to
consciousness, or it is closely bound up with repressed ideas. The formula for these dreams may be thus
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stated: They are concealed realizations of repressed desires. It is interesting to note that they are right who
23
regard the dream as foretelling the future. Although the future which the dream shows us is not that which will
occur, but that which we would like to occur. Folk psychology proceeds here according to its wont; it believes
what it wishes to believe.
Dreams can be divided into three classes according to their relation towards the realization of desire. Firstly
come those which exhibit a _non-repressed, non-concealed desire_; these are dreams of the infantile type,
becoming ever rarer among adults. Secondly, dreams which express in veiled form some _repressed desire_;
these constitute by far the larger number of our dreams, and they require analysis for their understanding.
Thirdly, these dreams where repression exists, but without or with but slight concealment. These dreams are
invariably accompanied by a feeling of dread which brings the dream to an end. This feeling of dread here
replaces dream displacement; I regarded the dream work as having prevented this in the dream of the second
class. It is not very difficult to prove that what is now present as intense dread in the dream was once desire,
and is now secondary to the repression.
There are also definite dreams with a painful content, without the presence of any anxiety in the dream. These
cannot be reckoned among dreams of dread; they have, however, always been used to prove the unimportance
and the psychical futility of dreams. An analysis of such an example will show that it belongs to our second
class of dreams--a perfectly concealed realization of repressed desires. Analysis will demonstrate at the same
time how excellently adapted is the work of displacement to the concealment of desires.
A girl dreamt that she saw lying dead before her the only surviving child of her sister amid the same
surroundings as a few years before she saw the first child lying dead. She was not sensible of any pain, but
naturally combatted the view that the scene represented a desire of hers. Nor was that view necessary. Years
ago it was at the funeral of the child that she had last seen and spoken to the man she loved. Were the second
child to die, she would be sure to meet this man again in her sister's house. She is longing to meet him, but
struggles against this feeling. The day of the dream she had taken a ticket for a lecture, which announced the
presence of the man she always loved. The dream is simply a dream of impatience common to those which
happen before a journey, theater, or simply anticipated pleasures. The longing is concealed by the shifting of
the scene to the occasion when any joyous feeling were out of place, and yet where it did once exist. Note,
further, that the emotional behavior in the dream is adapted, not to the displaced, but to the real but suppressed
dream ideas. The scene anticipates the long-hoped-for meeting; there is here no call for painful emotions.
There has hitherto been no occasion for philosophers to bestir themselves with a psychology of repression.
We must be allowed to construct some clear conception as to the origin of dreams as the first steps in this
unknown territory. The scheme which we have formulated not only from a study of dreams is, it is true,
already somewhat complicated, but we cannot find any simpler one that will suffice. We hold that our
psychical apparatus contains two procedures for the construction of thoughts. The second one has the
advantage that its products find an open path to consciousness, whilst the activity of the first procedure is
unknown to itself, and can only arrive at consciousness through the second one. At the borderland of these
two procedures, where the first passes over into the second, a censorship is established which only passes
what pleases it, keeping back everything else. That which is rejected by the censorship is, according to our
definition, in a state of repression. Under certain conditions, one of which is the sleeping state, the balance of
power between the two procedures is so changed that what is repressed can no longer be kept back. In the
sleeping state this may possibly occur through the negligence of the censor; what has been hitherto repressed
will now succeed in finding its way to consciousness. But as the censorship is never absent, but merely off
guard, certain alterations must be conceded so as to placate it. It is a compromise which becomes conscious in
this case--a compromise between what one procedure has in view and the demands of the other. _Repression,
laxity of the censor, compromise_--this is the foundation for the origin of many another psychological
process, just as it is for the dream. In such compromises we can observe the processes of condensation, of
displacement, the acceptance of superficial associations, which we have found in the dream work.
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It is not for us to deny the demonic element which has played a part in constructing our explanation of dream
work. The impression left is that the formation of obscure dreams proceeds as if a person had something to
say which must be agreeable for another person upon whom he is dependent to hear. It is by the use of this
image that we figure to ourselves the conception of the dream distortion and of the censorship, and ventured
to crystallize our impression in a rather crude, but at least definite, psychological theory. Whatever
explanation the future may offer of these first and second procedures, we shall expect a confirmation of our
correlate that the second procedure commands the entrance to consciousness, and can exclude the first from
consciousness.
Once the sleeping state overcome, the censorship resumes complete sway, and is now able to revoke that
which was granted in a moment of weakness. That the forgetting of dreams explains this in part, at least, we
are convinced by our experience, confirmed again and again. During the relation of a dream, or during
analysis of one, it not infrequently happens that some fragment of the dream is suddenly forgotten. This
fragment so forgotten invariably contains the best and readiest approach to an understanding of the dream.
Probably that is why it sinks into oblivion--_i.e._, into a renewed suppression.
Viewing the dream content as the representation of a realized desire, and referring its vagueness to the
changes made by the censor in the repressed matter, it is no longer difficult to grasp the function of dreams. In
fundamental contrast with those saws which assume that sleep is disturbed by dreams, we hold the dream as
the guardian of sleep. So far as children's dreams are concerned, our view should find ready acceptance.
The sleeping state or the psychical change to sleep, whatsoever it be, is brought about by the child being sent
to sleep or compelled thereto by fatigue, only assisted by the removal of all stimuli which might open other
objects to the psychical apparatus. The means which serve to keep external stimuli distant are known; but
what are the means we can employ to depress the internal psychical stimuli which frustrate sleep? Look at a
mother getting her child to sleep. The child is full of beseeching; he wants another kiss; he wants to play yet
awhile. His requirements are in part met, in part drastically put off till the following day. Clearly these desires
and needs, which agitate him, are hindrances to sleep. Every one knows the charming story of the bad boy
(Baldwin Groller's) who awoke at night bellowing out, "I want the rhinoceros." A really good boy, instead of
bellowing, would have dreamt that he was playing with the rhinoceros. Because the dream which realizes his
desire is believed during sleep, it removes the desire and makes sleep possible. It cannot be denied that this
belief accords with the dream image, because it is arrayed in the psychical appearance of probability; the child
is without the capacity which it will acquire later to distinguish hallucinations or phantasies from reality.
The adult has learnt this differentiation; he has also learnt the futility of desire, and by continuous practice
manages to postpone his aspirations, until they can be granted in some roundabout method by a change in the
external world. For this reason it is rare for him to have his wishes realized during sleep in the short psychical
way. It is even possible that this never happens, and that everything which appears to us like a child's dream
demands a much more elaborate explanation. Thus it is that for adults--for every sane person without
exception--a differentiation of the psychical matter has been fashioned which the child knew not. A psychical
procedure has been reached which, informed by the experience of life, exercises with jealous power a
dominating and restraining influence upon psychical emotions; by its relation to consciousness, and by its
spontaneous mobility, it is endowed with the greatest means of psychical power. A portion of the infantile
emotions has been withheld from this procedure as useless to life, and all the thoughts which flow from these
are found in the state of repression.
Whilst the procedure in which we recognize our normal ego reposes upon the desire for sleep, it appears
compelled by the psycho-physiological conditions of sleep to abandon some of the energy with which it was
wont during the day to keep down what was repressed. This neglect is really harmless; however much the
emotions of the child's spirit may be stirred, they find the approach to consciousness rendered difficult, and
that to movement blocked in consequence of the state of sleep. The danger of their disturbing sleep must,
however, be avoided. Moreover, we must admit that even in deep sleep some amount of free attention is
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exerted as a protection against sense-stimuli which might, perchance, make an awakening seem wiser than the
continuance of sleep. Otherwise we could not explain the fact of our being always awakened by stimuli of
certain quality. As the old physiologist Burdach pointed out, the mother is awakened by the whimpering of
her child, the miller by the cessation of his mill, most people by gently calling out their names. This attention,
thus on the alert, makes use of the internal stimuli arising from repressed desires, and fuses them into the
dream, which as a compromise satisfies both procedures at the same time. The dream creates a form of
psychical release for the wish which is either suppressed or formed by the aid of repression, inasmuch as it
presents it as realized. The other procedure is also satisfied, since the continuance of the sleep is assured. Our
ego here gladly behaves like a child; it makes the dream pictures believable, saying, as it were, "Quite right,
but let me sleep." The contempt which, once awakened, we bear the dream, and which rests upon the
absurdity and apparent illogicality of the dream, is probably nothing but the reasoning of our sleeping ego on
the feelings about what was repressed; with greater right it should rest upon the incompetency of this disturber
of our sleep. In sleep we are now and then aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the
censorship rather too much, we think, "It's only a dream," and sleep on.
It is no objection to this view if there are borderlines for the dream where its function, to preserve sleep from
interruption, can no longer be maintained--as in the dreams of impending dread. It is here changed for another
function--to suspend the sleep at the proper time. It acts like a conscientious night-watchman, who first does
his duty by quelling disturbances so as not to waken the citizen, but equally does his duty quite properly when
he awakens the street should the causes of the trouble seem to him serious and himself unable to cope with
them alone.
This function of dreams becomes especially well marked when there arises some incentive for the sense
perception. That the senses aroused during sleep influence the dream is well known, and can be
experimentally verified; it is one of the certain but much overestimated results of the medical investigation of
dreams. Hitherto there has been an insoluble riddle connected with this discovery. The stimulus to the sense
by which the investigator affects the sleeper is not properly recognized in the dream, but is intermingled with
a number of indefinite interpretations, whose determination appears left to psychical free-will. There is, of
course, no such psychical free-will. To an external sense-stimulus the sleeper can react in many ways. Either
he awakens or he succeeds in sleeping on. In the latter case he can make use of the dream to dismiss the
external stimulus, and this, again, in more ways than one. For instance, he can stay the stimulus by dreaming
of a scene which is absolutely intolerable to him. This was the means used by one who was troubled by a
painful perineal abscess. He dreamt that he was on horseback, and made use of the poultice, which was
intended to alleviate his pain, as a saddle, and thus got away from the cause of the trouble. Or, as is more
frequently the case, the external stimulus undergoes a new rendering, which leads him to connect it with a
repressed desire seeking its realization, and robs him of its reality, and is treated as if it were a part of the
psychical matter. Thus, some one dreamt that he had written a comedy which embodied a definite _motif_; it
was being performed; the first act was over amid enthusiastic applause; there was great clapping. At this
moment the dreamer must have succeeded in prolonging his sleep despite the disturbance, for when he woke
he no longer heard the noise; he concluded rightly that some one must have been beating a carpet or bed. The
dreams which come with a loud noise just before waking have all attempted to cover the stimulus to waking
by some other explanation, and thus to prolong the sleep for a little while.
Whosoever has firmly accepted this censorship as the chief motive for the distortion of dreams will not be
surprised to learn as the result of dream interpretation that most of the dreams of adults are traced by analysis
to erotic desires. This assertion is not drawn from dreams obviously of a sexual nature, which are known to all
dreamers from their own experience, and are the only ones usually described as "sexual dreams." These
dreams are ever sufficiently mysterious by reason of the choice of persons who are made the objects of sex,
the removal of all the barriers which cry halt to the dreamer's sexual needs in his waking state, the many
strange reminders as to details of what are called perversions. But analysis discovers that, in many other
dreams in whose manifest content nothing erotic can be found, the work of interpretation shows them up as, in
reality, realization of sexual desires; whilst, on the other hand, that much of the thought-making when awake,
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the thoughts saved us as surplus from the day only, reaches presentation in dreams with the help of repressed
erotic desires.
Towards the explanation of this statement, which is no theoretical postulate, it must be remembered that no
other class of instincts has required so vast a suppression at the behest of civilization as the sexual, whilst their
mastery by the highest psychical processes are in most persons soonest of all relinquished. Since we have
learnt to understand infantile sexuality, often so vague in its expression, so invariably overlooked and
misunderstood, we are justified in saying that nearly every civilized person has retained at some point or other
the infantile type of sex life; thus we understand that repressed infantile sex desires furnish the most frequent
and most powerful impulses for the formation of dreams.[1]
If the dream, which is the expression of some erotic desire, succeeds in making its manifest content appear
innocently asexual, it is only possible in one way. The matter of these sexual presentations cannot be
exhibited as such, but must be replaced by allusions, suggestions, and similar indirect means; differing from
other cases of indirect presentation, those used in dreams must be deprived of direct understanding. The
means of presentation which answer these requirements are commonly termed "symbols." A special interest
has been directed towards these, since it has been observed that the dreamers of the same language use the like
symbols--indeed, that in certain cases community of symbol is greater than community of speech. Since the
dreamers do not themselves know the meaning of the symbols they use, it remains a puzzle whence arises
their relationship with what they replace and denote. The fact itself is undoubted, and becomes of importance
for the technique of the interpretation of dreams, since by the aid of a knowledge of this symbolism it is
possible to understand the meaning of the elements of a dream, or parts of a dream, occasionally even the
whole dream itself, without having to question the dreamer as to his own ideas. We thus come near to the
popular idea of an interpretation of dreams, and, on the other hand, possess again the technique of the
ancients, among whom the interpretation of dreams was identical with their explanation through symbolism.
Though the study of dream symbolism is far removed from finality, we now possess a series of general
statements and of particular observations which are quite certain. There are symbols which practically always
have the same meaning: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) always mean the parents; room, a
woman[2], and so on. The sexes are represented by a great variety of symbols, many of which would be at
first quite incomprehensible had not the clews to the meaning been often obtained through other channels.
There are symbols of universal circulation, found in all dreamers, of one range of speech and culture; there are
others of the narrowest individual significance which an individual has built up out of his own material. In the
first class those can be differentiated whose claim can be at once recognized by the replacement of sexual
things in common speech (those, for instance, arising from agriculture, as reproduction, seed) from others
whose sexual references appear to reach back to the earliest times and to the obscurest depths of our
image-building. The power of building symbols in both these special forms of symbols has not died out.
Recently discovered things, like the airship, are at once brought into universal use as sex symbols.
It would be quite an error to suppose that a profounder knowledge of dream symbolism (the "Language of
Dreams") would make us independent of questioning the dreamer regarding his impressions about the dream,
and would give us back the whole technique of ancient dream interpreters. Apart from individual symbols and
the variations in the use of what is general, one never knows whether an element in the dream is to be
understood symbolically or in its proper meaning; the whole content of the dream is certainly not to be
interpreted symbolically. The knowledge of dream symbols will only help us in understanding portions of the
dream content, and does not render the use of the technical rules previously given at all superfluous. But it
must be of the greatest service in interpreting a dream just when the impressions of the dreamer are withheld
or are insufficient.
Dream symbolism proves also indispensable for understanding the so-called "typical" dreams and the dreams
that "repeat themselves." Dream symbolism leads us far beyond the dream; it does not belong only to dreams,
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but is likewise dominant in legend, myth, and saga, in wit and in folklore. It compels us to pursue the inner
meaning of the dream in these productions. But we must acknowledge that symbolism is not a result of the
27
dream work, but is a peculiarity probably of our unconscious thinking, which furnishes to the dream work the
matter for condensation, displacement, and dramatization.
[1] Freud, "Three Contributions to Sexual Theory," translated by A.A. Brill (Journal of Nervous and Mental
Disease Publishing Company, New York).
[2] The words from "and" to "channels" in the next sentence is a short summary of the passage in the original.
As this book will be read by other than professional people the passage has not been translated, in deference to
English opinion.--TRANSLATOR.
IV
DREAM ANALYSIS
Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream interpretation is capable of giving us hints about the
structure of our psychic apparatus which we have thus far expected in vain from philosophy. We shall not,
however, follow this track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have cleared up the subject of
dream-disfigurement. The question has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be analyzed as the
fulfillment of wishes. We see now that this is possible in case dream-disfigurement has taken place, in case
the disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions in
regard to the two psychic instances, we may now proceed to say: disagreeable dreams, as a matter of fact,
contain something which is disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time fulfills a wish of
the first instance. They are wish dreams in the sense that every dream originates in the first instance, while the
second instance acts towards the dream only in repelling, not in a creative manner. If we limit ourselves to a
consideration of what the second instance contributes to the dream, we can never understand the dream. If we
do so, all the riddles which the authors have found in the dream remain unsolved.
That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns out to be the fulfillment of a wish, must be proved
afresh for every case by means of an analysis. I therefore select several dreams which have painful contents
and attempt an analysis of them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects, which require long preliminary
statements, and now and then also an examination of the psychic processes which occur in hysteria. I cannot,
however, avoid this added difficulty in the exposition.
When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical treatment, dreams are always, as I have said, the subject of
our discussion. It must, therefore, give him all the psychological explanations through whose aid I myself
have come to an understanding of his symptoms, and here I undergo an unsparing criticism, which is perhaps
not less keen than that I must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis that all dreams are the
fulfillments of wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream
material which is offered me to refute this position.
"You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled," begins a clever lady patient. "Now I shall tell you a
dream in which the content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is not fulfilled. How do you
reconcile that with your theory? The dream is as follows:--
_"I want to give a supper, but having nothing at hand except some smoked salmon, I think of going
marketing, but I remember that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I next try to telephone to
some caterers, but the telephone is out of order.... Thus I must resign my wish to give a supper."_
I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first
sight it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of a wish-fulfillment. "But what occurrence
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has given rise to this dream?" I ask. "You know that the stimulus for a dream always lies among the
experiences of the preceding day."
28
_Analysis._--The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious wholesale butcher, had told her the day
before that he is growing too fat, and that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity. He was going to get
up early, take exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds
laughingly to relate how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon
painting his portrait because he, the painter, had never found such an expressive head. But her husband had
answered in his rough way, that he was very thankful for the honor, but that he was quite convinced that a
portion of the backside of a pretty young girl would please the artist better than his whole face[1]. She said
that she was at the time very much in love with her husband, and teased him a good deal. She had also asked
him not to send her any caviare. What does that mean?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged
herself the expense. Of course, she would at once get the caviare from her husband, as soon as she asked him
for it. But she had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare, in order that she might tease him
about it longer.
This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the habit of hiding behind such
unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a
posthypnotic order, and who, upon being asked for their motives, instead of answering: "I do not know why I
did that," had to invent a reason that was obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the case with
the caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also
shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish?
The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the interpretation of the dream. I beg for more. After a short
pause, which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day before she had
made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her husband is always praising this woman so
much. Fortunately, this friend is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now of what
did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient:
"When are you going to invite us again? You always have such a good table."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the patient: "It is just as though you had thought at the
time of the request: 'Of course, I'll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house and become still more
pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more suppers.' The dream then tells you that you cannot give a
supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your friend's figure. The
resolution of your husband to refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one
grows fat on the things served in company." Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm the solution.
The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced. "How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur
to you?" "Smoked salmon is the favorite dish of this friend," she answered. I happen to know the lady, and
may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself
the caviare.
The dream admits of still another and more exact interpretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate
circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather cover each other and furnish a
neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations. We have
seen that at the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the patient is in reality occupied in
securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get
fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being fulfilled.
For it is her own wish that a wish of her friend's--for increase in weight--should not be fulfilled. Instead of
this, however, she dreams that one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new
interpretation, if in the dream she does not intend herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in the place of
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her friend, or, as we may say, has identified herself with her friend.
I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this identification she has created an unfulfilled wish in
reality. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To clear this up a thorough exposition is
29
necessary. Identification is a highly important factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means
patients are enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of a
great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a
drama by means of their own personalities alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known hysterical
imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all the symptoms which impress them when they occur in
others, as though their pity were stimulated to the point of reproduction. But this only indicates the way in
which the psychic process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which a psychic act proceeds and
the act itself are two different things. The latter is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the
imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an example will
show. The physician who has a female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of
other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised when some morning he learns that this
peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have
done likewise: that is psychic infection. Yes, but psychic infection proceeds in somewhat the following
manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another than the physician knows about each of them, and
they are concerned about each other when the visit of the doctor is over. Some of them have an attack to-day:
soon it is known among the rest that a letter from home, a return of lovesickness or the like, is the cause of it.
Their sympathy is aroused, and the following syllogism, which does not reach consciousness, is completed in
them: "If it is possible to have this kind of an attack from such causes, I too may have this kind of an attack,
for I have the same reasons." If this were a cycle capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps express
itself in fear of getting the same attack; but it takes place in another psychic sphere, and, therefore, ends in the
realization of the dreaded symptom. Identification is therefore not a simple imitation, but a sympathy based
upon the same etiological claim; it expresses an "as though," and refers to some common quality which has
remained in the unconscious.
Identification is most often used in hysteria to express sexual community. An hysterical woman identifies
herself most readily--although not exclusively--with persons with whom she has had sexual relations, or who
have sexual intercourse with the same persons as herself. Language takes such a conception into
consideration: two lovers are "one." In the hysterical phantasy, as well as in the dream, it is sufficient for the
identification if one thinks of sexual relations, whether or not they become real. The patient, then, only
follows the rules of the hysterical thought processes when she gives expression to her jealousy of her friend
(which, moreover, she herself admits to be unjustified, in that she puts herself in her place and identifies
herself with her by creating a symptom--the denied wish). I might further clarify the process specifically as
follows: She puts herself in the place of her friend in the dream, because her friend has taken her own place
relation to her husband, and because she would like to take her friend's place in the esteem of her husband[2].
The contradiction to my theory of dreams in the case of another female patient, the most witty among all my
dreamers, was solved in a simpler manner, although according to the scheme that the non-fulfillment of one
wish signifies the fulfillment of another. I had one day explained to her that the dream is a wish of fulfillment.
The next day she brought me a dream to the effect that she was traveling with her mother-in-law to their
common summer resort. Now I knew that she had struggled violently against spending the summer in the
neighborhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that she had luckily avoided her mother-in-law by renting an
estate in a far-distant country resort. Now the dream reversed this wished-for solution; was not this in the
flattest contradiction to my theory of wish-fulfillment in the dream? Certainly, it was only necessary to draw
the inferences from this dream in order to get at its interpretation. According to this dream, I was in the
wrong. _It was thus her wish that I should be in the wrong, and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled._
But the wish that I should be in the wrong, which was fulfilled in the theme of the country home, referred to a
more serious matter. At that time I had made up my mind, from the material furnished by her analysis, that
something of significance for her illness must have occurred at a certain time in her life. She had denied it
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30
because it was not present in her memory. We soon came to see that I was in the right. Her wish that I should
be in the wrong, which is transformed into the dream, thus corresponded to the justifiable wish that those
things, which at the time had only been suspected, had never occurred at all.
Without an analysis, and merely by means of an assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a little
occurrence in the case of a friend, who had been my colleague through the eight classes of the Gymnasium.
He once heard a lecture of mine delivered to a small assemblage, on the novel subject of the dream as the
fulfillment of a wish. He went home, dreamt _that he had lost all his suits_--he was a lawyer--and then
complained to me about it. I took refuge in the evasion: "One can't win all one's suits," but I thought to
myself: "If for eight years I sat as Primus on the first bench, while he moved around somewhere in the middle
of the class, may he not naturally have had a wish from his boyhood days that I, too, might for once
completely disgrace myself?"
In the same way another dream of a more gloomy character was offered me by a female patient as a
contradiction to my theory of the wish-dream. The patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You remember
that my sister has now only one boy, Charles: she lost the elder one, Otto, while I was still at her house. Otto
was my favorite; it was I who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but of course not nearly
as much as the dead one. Now I dreamt last night that _I saw Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in
his little coffin, his hands folded: there were candles all about, and, in short, it was just like the time of little
Otto's death, which shocked me so profoundly_. Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me: am I
really bad enough to wish my sister to lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean that I wish
Charles to be dead rather than Otto, whom I like so much better?"
I assured her that this interpretation was impossible. After some reflection I was able to give her the
interpretation of the dream, which I subsequently made her confirm.
Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been brought up in the house of a much older sister,
and had met among the friends and visitors who came to the house, a man who made a lasting impression
upon her heart. It looked for a time as though these barely expressed relations were to end in marriage, but this
happy culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives have never found a complete explanation. After
the break, the man who was loved by our patient avoided the house: she herself became independent some
time after little Otto's death, to whom her affection had now turned. But she did not succeed in freeing herself
from the inclination for her sister's friend in which she had become involved. Her pride commanded her to
avoid him; but it was impossible for her to transfer her love to the other suitors who presented themselves in
order. Whenever the man whom she loved, who was a member of the literary profession, announced a lecture
anywhere, she was sure to be found in the audience; she also seized every other opportunity to see him from a
distance unobserved by him. I remembered that on the day before she had told me that the Professor was
going to a certain concert, and that she was also going there, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on
the day of the dream; and the concert was to take place on the day on which she told me the dream. I could
now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any event which had
happened after the death of little Otto. She answered immediately: "Certainly; at that time the Professor
returned after a long absence, and I saw him once more beside the coffin of little Otto." It was exactly as I had
expected. I interpreted the dream in the following manner: "If now the other boy were to die, the same thing
would be repeated. You would spend the day with your sister, the Professor would surely come in order to
offer condolence, and you would see him again under the same circumstances as at that time. The dream
signifies nothing but this wish of yours to see him again, against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that
you are carrying the ticket for to-day's concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has
anticipated the meeting which is to take place to-day by several hours."
In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a situation in which wishes of that sort are commonly
suppressed--a situation which is so filled with sorrow that love is not thought of. And yet, it is very easily
probable that even in the actual situation at the bier of the second, more dearly loved boy, which the dream
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copied faithfully, she had not been able to suppress her feelings of affection for the visitor whom she had
missed for so long a time.
A different explanation was found in the case of a similar dream of another female patient, who was
distinguished in her earlier years by her quick wit and her cheerful demeanors and who still showed these
qualities at least in the notion, which occurred to her in the course of treatment. In connection with a longer
dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her in a box. She
was strongly inclined to convert this dream-image into an objection to the theory of wish-fulfillment, but
31
herself suspected that the detail of the box must lead to a different conception of the dream.[3] In the course of
the analysis it occurred to her that on the evening before, the conversation of the company had turned upon the
English word "box," and upon the numerous translations of it into German, such as box, theater box, chest,
box on the ear, &c. From other components of the same dream it is now possible to add that the lady had
guessed the relationship between the English word "box" and the German _Büchse_, and had then been
haunted by the memory that _Büchse_ (as well as "box") is used in vulgar speech to designate the female
genital organ. It was therefore possible, making a certain allowance for her notions on the subject of
topographical anatomy, to assume that the child in the box signified a child in the womb of the mother. At this
stage of the explanation she no longer denied that the picture of the dream really corresponded to one of her
wishes. Like so many other young women, she was by no means happy when she became pregnant, and
admitted to me more than once the wish that her child might die before its birth; in a fit of anger following a
violent scene with her husband she had even struck her abdomen with her fists in order to hit the child within.
The dead child was, therefore, really the fulfillment of a wish, but a wish which had been put aside for fifteen
years, and it is not surprising that the fulfillment of the wish was no longer recognized after so long an
interval. For there had been many changes meanwhile.
The group of dreams to which the two last mentioned belong, having as content the death of beloved relatives,
will be considered again under the head of "Typical Dreams." I shall there be able to show by new examples
that in spite of their undesirable content, all these dreams must be interpreted as wish-fulfillments. For the
following dream, which again was told me in order to deter me from a hasty generalization of the theory of
wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a patient, but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. "I dream,"
my informant tells me, "_that I am walking in front of my house with a lady on my arm. Here a closed wagon
is waiting, a gentleman steps up to me, gives his authority as an agent of the police, and demands that I should
follow him. I only ask for time in which to arrange my affairs._ Can you possibly suppose this is a wish of
mine to be arrested?" "Of course not," I must admit. "Do you happen to know upon what charge you were
arrested?" "Yes; I believe for infanticide." "Infanticide? But you know that only a mother can commit this
crime upon her newly born child?" "That is true."[4] "And under what circumstances did you dream; what
happened on the evening before?" "I would rather not tell you that; it is a delicate matter." "But I must have it,
otherwise we must forgo the interpretation of the dream." "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the night, not at
home, but at the house of a lady who means very much to me. When we awoke in the morning, something
again passed between us. Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you." "The woman is
married?" "Yes." "And you do not wish her to conceive a child?" "No; that might betray us." "Then you do
not practice normal coitus?" "I take the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation." "Am I permitted to
assume that you did this trick several times during the night, and that in the morning you were not quite sure
whether you had succeeded?" "That might be the case." "Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By
means of it you secure the assurance that you have not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same thing,
that you have killed a child. I can easily demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago
we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the inconsistency of permitting the
practice of coitus as long as no impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and the
semen meet and a foetus is formed is punished as a crime? In connection with this, we also recalled the
mediæval controversy about the moment of time at which the soul is really lodged in the foetus, since the
concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point on. Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem
by Lenau, which puts infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane." "Strangely enough, I had
happened to think of Lenau during the afternoon." "Another echo of your dream. And now I shall demonstrate
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32
to you another subordinate wish-fulfillment in your dream. You walk in front of your house with the lady on
your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The fact
that the wish-fulfillment, which is the essence of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant form, has
perhaps more than one reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you will see that I note
interrupted coitus as one of the factors which cause the development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent
with this that if after repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you should be left in an uncomfortable
mood, which now becomes an element in the composition of your dream. You also make use of this
unpleasant state of mind to conceal the wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide has not yet
been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to females, occur to you?" "I shall confess to you that
I was involved in such an affair years ago. Through my fault a girl tried to protect herself from the
consequences of a liaison with me by securing an abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but
I was naturally for a long time worried lest the affair might be discovered." "I understand; this recollection
furnished a second reason why the supposition that you had done your trick badly must have been painful to
you."
A young physician, who had heard this dream of my colleague when it was told, must have felt implicated by
it, for he hastened to imitate it in a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another subject. The
day before he had handed in a declaration of his income, which was perfectly honest, because he had little to
declare. He dreamt that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and informed him
that all the other declarations of income had passed uncontested, but that his own had awakened general
suspicion, and that he would be punished with a heavy fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed fulfillment of
the wish to be known as a physician with a large income. It likewise recalls the story of the young girl who
was advised against accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper who would surely treat her to
blows after they were married.
The answer of the girl was: "I wish he would strike me!" Her wish to be married is so strong that she takes
into the bargain the discomfort which is said to be connected with matrimony, and which is predicted for her,
and even raises it to a wish.
If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem flatly to contradict my theory, in that
they contain the denial of a wish or some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of "counter
wish-dreams," I observe that they may all be referred to two principles, of which one has not yet been
mentioned, although it plays a large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives inspiring these
dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course of my
treatment if the patient shows a resistance against me, and I can count with a large degree of certainty upon
causing such a dream after I have once explained to the patient my theory that the dream is a
wish-fulfillment.[5] I may even expect this to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfill the wish that I
may appear in the wrong. The last dream which I shall tell from those occurring in the course of treatment
again shows this very thing. A young girl who has struggled hard to continue my treatment, against the will of
her relatives and the authorities whom she had consulted, dreams as follows: _She is forbidden at home to
come to me any more. She then reminds me of the promise I made her to treat her for nothing if necessary,
and I say to her: "I can show no consideration in money matters."_
It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfillment of a wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a
second problem, the solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the words which she
puts into my mouth? Of course I have never told her anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one
who has the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark about me. It is then the
purpose of the dream that this brother should remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother
merely in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her being ill.
The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is danger of overlooking it, as for some time
happened in my own case. In the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component, which has
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33
arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic component into its opposite. Such people are called
"ideal" masochists, if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon them, but in
humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and
disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfillment, affording satisfaction for
their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A young man, who has in earlier years tormented his
elder brother, towards whom he was homosexually inclined, but who had undergone a complete change of
character, has the following dream, which consists of three parts: (1) _He is "insulted" by his brother._ (2)
_Two adults are caressing each other with homosexual intentions._ (3) _His brother has sold the enterprise
whose management the young man reserved for his own future._ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream
with the most unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated: It would
serve me quite right if my brother were to make that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the
torments which he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice--until further objection can be raised--to make it
seem credible that even dreams with a painful content are to be analyzed as the fulfillments of wishes. Nor
will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which
one does not like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is simply identical
with the antipathy which endeavors--usually with success--to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of
such subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its unpleasantness, we find it necessary
to take the matter in hand. But this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not preclude the
existence of a wish; every one has wishes which he would not like to tell to others, which he does not want to
admit even to himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the disagreeable character of all these
dreams with the fact of dream disfigurement, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and that the
wish-fulfillment in them is disguised until recognition is impossible for no other reason than that a
repugnance, a will to suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of the dream or in relation to the wish
which the dream creates. Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. We shall
take into consideration everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we reword
our formula as follows: _The dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish_.
Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams with painful content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion
of which under dreams of wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can settle the problem
of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is
a question in their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which we experience in the
dream is only seemingly explained by the dream content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis,
we become aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than the fear in a phobia is
justified by the idea upon which the phobia depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a
window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window, but it is inexplicable why the
anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater
than is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to the phobia applies also to the
dream of anxiety. In both cases the anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it and
comes from another source.
On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear, discussion of the former obliges me to refer
to the latter. In a little essay on "The Anxiety Neurosis,"[6] I maintained that neurotic fear has its origin in the
sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in
being applied. From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more clearly, we may deduce
the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content
has been transformed into fear.
[1] To sit for the painter. Goethe: "And if he has no backside, how can the nobleman sit?"
[2] I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the psychopathology of hysteria, which, because of
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their fragmentary representation and of being torn from all connection with the subject, cannot have a very
34
enlightening influence. If these passages are capable of throwing light upon the intimate relations between the
dream and the psychoneuroses, they have served the purpose for which I have taken them up.
[3] Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred supper.
[4] It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a recollection of the omitted portions appear
only in the course of the analysis. These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish the key to the
interpretation. _Cf._ below, about forgetting in dreams.
[5] Similar "counter wish-dreams" have been repeatedly reported to me within the last few years by my pupils
who thus reacted to their first encounter with the "wish theory of the dream."
[6] See Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, p. 133, translated by A.A. Brill, Journal of
Nervous and Mental Diseases, Monograph Series.
V
SEX IN DREAMS
The more one is occupied with the solution of dreams, the more willing one must become to acknowledge that
the majority of the dreams of adults treat of sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only one
who really analyzes dreams, that is to say, who pushes forward from their manifest content to the latent dream
thoughts, can form an opinion on this subject--never the person who is satisfied with registering the manifest
content (as, for example, Näcke in his works on sexual dreams). Let us recognize at once that this fact is not to
be wondered at, but that it is in complete harmony with the fundamental assumptions of dream explanation.
No other impulse has had to undergo so much suppression from the time of childhood as the sex impulse in its
numerous components, from no other impulse have survived so many and such intense unconscious wishes,
which now act in the sleeping state in such a manner as to produce dreams. In dream interpretation, this
significance of sexual complexes must never be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be exaggerated to the
point of being considered exclusive.
Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that they are even to be taken bisexually,
inasmuch as they result in an irrefutable secondary interpretation in which they realize homosexual
feelings--that is, feelings that are common to the normal sexual activity of the dreaming person. But that all
dreams are to be interpreted bisexually, seems to me to be a generalization as indemonstrable as it is
improbable, which I should not like to support. Above all I should not know how to dispose of the apparent
fact that there are many dreams satisfying other than--in the widest sense--erotic needs, as dreams of hunger,
thirst, convenience, &c. Likewise the similar assertions "that behind every dream one finds the death
sentence" (Stekel), and that every dream shows "a continuation from the feminine to the masculine line"
(Adler), seem to me to proceed far beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.
We have already asserted elsewhere that dreams which are conspicuously innocent invariably embody coarse
erotic wishes, and we might confirm this by means of numerous fresh examples. But many dreams which
appear indifferent, and which would never be suspected of any particular significance, can be traced back,
after analysis, to unmistakably sexual wish-feelings, which are often of an unexpected nature. For example,
who would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the interpretation had been worked out? The
dreamer relates: _Between two stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors are
closed. My wife leads me a little way along the street up to the little house, and pushes in the door, and then I
slip quickly and easily into the interior of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards._
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Any one who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of course, immediately perceive that
penetrating into narrow spaces, and opening locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and
will easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from behind (between the two stately
35
buttocks of the female body). The narrow slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to
the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it is only consideration for the wife which is
responsible for the detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the previous day a young
girl had entered the household of the dreamer who had pleased him, and who had given him the impression
that she would not be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house between the two palaces
is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of
that city.
If with my patients I emphasize the frequency of the Oedipus dream--of having sexual intercourse with one's
mother--I get the answer: "I cannot remember such a dream." Immediately afterwards, however, there arises
the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has been dreamed repeatedly by the patient,
and the analysis shows it to be a dream of this same content--that is, another Oedipus dream. I can assure the
reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with the mother are a great deal more frequent than open ones
to the same effect.
There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is always laid upon the assurance: "I have
been there before." In this case the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can indeed be asserted
with such certainty of no other locality that one "has been there before."
A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with passing through narrow spaces or with
staying, in the water, are based upon fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's
womb, and about the act of birth. The following is the dream of a young man who in his fancy has already
while in embryo taken advantage of his opportunity to spy upon an act of coition between his parents.
_"He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window, as in the Semmering Tunnel. At first he sees an empty
landscape through this window, and then he composes a picture into it, which is immediately at hand and
which fills out the empty space. The picture represents a field which is being thoroughly harrowed by an
implement, and the delightful air, the accompanying idea of hard work, and the bluish-black clods of earth
make a pleasant impression. He then goes on and sees a primary school opened ... and he is surprised that so
much attention is devoted in it to the sexual feelings of the child, which makes him think of me."_
Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient, which was turned to extraordinary account in the course of
treatment.
_At her summer resort at the ... Lake, she hurls herself into the dark water at a place where the pale moon is
reflected in the water._
Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their interpretation is accomplished by reversing the fact reported
in the manifest dream content; thus, instead of "throwing one's self into the water," read "coming out of the
water," that is, "being born." The place from which one is born is recognized if one thinks of the bad sense of
the French "la lune." The pale moon thus becomes the white "bottom" (Popo), which the child soon
recognizes as the place from which it came. Now what can be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born
at her summer resort? I asked the dreamer this, and she answered without hesitation: "Hasn't the treatment
made me as though I were born again?" Thus the dream becomes an invitation to continue the cure at this
summer resort, that is, to visit her there; perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion to the wish to become
a mother herself.[1]
Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from the work of E. Jones. _"She stood at the
seashore watching a small boy, who seemed to be hers, wading into the water. This he did till the water
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36
covered him, and she could only see his head bobbing up and down near the surface. The scene then changed
to the crowded hall of a hotel. Her husband left her, and she 'entered into conversation with' a stranger."_ The
second half of the dream was discovered in the analysis to represent a flight from her husband, and the
entering into intimate relations with a third person, behind whom was plainly indicated Mr. X.'s brother
mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the dream was a fairly evident birth phantasy. In dreams as in
mythology, the delivery of a child from the uterine waters is commonly presented by distortion as the entry of
the child into water; among many others, the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known
illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water at once recalled to the patient the
sensation of quickening she had experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy going into the water
induced a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of the water, carrying him into the nursery, washing
him and dressing him, and installing him in her household.
The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning the elopement, which belonged to the
first half of the underlying latent content; the first half of the dream corresponded with the second half of the
latent content, the birth phantasy. Besides this inversion in order, further inversions took place in each half of
the dream. In the first half the child entered the water, and then his head bobbed; in the underlying dream
thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then the child left the water (a double inversion). In the second
half her husband left her; in the dream thoughts she left her husband.
Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking forward to her first confinement.
From a place in the floor of the house a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path,
amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there immediately appears a creature dressed in a
brownish fur, which almost resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the dreamer, to
whom she has always stood in maternal relationship.
Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save, especially to save from the water, is
equivalent to giving birth when dreamed by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when the dreamer is a
man.
Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before going to bed, and which occasionally
even disturb our sleep, originate in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are the nightly visitors who
have awakened the child to set it on the chamber so that it may not wet the bed, or have lifted the cover in
order to see clearly how the child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have been able to induce an exact
recollection of the nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of these anxiety dreams. The robbers were always
the father, the ghosts more probably corresponded to feminine persons with white night-gowns.
When one has become familiar with the abundant use of symbolism for the representation of sexual material
in dreams, one naturally raises the question whether there are not many of these symbols which appear once
and for all with a firmly established significance like the signs in stenography; and one is tempted to compile
a new dream-book according to the cipher method. In this connection it may be remarked that this symbolism
does not belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses,
and it is to be found in greater perfection in the folklore, in the myths, legends, and manners of speech, in the
proverbial sayings, and in the current witticisms of a nation than in its dreams.
The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in order to give a disguised representation to its latent thoughts.
Among the symbols which are used in this manner there are of course many which regularly, or almost
regularly, mean the same thing. Only it is necessary to keep in mind the curious plasticity of psychic material.
Now and then a symbol in the dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according to its
real meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a peculiar set of recollections, may create for himself the
right to use anything whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that way. Nor are the
most frequently used sexual symbols unambiguous every time.
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37
After these limitations and reservations I may call attention to the following: Emperor and Empress (King and
Queen) in most cases really represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is the prince
or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and umbrellas (on account of the stretching-up which
might be compared to an erection! all elongated and sharp weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, are intended
to represent the male member. A frequent, not very intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account
of the rubbing and scraping?). Little cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and stoves correspond to the female part.
The symbolism of lock and key has been very gracefully employed by Uhland in his song about the "Grafen
Eberstein," to make a common smutty joke. The dream of walking through a row of rooms is a brothel or
harem dream. Staircases, ladders, and flights of stairs, or climbing on these, either upwards or downwards, are
symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth walls over which one is climbing, façades of houses upon
which one is letting oneself down, frequently under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human body, and
probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward climbing of little children on their parents or foster
parents. "Smooth" walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one is holding on firmly to some projection
from a house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women, perhaps on account of the opposition which does
away with the bodily contours. Since "bed and board" (_mensa et thorus_) constitute marriage, the former are
often put for the latter in the dream, and as far as practicable the sexual presentation complex is transposed to
the eating complex. Of articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be definitely interpreted as the male
genital. In dreams of men one often finds the cravat as a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only because
cravats hang down long, and are characteristic of the man, but also because one can select them at pleasure, a
freedom which is prohibited by nature in the original of the symbol. Persons who make use of this symbol in
the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and possess regular collections of them. All complicated
machines and apparatus in dream are very probably genitals, in the description of which dream symbolism
shows itself to be as tireless as the activity of wit. Likewise many landscapes in dreams, especially with
bridges or with wooded mountains, can be readily recognized as descriptions of the genitals. Finally where
one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may think of combinations made up of components having a
sexual significance. Children also in the dream often signify the genitals, as men and women are in the habit
of fondly referring to their genital organ as their "little one." As a very recent symbol of the male genital may
be mentioned the flying machine, utilization of which is justified by its relation to flying as well as
occasionally by its form. To play with a little child or to beat a little one is often the dream's representation of
onanism. A number of other symbols, in part not sufficiently verified are given by Stekel, who illustrates them
with examples. Right and left, according to him, are to be conceived in the dream in an ethical sense. "The
right way always signifies the road to righteousness, the left the one to crime. Thus the left may signify
homosexuality, incest, and perversion, while the right signifies marriage, relations with a prostitute, &c. The
meaning is always determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer." Relatives in the dream
generally play the rôle of genitals. Not to be able to catch up with a wagon is interpreted by Stekel as regret
not to be able to come up to a difference in age. Baggage with which one travels is the burden of sin by which
one is oppressed. Also numbers, which frequently occur in the dream, are assigned by Stekel a fixed
symbolical meaning, but these interpretations seem neither sufficiently verified nor of general validity,
although the interpretation in individual cases can generally be recognized as probable. In a recently published
book by W. Stekel, Die Sprache des Traumes, which I was unable to utilize, there is a list of the most
common sexual symbols, the object of which is to prove that all sexual symbols can be bisexually used. He
states: "Is there a symbol which (if in any way permitted by the phantasy) may not be used simultaneously in
the masculine and the feminine sense!" To be sure the clause in parentheses takes away much of the
absoluteness of this assertion, for this is not at all permitted by the phantasy. I do not, however, think it
superfluous to state that in my experience Stekel's general statement has to give way to the recognition of a
greater manifoldness. Besides those symbols, which are just as frequent for the male as for the female
genitals, there are others which preponderately, or almost exclusively, designate one of the sexes, and there
are still others of which only the male or only the female signification is known. To use long, firm objects and
weapons as symbols of the female genitals, or hollow objects (chests, pouches, &c.), as symbols of the male
genitals, is indeed not allowed by the fancy.
It is true that the tendency of the dream and the unconscious fancy to utilize the sexual symbol bisexually
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betrays an archaic trend, for in childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and the same genitals are
attributed to both sexes.
These very incomplete suggestions may suffice to stimulate others to make a more careful collection.
I shall now add a few examples of the application of such symbolisms in dreams, which will serve to show
how impossible it becomes to interpret a dream without taking into account the symbolism of dreams, and
how imperatively it obtrudes itself in many cases.
38
1. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male genital): (a fragment from the dream of a young woman who
suffered from agoraphobia on account of a fear of temptation).
"I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a straw hat of peculiar shape, the middle piece of which is bent
upwards and the side pieces of which hang downwards (the description became here obstructed), and in such a
fashion that one is lower than the other. I am cheerful and in a confidential mood, and as I pass a troop of
young officers I think to myself: None of you can have any designs upon me."
As she could produce no associations to the hat, I said to her: "The hat is really a male genital, with its raised
middle piece and the two downward hanging side pieces." I intentionally refrained from interpreting those
details concerning the unequal downward hanging of the two side pieces, although just such individualities in
the determinations lead the way to the interpretation. I continued by saying that if she only had a man with
such a virile genital she would not have to fear the officers--that is, she would have nothing to wish from
them, for she is mainly kept from going without protection and company by her fancies of temptation. This
last explanation of her fear I had already been able to give her repeatedly on the basis of other material.
It is quite remarkable how the dreamer behaved after this interpretation. She withdrew her description of the
hat, and claimed not to have said that the two side pieces were hanging downwards. I was, however, too sure
of what I had heard to allow myself to be misled, and I persisted in it. She was quiet for a while, and then
found the courage to ask why it was that one of her husband's testicles was lower than the other, and whether
it was the same in all men. With this the peculiar detail of the hat was explained, and the whole interpretation
was accepted by her. The hat symbol was familiar to me long before the patient related this dream. From other
but less transparent cases I believe that the hat may also be taken as a female genital.
2. The little one as the genital--to be run over as a symbol of sexual intercourse (another dream of the same
agoraphobic patient).
"Her mother sends away her little daughter so that she must go alone. She rides with her mother to the railroad
and sees her little one walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid being run over. She hears the
bones crackle. (From this she experiences a feeling of discomfort but no real horror.) She then looks out
through the car window to see whether the parts cannot be seen behind. She then reproaches her mother for
allowing the little one to go out alone." Analysis. It is not an easy matter to give here a complete interpretation
of the dream. It forms part of a cycle of dreams, and can be fully understood only in connection with the
others. For it is not easy to get the necessary material sufficiently isolated to prove the symbolism. The patient
at first finds that the railroad journey is to be interpreted historically as an allusion to a departure from a
sanatorium for nervous diseases, with the superintendent of which she naturally was in love. Her mother took
her away from this place, and the physician came to the railroad station and handed her a bouquet of flowers
on leaving; she felt uncomfortable because her mother witnessed this homage. Here the mother, therefore,
appears as a disturber of her love affairs, which is the rôle actually played by this strict woman during her
daughter's girlhood. The next thought referred to the sentence: "She then looks to see whether the parts can be
seen behind." In the dream façade one would naturally be compelled to think of the parts of the little daughter
run over and ground up. The thought, however, turns in quite a different direction. She recalls that she once
saw her father in the bath-room naked from behind; she then begins to talk about the sex differentiation, and
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asserts that in the man the genitals can be seen from behind, but in the woman they cannot. In this connection
she now herself offers the interpretation that the little one is the genital, her little one (she has a four-year-old
daughter) her own genital. She reproaches her mother for wanting her to live as though she had no genital, and
recognizes this reproach in the introductory sentence of the dream; the mother sends away her little one so that
she must go alone. In her phantasy going alone on the street signifies to have no man and no sexual relations
(coire = to go together), and this she does not like. According to all her statements she really suffered as a girl
on account of the jealousy of her mother, because she showed a preference for her father.
The "little one" has been noted as a symbol for the male or the female genitals by Stekel, who can refer in this
connection to a very widespread usage of language.
The deeper interpretation of this dream depends upon another dream of the same night in which the dreamer
identifies herself with her brother. She was a "tomboy," and was always being told that she should have been
born a boy. This identification with the brother shows with special clearness that "the little one" signifies the
genital. The mother threatened him (her) with castration, which could only be understood as a punishment for
playing with the parts, and the identification, therefore, shows that she herself had masturbated as a child,
though this fact she now retained only in memory concerning her brother. An early knowledge of the male
genital which she later lost she must have acquired at that time according to the assertions of this second
dream. Moreover the second dream points to the infantile sexual theory that girls originate from boys through
castration. After I had told her of this childish belief, she at once confirmed it with an anecdote in which the
boy asks the girl: "Was it cut off?" to which the girl replied, "No, it's always been so."
The sending away of the little one, of the genital, in the first dream therefore also refers to the threatened
castration. Finally she blames her mother for not having been born a boy.
That "being run over" symbolizes sexual intercourse would not be evident from this dream if we were not sure
of it from many other sources.
3. Representation of the genital by structures, stairways, and shafts. (Dream of a young man inhibited by a
father complex.)
"He is taking a walk with his father in a place which is surely the Prater, for the Rotunda may be seen in front
of which there is a small front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the balloon, however, seems
quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all for; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father.
They come into a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to pull off a big piece of this, but
first looks around to see if any one is watching. He tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak to the
watchman, and then he can take without any further difficulty as much as he wants to. From this court a
stairway leads down into a shaft, the walls of which are softly upholstered something like a leather
pocketbook. At the end of this shaft there is a longer platform, and then a new shaft begins...."
Analysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable from a therapeutic point of view.
They follow in the analysis without offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that point
on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my
genital, the captive balloon in front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried." We must,
however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which is regularly associated by the child with
the genital, the smaller front structure is the scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what this is all for--that
is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs
should be turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a questioning on the side of the father
has never taken place in reality, we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally, as
follows: "If I had only asked my father for sexual enlightenment." The continuation of this thought we shall
soon find in another place.
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The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived symbolically in the first instance, but
originates from his father's place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for another
40
material in which the father deals, without, however, changing anything in the verbal expression of the dream.
The dreamer had entered his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the questionable practices
upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the continuation of the above dream thought ("if I had only asked
him") would be: "He would have deceived me just as he does his customers." For the pulling off, which serves
to represent commercial dishonesty, the dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This
is not only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that the secrecy of onanism is expressed
by its opposite ("Why one can do it quite openly"). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that the
onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the questioning in the first scene of the dream. The
shaft he at once interprets as the vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the walls. That the act of
coition in the vagina is described as a going down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found
true in other instances[2].
The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains
biographically. He had for some time consorted with women sexually, but had then given it up because of
inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however,
becomes indistinct toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident that in the second
scene of the dream the influence of another subject has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and
his dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so that one might think of a reference to
the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman, reported by B. Dattner.)
... Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a policeman. But he went with two tramps by
mutual consent into a church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there was a
mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a
cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins
sack-like aprons.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This road was overgrown on each side with
grass and brushwood, which became thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it
spread out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.)
For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the same colleague who furnished us with the
dental-irritation dream.
"I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl, whom I wish to punish because she has
done something to me. At the bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman?) I
grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find myself in the middle of the stairway where I
practice coitus with the child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my genital on her external
genital, and in doing this I see it very distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways. During
the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if in the air) two small pictures, landscapes,
representing a house on a green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the painter's
signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday present. A small sign hung in front of the
pictures to the effect that cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very indistinctly lying in
bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which
came from the pollution."
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Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of the day of the dream, where, while he
was waiting, he examined some pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the
dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly took his fancy in order to see the name
of the artist, which, however, was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian servant-girl who boasted that her
illegitimate child "was made on the stairs." The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual occurrence,
and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the home of her parents, where there was no
opportunity for sexual relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In witty allusion to
the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers, the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the
cellar steps."
These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream content, were readily reproduced by the
dreamer. But he just as readily reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also utilized by
the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in
which he had first become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among other things, to
slide down the banister astride which caused him to become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes
down the stairs very rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he hardly touched the
individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down," as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile
experience, the beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual excitement. In the same house
and in the adjacent residence the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in
which he satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in the dream stairs or climbing stairs
almost regularly symbolizes coitus, the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is
shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual excitement became aroused during the
sleeping state (in the dream this is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the sadistic
thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing, indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child.
The libidinous excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in the dream by the
grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would
be one of pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream interpreter. But this symbolic
gratification, which would have insured undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole stairway symbolism is unmasked as a
substitute for coitus. Freud lays stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons for the
sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream especially seems to corroborate this, for,
according to the express assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most pronounced feature
in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from their real significance, also have the value
of "Weibsbilder" (literally _woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by the fact
that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a
little girl. That cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prostitution complex, just as the dreamer's
surname on the little picture and the thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent complex
(to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling
wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in
similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother, and who
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repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate
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masturbation would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence provoked the following
dream:
"His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and for not practicing the Etudes of
Moscheles and Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum." In relation to this he remarked that the Gradus is only a
stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a scale.
It is correct to say that there is no series of associations which cannot be adapted to the representation of
sexual facts. I conclude with the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his habit of
masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
_Preliminary statement._--On the day before the dream he had given a student instruction concerning
Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic
influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the course of the same reaction, in which
the investigator had burned his hand.
Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus with particular clearness, but he has
substituted himself for the magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude. He keeps repeating to
himself, "This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting
soft." Then he reaches down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he takes his legs
out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself, "That cannot be.... Yes, it must be so, it has been done
correctly." Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he wants to tell it to me. He
is distinctly afraid of the analysis of the dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats
continually, "Phenyl, phenyl."_
II. _He is in ... ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous
with a certain lady, but he does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too late now;
when you get there it will be half-past twelve." The next instant he sees the whole family gathered about the
table--his mother and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness. Then he says to himself,
"Well, if we are eating already, I certainly can't get away."_
Analysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference to the lady whom he is to meet at the
rendezvous (the dream was dreamed during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he
gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to the chemist: "That isn't right," because
the magnesium was still unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything about it: "It
certainly isn't right." He himself must be this student; he is as indifferent towards his analysis as the student is
towards his synthesis; the He in the dream, however, who accomplishes the operation, is myself. How
unpleasant he must seem to me with his indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the analysis (synthesis) is made. For it is a question of the success of
the treatment. The legs in the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at a dancing
lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so closely that she once cried out. After he had
stopped pressing against her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs as far as just
above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in
the retort, which is at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards the woman. If it
will work with the woman, the treatment will also work. Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region
of his knees refers to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day.... The rendezvous had
actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects (that
is, with masturbation) corresponds with his resistance.
[1] It is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies and unconscious thoughts about life
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43
in the womb. They contain the explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being buried alive, as
well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in a life after death which represents nothing but a
projection into the future of this mysterious life before birth. _The act of birth, moreover, is the first
experience with fear, and is thus the source and model of the emotion of fear._
[2] Cf. _Zentralblatt für psychoanalyse_, I.
[3] Or chapel--vagina.
[4] Symbol of coitus.
[5] Mons veneris.
[6] Crines pubis.
[7] Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of a man versed in the subject, of a
phallic nature.
[8] The two halves of the scrotum.
[9] See _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vol. i., p. 2.
VI
THE WISH IN DREAMS
That the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment surely seemed strange to us all--and that not alone
because of the contradictions offered by the anxiety dream.
After learning from the first analytical explanations that the dream conceals sense and psychic validity, we
could hardly expect so simple a determination of this sense. According to the correct but concise definition of
Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in sleep (in so far as one sleeps). Considering that during the
day our thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts--judgments, conclusions, contradictions,
expectations, intentions, &c.--why should our sleeping thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the
production of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary, many dreams that present a different psychic act in
dream form, _e.g._, a solicitude, and is not the very transparent father's dream mentioned above of just such a
nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the father draws the solicitous conclusion
that a candle has been upset and may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms this conclusion into a dream by
investing it with a senseful situation enacted in the present tense. What part is played in this dream by the
wish-fulfillment, and which are we to suspect--the predominance of the thought continued from, the waking
state or of the thought incited by the new sensory impression?
All these considerations are just, and force us to enter more deeply into the part played by the wish-fulfillment
in the dream, and into the significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
It is in fact the wish-fulfillment that has already induced us to separate dreams into two groups. We have
found some dreams that were plainly wish-fulfillments; and others in which wish-fulfillment could not be
recognized, and was frequently concealed by every available means. In this latter class of dreams we
recognized the influence of the dream censor. The undisguised wish dreams were chiefly found in children,
yet fleeting open-hearted wish dreams seemed (I purposely emphasize this word) to occur also in adults.
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We may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the dream originates. But to what opposition or to what
44
diversity do we refer this "whence"? I think it is to the opposition between conscious daily life and a psychic
activity remaining unconscious which can only make itself noticeable during the night. I thus find a threefold
possibility for the origin of a wish. Firstly, it may have been incited during the day, and owing to external
circumstances failed to find gratification, there is thus left for the night an acknowledged but unfulfilled wish.
Secondly, it may come to the surface during the day but be rejected, leaving an unfulfilled but suppressed
wish. Or, thirdly, it may have no relation to daily life, and belong to those wishes that originate during the
night from the suppression. If we now follow our scheme of the psychic apparatus, we can localize a wish of
the first order in the system Forec. We may assume that a wish of the second order has been forced back from
the Forec. system into the Unc. system, where alone, if anywhere, it can maintain itself; while a wish-feeling
of the third order we consider altogether incapable of leaving the Unc. system. This brings up the question
whether wishes arising from these different sources possess the same value for the dream, and whether they
have the same power to incite a dream.
On reviewing the dreams which we have at our disposal for answering this question, we are at once moved to
add as a fourth source of the dream-wish the actual wish incitements arising during the night, such as thirst
and sexual desire. It then becomes evident that the source of the dream-wish does not affect its capacity to
incite a dream. That a wish suppressed during the day asserts itself in the dream can be shown by a great many
examples. I shall mention a very simple example of this class. A somewhat sarcastic young lady, whose
younger friend has become engaged to be married, is asked throughout the day by her acquaintances whether
she knows and what she thinks of the fiancé. She answers with unqualified praise, thereby silencing her own
judgment, as she would prefer to tell the truth, namely, that he is an ordinary person. The following night she
dreams that the same question is put to her, and that she replies with the formula: "In case of subsequent
orders it will suffice to mention the number." Finally, we have learned from numerous analyses that the wish
in all dreams that have been subject to distortion has been derived from the unconscious, and has been unable
to come to perception in the waking state. Thus it would appear that all wishes are of the same value and force
for the dream formation.
I am at present unable to prove that the state of affairs is really different, but I am strongly inclined to assume
a more stringent determination of the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave no doubt that an unfulfilled wish
of the day may be the instigator of the dream. But we must not forget that it is, after all, the wish of a child,
that it is a wish-feeling of infantile strength only. I have a strong doubt whether an unfulfilled wish from the
day would suffice to create a dream in an adult. It would rather seem that as we learn to control our impulses
by intellectual activity, we more and more reject as vain the formation or retention of such intense wishes as
are natural to childhood. In this, indeed, there may be individual variations; some retain the infantile type of
psychic processes longer than others. The differences are here the same as those found in the gradual decline
of the originally distinct visual imagination.
In general, however, I am of the opinion that unfulfilled wishes of the day are insufficient to produce a dream
in adults. I readily admit that the wish instigators originating in conscious like contribute towards the
incitement of dreams, but that is probably all. The dream would not originate if the foreconscious wish were
not reinforced from another source.
That source is the unconscious. I believe that the conscious wish is a dream inciter only if it succeeds in
arousing a similar unconscious wish which reinforces it. Following the suggestions obtained through the
psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes are always active and ready for
expression whenever they find an opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life, and
that they transfer their greater intensity to the lesser intensity of the latter.[1] It may therefore seem that the
conscious wish alone has been realized in a dream; but a slight peculiarity in the formation of this dream will
put us on the track of the powerful helper from the unconscious. These ever active and, as it were, immortal
wishes from the unconscious recall the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have borne the
ponderous mountains which were once rolled upon them by the victorious gods, and which even now quiver
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from time to time from the convulsions of their mighty limbs; I say that these wishes found in the repression
are of themselves of an infantile origin, as we have learned from the psychological investigation of the
neuroses. I should like, therefore, to withdraw the opinion previously expressed that it is unimportant whence
the dream-wish originates, and replace it by another, as follows: The wish manifested in the dream must be an
infantile one. In the adult it originates in the Unc., while in the child, where no separation and censor as yet
exist between Forec. and Unc., or where these are only in the process of formation, it is an unfulfilled and
unrepressed wish from the waking state. I am aware that this conception cannot be generally demonstrated,
but I maintain nevertheless that it can be frequently demonstrated, even when it was not suspected, and that it
cannot be generally refuted.
The wish-feelings which remain from the conscious waking state are, therefore, relegated to the background
in the dream formation. In the dream content I shall attribute to them only the part attributed to the material of
actual sensations during sleep. If I now take into account those other psychic instigations remaining from the
waking state which are not wishes, I shall only adhere to the line mapped out for me by this train of thought.
We may succeed in provisionally terminating the sum of energy of our waking thoughts by deciding to go to
sleep. He is a good sleeper who can do this; Napoleon I. is reputed to have been a model of this sort. But we
do not always succeed in accomplishing it, or in accomplishing it perfectly. Unsolved problems, harassing
cares, overwhelming impressions continue the thinking activity even during sleep, maintaining psychic
processes in the system which we have termed the foreconscious. These mental processes continuing into
sleep may be divided into the following groups: 1, That which has not been terminated during the day owing
to casual prevention; 2, that which has been left unfinished by temporary paralysis of our mental power, _i.e._
the unsolved; 3, that which has been rejected and suppressed during the day. This unites with a powerful
group (4) formed by that which has been excited in our Unc. during the day by the work of the foreconscious.
Finally, we may add group (5) consisting of the indifferent and hence unsettled impressions of the day.
We should not underrate the psychic intensities introduced into sleep by these remnants of waking life,
especially those emanating from the group of the unsolved. These excitations surely continue to strive for
expression during the night, and we may assume with equal certainty that the sleeping state renders
impossible the usual continuation of the excitement in the foreconscious and the termination of the excitement
by its becoming conscious. As far as we can normally become conscious of our mental processes, even during
the night, in so far we are not asleep. I shall not venture to state what change is produced in the Forec. system
by the sleeping state, but there is no doubt that the psychological character of sleep is essentially due to the
change of energy in this very system, which also dominates the approach to motility, which is paralyzed
during sleep. In contradistinction to this, there seems to be nothing in the psychology of the dream to warrant
the assumption that sleep produces any but secondary changes in the conditions of the Unc. system. Hence,
for the nocturnal excitation in the Force, there remains no other path than that followed by the wish
excitements from the Unc. This excitation must seek reinforcement from the Unc., and follow the detours of
the unconscious excitations. But what is the relation of the foreconscious day remnants to the dream? There is
no doubt that they penetrate abundantly into the dream, that they utilize the dream content to obtrude
themselves upon consciousness even during the night; indeed, they occasionally even dominate the dream
content, and impel it to continue the work of the day; it is also certain that the day remnants may just as well
have any other character as that of wishes; but it is highly instructive and even decisive for the theory of
wish-fulfillment to see what conditions they must comply with in order to be received into the dream.
Let us pick out one of the dreams cited above as examples, _e.g._, the dream in which my friend Otto seems
to show the symptoms of Basedow's disease. My friend Otto's appearance occasioned me some concern
during the day, and this worry, like everything else referring to this person, affected me. I may also assume
that these feelings followed me into sleep. I was probably bent on finding out what was the matter with him.
In the night my worry found expression in the dream which I have reported, the content of which was not only
senseless, but failed to show any wish-fulfillment. But I began to investigate for the source of this
incongruous expression of the solicitude felt during the day, and analysis revealed the connection. I identified
my friend Otto with a certain Baron L. and myself with a Professor R. There was only one explanation for my
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being impelled to select just this substitution for the day thought. I must have always been prepared in the
46
Unc. to identify myself with Professor R., as it meant the realization of one of the immortal infantile wishes,
viz. that of becoming great. Repulsive ideas respecting my friend, that would certainly have been repudiated
in a waking state, took advantage of the opportunity to creep into the dream, but the worry of the day likewise
found some form of expression through a substitution in the dream content. The day thought, which was no
wish in itself but rather a worry, had in some way to find a connection with the infantile now unconscious and
suppressed wish, which then allowed it, though already properly prepared, to "originate" for consciousness.
The more dominating this worry, the stronger must be the connection to be established; between the contents
of the wish and that of the worry there need be no connection, nor was there one in any of our examples.
We can now sharply define the significance of the unconscious wish for the dream. It may be admitted that
there is a whole class of dreams in which the incitement originates preponderatingly or even exclusively from
the remnants of daily life; and I believe that even my cherished desire to become at some future time a
"professor extraordinarius" would have allowed me to slumber undisturbed that night had not my worry about
my friend's health been still active. But this worry alone would not have produced a dream; the motive power
needed by the dream had to be contributed by a wish, and it was the affair of the worriment to procure for
itself such wish as a motive power of the dream. To speak figuratively, it is quite possible that a day thought
plays the part of the contractor (_entrepreneur_) in the dream. But it is known that no matter what idea the
contractor may have in mind, and how desirous he may be of putting it into operation, he can do nothing
without capital; he must depend upon a capitalist to defray the necessary expenses, and this capitalist, who
supplies the psychic expenditure for the dream is invariably and indisputably a wish from the unconscious, no
matter what the nature of the waking thought may be.
In other cases the capitalist himself is the contractor for the dream; this, indeed, seems to be the more usual
case. An unconscious wish is produced by the day's work, which in turn creates the dream. The dream
processes, moreover, run parallel with all the other possibilities of the economic relationship used here as an
illustration. Thus, the entrepreneur may contribute some capital himself, or several entrepreneurs may seek the
aid of the same capitalist, or several capitalists may jointly supply the capital required by the entrepreneur.
Thus there are dreams produced by more than one dream-wish, and many similar variations which may
readily be passed over and are of no further interest to us. What we have left unfinished in this discussion of
the dream-wish we shall be able to develop later.
The "tertium comparationis" in the comparisons just employed--_i.e._ the sum placed at our free disposal in
proper allotment--admits of still finer application for the illustration of the dream structure. We can recognize
in most dreams a center especially supplied with perceptible intensity. This is regularly the direct
representation of the wish-fulfillment; for, if we undo the displacements of the dream-work by a process of
retrogression, we find that the psychic intensity of the elements in the dream thoughts is replaced by the
perceptible intensity of the elements in the dream content. The elements adjoining the wish-fulfillment have
frequently nothing to do with its sense, but prove to be descendants of painful thoughts which oppose the
wish. But, owing to their frequently artificial connection with the central element, they have acquired
sufficient intensity to enable them to come to expression. Thus, the force of expression of the wish-fulfillment
is diffused over a certain sphere of association, within which it raises to expression all elements, including
those that are in themselves impotent. In dreams having several strong wishes we can readily separate from
one another the spheres of the individual wish-fulfillments; the gaps in the dream likewise can often be
explained as boundary zones.
Although the foregoing remarks have considerably limited the significance of the day remnants for the dream,
it will nevertheless be worth our while to give them some attention. For they must be a necessary ingredient in
the formation of the dream, inasmuch as experience reveals the surprising fact that every dream shows in its
content a connection with some impression of a recent day, often of the most indifferent kind. So far we have
failed to see any necessity for this addition to the dream mixture. This necessity appears only when we follow
closely the part played by the unconscious wish, and then seek information in the psychology of the neuroses.
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We thus learn that the unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable of entering into the foreconscious,
and that it can exert an influence there only by uniting with a harmless idea already belonging to the
foreconscious, to which it transfers its intensity and under which it allows itself to be concealed. This is the
47
fact of transference which furnishes an explanation for so many surprising occurrences in the psychic life of
neurotics.
The idea from the foreconscious which thus obtains an unmerited abundance of intensity may be left
unchanged by the transference, or it may have forced upon it a modification from the content of the
transferring idea. I trust the reader will pardon my fondness for comparisons from daily life, but I feel tempted
to say that the relations existing for the repressed idea are similar to the situations existing in Austria for the
American dentist, who is forbidden to practise unless he gets permission from a regular physician to use his
name on the public signboard and thus cover the legal requirements. Moreover, just as it is naturally not the
busiest physicians who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in the psychic life only such
foreconscious or conscious ideas are chosen to cover a repressed idea as have not themselves attracted much
of the attention which is operative in the foreconscious. The unconscious entangles with its connections
preferentially either those impressions and ideas of the foreconscious which have been left unnoticed as
indifferent, or those that have soon been deprived of this attention through rejection. It is a familiar fact from
the association studies confirmed by every experience, that ideas which have formed intimate connections in
one direction assume an almost negative attitude to whole groups of new connections. I once tried from this
principle to develop a theory for hysterical paralysis.
If we assume that the same need for the transference of the repressed ideas which we have learned to know
from the analysis of the neuroses makes its influence felt in the dream as well, we can at once explain two
riddles of the dream, viz. that every dream analysis shows an interweaving of a recent impression, and that
this recent element is frequently of the most indifferent character. We may add what we have already learned
elsewhere, that these recent and indifferent elements come so frequently into the dream content as a substitute
for the most deep-lying of the dream thoughts, for the further reason that they have least to fear from the
resisting censor. But while this freedom from censorship explains only the preference for trivial elements, the
constant presence of recent elements points to the fact that there is a need for transference. Both groups of
impressions satisfy the demand of the repression for material still free from associations, the indifferent ones
because they have offered no inducement for extensive associations, and the recent ones because they have
had insufficient time to form such associations.
We thus see that the day remnants, among which we may now include the indifferent impressions when they
participate in the dream formation, not only borrow from the Unc. the motive power at the disposal of the
repressed wish, but also offer to the unconscious something indispensable, namely, the attachment necessary
to the transference. If we here attempted to penetrate more deeply into the psychic processes, we should first
have to throw more light on the play of emotions between the foreconscious and the unconscious, to which,
indeed, we are urged by the study of the psychoneuroses, whereas the dream itself offers no assistance in this
respect.
Just one further remark about the day remnants. There is no doubt that they are the actual disturbers of sleep,
and not the dream, which, on the contrary, strives to guard sleep. But we shall return to this point later.
We have so far discussed the dream-wish, we have traced it to the sphere of the Unc., and analyzed its
relations to the day remnants, which in turn may be either wishes, psychic emotions of any other kind, or
simply recent impressions. We have thus made room for any claims that may be made for the importance of
conscious thought activity in dream formations in all its variations. Relying upon our thought series, it would
not be at all impossible for us to explain even those extreme cases in which the dream as a continuer of the
day work brings to a happy conclusion and unsolved problem possess an example, the analysis of which
might reveal the infantile or repressed wish source furnishing such alliance and successful strengthening of
the efforts of the foreconscious activity. But we have not come one step nearer a solution of the riddle: Why
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can the unconscious furnish the motive power for the wish-fulfillment only during sleep? The answer to this
question must throw light on the psychic nature of wishes; and it will be given with the aid of the diagram of
the psychic apparatus.
We do not doubt that even this apparatus attained its present perfection through a long course of development.
Let us attempt to restore it as it existed in an early phase of its activity. From assumptions, to be confirmed
elsewhere, we know that at first the apparatus strove to keep as free from excitement as possible, and in its
first formation, therefore, the scheme took the form of a reflex apparatus, which enabled it promptly to
discharge through the motor tracts any sensible stimulus reaching it from without. But this simple function
was disturbed by the wants of life, which likewise furnish the impulse for the further development of the
apparatus. The wants of life first manifested themselves to it in the form of the great physical needs. The
excitement aroused by the inner want seeks an outlet in motility, which may be designated as "inner changes"
or as an "expression of the emotions." The hungry child cries or fidgets helplessly, but its situation remains
unchanged; for the excitation proceeding from an inner want requires, not a momentary outbreak, but a force
working continuously. A change can occur only if in some way a feeling of gratification is
experienced--which in the case of the child must be through outside help--in order to remove the inner
excitement. An essential constituent of this experience is the appearance of a certain perception (of food in our
example), the memory picture of which thereafter remains associated with the memory trace of the excitation
of want.
Thanks to the established connection, there results at the next appearance of this want a psychic feeling which
revives the memory picture of the former perception, and thus recalls the former perception itself, _i.e._ it
actually re-establishes the situation of the first gratification. We call such a feeling a wish; the reappearance of
the perception constitutes the wish-fulfillment, and the full revival of the perception by the want excitement
constitutes the shortest road to the wish-fulfillment. We may assume a primitive condition of the psychic
apparatus in which this road is really followed, _i.e._ where the wishing merges into an hallucination, This
first psychic activity therefore aims at an identity of perception, _i.e._ it aims at a repetition of that perception
which is connected with the fulfillment of the want.
This primitive mental activity must have been modified by bitter practical experience into a more expedient
secondary activity. The establishment of the identity perception on the short regressive road within the
apparatus does not in another respect carry with it the result which inevitably follows the revival of the same
perception from without. The gratification does not take place, and the want continues. In order to equalize the
internal with the external sum of energy, the former must be continually maintained, just as actually happens
in the hallucinatory psychoses and in the deliriums of hunger which exhaust their psychic capacity in clinging
to the object desired. In order to make more appropriate use of the psychic force, it becomes necessary to
inhibit the full regression so as to prevent it from extending beyond the image of memory, whence it can
select other paths leading ultimately to the establishment of the desired identity from the outer world. This
inhibition and consequent deviation from the excitation becomes the task of a second system which dominates
the voluntary motility, _i.e._ through whose activity the expenditure of motility is now devoted to previously
recalled purposes. But this entire complicated mental activity which works its way from the memory picture
to the establishment of the perception identity from the outer world merely represents a detour which has been
forced upon the wish-fulfillment by experience.[2] Thinking is indeed nothing but the equivalent of the
hallucinatory wish; and if the dream be called a wish-fulfillment this becomes self-evident, as nothing but a
wish can impel our psychic apparatus to activity. The dream, which in fulfilling its wishes follows the short
regressive path, thereby preserves for us only an example of the primary form of the psychic apparatus which
has been abandoned as inexpedient. What once ruled in the waking state when the psychic life was still young
and unfit seems to have been banished into the sleeping state, just as we see again in the nursery the bow and
arrow, the discarded primitive weapons of grown-up humanity. _The dream is a fragment of the abandoned
psychic life of the child._ In the psychoses these modes of operation of the psychic apparatus, which are
normally suppressed in the waking state, reassert themselves, and then betray their inability to satisfy our
wants in the outer world.
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The unconscious wish-feelings evidently strive to assert themselves during the day also, and the fact of
transference and the psychoses teach us that they endeavor to penetrate to consciousness and dominate
49
motility by the road leading through the system of the foreconscious. It is, therefore, the censor lying between
the Unc. and the Forec., the assumption of which is forced upon us by the dream, that we have to recognize
and honor as the guardian of our psychic health. But is it not carelessness on the part of this guardian to
diminish its vigilance during the night and to allow the suppressed emotions of the Unc. to come to
expression, thus again making possible the hallucinatory regression? I think not, for when the critical guardian
goes to rest--and we have proof that his slumber is not profound--he takes care to close the gate to motility.
No matter what feelings from the otherwise inhibited Unc. may roam about on the scene, they need not be
interfered with; they remain harmless because they are unable to put in motion the motor apparatus which
alone can exert a modifying influence upon the outer world. Sleep guarantees the security of the fortress
which is under guard. Conditions are less harmless when a displacement of forces is produced, not through a
nocturnal diminution in the operation of the critical censor, but through pathological enfeeblement of the latter
or through pathological reinforcement of the unconscious excitations, and this while the foreconscious is
charged with energy and the avenues to motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered, the unconscious
excitations subdue the Forec.; through it they dominate our speech and actions, or they enforce the
hallucinatory regression, thus governing an apparatus not designed for them by virtue of the attraction exerted
by the perceptions on the distribution of our psychic energy. We call this condition a psychosis.
We are now in the best position to complete our psychological construction, which has been interrupted by the
introduction of the two systems, Unc. and Forec. We have still, however, ample reason for giving further
consideration to the wish as the sole psychic motive power in the dream. We have explained that the reason
why the dream is in every case a wish realization is because it is a product of the Unc., which knows no other
aim in its activity but the fulfillment of wishes, and which has no other forces at its disposal but wish-feelings.
If we avail ourselves for a moment longer of the right to elaborate from the dream interpretation such
far-reaching psychological speculations, we are in duty bound to demonstrate that we are thereby bringing the
dream into a relationship which may also comprise other psychic structures. If there exists a system of the
Unc.--or something sufficiently analogous to it for the purpose of our discussion--the dream cannot be its sole
manifestation; every dream may be a wish-fulfillment, but there must be other forms of abnormal
wish-fulfillment beside this of dreams. Indeed, the theory of all psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the
proposition _that they too must be taken as wish-fulfillments of the unconscious_. Our explanation makes the
dream only the first member of a group most important for the psychiatrist, an understanding of which means
the solution of the purely psychological part of the psychiatric problem. But other members of this group of
wish-fulfillments, _e.g._, the hysterical symptoms, evince one essential quality which I have so far failed to
find in the dream. Thus, from the investigations frequently referred to in this treatise, I know that the
formation of an hysterical symptom necessitates the combination of both streams of our psychic life. The
symptom is not merely the expression of a realized unconscious wish, but it must be joined by another wish
from the foreconscious which is fulfilled by the same symptom; so that the symptom is at least doubly
determined, once by each one of the conflicting systems. Just as in the dream, there is no limit to further
over-determination. The determination not derived from the Unc. is, as far as I can see, invariably a stream of
thought in reaction against the unconscious wish, _e.g._, a self-punishment. Hence I may say, in general, that
_an hysterical symptom originates only where two contrasting wish-fulfillments, having their source in
different psychic systems, are able to combine in one expression_. (Compare my latest formulation of the
origin of the hysterical symptoms in a treatise published by the _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, by
Hirschfeld and others, 1908). Examples on this point would prove of little value, as nothing but a complete
unveiling of the complication in question would carry conviction. I therefore content myself with the mere
assertion, and will cite an example, not for conviction but for explication. The hysterical vomiting of a female
patient proved, on the one hand, to be the realization of an unconscious fancy from the time of puberty, that
she might be continuously pregnant and have a multitude of children, and this was subsequently united with
the wish that she might have them from as many men as possible. Against this immoderate wish there arose a
powerful defensive impulse. But as the vomiting might spoil the patient's figure and beauty, so that she would
not find favor in the eyes of mankind, the symptom was therefore in keeping with her punitive trend of
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thought, and, being thus admissible from both sides, it was allowed to become a reality. This is the same
manner of consenting to a wish-fulfillment which the queen of the Parthians chose for the triumvir Crassus.
50
Believing that he had undertaken the campaign out of greed for gold, she caused molten gold to be poured into
the throat of the corpse. "Now hast thou what thou hast longed for." As yet we know of the dream only that it
expresses a wish-fulfillment of the unconscious; and apparently the dominating foreconscious permits this
only after it has subjected the wish to some distortions. We are really in no position to demonstrate regularly a
stream of thought antagonistic to the dream-wish which is realized in the dream as in its counterpart. Only
now and then have we found in the dream traces of reaction formations, as, for instance, the tenderness toward
friend R. in the "uncle dream." But the contribution from the foreconscious, which is missing here, may be
found in another place. While the dominating system has withdrawn on the wish to sleep, the dream may
bring to expression with manifold distortions a wish from the Unc., and realize this wish by producing the
necessary changes of energy in the psychic apparatus, and may finally retain it through the entire duration of
sleep.[3]
This persistent wish to sleep on the part of the foreconscious in general facilitates the formation of the dream.
Let us refer to the dream of the father who, by the gleam of light from the death chamber, was brought to the
conclusion that the body has been set on fire. We have shown that one of the psychic forces decisive in
causing the father to form this conclusion, instead of being awakened by the gleam of light, was the wish to
prolong the life of the child seen in the dream by one moment. Other wishes proceeding from the repression
probably escape us, because we are unable to analyze this dream. But as a second motive power of the dream
we may mention the father's desire to sleep, for, like the life of the child, the sleep of the father is prolonged
for a moment by the dream. The underlying motive is: "Let the dream go on, otherwise I must wake up." As in
this dream so also in all other dreams, the wish to sleep lends its support to the unconscious wish. We reported
dreams which were apparently dreams of convenience. But, properly speaking, all dreams may claim this
designation. The efficacy of the wish to continue to sleep is the most easily recognized in the waking dreams,
which so transform the objective sensory stimulus as to render it compatible with the continuance of sleep;
they interweave this stimulus with the dream in order to rob it of any claims it might make as a warning to the
outer world. But this wish to continue to sleep must also participate in the formation of all other dreams which
may disturb the sleeping state from within only. "Now, then, sleep on; why, it's but a dream"; this is in many
cases the suggestion of the Forec. to consciousness when the dream goes too far; and this also describes in a
general way the attitude of our dominating psychic activity toward dreaming, though the thought remains
tacit. I must draw the conclusion that throughout our entire sleeping state we are just as certain that we are
dreaming as we are certain that we are sleeping. We are compelled to disregard the objection urged against
this conclusion that our consciousness is never directed to a knowledge of the former, and that it is directed to
a knowledge of the latter only on special occasions when the censor is unexpectedly surprised. Against this
objection we may say that there are persons who are entirely conscious of their sleeping and dreaming, and
who are apparently endowed with the conscious faculty of guiding their dream life. Such a dreamer, when
dissatisfied with the course taken by the dream, breaks it off without awakening, and begins it anew in order
to continue it with a different turn, like the popular author who, on request, gives a happier ending to his play.
Or, at another time, if placed by the dream in a sexually exciting situation, he thinks in his sleep: "I do not
care to continue this dream and exhaust myself by a pollution; I prefer to defer it in favor of a real situation."
[1] They share this character of indestructibility with all psychic acts that are really unconscious--that is, with
psychic acts belonging to the system of the unconscious only. These paths are constantly open and never fall
into disuse; they conduct the discharge of the exciting process as often as it becomes endowed with
unconscious excitement To speak metaphorically they suffer the same form of annihilation as the shades of
the lower region in the Odyssey, who awoke to new life the moment they drank blood. The processes
depending on the foreconscious system are destructible in a different way. The psychotherapy of the neuroses
is based on this difference.
[2] Le Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfilment of the dream: "Sans fatigue sérieuse, sans être obligé de
recourir à cette lutte opinâtre et longue qui use et corrode les jouissances poursuivies."
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51
[3] This idea has been borrowed from The Theory of Sleep by Liébault, who revived hypnotic investigation in
our days. (_Du Sommeil provoqué_, etc.; Paris, 1889.)
VII
THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM
Since we know that the foreconscious is suspended during the night by the wish to sleep, we can proceed to an
intelligent investigation of the dream process. But let us first sum up the knowledge of this process already
gained. We have shown that the waking activity leaves day remnants from which the sum of energy cannot be
entirely removed; or the waking activity revives during the day one of the unconscious wishes; or both
conditions occur simultaneously; we have already discovered the many variations that may take place. The
unconscious wish has already made its way to the day remnants, either during the day or at any rate with the
beginning of sleep, and has effected a transference to it. This produces a wish transferred to the recent
material, or the suppressed recent wish comes to life again through a reinforcement from the unconscious.
This wish now endeavors to make its way to consciousness on the normal path of the mental processes
through the foreconscious, to which indeed it belongs through one of its constituent elements. It is confronted,
however, by the censor, which is still active, and to the influence of which it now succumbs. It now takes on
the distortion for which the way has already been paved by its transference to the recent material. Thus far it is
in the way of becoming something resembling an obsession, delusion, or the like, _i.e._ a thought reinforced
by a transference and distorted in expression by the censor. But its further progress is now checked through
the dormant state of the foreconscious; this system has apparently protected itself against invasion by
diminishing its excitements. The dream process, therefore, takes the regressive course, which has just been
opened by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and thereby follows the attraction exerted on it by the memory
groups, which themselves exist in part only as visual energy not yet translated into terms of the later systems.
On its way to regression the dream takes on the form of dramatization. The subject of compression will be
discussed later. The dream process has now terminated the second part of its repeatedly impeded course. The
first part expended itself progressively from the unconscious scenes or phantasies to the foreconscious, while
the second part gravitates from the advent of the censor back to the perceptions. But when the dream process
becomes a content of perception it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the Forec. by the censor and
by the sleeping state. It succeeds in drawing attention to itself and in being noticed by consciousness. For
consciousness, which means to us a sensory organ for the reception of psychic qualities, may receive stimuli
from two sources--first, from the periphery of the entire apparatus, viz. from the perception system, and,
secondly, from the pleasure and pain stimuli, which constitute the sole psychic quality produced in the
transformation of energy within the apparatus. All other processes in the system, even those in the
foreconscious, are devoid of any psychic quality, and are therefore not objects of consciousness inasmuch as
they do not furnish pleasure or pain for perception. We shall have to assume that those liberations of pleasure
and pain automatically regulate the outlet of the occupation processes. But in order to make possible more
delicate functions, it was later found necessary to render the course of the presentations more independent of
the manifestations of pain. To accomplish this the Forec. system needed some qualities of its own which could
attract consciousness, and most probably received them through the connection of the foreconscious processes
with the memory system of the signs of speech, which is not devoid of qualities. Through the qualities of this
system, consciousness, which had hitherto been a sensory organ only for the perceptions, now becomes also a
sensory organ for a part of our mental processes. Thus we have now, as it were, two sensory surfaces, one
directed to perceptions and the other to the foreconscious mental processes.
I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness devoted to the Forec. is rendered less excitable by
sleep than that directed to the P-systems. The giving up of interest for the nocturnal mental processes is indeed
purposeful. Nothing is to disturb the mind; the Forec. wants to sleep. But once the dream becomes a
perception, it is then capable of exciting consciousness through the qualities thus gained. The sensory stimulus
accomplishes what it was really destined for, namely, it directs a part of the energy at the disposal of the
Forec. in the form of attention upon the stimulant. We must, therefore, admit that the dream invariably
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awakens us, that is, it puts into activity a part of the dormant force of the Forec. This force imparts to the
dream that influence which we have designated as secondary elaboration for the sake of connection and
comprehensibility. This means that the dream is treated by it like any other content of perception; it is
subjected to the same ideas of expectation, as far at least as the material admits. As far as the direction is
concerned in this third part of the dream, it may be said that here again the movement is progressive.
52
To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss to say a few words about the temporal peculiarities of these
dream processes. In a very interesting discussion, apparently suggested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream,
Goblet tries to demonstrate that the dream requires no other time than the transition period between sleeping
and awakening. The awakening requires time, as the dream takes place during that period. One is inclined to
believe that the final picture of the dream is so strong that it forces the dreamer to awaken; but, as a matter of
fact, this picture is strong only because the dreamer is already very near awakening when it appears. "Un rêve
c'est un réveil qui commence."
It has already been emphasized by Dugas that Goblet was forced to repudiate many facts in order to generalize
his theory. There are, moreover, dreams from which we do not awaken, _e.g._, some dreams in which we
dream that we dream. From our knowledge of the dream-work, we can by no means admit that it extends only
over the period of awakening. On the contrary, we must consider it probable that the first part of the
dream-work begins during the day when we are still under the domination of the foreconscious. The second
phase of the dream-work, viz. the modification through the censor, the attraction by the unconscious scenes,
and the penetration to perception must continue throughout the night. And we are probably always right when
we assert that we feel as though we had been dreaming the whole night, although we cannot say what. I do
not, however, think it necessary to assume that, up to the time of becoming conscious, the dream processes
really follow the temporal sequence which we have described, viz. that there is first the transferred
dream-wish, then the distortion of the censor, and consequently the change of direction to regression, and so
on. We were forced to form such a succession for the sake of _description_; in reality, however, it is much
rather a matter of simultaneously trying this path and that, and of emotions fluctuating to and fro, until finally,
owing to the most expedient distribution, one particular grouping is secured which remains. From certain
personal experiences, I am myself inclined to believe that the dream-work often requires more than one day
and one night to produce its result; if this be true, the extraordinary art manifested in the construction of the
dream loses all its marvels. In my opinion, even the regard for comprehensibility as an occurrence of
perception may take effect before the dream attracts consciousness to itself. To be sure, from now on the
process is accelerated, as the dream is henceforth subjected to the same treatment as any other perception. It is
like fireworks, which require hours of preparation and only a moment for ignition.
Through the dream-work the dream process now gains either sufficient intensity to attract consciousness to
itself and arouse the foreconscious, which is quite independent of the time or profundity of sleep, or, its
intensity being insufficient it must wait until it meets the attention which is set in motion immediately before
awakening. Most dreams seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the
awakening. This, however, explains the fact that we regularly perceive something dreamt on being suddenly
aroused from a sound sleep. Here, as well as in spontaneous awakening, the first glance strikes the perception
content created by the dream-work, while the next strikes the one produced from without.
But of greater theoretical interest are those dreams which are capable of waking us in the midst of sleep. We
must bear in mind the expediency elsewhere universally demonstrated, and ask ourselves why the dream or
the unconscious wish has the power to disturb sleep, _i.e._ the fulfillment of the foreconscious wish. This is
probably due to certain relations of energy into which we have no insight. If we possessed such insight we
should probably find that the freedom given to the dream and the expenditure of a certain amount of detached
attention represent for the dream an economy in energy, keeping in view the fact that the unconscious must be
held in check at night just as during the day. We know from experience that the dream, even if it interrupts
sleep, repeatedly during the same night, still remains compatible with sleep. We wake up for an instant, and
immediately resume our sleep. It is like driving off a fly during sleep, we awake ad hoc, and when we resume
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our sleep we have removed the disturbance. As demonstrated by familiar examples from the sleep of wet
nurses, &c., the fulfillment of the wish to sleep is quite compatible with the retention of a certain amount of
attention in a given direction.
But we must here take cognizance of an objection that is based on a better knowledge of the unconscious
processes. Although we have ourselves described the unconscious wishes as always active, we have,
53
nevertheless, asserted that they are not sufficiently strong during the day to make themselves perceptible. But
when we sleep, and the unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream, and with it to awaken the
foreconscious, why, then, does this power become exhausted after the dream has been taken cognizance of?
Would it not seem more probable that the dream should continually renew itself, like the troublesome fly
which, when driven away, takes pleasure in returning again and again? What justifies our assertion that the
dream removes the disturbance of sleep?
That the unconscious wishes always remain active is quite true. They represent paths which are passable
whenever a sum of excitement makes use of them. Moreover, a remarkable peculiarity of the unconscious
processes is the fact that they remain indestructible. Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious;
nothing can cease or be forgotten. This impression is most strongly gained in the study of the neuroses,
especially of hysteria. The unconscious stream of thought which leads to the discharge through an attack
becomes passable again as soon as there is an accumulation of a sufficient amount of excitement. The
mortification brought on thirty years ago, after having gained access to the unconscious affective source,
operates during all these thirty years like a recent one. Whenever its memory is touched, it is revived and
shows itself to be supplied with the excitement which is discharged in a motor attack. It is just here that the
office of psychotherapy begins, its task being to bring about adjustment and forgetfulness for the unconscious
processes. Indeed, the fading of memories and the flagging of affects, which we are apt to take as self-evident
and to explain as a primary influence of time on the psychic memories, are in reality secondary changes
brought about by painstaking work. It is the foreconscious that accomplishes this work; and the only course to
be pursued by psychotherapy is the subjugate the Unc, to the domination of the Forec.
There are, therefore, two exits for the individual unconscious emotional process. It is either left to itself, in
which case it ultimately breaks through somewhere and secures for once a discharge for its excitation into
motility; or it succumbs to the influence of the foreconscious, and its excitation becomes confined through this
influence instead of being discharged. It is the latter process that occurs in the dream. Owing to the fact that it
is directed by the conscious excitement, the energy from the Forec., which confronts the dream when grown to
perception, restricts the unconscious excitement of the dream and renders it harmless as a disturbing factor.
When the dreamer wakes up for a moment, he has actually chased away the fly that has threatened to disturb
his sleep. We can now understand that it is really more expedient and economical to give full sway to the
unconscious wish, and clear its way to regression so that it may form a dream, and then restrict and adjust this
dream by means of a small expenditure of foreconscious labor, than to curb the unconscious throughout the
entire period of sleep. We should, indeed, expect that the dream, even if it was not originally an expedient
process, would have acquired some function in the play of forces of the psychic life. We now see what this
function is. The dream has taken it upon itself to bring the liberated excitement of the Unc. back under the
domination of the foreconscious; it thus affords relief for the excitement of the Unc. and acts as a safety-valve
for the latter, and at the same time it insures the sleep of the foreconscious at a slight expenditure of the
waking state. Like the other psychic formations of its group, the dream offers itself as a compromise serving
simultaneously both systems by fulfilling both wishes in so far as they are compatible with each other. A
glance at Robert's "elimination theory," will show that we must agree with this author in his main point, viz. in
the determination of the function of the dream, though we differ from him in our hypotheses and in our
treatment of the dream process.
The above qualification--in so far as the two wishes are compatible with each other--contains a suggestion that
there may be cases in which the function of the dream suffers shipwreck. The dream process is in the first
instance admitted as a wish-fulfillment of the unconscious, but if this tentative wish-fulfillment disturbs the
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foreconscious to such an extent that the latter can no longer maintain its rest, the dream then breaks the
compromise and fails to perform the second part of its task. It is then at once broken off, and replaced by
complete wakefulness. Here, too, it is not really the fault of the dream, if, while ordinarily the guardian of
54
sleep, it is here compelled to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor should this cause us to entertain any doubts
as to its efficacy. This is not the only case in the organism in which an otherwise efficacious arrangement
became inefficacious and disturbing as soon as some element is changed in the conditions of its origin; the
disturbance then serves at least the new purpose of announcing the change, and calling into play against it the
means of adjustment of the organism. In this connection, I naturally bear in mind the case of the anxiety
dream, and in order not to have the appearance of trying to exclude this testimony against the theory of
wish-fulfillment wherever I encounter it, I will attempt an explanation of the anxiety dream, at least offering
some suggestions.
That a psychic process developing anxiety may still be a wish-fulfillment has long ceased to impress us as a
contradiction. We may explain this occurrence by the fact that the wish belongs to one system (the Unc.),
while by the other system (the Forec.), this wish has been rejected and suppressed. The subjection of the Unc.
by the Forec. is not complete even in perfect psychic health; the amount of this suppression shows the degree
of our psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms show that there is a conflict between the two systems; the
symptoms are the results of a compromise of this conflict, and they temporarily put an end to it. On the one
hand, they afford the Unc. an outlet for the discharge of its excitement, and serve it as a sally port, while, on
the other hand, they give the Forec. the capability of dominating the Unc. to some extent. It is highly
instructive to consider, _e.g._, the significance of any hysterical phobia or of an agoraphobia. Suppose a
neurotic incapable of crossing the street alone, which we would justly call a "symptom." We attempt to
remove this symptom by urging him to the action which he deems himself incapable of. The result will be an
attack of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often been the cause of establishing an
agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has been constituted in order to guard against the outbreak of
the anxiety. The phobia is thrown before the anxiety like a fortress on the frontier.
Unless we enter into the part played by the affects in these processes, which can be done here only
imperfectly, we cannot continue our discussion. Let us therefore advance the proposition that the reason why
the suppression of the unconscious becomes absolutely necessary is because, if the discharge of presentation
should be left to itself, it would develop an affect in the Unc. which originally bore the character of pleasure,
but which, since the appearance of the repression, bears the character of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of
the suppression is to stop the development of this pain. The suppression extends over the unconscious
ideation, because the liberation of pain might emanate from the ideation. The foundation is here laid for a very
definite assumption concerning the nature of the affective development. It is regarded as a motor or secondary
activity, the key to the innervation of which is located in the presentations of the Unc. Through the
domination of the Forec. these presentations become, as it were, throttled and inhibited at the exit of the
emotion-developing impulses. The danger, which is due to the fact that the Forec. ceases to occupy the
energy, therefore consists in the fact that the unconscious excitations liberate such an affect as--in
consequence of the repression that has previously taken place--can only be perceived as pain or anxiety.
This danger is released through the full sway of the dream process. The determinations for its realization
consist in the fact that repressions have taken place, and that the suppressed emotional wishes shall become
sufficiently strong. They thus stand entirely without the psychological realm of the dream structure. Were it
not for the fact that our subject is connected through just one factor, namely, the freeing of the Unc. during
sleep, with the subject of the development of anxiety, I could dispense with discussion of the anxiety dream,
and thus avoid all obscurities connected with it.
As I have often repeated, the theory of the anxiety belongs to the psychology of the neuroses. I would say that
the anxiety in the dream is an anxiety problem and not a dream problem. We have nothing further to do with it
after having once demonstrated its point of contact with the subject of the dream process. There is only one
thing left for me to do. As I have asserted that the neurotic anxiety originates from sexual sources, I can
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subject anxiety dreams to analysis in order to demonstrate the sexual material in their dream thoughts.
55
For good reasons I refrain from citing here any of the numerous examples placed at my disposal by neurotic
patients, but prefer to give anxiety dreams from young persons.
Personally, I have had no real anxiety dream for decades, but I recall one from my seventh or eighth year
which I subjected to interpretation about thirty years later. The dream was very vivid, and showed me _my
beloved mother, with peculiarly calm sleeping countenance, carried into the room and laid on the bed by two
(or three) persons with birds' beaks_. I awoke crying and screaming, and disturbed my parents. The very tall
figures--draped in a peculiar manner--with beaks, I had taken from the illustrations of Philippson's bible; I
believe they represented deities with heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb relief. The analysis also
introduced the reminiscence of a naughty janitor's boy, who used to play with us children on the meadow in
front of the house; I would add that his name was Philip. I feel that I first heard from this boy the vulgar word
signifying sexual intercourse, which is replaced among the educated by the Latin "coitus," but to which the
dream distinctly alludes by the selection of the birds' heads. I must have suspected the sexual significance of
the word from the facial expression of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's features in the dream were
copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring in the
state of coma. The interpretation of the secondary elaboration in the dream must therefore have been that my
mother was dying; the tomb relief, too, agrees with this. In this anxiety I awoke, and could not calm myself
until I had awakened my parents. I remember that I suddenly became calm on coming face to face with my
mother, as if I needed the assurance that my mother was not dead. But this secondary interpretation of the
dream had been effected only under the influence of the developed anxiety. I was not frightened because I
dreamed that my mother was dying, but I interpreted the dream in this manner in the foreconscious
elaboration because I was already under the domination of the anxiety. The latter, however, could be traced by
means of the repression to an obscure obviously sexual desire, which had found its satisfying expression in the
visual content of the dream.
A man twenty-seven years old who had been severely ill for a year had had many terrifying dreams between
the ages of eleven and thirteen. He thought that a man with an ax was running after him; he wished to run, but
felt paralyzed and could not move from the spot. This may be taken as a good example of a very common, and
apparently sexually indifferent, anxiety dream. In the analysis the dreamer first thought of a story told him by
his uncle, which chronologically was later than the dream, viz. that he was attacked at night by a
suspicious-looking individual. This occurrence led him to believe that he himself might have already heard of
a similar episode at the time of the dream. In connection with the ax he recalled that during that period of his
life he once hurt his hand with an ax while chopping wood. This immediately led to his relations with his
younger brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock down. In particular, he recalled an occasion when he
struck his brother on the head with his boot until he bled, whereupon his mother remarked: "I fear he will kill
him some day." While he was seemingly thinking of the subject of violence, a reminiscence from his ninth
year suddenly occurred to him. His parents came home late and went to bed while he was feigning sleep. He
soon heard panting and other noises that appeared strange to him, and he could also make out the position of
his parents in bed. His further associations showed that he had established an analogy between this relation
between his parents and his own relation toward his younger brother. He subsumed what occurred between his
parents under the conception "violence and wrestling," and thus reached a sadistic conception of the coitus
act, as often happens among children. The fact that he often noticed blood on his mother's bed corroborated
his conception.
That the sexual intercourse of adults appears strange to children who observe it, and arouses fear in them, I
dare say is a fact of daily experience. I have explained this fear by the fact that sexual excitement is not
mastered by their understanding, and is probably also inacceptable to them because their parents are involved
in it. For the same son this excitement is converted into fear. At a still earlier period of life sexual emotion
directed toward the parent of opposite sex does not meet with repression but finds free expression, as we have
seen before.
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For the night terrors with hallucinations (_pavor nocturnus_) frequently found in children, I would
56
unhesitatingly give the same explanation. Here, too, we are certainly dealing with the incomprehensible and
rejected sexual feelings, which, if noted, would probably show a temporal periodicity, for an enhancement of
the sexual libido may just as well be produced accidentally through emotional impressions as through the
spontaneous and gradual processes of development.
I lack the necessary material to sustain these explanations from observation. On the other hand, the pediatrists
seem to lack the point of view which alone makes comprehensible the whole series of phenomena, on the
somatic as well as on the psychic side. To illustrate by a comical example how one wearing the blinders of
medical mythology may miss the understanding of such cases I will relate a case which I found in a thesis on
pavor nocturnus by Debacker, 1881. A thirteen-year-old boy of delicate health began to become anxious and
dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once a week it was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with
hallucinations. The memory of these dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related that the devil
shouted at him: "Now we have you, now we have you," and this was followed by an odor of sulphur; the fire
burned his skin. This dream aroused him, terror-stricken. He was unable to scream at first; then his voice
returned, and he was heard to say distinctly: "No, no, not me; why, I have done nothing," or, "Please don't, I
shall never do it again." Occasionally, also, he said: "Albert has not done that." Later he avoided undressing,
because, as he said, the fire attacked him only when he was undressed. From amid these evil dreams, which
menaced his health, he was sent into the country, where he recovered within a year and a half, but at the age
of fifteen he once confessed: "Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais j'éprouvais continuellement des picotements et des
surexcitations aux _parties_; à la fin, cela m'énervait tant que plusieurs fois, j'ai pensé me jeter par la fenêtre
au dortoir."
It is certainly not difficult to suspect: 1, that the boy had practiced masturbation in former years, that he
probably denied it, and was threatened with severe punishment for his wrongdoing (his confession: Je ne le
ferai plus; his denial: Albert n'a jamais fait ça). 2, That under the pressure of puberty the temptation to
self-abuse through the tickling of the genitals was reawakened. 3, That now, however, a struggle of repression
arose in him, suppressing the libido and changing it into fear, which subsequently took the form of the
punishments with which he was then threatened.
Let us, however, quote the conclusions drawn by our author. This observation shows: 1, That the influence of
puberty may produce in a boy of delicate health a condition of extreme weakness, and that it may lead to a
_very marked cerebral anæmia_.
2. This cerebral anæmia produces a transformation of character, demonomaniacal hallucinations, and very
violent nocturnal, perhaps also diurnal, states of anxiety.
3. Demonomania and the self-reproaches of the day can be traced to the influences of religious education
which the subject underwent as a child.
4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of a lengthy sojourn in the country, bodily exercise, and the
return of physical strength after the termination of the period of puberty.
5. A predisposing influence for the origin of the cerebral condition of the boy may be attributed to heredity
and to the father's chronic syphilitic state.
The concluding remarks of the author read: "Nous avons fait entrer cette observation dans le cadre des délires
apyrétiques d'inanition, car c'est à l'ischémie cérébrale que nous rattachons cet état particulier."
VIII
THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PROCESS--REGRESSION
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In venturing to attempt to penetrate more deeply into the psychology of the dream processes, I have
undertaken a difficult task, to which, indeed, my power of description is hardly equal. To reproduce in
57
description by a succession of words the simultaneousness of so complex a chain of events, and in doing so to
appear unbiassed throughout the exposition, goes fairly beyond my powers. I have now to atone for the fact
that I have been unable in my description of the dream psychology to follow the historic development of my
views. The view-points for my conception of the dream were reached through earlier investigations in the
psychology of the neuroses, to which I am not supposed to refer here, but to which I am repeatedly forced to
refer, whereas I should prefer to proceed in the opposite direction, and, starting from the dream, to establish a
connection with the psychology of the neuroses. I am well aware of all the inconveniences arising for the
reader from this difficulty, but I know of no way to avoid them.
As I am dissatisfied with this state of affairs, I am glad to dwell upon another view-point which seems to raise
the value of my efforts. As has been shown in the introduction to the first chapter, I found myself confronted
with a theme which had been marked by the sharpest contradictions on the part of the authorities. After our
elaboration of the dream problems we found room for most of these contradictions. We have been forced,
however, to take decided exception to two of the views pronounced, viz. that the dream is a senseless and that
it is a somatic process; apart from these cases we have had to accept all the contradictory views in one place
or another of the complicated argument, and we have been able to demonstrate that they had discovered
something that was correct. That the dream continues the impulses and interests of the waking state has been
quite generally confirmed through the discovery of the latent thoughts of the dream. These thoughts concern
themselves only with things that seem important and of momentous interest to us. The dream never occupies
itself with trifles. But we have also concurred with the contrary view, viz., that the dream gathers up the
indifferent remnants from the day, and that not until it has in some measure withdrawn itself from the waking
activity can an important event of the day be taken up by the dream. We found this holding true for the dream
content, which gives the dream thought its changed expression by means of disfigurement. We have said that
from the nature of the association mechanism the dream process more easily takes possession of recent or
indifferent material which has not yet been seized by the waking mental activity; and by reason of the censor
it transfers the psychic intensity from the important but also disagreeable to the indifferent material. The
hypermnesia of the dream and the resort to infantile material have become main supports in our theory. In our
theory of the dream we have attributed to the wish originating from the infantile the part of an indispensable
motor for the formation of the dream. We naturally could not think of doubting the experimentally
demonstrated significance of the objective sensory stimuli during sleep; but we have brought this material into
the same relation to the dream-wish as the thought remnants from the waking activity. There was no need of
disputing the fact that the dream interprets the objective sensory stimuli after the manner of an illusion; but we
have supplied the motive for this interpretation which has been left undecided by the authorities. The
interpretation follows in such a manner that the perceived object is rendered harmless as a sleep disturber and
becomes available for the wish-fulfillment. Though we do not admit as special sources of the dream the
subjective state of excitement of the sensory organs during sleep, which seems to have been demonstrated by
Trumbull Ladd, we are nevertheless able to explain this excitement through the regressive revival of active
memories behind the dream. A modest part in our conception has also been assigned to the inner organic
sensations which are wont to be taken as the cardinal point in the explanation of the dream. These--the
sensation of falling, flying, or inhibition--stand as an ever ready material to be used by the dream-work to
express the dream thought as often as need arises.
That the dream process is a rapid and momentary one seems to be true for the perception through
consciousness of the already prepared dream content; the preceding parts of the dream process probably take a
slow, fluctuating course. We have solved the riddle of the superabundant dream content compressed within
the briefest moment by explaining that this is due to the appropriation of almost fully formed structures from
the psychic life. That the dream is disfigured and distorted by memory we found to be correct, but not
troublesome, as this is only the last manifest operation in the work of disfigurement which has been active
from the beginning of the dream-work. In the bitter and seemingly irreconcilable controversy as to whether
the psychic life sleeps at night or can make the same use of all its capabilities as during the day, we have been
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able to agree with both sides, though not fully with either. We have found proof that the dream thoughts
represent a most complicated intellectual activity, employing almost every means furnished by the psychic
apparatus; still it cannot be denied that these dream thoughts have originated during the day, and it is
58
indispensable to assume that there is a sleeping state of the psychic life. Thus, even the theory of partial sleep
has come into play; but the characteristics of the sleeping state have been found not in the dilapidation of the
psychic connections but in the cessation of the psychic system dominating the day, arising from its desire to
sleep. The withdrawal from the outer world retains its significance also for our conception; though not the
only factor, it nevertheless helps the regression to make possible the representation of the dream. That we
should reject the voluntary guidance of the presentation course is uncontestable; but the psychic life does not
thereby become aimless, for we have seen that after the abandonment of the desired end-presentation
undesired ones gain the mastery. The loose associative connection in the dream we have not only recognized,
but we have placed under its control a far greater territory than could have been supposed; we have, however,
found it merely the feigned substitute for another correct and senseful one. To be sure we, too, have called the
dream absurd; but we have been able to learn from examples how wise the dream really is when it simulates
absurdity. We do not deny any of the functions that have been attributed to the dream. That the dream relieves
the mind like a valve, and that, according to Robert's assertion, all kinds of harmful material are rendered
harmless through representation in the dream, not only exactly coincides with our theory of the twofold
wish-fulfillment in the dream, but, in his own wording, becomes even more comprehensible for us than for
Robert himself. The free indulgence of the psychic in the play of its faculties finds expression with us in the
non-interference with the dream on the part of the foreconscious activity. The "return to the embryonal state
of psychic life in the dream" and the observation of Havelock Ellis, "an archaic world of vast emotions and
imperfect thoughts," appear to us as happy anticipations of our deductions to the effect that primitive modes of
work suppressed during the day participate in the formation of the dream; and with us, as with Delage, the
suppressed material becomes the mainspring of the dreaming.
We have fully recognized the rôle which Scherner ascribes to the dream phantasy, and even his interpretation;
but we have been obliged, so to speak, to conduct them to another department in the problem. It is not the
dream that produces the phantasy but the unconscious phantasy that takes the greatest part in the formation of
the dream thoughts. We are indebted to Scherner for his clew to the source of the dream thoughts, but almost
everything that he ascribes to the dream-work is attributable to the activity of the unconscious, which is at
work during the day, and which supplies incitements not only for dreams but for neurotic symptoms as well.
We have had to separate the dream-work from this activity as being something entirely different and far more
restricted. Finally, we have by no means abandoned the relation of the dream to mental disturbances, but, on
the contrary, we have given it a more solid foundation on new ground.
Thus held together by the new material of our theory as by a superior unity, we find the most varied and most
contradictory conclusions of the authorities fitting into our structure; some of them are differently disposed,
only a few of them are entirely rejected. But our own structure is still unfinished. For, disregarding the many
obscurities which we have necessarily encountered in our advance into the darkness of psychology, we are
now apparently embarrassed by a new contradiction. On the one hand, we have allowed the dream thoughts to
proceed from perfectly normal mental operations, while, on the other hand, we have found among the dream
thoughts a number of entirely abnormal mental processes which extend likewise to the dream contents. These,
consequently, we have repeated in the interpretation of the dream. All that we have termed the "dream-work"
seems so remote from the psychic processes recognized by us as correct, that the severest judgments of the
authors as to the low psychic activity of dreaming seem to us well founded.
Perhaps only through still further advance can enlightenment and improvement be brought about. I shall pick
out one of the constellations leading to the formation of dreams.
We have learned that the dream replaces a number of thoughts derived from daily life which are perfectly
formed logically. We cannot therefore doubt that these thoughts originate from our normal mental life. All the
qualities which we esteem in our mental operations, and which distinguish these as complicated activities of a
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59
high order, we find repeated in the dream thoughts. There is, however, no need of assuming that this mental
work is performed during sleep, as this would materially impair the conception of the psychic state of sleep
we have hitherto adhered to. These thoughts may just as well have originated from the day, and, unnoticed by
our consciousness from their inception, they may have continued to develop until they stood complete at the
onset of sleep. If we are to conclude anything from this state of affairs, it will at most prove _that the most
complex mental operations are possible without the coöperation of consciousness_, which we have already
learned independently from every psychoanalysis of persons suffering from hysteria or obsessions. These
dream thoughts are in themselves surely not incapable of consciousness; if they have not become conscious to
us during the day, this may have various reasons. The state of becoming conscious depends on the exercise of
a certain psychic function, viz. attention, which seems to be extended only in a definite quantity, and which
may have been withdrawn from the stream of thought in Question by other aims. Another way in which such
mental streams are kept from consciousness is the following:--Our conscious reflection teaches us that when
exercising attention we pursue a definite course. But if that course leads us to an idea which does not hold its
own with the critic, we discontinue and cease to apply our attention. Now, apparently, the stream of thought
thus started and abandoned may spin on without regaining attention unless it reaches a spot of especially
marked intensity which forces the return of attention. An initial rejection, perhaps consciously brought about
by the judgment on the ground of incorrectness or unfitness for the actual purpose of the mental act, may
therefore account for the fact that a mental process continues until the onset of sleep unnoticed by
consciousness.
Let us recapitulate by saying that we call such a stream of thought a foreconscious one, that we believe it to be
perfectly correct, and that it may just as well be a more neglected one or an interrupted and suppressed one.
Let us also state frankly in what manner we conceive this presentation course. We believe that a certain sum
of excitement, which we call occupation energy, is displaced from an end-presentation along the association
paths selected by that end-presentation. A "neglected" stream of thought has received no such occupation, and
from a "suppressed" or "rejected" one this occupation has been withdrawn; both have thus been left to their
own emotions. The end-stream of thought stocked with energy is under certain conditions able to draw to
itself the attention of consciousness, through which means it then receives a "surplus of energy." We shall be
obliged somewhat later to elucidate our assumption concerning the nature and activity of consciousness.
A train of thought thus incited in the Forec. may either disappear spontaneously or continue. The former issue
we conceive as follows: It diffuses its energy through all the association paths emanating from it, and throws
the entire chain of ideas into a state of excitement which, after lasting for a while, subsides through the
transformation of the excitement requiring an outlet into dormant energy.[1] If this first issue is brought about
the process has no further significance for the dream formation. But other end-presentations are lurking in our
foreconscious that originate from the sources of our unconscious and from the ever active wishes. These may
take possession of the excitations in the circle of thought thus left to itself, establish a connection between it
and the unconscious wish, and transfer to it the energy inherent in the unconscious wish. Henceforth the
neglected or suppressed train of thought is in a position to maintain itself, although this reinforcement does
not help it to gain access to consciousness. We may say that the hitherto foreconscious train of thought has
been drawn into the unconscious.
Other constellations for the dream formation would result if the foreconscious train of thought had from the
beginning been connected with the unconscious wish, and for that reason met with rejection by the
dominating end-occupation; or if an unconscious wish were made active for other--possibly somatic--reasons
and of its own accord sought a transference to the psychic remnants not occupied by the Forec. All three cases
finally combine in one issue, so that there is established in the foreconscious a stream of thought which,
having been abandoned by the foreconscious occupation, receives occupation from the unconscious wish.
The stream of thought is henceforth subjected to a series of transformations which we no longer recognize as
normal psychic processes and which give us a surprising result, viz. a psychopathological formation. Let us
emphasize and group the same.
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1. The intensities of the individual ideas become capable of discharge in their entirety, and, proceeding from
one conception to the other, they thus form single presentations endowed with marked intensity. Through the
repeated recurrence of this process the intensity of an entire train of ideas may ultimately be gathered in a
single presentation element. This is the principle of compression or condensation. It is condensation that is
mainly responsible for the strange impression of the dream, for we know of nothing analogous to it in the
normal psychic life accessible to consciousness. We find here, also, presentations which possess great psychic
significance as junctions or as end-results of whole chains of thought; but this validity does not manifest itself
in any character conspicuous enough for internal perception; hence, what has been presented in it does not
become in any way more intensive. In the process of condensation the entire psychic connection becomes
transformed into the intensity of the presentation content. It is the same as in a book where we space or print
in heavy type any word upon which particular stress is laid for the understanding of the text. In speech the
same word would be pronounced loudly and deliberately and with emphasis. The first comparison leads us at
once to an example taken from the chapter on "The Dream-Work" (trimethylamine in the dream of Irma's
injection). Historians of art call our attention to the fact that the most ancient historical sculptures follow a
similar principle in expressing the rank of the persons represented by the size of the statue. The king is made
two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy. A piece of art, however, from the Roman
period makes use of more subtle means to accomplish the same purpose. The figure of the emperor is placed
in the center in a firmly erect posture; special care is bestowed on the proper modelling of his figure; his
enemies are seen cowering at his feet; but he is no longer represented a giant among dwarfs. However, the
bowing of the subordinate to his superior in our own days is only an echo of that ancient principle of
representation.
The direction taken by the condensations of the dream is prescribed on the one hand by the true foreconscious
relations of the dream thoughts, an the other hand by the attraction of the visual reminiscences in the
unconscious. The success of the condensation work produces those intensities which are required for
penetration into the perception systems.
2. Through this free transferability of the intensities, moreover, and in the service of condensation,
_intermediary presentations_--compromises, as it were--are formed (_cf._ the numerous examples). This,
likewise, is something unheard of in the normal presentation course, where it is above all a question of
selection and retention of the "proper" presentation element. On the other hand, composite and compromise
formations occur with extraordinary frequency when we are trying to find the linguistic expression for
foreconscious thoughts; these are considered "slips of the tongue."
3. The presentations which transfer their intensities to one another are very loosely connected, and are joined
together by such forms of association as are spurned in our serious thought and are utilized in the production
of the effect of wit only. Among these we particularly find associations of the sound and consonance types.
4. Contradictory thoughts do not strive to eliminate one another, but remain side by side. They often unite to
produce condensation as if no contradiction existed, or they form compromises for which we should never
forgive our thoughts, but which we frequently approve of in our actions.
These are some of the most conspicuous abnormal processes to which the thoughts which have previously
been rationally formed are subjected in the course of the dream-work. As the main feature of these processes
we recognize the high importance attached to the fact of rendering the occupation energy mobile and capable
of discharge; the content and the actual significance of the psychic elements, to which these energies adhere,
become a matter of secondary importance. One might possibly think that the condensation and compromise
formation is effected only in the service of regression, when occasion arises for changing thoughts into
pictures. But the analysis and--still more distinctly--the synthesis of dreams which lack regression toward
pictures, _e.g._ the dream "Autodidasker--Conversation with Court-Councilor N.," present the same processes
of displacement and condensation as the others.
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Hence we cannot refuse to acknowledge that the two kinds of essentially different psychic processes
61
participate in the formation of the dream; one forms perfectly correct dream thoughts which are equivalent to
normal thoughts, while the other treats these ideas in a highly surprising and incorrect manner. The latter
process we have already set apart as the dream-work proper. What have we now to advance concerning this
latter psychic process?
We should be unable to answer this question here if we had not penetrated considerably into the psychology
of the neuroses and especially of hysteria. From this we learn that the same incorrect psychic processes--as
well as others that have not been enumerated--control the formation of hysterical symptoms. In hysteria, too,
we at once find a series of perfectly correct thoughts equivalent to our conscious thoughts, of whose existence,
however, in this form we can learn nothing and which we can only subsequently reconstruct. If they have
forced their way anywhere to our perception, we discover from the analysis of the symptom formed that these
normal thoughts have been subjected to abnormal treatment and _have been transformed into the symptom by
means of condensation and compromise formation, through superficial associations, under cover of
contradictions, and eventually over the road of regression_. In view of the complete identity found between
the peculiarities of the dream-work and of the psychic activity forming the psychoneurotic symptoms, we
shall feel justified in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by hysteria.
From the theory of hysteria we borrow the proposition that such an abnormal psychic elaboration of a normal
train of thought takes place only when the latter has been used for the transference of an unconscious wish
which dates from the infantile life and is in a state of repression. In accordance with this proposition we have
construed the theory of the dream on the assumption that the actuating dream-wish invariably originates in the
unconscious, which, as we ourselves have admitted, cannot be universally demonstrated though it cannot be
refuted. But in order to explain the real meaning of the term repression, which we have employed so freely,
we shall be obliged to make some further addition to our psychological construction.
We have above elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus, whose work is regulated by the efforts
to avoid accumulation of excitement and as far as possible to maintain itself free from excitement. For this
reason it was constructed after the plan of a reflex apparatus; the motility, originally the path for the inner
bodily change, formed a discharging path standing at its disposal. We subsequently discussed the psychic
results of a feeling of gratification, and we might at the same time have introduced the second assumption,
viz. that accumulation of excitement--following certain modalities that do not concern us--is perceived as pain
and sets the apparatus in motion in order to reproduce a feeling of gratification in which the diminution of the
excitement is perceived as pleasure. Such a current in the apparatus which emanates from pain and strives for
pleasure we call a wish. We have said that nothing but a wish is capable of setting the apparatus in motion,
and that the discharge of excitement in the apparatus is regulated automatically by the perception of pleasure
and pain. The first wish must have been an hallucinatory occupation of the memory for gratification. But this
hallucination, unless it were maintained to the point of exhaustion, proved incapable of bringing about a
cessation of the desire and consequently of securing the pleasure connected with gratification.
Thus there was required a second activity--in our terminology the activity of a second system--which should
not permit the memory occupation to advance to perception and therefrom to restrict the psychic forces, but
should lead the excitement emanating from the craving stimulus by a devious path over the spontaneous
motility which ultimately should so change the outer world as to allow the real perception of the object of
gratification to take place. Thus far we have elaborated the plan of the psychic apparatus; these two systems
are the germ of the Unc. and Forec, which we include in the fully developed apparatus.
In order to be in a position successfully to change the outer world through the motility, there is required the
accumulation of a large sum of experiences in the memory systems as well as a manifold fixation of the
relations which are evoked in this memory material by different end-presentations. We now proceed further
with our assumption. The manifold activity of the second system, tentatively sending forth and retracting
energy, must on the one hand have full command over all memory material, but on the other hand it would be
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a superfluous expenditure for it to send to the individual mental paths large quantities of energy which would
thus flow off to no purpose, diminishing the quantity available for the transformation of the outer world. In
the interests of expediency I therefore postulate that the second system succeeds in maintaining the greater
part of the occupation energy in a dormant state and in using but a small portion for the purposes of
displacement. The mechanism of these processes is entirely unknown to me; any one who wishes to follow up
these ideas must try to find the physical analogies and prepare the way for a demonstration of the process of
motion in the stimulation of the neuron. I merely hold to the idea that the activity of the first [Greek:
Psi]-system is directed to the free outflow of the quantities of excitement, and that the second system brings
about an inhibition of this outflow through the energies emanating from it, _i.e._ it produces a _transformation
into dormant energy, probably by raising the level_. I therefore assume that under the control of the second
system as compared with the first, the course of the excitement is bound to entirely different mechanical
conditions. After the second system has finished its tentative mental work, it removes the inhibition and
congestion of the excitements and allows these excitements to flow off to the motility.
An interesting train of thought now presents itself if we consider the relations of this inhibition of discharge
by the second system to the regulation through the principle of pain. Let us now seek the counterpart of the
primary feeling of gratification, namely, the objective feeling of fear. A perceptive stimulus acts on the
primitive apparatus, becoming the source of a painful emotion. This will then be followed by irregular motor
manifestations until one of these withdraws the apparatus from perception and at the same time from pain, but
on the reappearance of the perception this manifestation will immediately repeat itself (perhaps as a
movement of flight) until the perception has again disappeared. But there will here remain no tendency again
to occupy the perception of the source of pain in the form of an hallucination or in any other form. On the
contrary, there will be a tendency in the primary apparatus to abandon the painful memory picture as soon as
it is in any way awakened, as the overflow of its excitement would surely produce (more precisely, begin to
produce) pain. The deviation from memory, which is but a repetition of the former flight from perception, is
facilitated also by the fact that, unlike perception, memory does not possess sufficient quality to excite
consciousness and thereby to attract to itself new energy. This easy and regularly occurring deviation of the
psychic process from the former painful memory presents to us the model and the first example of psychic
repression. As is generally known, much of this deviation from the painful, much of the behavior of the
ostrich, can be readily demonstrated even in the normal psychic life of adults.
By virtue of the principle of pain the first system is therefore altogether incapable of introducing anything
unpleasant into the mental associations. The system cannot do anything but wish. If this remained so the
mental activity of the second system, which should have at its disposal all the memories stored up by
experiences, would be hindered. But two ways are now opened: the work of the second system either frees
itself completely from the principle of pain and continues its course, paying no heed to the painful
reminiscence, or it contrives to occupy the painful memory in such a manner as to preclude the liberation of
pain. We may reject the first possibility, as the principle of pain also manifests itself as a regulator for the
emotional discharge of the second system; we are, therefore, directed to the second possibility, namely, that
this system occupies a reminiscence in such a manner as to inhibit its discharge and hence, also, to inhibit the
discharge comparable to a motor innervation for the development of pain. Thus from two starting points we
are led to the hypothesis that occupation through the second system is at the same time an inhibition for the
emotional discharge, viz. from a consideration of the principle of pain and from the principle of the smallest
expenditure of innervation. Let us, however, keep to the fact--this is the key to the theory of repression--that
the second system is capable of occupying an idea only when it is in position to check the development of
pain emanating from it. Whatever withdraws itself from this inhibition also remains inaccessible for the
second system and would soon be abandoned by virtue of the principle of pain. The inhibition of pain,
however, need not be complete; it must be permitted to begin, as it indicates to the second system the nature
of the memory and possibly its defective adaptation for the purpose sought by the mind.
The psychic process which is admitted by the first system only I shall now call the primary process; and the
one resulting from the inhibition of the second system I shall call the secondary process. I show by another
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point for what purpose the second system is obliged to correct the primary process. The primary process
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strives for a discharge of the excitement in order to establish a perception identity with the sum of excitement
thus gathered; the secondary process has abandoned this intention and undertaken instead the task of bringing
about a thought identity. All thinking is only a circuitous path from the memory of gratification taken as an
end-presentation to the identical occupation of the same memory, which is again to be attained on the track of
the motor experiences. The state of thinking must take an interest in the connecting paths between the
presentations without allowing itself to be misled by their intensities. But it is obvious that condensations and
intermediate or compromise formations occurring in the presentations impede the attainment of this
end-identity; by substituting one idea for the other they deviate from the path which otherwise would have
been continued from the original idea. Such processes are therefore carefully avoided in the secondary
thinking. Nor is it difficult to understand that the principle of pain also impedes the progress of the mental
stream in its pursuit of the thought identity, though, indeed, it offers to the mental stream the most important
points of departure. Hence the tendency of the thinking process must be to free itself more and more from
exclusive adjustment by the principle of pain, and through the working of the mind to restrict the affective
development to that minimum which is necessary as a signal. This refinement of the activity must have been
attained through a recent over-occupation of energy brought about by consciousness. But we are aware that
this refinement is seldom completely successful even in the most normal psychic life and that our thoughts
ever remain accessible to falsification through the interference of the principle of pain.
This, however, is not the breach in the functional efficiency of our psychic apparatus through which the
thoughts forming the material of the secondary mental work are enabled to make their way into the primary
psychic process--with which formula we may now describe the work leading to the dream and to the
hysterical symptoms. This case of insufficiency results from the union of the two factors from the history of
our evolution; one of which belongs solely to the psychic apparatus and has exerted a determining influence
on the relation of the two systems, while the other operates fluctuatingly and introduces motive forces of
organic origin into the psychic life. Both originate in the infantile life and result from the transformation
which our psychic and somatic organism has undergone since the infantile period.
When I termed one of the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the primary process, I did so not only in
consideration of the order of precedence and capability, but also as admitting the temporal relations to a share
in the nomenclature. As far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic apparatus possessing only the primary
process, and in so far it is a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact that the primary processes are
present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes develop gradually in the course of
life, inhibiting and covering the primary ones, and gaining complete mastery over them perhaps only at the
height of life. Owing to this retarded appearance of the secondary processes, the essence of our being,
consisting in unconscious wish feelings, can neither be seized nor inhibited by the foreconscious, whose part
is once for all restricted to the indication of the most suitable paths for the wish feelings originating in the
unconscious. These unconscious wishes establish for all subsequent psychic efforts a compulsion to which
they have to submit and which they must strive if possible to divert from its course and direct to higher aims.
In consequence of this retardation of the foreconscious occupation a large sphere of the memory material
remains inaccessible.
Among these indestructible and unincumbered wish feelings originating from the infantile life, there are also
some, the fulfillments of which have entered into a relation of contradiction to the end-presentation of the
secondary thinking. The fulfillment of these wishes would no longer produce an affect of pleasure but one of
pain; _and it is just this transformation of affect that constitutes the nature of what we designate as
"repression," in which we recognize the infantile first step of passing adverse sentence or of rejecting through
reason_. To investigate in what way and through what motive forces such a transformation can be produced
constitutes the problem of repression, which we need here only skim over. It will suffice to remark that such a
transformation of affect occurs in the course of development (one may think of the appearance in infantile life
of disgust which was originally absent), and that it is connected with the activity of the secondary system. The
memories from which the unconscious wish brings about the emotional discharge have never been accessible
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to the Forec., and for that reason their emotional discharge cannot be inhibited. It is just on account of this
affective development that these ideas are not even now accessible to the foreconscious thoughts to which
64
they have transferred their wishing power. On the contrary, the principle of pain comes into play, and causes
the Forec. to deviate from these thoughts of transference. The latter, left to themselves, are "repressed," and
thus the existence of a store of infantile memories, from the very beginning withdrawn from the Forec.,
becomes the preliminary condition of repression.
In the most favorable case the development of pain terminates as soon as the energy has been withdrawn from
the thoughts of transference in the Forec., and this effect characterizes the intervention of the principle of pain
as expedient. It is different, however, if the repressed unconscious wish receives an organic enforcement
which it can lend to its thoughts of transference and through which it can enable them to make an effort
towards penetration with their excitement, even after they have been abandoned by the occupation of the
Forec. A defensive struggle then ensues, inasmuch as the Forec. reinforces the antagonism against the
repressed ideas, and subsequently this leads to a penetration by the thoughts of transference (the carriers of the
unconscious wish) in some form of compromise through symptom formation. But from the moment that the
suppressed thoughts are powerfully occupied by the unconscious wish-feeling and abandoned by the
foreconscious occupation, they succumb to the primary psychic process and strive only for motor discharge;
or, if the path be free, for hallucinatory revival of the desired perception identity. We have previously found,
empirically, that the incorrect processes described are enacted only with thoughts that exist in the repression.
We now grasp another part of the connection. These incorrect processes are those that are primary in the
psychic apparatus; _they appear wherever thoughts abandoned by the foreconscious occupation are left to
themselves, and can fill themselves with the uninhibited energy, striving for discharge from the unconscious_.
We may add a few further observations to support the view that these processes designated "incorrect" are
really not falsifications of the normal defective thinking, but the modes of activity of the psychic apparatus
when freed from inhibition. Thus we see that the transference of the foreconscious excitement to the motility
takes place according to the same processes, and that the connection of the foreconscious presentations with
words readily manifest the same displacements and mixtures which are ascribed to inattention. Finally, I
should like to adduce proof that an increase of work necessarily results from the inhibition of these primary
courses from the fact that we gain a comical effect, a surplus to be discharged through laughter, if we allow
these streams of thought to come to consciousness.
The theory of the psychoneuroses asserts with complete certainty that only sexual wish-feelings from the
infantile life experience repression (emotional transformation) during the developmental period of childhood.
These are capable of returning to activity at a later period of development, and then have the faculty of being
revived, either as a consequence of the sexual constitution, which is really formed from the original
bisexuality, or in consequence of unfavorable influences of the sexual life; and they thus supply the motive
power for all psychoneurotic symptom formations. It is only by the introduction of these sexual forces that the
gaps still demonstrable in the theory of repression can be filled. I will leave it undecided whether the postulate
of the sexual and infantile may also be asserted for the theory of the dream; I leave this here unfinished
because I have already passed a step beyond the demonstrable in assuming that the dream-wish invariably
originates from the unconscious.[2] Nor will I further investigate the difference in the play of the psychic
forces in the dream formation and in the formation of the hysterical symptoms, for to do this we ought to
possess a more explicit knowledge of one of the members to be compared. But I regard another point as
important, and will here confess that it was on account of this very point that I have just undertaken this entire
discussion concerning the two psychic systems, their modes of operation, and the repression. For it is now
immaterial whether I have conceived the psychological relations in question with approximate correctness, or,
as is easily possible in such a difficult matter, in an erroneous and fragmentary manner. Whatever changes
may be made in the interpretation of the psychic censor and of the correct and of the abnormal elaboration of
the dream content, the fact nevertheless remains that such processes are active in dream formation, and that
essentially they show the closest analogy to the processes observed in the formation of the hysterical
symptoms. The dream is not a pathological phenomenon, and it does not leave behind an enfeeblement of the
mental faculties. The objection that no deduction can be drawn regarding the dreams of healthy persons from
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65
my own dreams and from those of neurotic patients may be rejected without comment. Hence, when we draw
conclusions from the phenomena as to their motive forces, we recognize that the psychic mechanism made
use of by the neuroses is not created by a morbid disturbance of the psychic life, but is found ready in the
normal structure of the psychic apparatus. The two psychic systems, the censor crossing between them, the
inhibition and the covering of the one activity by the other, the relations of both to consciousness--or whatever
may offer a more correct interpretation of the actual conditions in their stead--all these belong to the normal
structure of our psychic instrument, and the dream points out for us one of the roads leading to a knowledge of
this structure. If, in addition to our knowledge, we wish to be contented with a minimum perfectly established,
we shall say that the dream gives us proof that the _suppressed, material continues to exist even in the normal
person and remains capable of psychic activity_. The dream itself is one of the manifestations of this
suppressed material; theoretically, this is true in all cases; according to substantial experience it is true in at
least a great number of such as most conspicuously display the prominent characteristics of dream life. The
suppressed psychic material, which in the waking state has been prevented from expression and cut off from
internal perception by the antagonistic adjustment of the contradictions, finds ways and means of obtruding
itself on consciousness during the night under the domination of the compromise formations.
_"Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo."_
At any rate the interpretation of dreams is the via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious in the psychic life.
In following the analysis of the dream we have made some progress toward an understanding of the
composition of this most marvelous and most mysterious of instruments; to be sure, we have not gone very
far, but enough of a beginning has been made to allow us to advance from other so-called pathological
formations further into the analysis of the unconscious. Disease--at least that which is justly termed
functional--is not due to the destruction of this apparatus, and the establishment of new splittings in its
interior; it is rather to be explained dynamically through the strengthening and weakening of the components
in the play of forces by which so many activities are concealed during the normal function. We have been able
to show in another place how the composition of the apparatus from the two systems permits a subtilization
even of the normal activity which would be impossible for a single system.
[1] _Cf._ the significant observations by J. Bueuer in our Studies on Hysteria, 1895, and 2nd ed. 1909.
[2] Here, as in other places, there are gaps in the treatment of the subject, which I have left intentionally,
because to fill them up would require on the one hand too great effort, and on the other hand an extensive
reference to material that is foreign to the dream. Thus I have avoided stating whether I connect with the word
"suppressed" another sense than with the word "repressed." It has been made clear only that the latter
emphasizes more than the former the relation to the unconscious. I have not entered into the cognate problem
why the dream thoughts also experience distortion by the censor when they abandon the progressive
continuation to consciousness and choose the path of regression. I have been above all anxious to awaken an
interest in the problems to which the further analysis of the dreamwork leads and to indicate the other themes
which meet these on the way. It was not always easy to decide just where the pursuit should be discontinued.
That I have not treated exhaustively the part played in the dream by the psychosexual life and have avoided
the interpretation of dreams of an obvious sexual content is due to a special reason which may not come up to
the reader's expectation. To be sure, it is very far from my ideas and the principles expressed by me in
neuropathology to regard the sexual life as a "pudendum" which should be left unconsidered by the physician
and the scientific investigator. I also consider ludicrous the moral indignation which prompted the translator
of Artemidoros of Daldis to keep from the reader's knowledge the chapter on sexual dreams contained in the
Symbolism of the Dreams. As for myself, I have been actuated solely by the conviction that in the explanation
of sexual dreams I should be bound to entangle myself deeply in the still unexplained problems of perversion
and bisexuality; and for that reason I have reserved this material for another connection.
IX
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THE UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS--REALITY
66
On closer inspection we find that it is not the existence of two systems near the motor end of the apparatus but
of two kinds of processes or modes of emotional discharge, the assumption of which was explained in the
psychological discussions of the previous chapter. This can make no difference for us, for we must always be
ready to drop our auxiliary ideas whenever we deem ourselves in position to replace them by something else
approaching more closely to the unknown reality. Let us now try to correct some views which might be
erroneously formed as long as we regarded the two systems in the crudest and most obvious sense as two
localities within the psychic apparatus, views which have left their traces in the terms "repression" and
"penetration." Thus, when we say that an unconscious idea strives for transference into the foreconscious in
order later to penetrate consciousness, we do not mean that a second idea is to be formed situated in a new
locality like an interlineation near which the original continues to remain; also, when we speak of penetration
into consciousness, we wish carefully to avoid any idea of change of locality. When we say that a
foreconscious idea is repressed and subsequently taken up by the unconscious, we might be tempted by these
figures, borrowed from the idea of a struggle over a territory, to assume that an arrangement is really broken
up in one psychic locality and replaced by a new one in the other locality. For these comparisons we substitute
what would seem to correspond better with the real state of affairs by saying that an energy occupation is
displaced to or withdrawn from a certain arrangement so that the psychic formation falls under the domination
of a system or is withdrawn from the same. Here again we replace a topical mode of presentation by a
dynamic; it is not the psychic formation that appears to us as the moving factor but the innervation of the
same.
I deem it appropriate and justifiable, however, to apply ourselves still further to the illustrative conception of
the two systems. We shall avoid any misapplication of this manner of representation if we remember that
presentations, thoughts, and psychic formations should generally not be localized in the organic elements of
the nervous system, but, so to speak, between them, where resistances and paths form the correlate
corresponding to them. Everything that can become an object of our internal perception is virtual, like the
image in the telescope produced by the passage of the rays of light. But we are justified in assuming the
existence of the systems, which have nothing psychic in themselves and which never become accessible to our
psychic perception, corresponding to the lenses of the telescope which design the image. If we continue this
comparison, we may say that the censor between two systems corresponds to the refraction of rays during
their passage into a new medium.
Thus far we have made psychology on our own responsibility; it is now time to examine the theoretical
opinions governing present-day psychology and to test their relation to our theories. The question of the
unconscious, in psychology is, according to the authoritative words of Lipps, less a psychological question
than the question of psychology. As long as psychology settled this question with the verbal explanation that
the "psychic" is the "conscious" and that "unconscious psychic occurrences" are an obvious contradiction, a
psychological estimate of the observations gained by the physician from abnormal mental states was
precluded. The physician and the philosopher agree only when both acknowledge that unconscious psychic
processes are "the appropriate and well-justified expression for an established fact." The physician cannot but
reject with a shrug of his shoulders the assertion that "consciousness is the indispensable quality of the
psychic"; he may assume, if his respect for the utterings of the philosophers still be strong enough, that he and
they do not treat the same subject and do not pursue the same science. For a single intelligent observation of
the psychic life of a neurotic, a single analysis of a dream must force upon him the unalterable conviction that
the most complicated and correct mental operations, to which no one will refuse the name of psychic
occurrences, may take place without exciting the consciousness of the person. It is true that the physician does
not learn of these unconscious processes until they have exerted such an effect on consciousness as to admit
communication or observation. But this effect of consciousness may show a psychic character widely
differing from the unconscious process, so that the internal perception cannot possibly recognize the one as a
substitute for the other. The physician must reserve for himself the right to penetrate, by a process of
deduction, from the effect on consciousness to the unconscious psychic process; he learns in this way that the
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67
effect on consciousness is only a remote psychic product of the unconscious process and that the latter has not
become conscious as such; that it has been in existence and operative without betraying itself in any way to
consciousness.
A reaction from the over-estimation of the quality of consciousness becomes the indispensable preliminary
condition for any correct insight into the behavior of the psychic. In the words of Lipps, the unconscious must
be accepted as the general basis of the psychic life. The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within
itself the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its preliminary step in the unconscious,
whereas the unconscious may stop with this step and still claim full value as a psychic activity. Properly
speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; _its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the
external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external
world through the indications of our sensory organs_.
A series of dream problems which have intensely occupied older authors will be laid aside when the old
opposition between conscious life and dream life is abandoned and the unconscious psychic assigned to its
proper place. Thus many of the activities whose performances in the dream have excited our admiration are
now no longer to be attributed to the dream but to unconscious thinking, which is also active during the day.
If, according to Scherner, the dream seems to play with a symboling representation of the body, we know that
this is the work of certain unconscious phantasies which have probably given in to sexual emotions, and that
these phantasies come to expression not only in dreams but also in hysterical phobias and in other symptoms.
If the dream continues and settles activities of the day and even brings to light valuable inspirations, we have
only to subtract from it the dream disguise as a feat of dream-work and a mark of assistance from obscure
forces in the depth of the mind (_cf._ the devil in Tartini's sonata dream). The intellectual task as such must be
attributed to the same psychic forces which perform all such tasks during the day. We are probably far too
much inclined to over-estimate the conscious character even of intellectual and artistic productions. From the
communications of some of the most highly productive persons, such as Goethe and Helmholtz, we learn,
indeed, that the most essential and original parts in their creations came to them in the form of inspirations
and reached their perceptions almost finished. There is nothing strange about the assistance of the conscious
activity in other cases where there was a concerted effort of all the psychic forces. But it is a much abused
privilege of the conscious activity that it is allowed to hide from us all other activities wherever it participates.
It will hardly be worth while to take up the historical significance of dreams as a special subject. Where, for
instance, a chieftain has been urged through a dream to engage in a bold undertaking the success of which has
had the effect of changing history, a new problem results only so long as the dream, regarded as a strange
power, is contrasted with other more familiar psychic forces; the problem, however, disappears when we
regard the dream as a form of expression for feelings which are burdened with resistance during the day and
which can receive reinforcements at night from deep emotional sources. But the great respect shown by the
ancients for the dream is based on a correct psychological surmise. It is a homage paid to the unsubdued and
indestructible in the human mind, and to the demoniacal which furnishes the dream-wish and which we find
again in our unconscious.
Not inadvisedly do I use the expression "in our unconscious," for what we so designate does not coincide with
the unconscious of the philosophers, nor with the unconscious of Lipps. In the latter uses it is intended to
designate only the opposite of conscious. That there are also unconscious psychic processes beside the
conscious ones is the hotly contested and energetically defended issue. Lipps gives us the more far-reaching
theory that everything psychic exists as unconscious, but that some of it may exist also as conscious. But it
was not to prove this theory that we have adduced the phenomena of the dream and of the hysterical symptom
formation; the observation of normal life alone suffices to establish its correctness beyond any doubt. The new
fact that we have learned from the analysis of the psychopathological formations, and indeed from their first
member, viz. dreams, is that the unconscious--hence the psychic--occurs as a function of two separate systems
and that it occurs as such even in normal psychic life. Consequently there are two kinds of unconscious, which
we do not as yet find distinguished by the psychologists. Both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but
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68
in our sense the first, which we call Unc., is likewise incapable of consciousness, whereas the second we term
"Forec." because its emotions, after the observance of certain rules, can reach consciousness, perhaps not
before they have again undergone censorship, but still regardless of the Unc. system. The fact that in order to
attain consciousness the emotions must traverse an unalterable series of events or succession of instances, as
is betrayed through their alteration by the censor, has helped us to draw a comparison from spatiality. We
described the relations of the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying that the system Forec.
is like a screen between the system Unc. and consciousness. The system Forec. not only bars access to
consciousness, but also controls the entrance to voluntary motility and is capable of sending out a sum of
mobile energy, a portion of which is familiar to us as attention.
We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor
in the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the
equivalence of the psychic and the conscious.
What part now remains in our description of the once all-powerful and all-overshadowing consciousness?
None other than that of a sensory organ for the perception of psychic qualities. According to the fundamental
idea of schematic undertaking we can conceive the conscious perception only as the particular activity of an
independent system for which the abbreviated designation "Cons." commends itself. This system we conceive
to be similar in its mechanical characteristics to the perception system P, hence excitable by qualities and
incapable of retaining the trace of changes, _i.e._ it is devoid of memory. The psychic apparatus which, with
the sensory organs of the P-system, is turned to the outer world, is itself the outer world for the sensory organ
of Cons.; the teleological justification of which rests on this relationship. We are here once more confronted
with the principle of the succession of instances which seems to dominate the structure of the apparatus. The
material under excitement flows to the Cons, sensory organ from two sides, firstly from the P-system whose
excitement, qualitatively determined, probably experiences a new elaboration until it comes to conscious
perception; and, secondly, from the interior of the apparatus itself, the quantitative processes of which are
perceived as a qualitative series of pleasure and pain as soon as they have undergone certain changes.
The philosophers, who have learned that correct and highly complicated thought structures are possible even
without the coöperation of consciousness, have found it difficult to attribute any function to consciousness; it
has appeared to them a superfluous mirroring of the perfected psychic process. The analogy of our Cons.
system with the systems of perception relieves us of this embarrassment. We see that perception through our
sensory organs results in directing the occupation of attention to those paths on which the incoming sensory
excitement is diffused; the qualitative excitement of the P-system serves the mobile quantity of the psychic
apparatus as a regulator for its discharge. We may claim the same function for the overlying sensory organ of
the Cons. system. By assuming new qualities, it furnishes a new contribution toward the guidance and suitable
distribution of the mobile occupation quantities. By means of the perceptions of pleasure and pain, it
influences the course of the occupations within the psychic apparatus, which normally operates unconsciously
and through the displacement of quantities. It is probable that the principle of pain first regulates the
displacements of occupation automatically, but it is quite possible that the consciousness of these qualities
adds a second and more subtle regulation which may even oppose the first and perfect the working capacity of
the apparatus by placing it in a position contrary to its original design for occupying and developing even that
which is connected with the liberation of pain. We learn from neuropsychology that an important part in the
functional activity of the apparatus is attributed to such regulations through the qualitative excitation of the
sensory organs. The automatic control of the primary principle of pain and the restriction of mental capacity
connected with it are broken by the sensible regulations, which in their turn are again automatisms. We learn
that the repression which, though originally expedient, terminates nevertheless in a harmful rejection of
inhibition and of psychic domination, is so much more easily accomplished with reminiscences than with
perceptions, because in the former there is no increase in occupation through the excitement of the psychic
sensory organs. When an idea to be rejected has once failed to become conscious because it has succumbed to
repression, it can be repressed on other occasions only because it has been withdrawn from conscious
perception on other grounds. These are hints employed by therapy in order to bring about a retrogression of
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accomplished repressions.
69
The value of the over-occupation which is produced by the regulating influence of the Cons. sensory organ on
the mobile quantity, is demonstrated in the teleological connection by nothing more clearly than by the
creation of a new series of qualities and consequently a new regulation which constitutes the precedence of
man over the animals. For the mental processes are in themselves devoid of quality except for the excitements
of pleasure and pain accompanying them, which, as we know, are to be held in check as possible disturbances
of thought. In order to endow them with a quality, they are associated in man with verbal memories, the
qualitative remnants of which suffice to draw upon them the attention of consciousness which in turn endows
thought with a new mobile energy.
The manifold problems of consciousness in their entirety can be examined only through an analysis of the
hysterical mental process. From this analysis we receive the impression that the transition from the
foreconscious to the occupation of consciousness is also connected with a censorship similar to the one
between the Unc. and the Forec. This censorship, too, begins to act only with the reaching of a certain
quantitative degree, so that few intense thought formations escape it. Every possible case of detention from
consciousness, as well as of penetration to consciousness, under restriction is found included within the
picture of the psychoneurotic phenomena; every case points to the intimate and twofold connection between
the censor and consciousness. I shall conclude these psychological discussions with the report of two such
occurrences.
On the occasion of a consultation a few years ago the subject was an intelligent and innocent-looking girl. Her
attire was strange; whereas a woman's garb is usually groomed to the last fold, she had one of her stockings
hanging down and two of her waist buttons opened. She complained of pains in one of her legs, and exposed
her leg unrequested. Her chief complaint, however, was in her own words as follows: She had a feeling in her
body as if something was stuck into it which moved to and fro and made her tremble through and through.
This sometimes made her whole body stiff. On hearing this, my colleague in consultation looked at me; the
complaint was quite plain to him. To both of us it seemed peculiar that the patient's mother thought nothing of
the matter; of course she herself must have been repeatedly in the situation described by her child. As for the
girl, she had no idea of the import of her words or she would never have allowed them to pass her lips. Here
the censor had been deceived so successfully that under the mask of an innocent complaint a phantasy was
admitted to consciousness which otherwise would have remained in the foreconscious.
Another example: I began the psychoanalytic treatment of a boy of fourteen years who was suffering from tic
convulsif, hysterical vomiting, headache, &c., by assuring him that, after closing his eyes, he would see
pictures or have ideas, which I requested him to communicate to me. He answered by describing pictures. The
last impression he had received before coming to me was visually revived in his memory. He had played a
game of checkers with his uncle, and now saw the checkerboard before him. He commented on various
positions that were favorable or unfavorable, on moves that were not safe to make. He then saw a dagger lying
on the checker-board, an object belonging to his father, but transferred to the checker-board by his phantasy.
Then a sickle was lying on the board; next a scythe was added; and, finally, he beheld the likeness of an old
peasant mowing the grass in front of the boy's distant parental home. A few days later I discovered the
meaning of this series of pictures. Disagreeable family relations had made the boy nervous. It was the case of
a strict and crabbed father who lived unhappily with his mother, and whose educational methods consisted in
threats; of the separation of his father from his tender and delicate mother, and the remarrying of his father,
who one day brought home a young woman as his new mamma. The illness of the fourteen-year-old boy
broke out a few days later. It was the suppressed anger against his father that had composed these pictures into
intelligible allusions. The material was furnished by a reminiscence from mythology, The sickle was the one
with which Zeus castrated his father; the scythe and the likeness of the peasant represented Kronos, the violent
old man who eats his children and upon whom Zeus wreaks vengeance in so unfilial a manner. The marriage
of the father gave the boy an opportunity to return the reproaches and threats of his father--which had
previously been made because the child played with his genitals (the checkerboard; the prohibitive moves; the
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dagger with which a person may be killed). We have here long repressed memories and their unconscious
remnants which, under the guise of senseless pictures have slipped into consciousness by devious paths left
open to them.
I should then expect to find the theoretical value of the study of dreams in its contribution to psychological
knowledge and in its preparation for an understanding of neuroses. Who can foresee the importance of a
thorough knowledge of the structure and activities of the psychic apparatus when even our present state of
knowledge produces a happy therapeutic influence in the curable forms of the psychoneuroses? What about
the practical value of such study some one may ask, for psychic knowledge and for the discovering of the
70
secret peculiarities of individual character? Have not the unconscious feelings revealed by the dream the value
of real forces in the psychic life? Should we take lightly the ethical significance of the suppressed wishes
which, as they now create dreams, may some day create other things?
I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not thought further upon this side of the dream
problem. I believe, however, that at all events the Roman Emperor was in the wrong who ordered one of his
subjects executed because the latter dreamt that he had killed the Emperor. He should first have endeavored to
discover the significance of the dream; most probably it was not what it seemed to be. And even if a dream of
different content had the significance of this offense against majesty, it would still have been in place to
remember the words of Plato, that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked
man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any
reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand.
Reality must naturally be denied to all transition--and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the
unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that more
than one single form of existence must be ascribed to the psychic reality. Action and the conscious expression
of thought mostly suffice for the practical need of judging a man's character. Action, above all, merits to be
placed in the first rank; for many of the impulses penetrating consciousness are neutralized by real forces of
the psychic life before they are converted into action; indeed, the reason why they frequently do not encounter
any psychic obstacle on their way is because the unconscious is certain of their meeting with resistances later.
In any case it is instructive to become familiar with the much raked-up soil from which our virtues proudly
arise. For the complication of human character moving dynamically in all directions very rarely
accommodates itself to adjustment through a simple alternative, as our antiquated moral philosophy would
have it.
And how about the value of the dream for a knowledge of the future? That, of course, we cannot consider.
One feels inclined to substitute: "for a knowledge of the past." For the dream originates from the past in every
sense. To be sure the ancient belief that the dream reveals the future is not entirely devoid of truth. By
representing to us a wish as fulfilled the dream certainly leads us into the future; but this future, taken by the
dreamer as present, has been formed into the likeness of that past by the indestructible wish.
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