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t

1
I
THE INTERPRETATION

OF DREAMS

BY

PROF. DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION OF THIRD EDITION

WITH INTRODUCTION
BY

A. A. BRILL, PH.B. , M.D.

CHIEF OF THE NEUROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE BRONX HOSPITAL AND DISPENSARY
CLINICAL ASSISTANT IN NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
FORMER ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN IN THE CENTRAL ISLIP STATE HOSPITAL
AND IN THE CLINIC OF PSYCHIATRY, ZURICH

44
· Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo ”

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1913
|
THE INTERPRETATION OF

DREAMS
1
THE INTERPRETATION

OF DREAMS

BY

PROF. DR. SIGMUND FREUD , LL.D.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION OF THIRD EDITION

WITH INTRODUCTION
BY

A. A. BRILL, PH.B. , M.D.

CHIEF OF THE NEUROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE BRONX HOSPITAL AND DISPENSARY
CLINICAL ASSISTANT IN NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
FORMER ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN IN THE CENTRAL ISLIP STATE HOSPITAL
AND IN THE CLINIC OF PSYCHIATRY, ZÜRICH

39
" Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1913
Printed by BALLANTYNE , HANSON & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

IN attempting a discussion of the Interpretation of Dreams, I

do not believe that I have overstepped the bounds of neuro
pathological interest. For, on psychological investigation,
the dream proves to be the first link in a chain of abnormal
psychic structures whose other links , the hysterical phobia ,
the obsession, and the delusion must, for practical reasons ,
claim the interest of the physician . The dream (as will
appear) can lay no claim to a corresponding practical signi
ficance ; its theoretical value as a paradigm is , however, all
the greater, and one who cannot explain the origin of the
dream pictures will strive in vain to understand the phobias,
obsessive and delusional ideas , and likewise their therapeutic
importance .
But this relation, to which our subject owes its importance,
is responsible also for the deficiencies in the work before us.
The surfaces of fracture which will be found so frequently in
this discussion correspond to so many points of contact at
which the problem of the dream formation touches more
comprehensive problems of psychopathology, which cannot be
discussed here, and which will be subjected to future elabora
tion if there should be sufficient time and energy, and if further
material should be forthcoming.
Peculiarities in the material I have used to elucidate the
interpretation of dreams have rendered this publication diffi
cult. From the work itself it will appear why all dreams
related in the literature or collected by others had to remain
useless for my purpose ; for examples I had to choose between
my own dreams and those of my patients who were under
psychoanalytic treatment. I was restrained from utilising
the latter material by the fact that in it the dream processes
were subjected to an undesirable complication on account
of the intermixture of neurotic characters . On the other
8364

CCT 17 1950
vi THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

hand, inseparably connected with my own dreams was the cir

cumstance that I was obliged to expose more of the intimacies
of my psychic life than I should like and than generally falls
to the task of an author who is not a poet but an investigator
of nature. This was painful, but unavoidable ; I had to put
up with the inevitable in order not to be obliged to forego
altogether the demonstration of the truth of my psycho
logical results . To be sure , I could not at best resist the temp
tation of disguising some of my indiscretions through omissions
and substitutions, and as often as this happened it detracted
materially from the value of the examples which I employed .
I can only express the hope that the reader of this work,
putting himself in my difficult position , will show forbearance,
and also that all persons who are inclined to take offence at
any of the dreams reported will concede freedom of thought
at least to the dream life.
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

If there has arisen a demand for a second edition of this rather

difficult book before the end of the first decade, I owe no
gratitude to the interest of the professional circles to whom
I appealed in the preceding sentences . My colleagues in
psychiatry, apparently, have made no effort to shake off the
first surprise which my new conception of the dream evoked ,
and the professional philosophers , who are accustomed to treat
the problem of dream life as a part of the states of con
sciousness , devoting to it a few-for the most part identical
-sentences , have apparently failed to observe that in this
field could be found all kinds of things which would inevit
ably lead to a thorough transformation of our psychological
theories . The behaviour of the scientific critics could only
justify the expectation that this work of mine was destined
to be buried in oblivion ; and the small troop of brave pupils
who follow my leadership in the medical application of psycho
analysis, and also follow my example in analysing dreams in
order to utilise these analyses in the treatment of neurotics,
would not have exhausted the first edition of the book. I
therefore feel indebted to that wider circle of intelligent
seekers after truth whose co-operation has procured for me
the invitation to take up anew, after nine years, the difficult
and in so many respects fundamental work.
I am glad to be able to say that I have found little to
change . Here and there I have inserted new material , added
new views from my wider experience , and attempted to revise
certain points ; but everything essential concerning the dream
and its interpretation , as well as the psychological proposi
tions derived from it, has remained unchanged : at least ,
subjectively, it has stood the test of time. Those who are
acquainted with my other works on the Etiology and Mechan
ism of the psychoneuroses , know that I have never offered
vii
viii THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

anything unfinished as finished, and that I have always striven

to change my assertions in accordance with my advancing
views ; but in the realm of the dream life I have been able to
stand by my first declarations. During the long years of my
work on the problems of the neuroses , I have been repeatedly
confronted with doubts, and have often made mistakes ; but
it was always in the " interpretation of dreams " that I found
my bearings. My numerous scientific opponents , therefore,
show an especially sure instinct when they refuse to follow me
into this territory of dream investigation .
Likewise, the material used in this book to illustrate the
rules of dream interpretation, drawn chiefly from dreams of
my own which have been depreciated and outstripped by
events, have in the revision shown a persistence which re
sisted substantial changes. For me, indeed, the book has
still another subjective meaning which I could comprehend
only after it had been completed . It proved to be for me a
part of my self-analysis, a reaction to the death of my father
—that is , to the most significant event, the deepest loss, in
the life of a man. After I recognised this I felt powerless to
efface the traces of this influence . For the reader, however,
it makes no difference from what material he learns to value
and interpret dreams .

BERCHTESGADEN, Summer of 1908.

 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

WHEREAS a period of nine years elapsed between the first and

second editions of this book, the need for a third edition has
appeared after little more than a year. I have reason to be
pleased with this change ; but, just as I have not considered
the earlier neglect of my work on the part of the reader as a
proof of its unworthiness , I am unable to find in the interest
manifested at present a proof of its excellence .
The progress in scientific knowledge has shown its influ
ence on the Interpretation of Dreams. When I wrote it in
1899 the " Sexual Theories " was not yet in existence , and the
analysis of complicated forms of psychoneuroses was still in
its infancy. The interpretation of dreams was destined to
aid in the psychological analysis of the neuroses , but since
then the deeper understanding of the neuroses has reacted
on our conception of the dream. The study of dream in
terpretation itself has continued to develop in a direction
upon which not enough stress was laid in the first edition of
this book. From my own experience, as well as from the
works of W. Stekel and others , I have since learned to attach
a greater value to the extent and the significance of sym
bolism in dreams (or rather in the unconscious thinking).
Thus much has accumulated in the course of this year which
requires consideration . I have endeavoured to do justice to
this new material by numerous insertions in the text and by
the addition of footnotes. If these supplements occasionally
threaten to warp the original discussion , or if, even with their
aid, we have been unsuccessful in raising the original text to the
niveau of our present views, I must beg indulgence for the
gaps in the book, as they are only consequences and indica
tions of the present rapid development of our knowledge. I
also venture to foretell in what other directions later edi
tions of the Interpretation of Dreams -in case any should be
ix
x THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

demanded -will differ from the present one. They will have,
on the one hand, to include selections from the rich material
of poetry, myth, usage of language, and folklore, and, on the
other hand, to treat more profoundly the relations of the
dream to the neuroses and to mental diseases.
Mr. Otto Rank has rendered me valuable service in the
selection of the addenda and in reading the proof sheets . I
am gratefully indebted to him and to many others for their
contributions and corrections.

VIENNA, Spring of 1911.

 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

SINCE the appearance of the author's Selected Papers on

Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, and Three Contributions to
the Sexual Theory, * much has been said and written about
Freud's works . Some of our readers have made an honest
endeavour to test and utilise the author's theories, but they
have been handicapped by their inability to read fluently
very difficult German, for only two of Freud's works have
hitherto been accessible to English readers. For them this
work will be of invaluable assistance. To be sure, numerous
articles on the Freudian psychology have of late made their
appearance in our literature ; † but these scattered papers,
read by those unacquainted with the original work, often serve
to confuse rather than enlighten . For Freud cannot be
mastered from the reading of a few pamphlets, or even one or
two of his original works . Let me repeat what I have so often
said : No one is really qualified to use or to judge Freud's
psychoanalytic method who has not thoroughly mastered
his theory of the neuroses-The Interpretation of Dreams ,
Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, The Psychopathology
of Everyday Life, and Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious,
and who has not had considerable experience in analysing
the dreams and psychopathological actions of himself and
others . That there is required also a thorough training in
normal and abnormal psychology goes without saying.
The Interpretation of Dreams is the author's greatest and
most important work ; it is here that he develops his psycho
analytic technique, a thorough knowledge of which is abso
lutely indispensable for every worker in this field . The difficult
task of making a translation of this work has, therefore, been
Translated by A. A. Brill (Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Publishing Company).
† Cf. the works of Ernest Jones, James J. Putnam, the present writer,
and others.
xi
xii THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

undertaken primarily for the purpose of assisting those who

are actively engaged in treating patients by Freud's psycho
analytic method . Considered apart from its practical aim ,
the book presents much that is of interest to the psychologist
and the general reader. For , notwithstanding the fact that
dreams have of late years been the subject of investigation
at the hands of many competent observers, only few have
contributed anything tangible towards their solution ; it was
Freud who divested the dream of its mystery, and solved its
riddles . He not only showed us that the dream is full of
meaning, but amply demonstrated that it is intimately con
nected with normal and abnormal mental life . It is in the
treatment of the abnormal mental states that we must re
cognise the most important value of dream interpretation .
The dream does not only reveal to us the cryptic mechanisms
of hallucinations, delusions , phobias, obsessions, and other
psychopathological conditions , but it is also the most potent
instrument in the removal of these.*
I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to
Professor F. C. Prescott for reading the manuscript and for
helping me overcome the almost insurmountable difficulties
in the translation .
A. A. BRILL.
NEW YORK CITY.

* For examples demonstrating these facts, cf. my work, Psychoanalysis ;

its Theories and Practical Application, W. B. Saunders' Publishing Company,
Philadelphia & London.
 CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF
THE DREAM 1

II. METHOD OF DREAM INTERPRETATION : THE ANALYSIS

OF A SAMPLE DREAM 80

III. THE DREAM IS THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH · 103

IV. DISTORTION IN DREAMS · 113

V. THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS . 138

VI. THE DREAM -WORK 260

VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM ACTIVITIES 403

VIII. LITERARY INDEX . 494

INDEX 501

xiii
xii THE INTERPRETATION OF I

undertaken primarily for the purpose of assist

are actively engaged in treating patients by F
analytic method . Considered apart from its
the book presents much that is of interest to t
and the general reader. For, notwithstandin
dreams have of late years been the subject
at the hands of many competent observers
contributed anything tangible towards their
Freud who divested the dream of its myste
riddles . He not only showed us that the
meaning, but amply demonstrated that it
nected with normal and abnormal menta!
treatment of the abnormal mental state
cognise the most important value of d
The dream does not only reveal to us the IN
of hallucinations , delusions , phobias , o
psychopathological conditions, but it is
instrument in the removal of these. *
I take this opportunity of expressi
Professor F. C. Prescott for reading ti ac
helping me overcome the almost ins to
in the translation. an
th
NEW YORK CITY.
CO
ac
For examples demonstrating these facts,
its Theories and Practical Application, W. B. Sa re
Philadelphia & London. b

Fo
=3

the
op
of
 THE INTERPRETATION OF

DREAMS

THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE

PROBLEMS OF THE DREAM *

In the following pages I shall prove that there exists a psycho

logical technique by which dreams may be interpreted , and
that upon the application of this method every dream will
show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which
may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic
activity of the waking state. I shall furthermore endeavour
to explain the processes which give rise to the strangeness
and obscurity of the dream, and to discover through them
the nature of the psychic forces which operate, whether in
combination or in opposition, to produce the dream. This
accomplished, my investigation will terminate, as it will have
reached the point where the problem of the dream meets with
broader problems, the solution of which must be attempted
through other material.
I must presuppose that the reader is acquainted with the
work done by earlier authors as well as with the present
status of the dream problem in science, since in the course of
this treatise I shall not often have occasion to return to them.
For, notwithstanding the effort of several thousand years,
little progress has been made in the scientific understanding
of dreams. This has been so universally acknowledged by
the authors that it seems unnecessary to quote individual
opinions. One will find in the writings indexed at the end
of this book many stimulating observations and plenty of
interesting material for our subject, but little or nothing
* To the first publication of this book, 1900.
A
2 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that concerns the true nature of the dream or that solves

definitively any of its enigmas. Still less of course has been
transmitted to the knowledge of the educated laity.
The first book in which the dream is treated as an object
of psychology seems to be that of Aristotle 1 (Concerning
Dreams and their Interpretation). Aristotle asserts that the
dream is of demoniacal, though not of divine nature, which
indeed contains deep meaning, if it be correctly interpreted .
He was also acquainted with some of the characteristics of
dream life, e.g. , he knew that the dream turns slight sensa
tions perceived during sleep into great ones (" one imagines
that one walks through fire and feels hot, if this or that part
of the body becomes slightly warmed " ), which led him to
conclude that dreams might easily betray to the physician
the first indications of an incipient change in the body passing
unnoticed during the day. I have been unable to go more
deeply into the Aristotelian treatise, because of insufficient
preparation and lack of skilled assistance.
As every one knows, the ancients before Aristotle did not
consider the dream a product of the dreaming mind, but a
divine inspiration, and in ancient times the two antagonistic
streams, which one finds throughout in the estimates of
dream life, were already noticeable. They distinguished
between true and valuable dreams, sent to the dreamer to
warn him or to foretell the future, and vain, fraudulent, and
empty dreams, the object of which was to misguide or lead
him to destruction. * This pre-scientific conception of the
dream among the ancients was certainly in perfect keeping
with their general view of life, which was wont to project as
reality in the outer world that which possessed reality only
within the mind. It, moreover, accounted for the main im

Compare, on the other hand, O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und

Religionsgeschichte, p. 390. "Dreams were divided into two classes ; the first
were influenced only by the present (or past), and were unimportant for the
future they embraced the évérvia, insomnia, which immediately produces
the given idea or its opposite, e.g. hunger or its satiation, and the pavтáoμaтa,
which elaborates the given idea phantastically, as e.g. the nightmare, ephialtes.
The second class was, on the other hand , determinant for the future. To
this belong (1) direct prophecies received in the dream (xpnuatioμós, oracu
lum) ; (2) the foretelling of a future event (öpaua) ; (3) the symbolic or the
dream requiring interpretation (oveɩpos, somnium) . This theory has been
preserved for many centuries."
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 3

pression made upon the waking life by the memory left from
the dream in the morning, for in this memory the dream , as
compared with the rest of the psychic content, seems some
thing strange, coming, as it were, from another world. It
would likewise be wrong to suppose that the theory of the
supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers in our own day ;
for leaving out of consideration all bigoted and mystical
authors who are perfectly justified in adhering to the
remnants of the once extensive realm of the supernatural
until they have been swept away by scientific explanation
-one meets even sagacious men averse to anything adven
turous, who go so far as to base their religious belief in the
existence and co-operation of superhuman forces on the
inexplicableness of the dream manifestations (Haffner 32).
The validity ascribed to the dream life by some schools of
philosophy, e.g. the school of Schelling, is a distinct echo of
the undisputed divinity of dreams in antiquity, nor is dis
cussion closed on the subject of the mantic or prophetic power
of dreams . This is due to the fact that the attempted psycho
logical explanations are too inadequate to overcome the
accumulated material, however strongly all those who devote
themselves to a scientific mode of thought may feel that such
assertions should be repudiated.
To write a history of our scientific knowledge of dream
problems is so difficult because, however valuable some parts
of this knowledge may have been, no progress in definite
directions has been discernible. There has been no con
struction of a foundation of assured results upon which future
investigators could continue to build, but every new author
takes up the same problems afresh and from the very beginning.
Were I to follow the authors in chronological order, and give
a review of the opinions each has held concerning the problems .
of the dream, I should be prevented from drawing a clear and
complete picture of the present state of knowledge on the
subject. I have therefore preferred to base the treatment
upon themes rather than upon the authors, and I shall cite
for each problem of the dream the material found in the
literature for its solution.
But as I have not succeeded in mastering the entire
literature, which is widely disseminated and interwoven with
4 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that on other subjects , I must ask my readers to rest content

provided no fundamental fact or important viewpoint be lost
in my description.
Until recently most authors have been led to treat the
subjects of sleep and dream in the same connection , and with
them they have also regularly treated analogous states of
psychopathology, and other dreamlike states like hallucina
tions, visions , & c. In the more recent works, on the other
hand, there has been a tendency to keep more closely to the
theme, and to take as the subject one single question of the
dream life. This change, I believe, is an expression of the
conviction that enlightenment and agreement in such obscure
matters can only be brought about by a series of detailed
investigations. It is such a detailed investigation and one of
a special psychological nature, that I would offer here. I have
little occasion to study the problem of sleep , as it is essentially
a psychological problem, although the change of functional
determinations for the mental apparatus must be included in
the character of sleep . The literature of sleep will therefore
not be considered here.
A scientific interest in the phenomena of dreams as such
leads to the following in part interdependent inquiries :
(a) The Relation of the Dream to the Waking State.— The naïve
judgment of a person on awakening assumes that the dream
if indeed it does not originate in another world-at any rate
has taken the dreamer into another world. The old physio
8
logist, Burdach, to whom we are indebted for a careful and
discriminating description of the phenomena of dreams, ex
pressed this conviction in an often-quoted passage , p . 474 :
" The waking life never repeats itself with its trials and joys,
its pleasures and pains, but, on the contrary , the dream aims to
relieve us of these. Even when our whole mind is filled with
one subject, when profound sorrow has torn our hearts or
when a task has claimed the whole power of our mentality, the
dream either gives us something entirely strange, or it takes for
its combinations only a few elements from reality, or it only
enters into the strain of our mood and symbolises reality."
L. Strümpell 66 expresses himself to the same effect in his
Nature and Origin of Dreams (p. 16), a study which is every
where justly held in high respect : " He who dreams turns
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 5

his back upon the world of waking consciousness " (p. 17). " In
the dream the memory of the orderly content of the waking
consciousness and its normal behaviour is as good as entirely
lost " (p. 19). " The almost complete isolation of the mind
in the dream from the regular normal content and course of
the waking state . . ."
But the overwhelming majority of the authors have
assumed a contrary view of the relation of the dream to
waking life . Thus Haffner 32 (p . 19) : " First of all the dream
is the continuation of the waking state. Our dreams always
unite themselves with those ideas which have shortly before
been in our consciousness . Careful examination will nearly
always find a thread by which the dream has connected itself
with the experience of the previous day." Weygandt 75
(p. 6), flatly contradicts the above cited statement of Burdach :
"C
For it may often be observed , apparently in the great
majority of dreams, that they lead us directly back into
48
everyday life, instead of releasing us from it ." Maury
(p . 56) , says in a concise formula : " Nous rêvons de ce que
nous avons vu , dit, desiré ou fait." Jessen, 36 in his Psychology,
published in 1855 (p . 530) , is somewhat more explicit : " The
content of dreams is more or less determined by the individual
personality, by age, sex, station in life, education, habits, and
by events and experiences of the whole past life.”
The ancients had the same idea about the dependence of
the dream content upon life. I cite Radestock 54 (p . 139 ) :
"When Xerxes , before his march against Greece, was dis
suaded from this resolution by good counsel, but was again
and again incited by dreams to undertake it, one of the old
rational dream-interpreters of the Persians , Artabanus , told
him very appropriately that dream pictures mostly contain
that of which one has been thinking while awake.”
In the didactic poem of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
(IV, v. 959), occurs this passage :

" Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhaeret,

aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati
atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens,
in somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire ;
causidici causas agere et componere leges,
induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire," &c., &c.
6 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Cicero (De Divinatione, II) says quite similarly, as does

also Maury much later :
" Maximeque reliquiae earum rerum moventur in animis
et agitantur, de quibus vigilantes aut cogitavimus aut egimus."
The contradiction expressed in these two views as to the
relation between dream life and waking life seems indeed
insoluble. It will therefore not be out of place to mention
the description of F. W. Hildebrandt 35 ( 1875 ) , who believes
that the peculiarities of the dream can generally be described
only by calling them a " series of contrasts which apparently
shade off into contradictions " (p. 8) . " The first of these
contrasts is formed on the one hand by the strict isolation or
seclusion of the dream from true and actual life, and on the
other hand by the continuous encroachment of the one upon
the other, and the constant dependency of one upon the
other. The dream is something absolutely separated from
the reality experienced during the waking state ; one may call
it an existence hermetically sealed up and separated from
real life by an unsurmountable chasm. It frees us from
reality, extinguishes normal recollection of reality, and places
us in another world and in a totally different life, which at
bottom has nothing in common with reality. . . " Hildebrandt
then asserts that in falling asleep our whole being , with all its
forms of existence, disappears " as through an invisible trap
door." In the dream one is perhaps making a voyage to
St. Helena in order to offer the imprisoned Napoleon something
exquisite in the way of Moselle wine. One is most amicably
received by the ex-emperor, and feels almost sorry when the
interesting illusion is destroyed on awakening. But let us
now compare the situation of the dream with reality. The
dreamer has never been a wine merchant , and has no desire to
become one. He has never made a sea voyage, and St. Helena
is the last place he would take as destination for such a voyage.
The dreamer entertains no sympathetic feeling for Napoleon,
but on the contrary a strong patriotic hatred . And finally the
dreamer was not yet among the living when Napoleon died on
the island ; so that it was beyond the reach of possibility for
him to have had any personal relations with Napoleon . The
dream experience thus appears as something strange, inserted
between two perfectly harmonising and succeeding periods.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 7

"Nevertheless ," continues Hildebrandt, " the opposite is

seemingly just as true and correct . I believe that hand in
hand with this seclusion and isolation there can still exist
the most intimate relation and connection . We may justly
say that no matter what the dream offers , it finds its material
in reality and in the psychic life arrayed around this reality.
However strange the dream may seem, it can never detach
itself from reality, and its most sublime as well as its most
farcical structures must always borrow their elementary
material either from what we have seen with our eyes in the
outer world, or from what has previously found a place some
where in our waking thoughts ; in other words , it must be
taken from what we had already experienced either objectively
or subjectively. ”
(b) The Material of the Dream.-Memory in the Dream.
That all the material composing the content of the dream in
some way originates in experience, that it is reproduced in
the dream, or recalled, this at least may be taken as an
indisputable truth . Yet it would be wrong to assume that
such connection between dream content and reality will be
readily disclosed as an obvious product of the instituted com
parison. On the contrary, the connection must be carefully
sought, and in many cases it succeeds in eluding discovery for
a long time. The reason for this is to be found in a number of
peculiarities evinced by the memory in dreams , which, though
universally known, have hitherto entirely eluded explanation .
It will be worth while to investigate exhaustively these
characteristics.
It often happens that matter appears in the dream content
which one cannot recognise later in the waking state as be
longing to one's knowledge and experience. One remembers
well enough having dreamed about the subject in question ,
but cannot recall the fact or time of the experience . The
dreamer is therefore in the dark as to the source from which
the dream has been drawing, and is even tempted to believe
an independently productive activity on the part of the
dream, until, often long afterwards, a new episode brings back
to recollection a former experience given up as lost, and thus
reveals the source of the dream. One is thus forced to admit
that something has been known and remembered in the dream
8 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that has been withdrawn from memory during the waking

state.
Delbœuf 16 narrates from his own experience an especially
impressive example of this kind . He saw in his dream the
courtyard of his house covered with snow, and found two
little lizards half-frozen and buried in the snow. Being a
lover of animals , he picked them up, warmed them, and put
them back into a crevice in the wall which was reserved for
them. He also gave them some small fern leaves that had
been growing on the wall, which he knew they were fond
of. In the dream he knew the name of the plant : Asplenium
ruta muralis. The dream then continued , returning after a
digression to the lizards, and to his astonishment Delbœuf
saw two other little animals falling upon what was left of the
ferns . On turning his eyes to the open field he saw a fifth
and a sixth lizard running into the hole in the wall, and finally
the street was covered with a procession of lizards, all wander
ing in the same direction, & c.
In his waking state Delbœuf knew only a few Latin names
of plants, and nothing of the Asplenium . To his great surprise
he became convinced that a fern of this name really existed
and that the correct name was Asplenium ruta muraria, which
the dream had slightly disfigured . An accidental coincidence
could hardly be considered , but it remained a mystery for
Delbœuf whence he got his knowledge of the name Asplenium
in the dream .
The dream occurred in 1862. Sixteen years later, while
at the house of one of his friends, the philosopher noticed a
small album containing dried plants resembling the albums
that are sold as souvenirs to visitors in many parts of Switzer
land . A sudden recollection occurred to him ; he opened
the herbarium, and discovered therein the Asplenium of his
dream, and recognised his own handwriting in the accom
panying Latin name. The connection could now be traced.
While on her wedding trip, a sister of this friend visited Delbœuf
in 1860-two years prior to the lizard dream . She had with
her at the time this album , which was intended for her brother,
and Delbœuf took the trouble to write, at the dictation of a
botanist, under each of the dried plants the Latin name.
The favourable accident which made possible the report of
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 9

this valuable example also permitted Delbœuf to trace another

portion of this dream to its forgotten source . One day in
1877 he came upon an old volume of an illustrated journal,
in which he found pictured the whole procession of lizards
just as he had dreamed it in 1862. The volume bore the date
of 1861 , and Delbœuf could recall that he had subscribed to
the journal from its first appearance.
That the dream has at its disposal recollections which are
inaccessible to the waking state is such a remarkable and
theoretically important fact that I should like to urge more
66
attention to it by reporting several other Hypermnesic
Dreams." Maury 48 relates that for some time the word
Mussidan used to occur to his mind during the day. He knew
it to be the name of a French city, but nothing else. One
night he dreamed of a conversation with a certain person who
told him that she came from Mussidan, and , in answer to his
question where the city was, she replied : " Mussidan is a
principal country town in the Département de La Dordogne. "
On waking, Maury put no faith in the information received in
his dream ; the geographical lexicon , however, showed it to be
perfectly correct . In this case the superior knowledge of the
dream is confirmed, but the forgotten source of this knowledge
has not been traced.
Jessen 36 tells (p . 55) of a quite similar dream occurrence,
from more remote times. " Among others we may here
mention the dream of the elder Scaliger (Hennings , l.c. , p . 300),
who wrote a poem in praise of celebrated men of Verona, and
to whom a man, named Brugnolus , appeared in a dream ,
complaining that he had been neglected . Though Scaliger
did not recall ever having heard of him, he wrote some verses
in his honour, and his son later discovered at Verona that a
Brugnolus had formerly been famous there as a critic.
Myers is said to have published a whole collection of such
hypermnesic dreams in the Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research, which are unfortunately inaccessible to
me. I believe every one who occupies himself with dreams
will recognise as a very common phenomenon the fact that the
dream gives proof of knowing and recollecting matters unknown
to the waking person . In my psychoanalytic investigations
of nervous patients, of which I shall speak later, I am every
8 THE INTERPRETATION OF DRE LS

that has been withdrawn from memory during 22 rom

state. acons,
Delbœuf 16 narrates from his own experience zese in
impressive example of this kind. He saw in - aking
courtyard of his house covered with snow, " emnesia
little lizards half-frozen and buried in the know
lover of animals, he picked them up, warm
them back into a crevice in the wall which d
• e ordere
them . He also gave them some small fe Eq uired
-
been growing on the wall, which he kr fore . I
of. In the dream he knew the name of t liquor
ruta muralis. The dream then continu the name
digression to the lizards, and to his "e patient
saw two other little animals falling upe ter he had
ferns . On turning his eyes to the op 2. on a sign
and a sixth lizard running into the ho ed to pass
the street was covered with a proces
ing in the same direction, &c. the dis
In his waking state Delboeuf kı rts depends
of plants, and nothing of the Asple book, I was
he became convinced that a fer urch tower
and that the correct name was
#T suddenly re
the dream had slightly disfigur acion between
could hardly be considered , h ester nineties ,
Delbœuf whence he got his k me in the year
in the dream . Ny engaged in
The dream occurred in e frequent re
at the house of one of his uliar locality .
•
small album containing d -to my left , a
·
that are sold as souvenirs ↑ adstone figures
land. A sudden recollec
‫ ܕ܂‬I uid not quite
the herbarium, and dise er cellar, but I
dream , and recognised of this dream
panying Latin name. which, to my
While on her wedding ti My first visit
in 1860- two years pr actory ; I was
her at the time this a' of the Madonna
and Delbœuf took th 8
back on being in
botanist, under each the day. On my
The favourable a of compensating
 TERATURE OF THE DREAM 11

this, and before everything else I started out for

dell' Arena. On the street leading to it, on my left,
at the place where I had turned in 1895, I discovered
ty which I had so often seen in the dream , with its
one figures. It was in fact the entrance to a restaurant
11.
ne of the sources from which the dream draws material
reproduction-material which in part is not recalled or
loyed in waking thought-is to be found in childhood. I
1 merely cite some of the authors who have observed and
phasized this.
Hildebrandt 35 (p . 23) : " It has already been expressly
admitted that the dream sometimes brings back to the mind
with wonderful reproductive ability remote and even forgotten
experiences from the earliest periods . "
Strümpell 66 (p. 40 ) : " The subject becomes more inter
esting when we remember how the dream sometimes brings
forth, as it were, from among the deepest and heaviest strata
which later years have piled upon the earliest childhood ex
periences , the pictures of certain places, things , and persons ,
quite uninjured and with their original freshness . This is not
limited merely to such impressions as have gained vivid con
sciousness during their origin or have become impressed with
strong psychic validity, and then later return in the dream as
actual reminiscences , causing pleasure to the awakened con
sciousness. On the contrary, the depths of the dream memory
comprise also such pictures of persons , things , places , and
early experiences as either possessed but little consciousness
and no psychic value at all , or have long ago lost both, and there
fore appear totally strange and unknown both in the dream and
in the waking state, until their former origin is revealed . ”
Volkelt 72 (p . 119 ) : " It is essentially noteworthy how
easily infantile and youthful reminiscences enter into the
dream. What we have long ceased to think about, what has
long since lost for us all importance, is constantly recalled by
the dream ."
The sway of the dream over the infantile material, which,
as is well known, mostly occupies the gaps in the conscious
memory, causes the origin of interesting hypermnestic dreams,
a few of which I shall here report.
10 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

week more than once in position to convince my patients from

their dreams that they are well acquainted with quotations ,
obscene expressions, &c ., and that they make use of these in
their dreams, although they have forgotten them in the waking
state. I shall cite here a simple case of dream hypermnesia
because it was easy to trace the source which made the know
ledge accessible to the dream.
A patient dreamed in a lengthy connection that he ordered
a " Kontuszówka " in a café, and after reporting this inquired
what it might mean, as he never heard the name before. I
was able to answer that Kontuszówka was a Polish liquor
which he could not have invented in his dream, as the name
had long been familiar to me in advertisements . The patient
would not at first believe me, but some days later, after he had
realised his dream of the café, he noticed the name on a sign
board at the street corner, which he had been obliged to pass
for months at least twice a day.
I have learned from my own dreams how largely the dis
covery of the origin of some of the dream elements depends
on accident . Thus, for years before writing this book, I was
haunted by the picture of a very simply formed church tower
which I could not recall having seen . I then suddenly re
cognised it with absolute certainty at a small station between
Salzburg and Reichenhall. This was in the later nineties ,
and I had travelled over the road for the first time in the year
1886. In later years , when I was already busily engaged in
the study of dreams, I was quite annoyed at the frequent re
currence of the dream picture of a certain peculiar locality .
I saw it in definite local relation to my person- to my left, a
dark space from which many grotesque sandstone figures
stood out. A glimmer of recollection , which I did not quite
credit, told me it was the entrance to a beer-cellar, but I
could explain neither the meaning nor the origin of this dream
picture. In 1907 I came by chance to Padua , which, to my
regret, I had been unable to visit since 1895. My first visit
to this beautiful university city was unsatisfactory ; I was
unable to see Giotto's frescoes in the church of the Madonna
dell' Arena, and on my way there turned back on being in
formed that the little church was closed on the day. On my
second visit, twelve years later, I thought of compensating
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 11

myself for this, and before everything else I started out for
Madonna dell' Arena. On the street leading to it, on my left,
probably at the place where I had turned in 1895, I discovered
the locality which I had so often seen in the dream, with its
sandstone figures. It was in fact the entrance to a restaurant
garden.
One of the sources from which the dream draws material
for reproduction-material which in part is not recalled or
employed in waking thought-is to be found in childhood . I
shall merely cite some of the authors who have observed and
emphasized this .
Hildebrandt 35 (p. 23) : " It has already been expressly
admitted that the dream sometimes brings back to the mind
with wonderful reproductive ability remote and even forgotten
experiences from the earliest periods ."
Strümpell 66 (p . 40 ) : " The subject becomes more inter
esting when we remember how the dream sometimes brings
forth, as it were, from among the deepest and heaviest strata
which later years have piled upon the earliest childhood ex
periences , the pictures of certain places, things, and persons,
quite uninjured and with their original freshness. This is not
limited merely to such impressions as have gained vivid con
sciousness during their origin or have become impressed with
strong psychic validity, and then later return in the dream as
actual reminiscences , causing pleasure to the awakened con
sciousness. On the contrary , the depths of the dream memory
comprise also such pictures of persons , things , places, and
early experiences as either possessed but little consciousness
and no psychic value at all, or have long ago lost both, and there
fore appear totally strange and unknown both in the dream and
in the waking state, until their former origin is revealed."
Volkelt 72 (p. 119 ) : " It is essentially noteworthy how
easily infantile and youthful reminiscences enter into the
dream . What we have long ceased to think about, what has
long since lost for us all importance, is constantly recalled by
the dream ."
The sway of the dream over the infantile material, which,
as is well known, mostly occupies the gaps in the conscious
memory, causes the origin of interesting hypermnestic dreams,
a few of which I shall here report.
12 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Maury 48 relates (p . 92) that as a child he often went from

his native city, Meaux, to the neighbouring Trilport, where
his father superintended the construction of a bridge. On a
certain night a dream transported him to Trilport, and he was
again playing in the city streets . A man approached him
wearing some sort of uniform . Maury asked him his name,
and he introduced himself, saying that his name was C
and that he was a bridge guard . On waking, Maury, who
still doubted the reality of the reminiscence, asked his old
servant, who had been with him in his childhood , whether she
66
remembered a man of this name. Certainly," was the
answer, " he used to be watchman on the bridge which your
father was building at that time."
Maury reports another example demonstrating just as
nicely the reliability of infantile reminiscences appearing in
dreams. Mr. F who had lived as a child in Montbrison,
decided to visit his home and old friends of his family after
an absence of twenty-five years. The night before his de
parture he dreamt that he had reached his destination , and
that he met near Montbrison a man, whom he did not know by
sight, who told him he was Mr. F., a friend of his father. The
dreamer remembered that as a child he had known a gentle
man of this name, but on waking he could no longer recall his
features. Several days later, having really arrived at Mont
brison, he found the supposedly unknown locality of his dream,
and there met a man whom he at once recognised as the Mr. F.
of his dream. The real person was only older than the one in
the dream picture.
I may here relate one of my own dreams in which the
remembered impression is replaced by an association . In my
dream I saw a person whom I recognised , while dreaming, as
the physician of my native town . The features were indistinct
and confused with the picture of one of my colleague teachers,
whom I still see occasionally. What association there was
between the two persons I could not discover on awakening .
But upon questioning my mother about the physician of my
early childhood, I discovered that he was a one-eyed man .
My teacher, whose figure concealed that of the physician in
the dream, was also one-eyed. I have not seen the physician
for thirty-eight years, and I have not to my knowledge thought
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 13

of him in my waking state, although a scar on my chin might

have reminded me of his help .
As if to counterbalance the immense rôle ascribed to the
infantile impressions in the dream, many authors assert that
the majority of dreams show elements from the most recent
time. Thus Robert 55 (p . 46 ) declares that the normal dream
generally occupies itself only with the impressions of the
recent days. We learn indeed that the theory of the dream
advanced by Robert imperatively demands that the old im
pressions should be pushed back, and the recent ones brought
to the front. Nevertheless the fact claimed by Robert really
exists ; I can confirm this from my own investigations.
Nelson ,50 an American author, thinks that the impressions most
frequently found in the dream date from two or three days
before, as if the impressions of the day immediately preceding
the dream were not sufficiently weakened and remote.
Many authors who are convinced of the intimate connec
tion between the dream content and the waking state are im
pressed by the fact that impressions which have intensely
occupied the waking mind appear in the dream only after they
have been to some extent pushed aside from the elaboration
of the waking thought. Thus, as a rule, we do not dream of a
dead beloved person while we are still overwhelmed with
sorrow. Still Miss Hallam,33 one of the latest observers, has
collected examples showing the very opposite behaviour, and
claims for the point the right of individual psychology.
The third and the most remarkable and incomprehensible
peculiarity of the memory in dreams, is shown in the selection
of the reproduced material, for stress is laid not only on the
most significant, but also on the most indifferent and super
ficial reminiscences . On this point I shall quote those authors
who have expressed their surprise in the most emphatic manner.
Hildebrandt 35 (p . 11 ) : " For it is a remarkable fact that
dreams do not, as a rule, take their elements from great and
deep-rooted events or from the powerful and urgent interests
of the preceding day, but from unimportant matters, from the
most worthless fragments of recent experience or of a more
remote past. The most shocking death in our family, the
impressions of which keep us awake long into the night, be
comes obliterated from our memories, until the first moment
14 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of awakening brings it back to us with depressing force. On

the other hand, the wart on the forehead of a passing stranger,
of whom we did not think for a second after he was out of sight,
plays its part in our dreams."
66
Strümpell 66 (p. 39) : ... such cases where the analysis
of a dream brings to light elements which, although derived
from events of the previous day or the day before the last,
yet prove to be so unimportant and worthless for the waking
state that they merge into forgetfulness shortly after coming
to light. Such occurrences may be statements of others
heard accidentally or actions superficially observed, or fleeting
perceptions of things or persons, or single phrases from
books, &c . "
Havelock Ellis 23 (p. 727) : " The profound emotions of
waking life, the questions and problems on which we spread
our chief voluntary mental energy, are not those which
usually present themselves at once to dream- consciousness.
It is, so far as the immediate past is concerned, mostly the
trifling, the incidental, the " forgotten " impressions of daily
life which reappear in our dreams. The psychic activities
that are awake most intensely are those that sleep most
profoundly."
4
Binz (p. 45 ) takes occasion from the above-mentioned
characteristics of the memory in dreams to express his dis
satisfaction with explanations of dreams which he himself
has approved of : " And the normal dream raises similar
questions. Why do we not always dream of memory im
pressions from the preceding days , instead of going back to
the almost forgotten past lying far behind us without any
perceptible reason ? Why in a dream does consciousness so
often revive the impression of indifferent memory pictures
while the cerebral cells bearing the most sensitive records of
experience remain for the most part inert and numb, unless an
acute revival during the waking state has shortly before excited
""
them ?
We can readily understand how the strange preference
of the dream memory for the indifferent and hence the
unnoticed details of daily experience must usually lead us
to overlook altogether the dependence of the dream on
the waking state, or at least make it difficult to prove this
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 15

dependence in any individual case. It thus happened that in

the statistical treatment of her own and her friend's dreams ,
Miss Whiton Calkins 12 found 11 per cent. of the entire number
that showed no relation to the waking state. Hildebrandt
was certainly correct in his assertion that all our dream
pictures could be genetically explained if we devoted enough
time and material to the tracing of their origin. To be sure,
he calls this " a most tedious and thankless job." For it
would at most lead us to ferret out all kinds of quite worthless
psychic material from the most remote corners of the memory
chamber, and to bring to light some very indifferent moments
from the remote past which were perhaps buried the next
hour after their appearance." I must, however, express my
regret that this discerning author refrained from following
the road whose beginning looked so unpromising ; it would
have led him directly to the centre of the dream problem.
The behaviour of the memory in dreams is surely most
significant for every theory of memory in general. It teaches
us that " nothing which we have once psychically possessed
is ever entirely lost " (Scholz 59) ; or as Delbœuf puts it, " que
toute impression même la plus insignifiante, laisse une trace
inaltérable , indéfiniment susceptible de reparaître au jour," a
conclusion to which we are urged by so many of the other
pathological manifestations of the psychic life. Let us now
bear in mind this extraordinary capability of the memory in
the dream, in order to perceive vividly the contradictions which
must be advanced in certain dream theories to be mentioned
later, when they endeavour to explain the absurdities and
incoherence of dreams through a partial forgetting of what
we have known during the day.
One might even think of reducing the phenomenon of
dreaming to that of memory, and of regarding the dream as the
manifestation of an activity of reproduction which does not
rest even at night, and which is an end in itself. Views like
those expressed by Pilcz 51 would corroborate this , according
to which intimate relations are demonstrable between the time
of dreaming and the contents of the dream from the fact
that the impressions reproduced by the dream in sound sleep
belong to the remotest past while those reproduced towards
morning are of recent origin. But such a conception is rendered
 16 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

improbable from the outset by the manner of the dream's

behaviour towards the material to be remembered . Strümpell 66
justly calls our attention to the fact that repetitions of ex
periences do not occur in the dream. To be sure the dream
makes an effort in that direction , but the next link is wanting,
or appears in changed form, or it is replaced by something
entirely novel . The dream shows only fragments of repro
duction ; this is so often the rule that it admits of theoretical
application . Still there are exceptions in which the dream
repeats an episode as thoroughly as our memory would in its
waking state. Delbœuf tells of one of his university colleagues
who in his dream repeated , with all its details, a dangerous
wagon ride in which he escaped accident as if by miracle.
Miss Calkins 12 mentions two dreams, the contents of which
exactly reproduced incidents from the day before, and I
shall later take occasion to report an example which came to
my notice, showing a childish experience which returned un
changed in a dream . *
(c) Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources.- What is meant
by dream stimuli and dream sources may be explained by
referring to the popular saying, " Dreams come from the
stomach." This notion conceals a theory which conceives
the dream as a result of a disturbance of sleep. We should
not have dreamed if some disturbing element had not arisen
in sleep, and the dream is the reaction from this disturbance.
The discussion of the exciting causes of dreams takes up
the most space in the descriptions of the authors . That this
problem could appear only after the dream had become an
object of biological investigation is self-evident. The ancients
who conceived the dream as a divine inspiration had no need
of looking for its exciting source ; to them the dream resulted
from the will of the divine or demoniacal powers, and its
content was the product of their knowledge or intention .
Science, however, soon raised the question whether the stimulus
to the dream is always the same, or whether it might be
manifold, and thus led to the question whether the causal
* From subsequent experience I am able to state that it is not at all rare
to find in dreams repetitions of harmless or unimportant occupations of the
waking state, such as packing trunks, preparing food, work in the kitchen, &c. ,
but in such dreams the dreamer himself emphasizes not the character but the
reality of the memory, " I have really done all this in the day time."
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 17

explanation of the dream belongs to psychology or rather to

physiology. Most authors seem to assume that the causes of the
disturbance of sleep , and hence the sources of the dream, might be
of various natures, and that physical as well as mental irritations
might assume the rôle of dream inciters . Opinions differ greatly
in preferring this or that one of the dream sources, in ranking
them, and indeed as to their importance for the origin of dreams.
Wherever the enumeration of dream sources is complete
we ultimately find four forms, which are also utilised for the
division of dreams : -
I. External (objective) sensory stimuli .
II. Internal (subjective) sensory stimuli.
III. Internal (organic) physical excitations.
IV. Purely psychical exciting sources .
I. The External Sensory Stimuli.-The younger Strümpell,
son of the philosopher whose writings on the subject have
already more than once served us as a guide in the problem
of dreams, has, as is well known, reported his observations on
a patient who was afflicted with general anesthesia of the
skin and with paralysis of several of the higher sensory organs.
This man merged into sleep when his few remaining sensory
paths from the outer world were shut off. When we wish to
sleep we are wont to strive for a situation resembling the
one in Strümpell's experiment. We close the most important
sensory paths, the eyes, and we endeavour to keep away from
the other senses every stimulus and every change of the
stimuli acting upon them. We then fall asleep , although we
are never perfectly successful in our preparations . We can
neither keep the stimuli away from the sensory organs
altogether, nor can we fully extinguish the irritability of the
sensory organs . That we may at any time be awakened by
stronger stimuli should prove to us " that the mind has re
mained in constant communication with the material world
even during sleep ." The sensory stimuli which reach us during
sleep may easily become the source of dreams.
There are a great many stimuli of such nature, ranging
from those that are unavoidable, being brought on by the
sleeping state or at least occasionally induced by it, to the
accidental waking stimuli which are adapted or calculated
to put an end to sleep. Thus a strong light may force itself
B
18 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

into the eyes, a noise may become perceptible, or some odori

ferous matter may irritate the mucous membrane of the nose.
In the spontaneous movements of sleep we may lay bare parts
of the body and thus expose them to a sensation of cold, or
through change of position we may produce sensations of
pressure and touch. A fly may bite us, or a slight accident at
night may simultaneously attack more than one sense. Ob
servers have called attention to a whole series of dreams in
which the stimulus verified on waking, and a part of the
dream content corresponded to such a degree that the stimulus
could be recognised as the source of the dream .
I shall here cite a number of such dreams collected by
Jessen 36 (p . 527) , traceable to more or less accidental objective
sensory stimuli. " Every indistinctly perceived noise gives
rise to corresponding dream pictures ; the rolling of thunder
takes us into the thick of battle, the crowing of a cock may be
transformed into human shrieks of terror, and the creaking of a
door may conjure up dreams of burglars breaking into the
house. When one of our blankets slips off at night we may
dream that we are walking about naked or falling into the
water. If we lie diagonally across the bed with our feet
extending beyond the edge, we may dream of standing on
the brink of a terrifying precipice, or of falling from a steep
height. Should our head accidentally get under the pillow
we may then imagine a big rock hanging over us and about to
crush us under its weight. Accumulation of semen produces
voluptuous dreams, and local pain the idea of suffering ill
treatment, of hostile attacks, or of accidental bodily injuries."
" Meier (Versuch einer Erklärung des Nachtwandelns, Halle,
1758, p . 33 ), once dreamed of being assaulted by several
persons who threw him flat on the ground and drove a stake
into the ground between his big and second toes. While
imagining this in his dream he suddenly awoke and felt a blade
of straw sticking between his toes. The same author, accord
ing to Hemmings (Von den Traumen und Nachtwandeln ,
Weimar, 1784, p . 258) dreamed on another occasion that he
was being hanged when his shirt was pinned somewhat tight
around his neck. Hauffbauer dreamed in his youth of having
fallen from a high wall and found upon waking that the bed
stead had come apart, and that he had actually fallen to the
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 19

floor. . . . Gregory relates that he once applied a hot-water

bottle to his feet, and dreamed of taking a trip to the summit
of Mount Etna, where he found the heat on the ground almost
unbearable. After having applied a blistering plaster to his
head, a second man dreamed of being scalped by Indians ; a
third, whose shirt was damp , dreamed of being dragged through
a stream. An attack of gout caused the patient to believe
that he was in the hands of the Inquisition, and suffering pains
of torture (Macnish) ."
The argument based upon the resemblance between
stimulus and dream content is reinforced if through a sys
tematic induction of stimuli we succeed in producing dreams
corresponding to the stimuli. According to Macnish such
experiments have already been made by Giron de Buzareingues.
" He left his knee exposed and dreamed of travelling in a
mail coach at night. He remarked in this connection that
travellers would well know how cold the knees become in a
coach at night. Another time he left the back of his head
uncovered , and dreamed of taking part in a religious ceremony
in the open air. In the country where he lived it was customary
to keep the head always covered except on such occasions."
Maury 48 reports new observations on dreams produced in
himself. (A number of other attempts produced no results .)
1. He was tickled with a feather on his lips and on the tip
of his nose . He dreamed of awful torture, viz. that a mask
of pitch was stuck to his face and then forcibly torn off,
taking the skin with it.
2. Scissors were sharpened on pincers. He heard bells
ringing, then sounds of alarm which took him back to the
June days of 1848.
3. Cologne water was put on his nose. He found himself
in Cairo in the shop of John Maria Farina. This was followed
by mad adventures which he was unable to reproduce.
4. His neck was lightly pinched . He dreamed that a
blistering plaster was put on him, and thought of a doctor
who treated him in his childhood .
5. A hot iron was brought near his face. He dreamed
that chauffeurs * broke into the house and forced the occupants
* Chauffeurs were bands of robbers in the Vendée who resorted to this
form of torture.
20 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

to give up their money by sticking their feet into burning

coals. The Duchess of Abrantés, whose secretary he imagined
himself in the dream, then entered.
6. A drop of water was let fall on his forehead . He
imagined himself in Italy perspiring heavily and drinking
white wine of Orvieto.
7. When a burning candle was repeatedly focussed on him
through red paper, he dreamed of the weather, of heat, and of a
storm at sea which he once experienced in the English Channel.
D'Hervey,34 Weygandt,75 and others have made other
attempts to produce dreams experimentally.
Many have observed the striking skill of the dream in
interweaving into its structure sudden impressions from the
outer world in such a manner as to present a gradually pre
"" In
pared and initiated catastrophe (Hildebrandt ) 35
former years ," this author relates , " I occasionally made use
of an alarm clock in order to wake regularly at a certain
hour in the morning. It probably happened hundreds of
times that the sound of this instrument fitted into an ap
parently very long and connected dream, as if the entire
dream had been especially designed for it, as if it found in
this sound its appropriate and logically indispensable point ,
its inevitable issue."
I shall cite three of these alarm-clock dreams for another
purpose.
Volkelt (p . 68) relates : " A composer once dreamed that
he was teaching school , and was just explaining something to
his pupils. He had almost finished when he turned to one
of the boys with the question : Did you understand me ? '
The boy cried out like one possessed ' Ya.' Annoyed at this ,
he reprimanded him for shouting. But now the entire class
was screaming ' Orya ,' then ' Euryo,' and finally ' Feueryo .'
He was now aroused by an actual alarm of fire in the street."
Garnier (Traité des Facultés de l'Âme, 1865) , reported by
Radestock,54 relates that Napoleon I. , while sleeping in a
carriage, was awakened from a dream by an explosion which
brought back to him the crossing of the Tagliamento and the
bombarding of the Austrians , so that he started up crying,
" We are undermined ! "
The following dream of Maury 48 has become celebrated .
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 21

He was sick, and remained in bed ; his mother sat beside

him. He then dreamed of the reign of terror at the time of
the Revolution . He took part in terrible scenes of murder,
and finally he himself was summoned before the Tribunal.
There he saw Robespierre, Marat, Fouquier-Tinville, and all
the sorry heroes of that cruel epoch ; he had to give an account
of himself, and, after all sort of incidents which did not fix
themselves in his memory, he was sentenced to death. Accom
panied by an enormous crowd, he was led to the place of
execution. He mounted the scaffold , the executioner tied him
to the board, it tipped , and the knife of the guillotine fell. He
felt his head severed from the trunk, and awakened in terrible
anxiety, only to find that the top piece of the bed had fallen
down, and had actually struck his cervical vertebra in the
same manner as the knife of a guillotine.
This dream gave rise to an interesting discussion introduced
by Le Lorrain 45 and Egger 20 in the Revue Philosophique.
The question was whether, and how, it was possible for the
dreamer to crowd together an amount of dream content
apparently so large in the short space of time elapsing between
the perception of the waking stimulus and the awakening.
Examples of this nature make it appear that the objective
stimuli during sleep are the most firmly established of all
the dream sources ; indeed, it is the only stimulus which plays
any part in the layman's knowledge. If we ask an educated
person, who is, however, unacquainted with the literature of
dreams, how dreams originate, he is sure to answer by referring
to a case familiar to him in which a dream has been explained
after waking by a recognised objective stimulus . Scientific
investigation cannot, however, stop here, but is incited to
further research by the observation that the stimulus in
fluencing the senses during sleep does not appear in the dream
at all in its true form , but is replaced by some other presenta
tion which is in some way related to it. But the relation
existing between the stimulus and the result of the dream is,
according to Maury,47 " une affinité quelconque mais qui n'est
pas unique et exclusive " (p . 72) . If we read , e.g. , three of
Hildebrandt's " Alarm Clock Dreams," we will then have to
inquire why the same stimulus evoked so many different
results, and why just these results and no others.
20 THE INTERPRETATION OF DRI

to give up their money by sticking their feet int pl

* d
coals. The Duchess of Abrantés , whose secretary he a 1
w la
1n
himself in the dream, then entered . d y 84
6. A drop of water was let fall on his for
imagined himself in Italy perspiring heavily an **L
white wine of Orvieto . •
7. When a burning candle was repeatedly focu 1.
through red paper, he dreamed of the weather, of h
storm at sea which he once experienced in the Engl
D'Hervey, 34 Weygandt,75 and others have
attempts to produce dreams experimentally.
Many have observed the striking skill of t
interweaving into its structure sudden impress
outer world in such a manner as to present a
pared and initiated catastrophe (Hildebra
former years ," this author relates, " I occasion
of an alarm clock in order to wake regularl
hour in the morning. It probably happene
times that the sound of this instrument fitt
parently very long and connected dream, &
dream had been especially designed for it, a
this sound its appropriate and logically ind
its inevitable issue."
I shall cite three of these alarm-clock dr.
purpose.
Volkelt (p . 68) relates : " A composer o
he was teaching school , and was just explai
his pupils. He had almost finished when
of the boys with the question : ' Did you
The boy cried out like one possessed ' Ya.' X
he reprimanded him for shouting . But n is
was screaming ' Orya,' then ' Euryo ,' and an
He was now aroused by an actual alarm of and
Garnier (Traité des Facultés de l'Âme. and
Radestock,54 relates that Napoleon I. , notice
carriage, was awakened from a dream by z but
brought back to him the crossing of the comes
bombarding of the Austrians , so that 1
" We are undermined ! " nature
wered by
The following dream of Maury 48 h
 OF THE DREAM 23
RATU DRE
RE OF THE AM
6 to the effect
r mul
nd emained in bed ; his ere
t muli in sleep
sensory im
ramed of the reign of to wk Ho
rpreted , i.e. it
He took part in terrible waves
s ongs according
imself was ummoned befom
A s strong, clear,
Tespierre, Marat , F
ary time at our
that cruel epoch
s are not fulfilled ,
er all sort of necr
e impression, and
mory. he was
akes a walk in an
Vous crow .
ant object, it may
Hi the eat ! horse." On closer
IC P y obtrude itself, and
if with certainty into
sions which the mind
imuli are of a similar
› illusions because the
er number of memory
ion receives its psychic
es of memory to be taken
ng pictures are aroused,
Cation connections thereby
ding to Strümpell, remains
were, to the caprice of the

ce. We may admit that the

cannot really be traced any
rom asking whether or not the
voked by the sensory impression
itions ; or we may suppose that
is encroaching upon sleep plays
am source , and that other factors
e memory picture to be evoked .
g Maury's experimentally produced
Dosely reported in detail , one is apt
ent really explains the origin of only
its , and that the rest of the dream
oo independent , too much determined
1 by the one demand , viz. that it must
it experimentally introduced . Indeed
22 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

(P. 37). “ I am taking a walk on a beautiful spring morning .

I saunter through the green fields to a neighbouring village,
where I see the natives going to church in great numbers ,
wearing their holiday attire and carrying their hymn-books
under their arms. I remember that it is Sunday, and that
the morning service will soon begin. I decide to attend it,
but as I am somewhat overheated I also decide to cool off
in the cemetery surrounding the church. While reading the
various epitaphs, I hear the sexton ascend the tower and see the
small village bell in the cupola which is about to give signal for
the beginning of the devotions. For another short while it
hangs motionless, then it begins to swing, and suddenly its
notes resound so clearly and penetratingly that my sleep
comes to an end. But the sound of bells comes from the
alarm clock. ”
" A second combination. It is a clear day, the streets are
covered with deep snow. I have promised to take part in a
sleigh-ride, but have had to wait for some time before it was
announced that the sleigh is in front of my house. The
preparations for getting into the sleigh are now made. I put
on my furs and adjust my muff, and at last I am in my place .
But the departure is still delayed, until the reins give the
impatient horses the perceptible sign. They start, and the
sleigh bells, now forcibly shaken, begin their familiar janizary
music with a force that instantly tears the gossamer of my
dream . Again it is only the shrill sound of my alarm clock."
Still a third example. " I see the kitchen-maid walk along
the corridor to the dining-room with several dozen plates
piled up . The porcelain column in her arms seems to me to
be in danger of losing its equilibrium . 'Take care,' I ex
claim , ' you will drop the whole pile.' The usual retort is
naturally not wanting-that she is used to such things. Mean
while I continue to follow her with my worried glance, and
behold ! at the door-step the fragile dishes fall, tumble, and
roll across the floor in hundreds of pieces. But I soon notice
that the noise continuing endlessly is not really a rattling but
a true ringing, and with this ringing the dreamer now becomes
aware that the alarm clock has done its duty."
The question why the dreaming mind misjudges the nature
of the objective sensory stimulus has been answered by
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 23

Strümpell , 66 and almost identically by Wundt, 76 to the effect

that the reaction of the mind to the attacking stimuli in sleep
is determined by the formation of illusions. A sensory im
pression is recognised by us and correctly interpreted, i.e. it
is classed with the memory group to which it belongs according
to all previous experience, if the impression is strong, clear,
and long enough, and if we have the necessary time at our
disposal for this reflection . If these conditions are not fulfilled ,
we mistake the objects which give rise to the impression, and
on its basis we form an illusion. " If one takes a walk in an
open field and perceives indistinctly a distant object, it may
happen that he will at first take it for a horse ." On closer
inspection the image of a cow resting may obtrude itself, and
the presentation may finally resolve itself with certainty into
a group of people sitting. The impressions which the mind
receives during sleep through outer stimuli are of a similar
indistinct nature ; they give rise to illusions because the
impression evokes a greater or lesser number of memory
pictures through which the impression receives its psychic
value. In which of the many spheres of memory to be taken
into consideration the corresponding pictures are aroused ,
and which of the possible association connections thereby
come into force, this , even according to Strümpell, remains
indeterminable , and is left , as it were, to the caprice of the
psychic life.
We may here take our choice. We may admit that the
laws of the dream formation cannot really be traced any
further, and therefore refrain from asking whether or not the
interpretation of the illusion evoked by the sensory impression
depends upon still other conditions ; or we may suppose that
the objective sensory stimulus encroaching upon sleep plays
only a modest part as a dream source, and that other factors
determine the choice of the memory picture to be evoked .
Indeed, on carefully examining Maury's experimentally produced
dreams, which I have purposely reported in detail, one is apt
to think that the experiment really explains the origin of only
one of the dream elements, and that the rest of the dream
content appears in fact too independent, too much determined
in detail, to be explained by the one demand, viz. that it must
agree with the element experimentally introduced . Indeed
24 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

one even begins to doubt the illusion theory, and the power of
the objective impression to form the dream, when one learns
that this impression at times experiences the most peculiar
and far-fetched interpretations during the sleeping state.
Thus B. M. Simon 63 tells of a dream in which he saw persons
of gigantic stature * seated at a table, and heard distinctly the
awful rattling produced by the impact of their jaws while
chewing. On waking he heard the clacking of the hoofs of a
horse galloping past his window. If the noise of the horse's
hoofs had recalled ideas from the memory sphere of " Gulliver's
Travels," the sojourn with the giants of Brobdingnag and the
virtuous horse-creatures-as I should perhaps interpret it
without any assistance on the author's part should not the
choice of a memory sphere so uncommon for the stimulus have
some further illumination from other motives ?
II. Internal (Subjective) Sensory Stimuli.-Notwithstanding
all objections to the contrary, we must admit that the rôle of
the objective sensory stimuli as a producer of dreams has been
indisputably established, and if these stimuli seem perhaps
insufficient in their nature and frequency to explain all dream
pictures , we are then directed to look for other dream sources
acting in an analogous manner. I do not know where the
idea originated that along with the outer sensory stimuli the
inner (subjective) stimuli should also be considered, but as a
matter of fact this is done more or less fully in all the more
recent descriptions of the etiology of dreams . "An important
part is played in dream illusions," says Wundt 36 (p. 363) ,
66
by those subjective sensations of seeing and hearing which
are familiar to us in the waking state as a luminous chaos in
the dark field of vision , ringing , buzzing, &c . , of the ears, and
especially irritation of the retina. This explains the remark
able tendency of the dream to delude the eyes with numbers of
similar or identical objects. Thus we see spread before our eyes
numberless birds, butterflies , fishes, coloured beads, flowers , &c .
Here the luminous dust in the dark field of vision has taken on
phantastic figures, and the many luminous points of which it
consists are embodied by the dream in as many single pictures ,
which are looked upon as moving objects owing to the mobility
* Gigantic persons in a dream justify the assumption that it deals with
a scene from the dreamer's childhood.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 25

of the luminous chaos. This is also the root of the great

fondness of the dream for the most complex animal figures,
the multiplicity of forms readily following the form of the
subjective light pictures."
The subjective sensory stimuli as a source of the dream
have the obvious advantage that unlike the objective stimuli
they are independent of external accidents . They are, so to
speak, at the disposal of the explanation as often as it needs
them . They are, however, in so far inferior to the objective
sensory stimuli that the rôle of dream inciter, which observa
tion and experiment have proven for the latter, can be verified
in their case only with difficulty or not at all . The main proof
for the dream-inciting power of subjective sensory excitements
is offered by the so-called hypnogogic hallucinations, which
have been described by John Müller as " phantastic visual
manifestations ." They are those very vivid and changeable
pictures which occur regularly in many people during the
period of falling asleep , and which may remain for awhile even
after the eyes have been opened . Maury,48 who was consider
ably troubled by them, subjected them to a thorough study,
and maintained that they are related to or rather identical
with dream pictures- this has already been asserted by John
Müller. Maury states that a certain psychic passivity is
necessary for their origin ; it requires a relaxation of the tension
of attention (p . 59) . But in any ordinary disposition a hypno
gogic hallucination may be produced by merging for a second
into such lethargy, after which one perhaps awakens until this
oft-repeated process terminates in sleep . According to Maury,
if one awakens shortly thereafter, it is often possible to demon
strate the same pictures in the dream which one has perceived
as hypnogogic hallucinations before falling asleep (p . 134) .
Thus it once happened to Maury with a group of pictures of
grotesque figures, with distorted features and strange head
dresses, which obtruded themselves upon him with incredible
importunity during the period of falling asleep, and which
he recalled having dreamed upon awakening. On another
occasion, while suffering from hunger, because he kept himself
on a rather strict diet, he saw hypnogogically a plate and a
hand armed with a fork taking some food from the plate. In
his dream he found himself at a table abundantly supplied with
26 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

food , and heard the rattle made by the diners with their forks .
On still another occasion, after falling asleep with irritated
and painful eyes, he had the hypnogogic hallucination of
seeing microscopically small characters which he was forced
to decipher one by one with great exertion ; having been
awakened from his sleep an hour later, he recalled a dream
in which there was an open book with very small letters , which
he was obliged to read through with laborious effort.
Just as in the case of these pictures, auditory hallucinations
of words, names, &c. , may also appear hypnogogically, and
then repeat themselves in the dream , like an overture announc
ing the principal motive of the opera which is to follow.
A more recent observer of hypnogogic hallucinations ,
G. Trumbull Ladd, ⁰ takes the same path pursued by John
Müller and Maury. By dint of practice he succeeded in
acquiring the faculty of suddenly arousing himself, without
opening his eyes, two to five minutes after having gradually
fallen asleep, which gave him opportunity to compare the
sensations of the retina just vanishing with the dream pictures
remaining in his memory. He assures us that an intimate
relation between the two can always be recognised, in the
sense that the luminous dots and lines of the spontaneous light
of the retina produced, so to speak, the sketched outline or
scheme for the psychically perceived dream figures . A dream,
e.g. , in which he saw in front of him clearly printed lines which
he read and studied , corresponded to an arrangement of the
luminous dots and lines in the retina in parallel lines, or, to
express it in his own words : " The clearly printed page,
which he was reading in the dream , resolved itself into an
object which appeared to his waking perception like part of an
actual printed sheet looked at through a little hole in a piece
of paper, from too great a distance to be made out distinctly."
Without in any way under-estimating the central part of the
phenomenon, Ladd believes that hardly any visual dream
occurs in our minds that is not based on material furnished
by this inner condition of stimulation in the retina. This is
particularly true of dreams occurring shortly after falling asleep
in a dark room , while dreams occurring in the morning near the
period of awakening receive their stimulation from the ob
jective light penetrating the eye from the lightened room .
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 27

The shifting and endlessly variable character of the spon

taneous luminous excitation of the retina corresponds exactly
to the fitful succession of pictures presented to us in our
dreams. If we attach any importance to Ladd's observations ,
we cannot underrate the productiveness of this subjective
source of excitation for the dream ; for visual pictures ap
parently form the principal constituent of our dreams. The
share furnished from the spheres of the other senses, beside
the sense of hearing, is more insignificant and inconstant.
III. Internal (Organic) Physical Excitation.- If we are dis
posed to seek dream sources not outside, but inside, the
organism, we must remember that almost all our internal
organs, which in their healthy state hardly remind us of their
existence, may, in states of excitation-as we call them-or
in disease, become for us a source of the most painful sensa
tions, which must be put on an equality with the external
excitants of the pain and sensory stimuli . It is on the strength
of very old experience that, e.g., Strümpell 66 declares that
66
during sleep the mind becomes far more deeply and broadly
conscious of its connection with the body than in the waking
state, and it is compelled to receive and be influenced by
stimulating impressions originating in parts and changes of the
body of which it is unconscious in the waking state." Even
Aristotle declares it quite possible that the dream should
draw our attention to incipient morbid conditions which we
have not noticed at all in the waking state (owing to the
exaggeration given by the dream to the impressions ; and
some medical authors, who were certainly far from believing
in any prophetic power of the dream, have admitted this
significance of the dream at least for the foretelling of disease.
(Compare M. Simon , p. 31 , and many older authors . )
Even in our times there seems to be no lack of authenticated
examples of such diagnostic performances on the part of the
dream . Thus Tissié 68 cites from Artigues (Essai sur la Valeur
séméiologique des Réves), the history of a woman of forty-three
years, who, during several years of apparently perfect health ,
was troubled with anxiety dreans, and in whom medical
examination later disclosed an incipient affection of the heart
to which she soon succumbed.
Serious disturbances of the internal organs apparently act
28 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

as inciters of dreams in a considerable number of persons.

Attention is quite generally called to the frequency of anxiety
dreams in the diseases of the heart and lungs ; indeed this
relation of the dream life is placed so conspicuously in the
foreground by many authors that I shall here content myself
with a mere reference to the literature . (Radestock,54 Spitta , 64
Maury, M. Simon , Tissié. ) Tissié even assumes that the
diseased organs impress upon the dream content their char
acteristic features . The dreams of persons suffering from
diseases of the heart are generally very brief and terminate
in a terrified awakening ; the situation of death under terrible
circumstances almost always plays a part in their content .
Those suffering from diseases of the lungs dream of suffocation,
of being crowded , and of flight , and a great many of them are
subject to the well-known nightmare, which , by the way,
Boerner has succeeded in producing experimentally by lying
on the face and closing up the openings of the respiratory
organs. In digestive disturbances the dream contains ideas
from the sphere of enjoyment and disgust . Finally, the
influence of sexual excitement on the dream content is per
ceptible enough in every one's experience, and lends the strongest
support to the entire theory of the dream excitation through
organic sensation .
Moreover, as we go through the literature of the dream ,
it becomes quite obvious that some of the authors (Maury,48
Weygandt 75) have been led to the study of dream problems
by the influence of their own pathological state on the content
of their dreams .
The addition to dream sources from these undoubtedly
established facts is, however, not as important as one might
be led to suppose ; for the dream is a phenomenon which
occurs in healthy persons- perhaps in all persons , and every
night and a pathological state of the organs is apparently
not one of its indispensable conditions . For us , however,
the question is not whence particular dreams originate, but
what may be the exciting source for the ordinary dreams of
normal persons .
But we need go only a step further to find a dream source
which is more prolific than any of those mentioned above,
which indeed promises to be inexhaustible in every case. If
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 29

it is established that the bodily organs become in sickness

an exciting source of dreams , and if we admit that the mind ,
diverted during sleep from the outer world , can devote more
attention to the interior of the body, we may readily assume
that the organs need not necessarily become diseased in order
to permit stimuli, which in some way or other grow into
dream pictures, to reach the sleeping mind. What in the
waking state we broadly perceive as general sensation , distin
guishable by its quality alone, to which, in the opinion of the
physicians, all the organic systems contribute their shares
this general sensation at night attaining powerful efficiency
and becoming active with its individual components - would
naturally furnish the most powerful as well as the most common
source for the production of the dream presentations . It still
remains, however, to examine according to what rule the
organic sensations become transformed into dream presenta
tions.
The theory of the origin of dreams just stated has been the
favourite with all medical authors. The obscurity which
conceals the essence of our being-the " moi splanchnique," as
Tissié terms it-from our knowledge and the obscurity of the
origin of the dream correspond too well not to be brought into
relation with each other. The train of thought which makes
organic sensation the inciter of the dream has besides another
attraction for the physician , inasmuch as it favours the etio
logical union of the dream and mental diseases, which show so
many agreements in their manifestations, for alterations in
the organic sensations and excitations emanating from the
inner organs are both of wide significance in the origin of the
psychoses. It is therefore not surprising that the theory of
bodily sensation can be traced to more than one originator
who has propounded it independently.
A number of authors have been influenced by the train
of ideas developed by the philosopher Schopenhauer in 1851 .
Our conception of the universe originates through the fact
that our intellect recasts the impressions coming to it from
without in the moulds of time, space, and causality. The
sensations from the interior of the organism, proceeding from
the sympathetic nervous system, exert in the day-time an
influence on our mood for the most part unconscious. At
30 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

night, however, when the overwhelming influence of the

day's impressions is no longer felt, the impressions pressing
upward from the interior are able to gain attention-just as
in the night we hear the rippling of the spring that was rendered
inaudible by the noise of the day. In what other way, then,
could the intellect react upon these stimuli than by performing
its characteristic function ? It will transform the stimuli
into figures, filling space and time, which move at the beginning
of causality ; and thus the dream originates. Scherner,58
and after him Volkelt, attempted to penetrate into closer
relations between physical sensations and dream pictures ;
but we shall reserve the discussion of these attempts for the
chapter on the theory of the dream.
In a study particularly logical in its development , the
psychiatrist Krauss 39 found the origin of the dream as well
as of deliria and delusions in the same element , viz. the
organically determined sensation. According to this author
there is hardly a place in the organism which might not become
the starting point of a dream or of a delusion . Now organically
determined sensations " may be divided into two classes :
(1) those of the total feeling (general sensations) , (2) specific
sensations which are inherent in the principal systems of the
vegetative organism , which may be divided into five groups :
(a) the muscular, (b ) the pneumatic, (c) the gastric , (d) the
sexual, (e) the peripheral sensations (p. 33 of the second article)."
The origin of the dream picture on the basis of the physical
sensations is conceived by Krauss as follows : The awakened
sensation evokes a presentation related to it in accordance
with some law of association, and combines with this , thus
forming an organic structure, towards which, however, con
sciousness does not maintain its normal attitude. For it does
not bestow any attention on the sensation itself, but concerns
itself entirely with the accompanying presentation ; this is
likewise the reason why the state of affairs in question should
have been so long misunderstood (p. 11 , &c . ) . Krauss finds
for this process the specific term of " transubstantiation of the
feeling into dream pictures " (p . 24).
That the organic bodily sensations exert some influence on
the formation of the dream is nowadays almost universally
acknowledged, but the question as to the law underlying the
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 31

relation between the two is answered in various ways and

often in obscure terms . On the basis of the theory of bodily
excitation the special task of dream interpretation is to trace
back the content of a dream to the causative organic stimulus ,
and if we do not recognise the rules of interpretation advanced
by Scherner,58 we frequently find ourselves confronted with
the awkward fact that the organic exciting source reveals
itself in the content of the dream only.
A certain agreement, however, is manifested in the inter
pretation of the various forms of dreams which have been
designated as " typical " because they recur in so many persons
with almost the same contents . Among these are the well
known dreams of falling from heights, of the falling out of
teeth, of flying , and of embarrassment because of being naked
or barely clad. This last dream is said to be caused simply
by the perception felt in sleep that one has thrown off the bed
cover and is exposed . The dream of the falling out of teeth is
explained by " dental irritation," which does not, however, of
necessity imply a morbid state of excitation in the teeth.
According to Strümpell, the flying dream is the adequate
picture used by the mind to interpret the sum of excitation
emanating from the rising and sinking of the pulmonary lobes
after the cutaneous sensation of the thorax has been reduced
to insensibility. It is this latter circumstance that causes a
sensation related to the conception of flying. Falling from
a height in a dream is said to have its cause in the fact that
when unconsciousness of the sensation of cutaneous pressure
has set in, either an arm falls away from the body or a flexed
knee is suddenly stretched out, causing the feeling of cutaneous
pressure to return to consciousness, and the transition to
consciousness embodies itself psychically as a dream of falling.
(Strümpell , p. 118) . The weakness of these plausible attempts
at explanation evidently lies in the fact that without any
further elucidation they allow this or that group of organic
sensations to disappear from psychic perception or to obtrude
themselves upon it until the constellation favourable for the
explanation has been established . I shall, however, later
have occasion to recur to typical dreams and to their origin .
From comparison of a series of similar dreams , M. Simon 63
endeavoured to formulate certain rules for the influence of the
32 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

organic sensations on the determination of the resulting dream .

He says (p . 34) : " If any organic apparatus, which during
sleep normally participates in the expression of an affect, for
any reason merges into the state of excitation to which it is
usually aroused by that affect, the dream thus produced will
contain presentations which fit the affect."
Another rule reads as follows (p . 35) : " If an organic
apparatus is in a state of activity, excitation, or disturbance
during sleep, the dream will bring ideas which are related to
the exercise of the organic function which is performed by
that apparatus."
Mourly Vold 73 has undertaken to prove experimentally
the influence assumed by the theory of bodily sensation for a
single territory. He has made experiments in altering the
positions of the sleeper's limbs, and has compared the resulting
dream with his alterations. As a result he reports the following
theories :
1. The position of a limb in a dream corresponds approxi
mately to that of reality, i.e. we dream of a static condition of
the limb which corresponds to the real condition.
2. When one dreams of a moving limb it always happens
that one of the positions occurring in the execution of this
movement corresponds to the real position .
3. The position of one's own limb may be attributed in the
dream to another person.
4. One may dream further that the movement in question
is impeded .
5. The limb in any particular position may appear in the
dream as an animal or monster, in which case a certain analogy
between the two is established .
6. The position of a limb may incite in the dream ideas.
which bear some relation or other to this limb. Thus, e.g. ,
if we are employed with the fingers we dream of numerals .
Such results would lead me to conclude that even the
theory of bodily sensation cannot fully extinguish the apparent
freedom in the determination of the dream picture to be
awakened. *

* The first volume of this Norwegian author, containing a complete de

scription of dreams, has recently appeared in German. See Index of
Literature, No. 74 a.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 33

IV. Psychic Exciting Sources .- In treating the relations of

the dream to the waking life and the origin of the dream
material, we learned that the earliest as well as the latest
investigators agreed that men dream of what they are doing
in the day-time, and of what they are interested in during the
waking state. This interest continuing from waking life into
sleep, besides being a psychic tie joining the dream to life, also
furnishes us a dream source not to be under-estimated , which,
taken with those stimuli which become interesting and active
during sleep, suffices to explain the origin of all dream pictures .
But we have also heard the opposite of the above assertion ,
viz. that the dream takes the sleeper away from the interests
of the day, and that in most cases we do not dream of things
that have occupied our attention during the day until after
they have lost for the waking life the stimulus of actuality.
Hence in the analysis of the dream life we are reminded at
every step that it is inadmissible to frame general rules without
making provision for qualifications expressed by such terms
," " as a rule," " in most cases," and without
as " frequently,"
preparing for the validity of the exceptions .
If the conscious interest, together with the inner and outer
sleep stimuli, sufficed to cover the etiology of the dreams, we
ought to be in a position to give a satisfactory account of the
origin of all the elements of a dream ; the riddle of the dream
sources would thus be solved , leaving only the task of separat
ing the part played by the psychic and the somatic dream stimuli
in individual dreams. But as a matter of fact no such com
plete solution of a dream has ever been accomplished in any
case, and, what is more, every one attempting such solution
has found that in most cases there have remained a great
many components of the dream, the source of which he was
unable to explain. The daily interest as a psychic source of
dreams is evidently not far-reaching enough to justify the
confident assertions to the effect that we all continue our
waking affairs in the dream.
Other psychic sources of dreams are unknown. Hence ,
with the exception perhaps of the explanation of dreams given
by Scherner,58 which will be referred to later, all explanations
found in the literature show a large gap when we come to the
derivation of the material for the presentation pictures, which
C
34 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

is most characteristic for the dream. In this dilemma the

majority of authors have developed a tendency to depreciate
as much as possible the psychic factor in the excitations of
dreams which is so difficult to approach. To be sure, they
distinguish as a main division of dreams the nerve-exciting
and the association dreams, and assert that the latter has its
source exclusively in reproduction (Wundt, 76 p . 365) , but they
cannot yet dismiss the doubt whether " they do not appear
without being impelled by the psychical stimulus " (Volkelt , 72
p. 127) . The characteristic quality of the pure association
dream is also found wanting. To quote Volkelt (p . 118 ) : " In
the association dreams proper we can no longer speak of such
a firm nucleus. Here the loose grouping penetrates also into
the centre of the dream. The ideation which is already set
free from reason and intellect is here no longer held together
by the more important psychical and mental stimuli, but is
left to its own aimless shifting and complete confusion."
Wundt, too, attempts to depreciate the psychic factor in the
stimulation of dreams by declaring that the " phantasms of
the dream certainly are unjustly regarded as pure hallucina
tions , and that probably most dream presentations are really
illusions , inasmuch as they emanate from slight sensory im
pressions which are never extinguished during sleep " (p.
338, &c.). Weygandt 75 agrees with this view, but generalises
it. He asserts that " the first source of all dream presentations
is a sensory stimulus to which reproductive associations are
then joined " (p . 17 ) . Tissié 68 goes still further in repressing
the psychic exciting sources (p. 183 ) : " Les rêves d'origine
absolument psychique n'existent pas " ; and elsewhere (p . 6),
" Les pensées de nos rêves nous viennent de dehors
Those authors who , like the influential philosopher Wundt ,
adopt a middle course do not fail to remark that in most
dreams there is a co-operation of the somatic stimuli with
the psychic instigators of the dream, the latter being either
unknown or recognised as day interests.
We shall learn later that the riddle of the dream formation
can be solved by the disclosure of an unsuspected psychic
source of excitement. For the present we shall not be surprised
at the over-estimation of those stimuli for the formation of
the dream which do not originate from psychic life. It is
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 35

not merely because they alone can easily be found and even
confirmed by experiment, but the somatic conception of the
origin of dreams thoroughly corresponds to the mode of
thinking in vogue nowadays in psychiatry. Indeed , the
mastery of the brain over the organism is particularly em
phasized ; but everything that might prove an independence
of the psychic life from the demonstrable organic changes , or a
spontaneity in its manifestations, is alarming to the psychiatrist
nowadays, as if an acknowledgment of the same were bound to
bring back the times of natural philosophy and the meta
physical conception of the psychic essence. The distrust of
the psychiatrist has placed the psyche under a guardian, so
to speak, and now demands that none of its feelings shall
divulge any of its own faculties ; but this attitude shows slight
confidence in the stability of the causal concatenation which
extends between the material and the psychic. Even where
on investigation the psychic can be recognised as the primary
course of a phenomenon, a more profound penetration will
some day succeed in finding a continuation of the path to the
organic determination of the psychic. But where the psychic
must be taken as the terminus for our present knowledge, it
should not be denied on that account.
(d) Why the Dream is Forgotten after Awakening.—That the
dream " fades away " in the morning is proverbial. To be
sure, it is capable of recollection . For we know the dream
only by recalling it after awakening ; but very often we
believe that we remember it only incompletely, and that
during the night there was more of it ; we can observe how
the memory of a dream which has been still vivid in the
morning vanishes in the course of the day, leaving only a few
small fragments ; we often know that we have been dreaming,
but we do not know what ; and we are so well used to the
fact that the dream is liable to be forgotten that we do not
reject as absurd the possibility that one may have been
dreaming even when one knows nothing in the morning of
either the contents or the fact of dreaming. On the other hand,
it happens that dreams manifest an extraordinary retentive
ness in the memory. I have had occasion to analyse with my
patients dreams which had occurred to them twenty-five
years or more previously, and I can remember a dream of
36 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

own which is separated from the present day by at least thirty

seven years, and yet has lost nothing of its freshness in my
memory. All this is very remarkable, and for the present
incomprehensible.
The forgetting of dreams is treated in the most detailed
manner by Strümpell.66 This forgetting is evidently a complex
phenomenon ; for Strümpell does not explain it by a single
reason, but by a considerable number of reasons .
In the first place , all those factors which produce forgetful
ness in the waking state are also determinant for the forgetting
of dreams. When awake we are wont soon to forget a large
number of sensations and perceptions because they are too
feeble, and because they are connected with a slight amount
of emotional feeling. This is also the case with many dream
pictures ; they are forgotten because they are too weak, while
stronger pictures in proximity will be remembered . Moreover,
the factor of intensity in itself is not the only determinant
for the preservation of the dream pictures ; Strümpell, as well
as other authors (Calkins) , admits that dream pictures are
often rapidly forgotten, although they are known to have been
vivid, whereas among those that are retained in memory
there are many that are very shadowy and hazy. Besides, in
the waking state one is wont to forget easily what happened
only once, and to note more easily things of repeated occurrence.
But most dream pictures are single experiences , * and this
peculiarity equally contributes towards the forgetting of all
dreams. Of greater significance is a third motive for forgetting.
In order that feelings, presentations, thoughts and the like ,
should attain a certain degree of memory, it is important that
they should not remain isolated, but that they should enter
into connections and associations of a suitable kind . If the
words of a short verse are taken and mixed together, it will be
very difficult to remember them. " When well arranged in
suitable sequence one word will help another, and the whole
remains as sense easily and firmly in the memory for a long
time. Contradictions we usually retain with just as much
difficulty and rarity as things confused and disarranged ."
Now dreams in most cases lack sense and order. Dream

* Periodically recurrent dreams have been observed repeatedly. Cf.

the collection of Chabaneix.11
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 37

compositions are by their very nature incapable of being

remembered, and they are forgotten because they usually
crumble together the very next moment. To be sure, these
conclusions are not in full accord with the observation of
Radestock 54 (p . 168) , that we retain best just those dreams
which are most peculiar .
According to Strümpell, there are still other factors effective
in the forgetting of dreams which are derived from the relation
of the dream to the waking state. The forgetfulness of the
waking consciousness for dreams is evidently only the counter
part of the fact already mentioned , that the dream (almost )
never takes over successive memories from the waking state,
but only certain details of these memories which it tears away
from the habitual psychic connections in which they are re
called while we are awake. The dream composition, therefore,
has no place in the company of psychic successions which fill
the mind. It lacks all the aids of memory. " In this manner
the dream structure rises , as it were, from the soil of our
psychic life, and floats in psychic space like a cloud in the sky,
which the next breath of air soon dispels " (p. 87). This is
also aided by the fact that, upon awakening, the attention is
immediately seized by the inrushing sensory world, and only
very few dream pictures can withstand this power. They fade
away before the impressions of the new day like the glow of
the stars before the sunlight .
As a last factor favouring the forgetting of dreams, we may
mention the fact that most people generally take little interest
in their dreams . One who investigates dreams for a time,
and takes a special interest in them, usually dreams more
during that time than at any other ; that is, he remembers
his dreams more easily and more frequently .
Two other reasons for the forgetting of dreams added by
Bonatelli (given by Benini ³) to those of Strümpell have already
been included in the latter ; namely, ( 1 ) that the change of the
general feeling between the sleeping and waking states is un
favourable to the mutual reproductions, and ( 2) that the
different arrangement of the presentation material in the
dream makes the dream untranslatable, so to speak, for the
waking consciousness.
It is the more remarkable, as Strümpell observes , that, in
38 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

spite of all these reasons for forgetting the dream, so many

dreams are retained in memory. The continued efforts of the
authors to formulate laws for the remembering of dreams
amounts to an admission that here too there is something
puzzling and unsolved. Certain peculiarities relating to the
memory of dreams have been particularly noticed of late, e.g.,
that a dream which is considered forgotten in the morning may
be recalled in the course of the day through a perception
which accidentally touches the forgotten content of the dream
(Radestock,54 Tissió 68). The entire memory of the dream is
open to an objection calculated to depreciate its value very
markedly in critical eyes. One may doubt whether our
memory, which omits so much from the dream, does not falsify
what it retained .
Such doubts relating to the exactness of the reproduction
of the dream are expressed by Strümpell when he says : " It
therefore easily happens that the active consciousness in
voluntarily inserts much in recollection of the dream ; one
imagines one has dreamt all sorts of things which the actual
dream did not contain."
Jessen 36 (p . 547) expresses himself very decidedly : " More
over we must not lose sight of the fact, hitherto little heeded,
that in the investigation and interpretation of orderly and
logical dreams we almost always play with the truth when we
recall a dream to memory. Unconsciously and unwittingly
we fill up the gaps and supplement the dream pictures . Rarely,
and perhaps never, has a connected dream been as connected
as it appears to us in memory. Even the most truth-loving
person can hardly relate a dream without exaggerating and
embellishing it. The tendency of the human mind to conceive
everything in connection is so great that it unwittingly supplies
the deficiencies of connection if the dream is recalled somewhat
disconnectedly ."
The observations of V. Eggers ,20 though surely inde
pendently conceived , sound almost like a translation of Jessen's
words : " • • L'observation des rêves a ses difficultés spéciales
et le seul moyen d'éviter toute erreur en pareille matière est de
confier au papier sans le moindre retard ce que l'on vient
d'éprouver et de remarquer ; sinon, l'oubli vient vite ou total
ou partiel ; l'oubli total est sans gravité ; mais l'oubli partiel
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 41

exclusively, in visual pictures . It also makes use of auditory

pictures, and to a lesser extent of the impressions of the other
senses. Much is also simply thought or imagined (probably
represented by remnants of word presentations ), just as in
the waking state. But still what is characteristic for the
dream is only those elements of the content which act like
pictures, i.e. which resemble more the perceptions than
the memory presentations . Disregarding all the discussions
concerning the nature of hallucinations, familiar to every
psychiatrist, we can say, with all well-versed authors, that the
dream hallucinates, that is , replaces thoughts through hallucina
tions . In this respect there is no difference between visual
and acoustic presentations ; it has been noticed that the
memory of a succession of sounds with which one falls asleep
becomes transformed while sinking into sleep into an hallucina
tion of the same melody, so as to make room again on awaken
ing, which may repeatedly alternate with falling into a slumber,
for the softer memory presentations which are differently
formed in quality.
The transformation of an idea into an hallucination is not
the only deviation of the dream from a waking thought which
perhaps corresponds to it. From these pictures the dream
forms a situation, it presents something in the present, it
dramatises an idea, as Spitta 64 (p . 145) puts it. * But the
characteristic of this side of the dream life becomes complete
only when it is remembered that while dreaming we do not
-as a rule ; the exceptions require a special explanation—
imagine that we are thinking, but that we are living through
an experience, i.e., we accept the hallucination with full
belief. The criticism that this has not been experienced but
only thought in a peculiar manner-dreamt-comes to us only
on awakening. This character distinguishes the genuine
sleeping dream from day dreaming, which is never confused
with reality.
The characteristics of the dream life thus far considered
8
have been summed up by Burdach (p . 476 ) in the following
sentences : " As characteristic features of the dream we may

* Silberer has shown by nice examples how in the state of sleepiness even
abstract thoughts may be changed into illustrative plastic pictures which
express the same thing (Jahrbuch von Bleuler-Freud , vol. i. 1900).
40 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the waking life. He rather believes that the scene of dreams

is laid elsewhere than in the waking presentation life. " If
the scene of the psychophysical activity were the same during
the sleeping and the waking states, the dream , in my opinion ,
could only be a continuation of the waking ideation maintain
ing itself at a lower degree of intensity, and must moreover
share with the latter its material and form. But the state of
affairs is quite different."
What Fechner really meant has never been made clear,
nor has anybody else, to my knowledge, followed further the
road, the clue to which he indicated in this remark. An
anatomical interpretation in the sense of physiological brain
localisations, or even in reference to histological sections of
the cerebral cortex , will surely have to be excluded . The
thought may, however, prove ingenious and fruitful if it can be
referred to a psychic apparatus which is constructed out of
many instances placed one behind another.
Other authors have been content to render prominent one
or another of the tangible psychological peculiarities of the
dream life, and perhaps to take these as a starting point for
more far-reaching attempts at explanation.
It has been justly remarked that one of the main pecu
liarities of the dream life appears even in the state of falling
asleep, and is to be designated as the phenomenon inducing
sleep. According to Schleiermacher 61 (p. 351 ) , the char
acteristic part of the waking state is the fact that the psychic
activity occurs in ideas rather than in pictures . But the
dream thinks in pictures, and one may observe that with the
approach of sleep the voluntary activities become difficult
in the same measure as the involuntary appear, the latter
belonging wholly to the class of pictures. The inability for
such presentation work as we perceive to be intentionally
desired, and the appearance of pictures which is regularly
connected with this distraction , these are two qualities which
are constant in the dream , and which in its psychological
analysis we must recognise as essential characters of the dream
life .Concerning the pictures the hypnogogic hallucinations
-we have discovered that even in their content they are
identical with the dream pictures.
The dream therefore thinks preponderately, but not
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 41

exclusively, in visual pictures. It also makes use of auditory

pictures, and to a lesser extent of the impressions of the other
senses. Much is also simply thought or imagined (probably
represented by remnants of word presentations), just as in
the waking state. But still what is characteristic for the
dream is only those elements of the content which act like
pictures, i.e. which resemble more the perceptions than
the memory presentations. Disregarding all the discussions
concerning the nature of hallucinations, familiar to every
psychiatrist, we can say, with all well-versed authors, that the
dream hallucinates, that is , replaces thoughts through hallucina
tions. In this respect there is no difference between visual
and acoustic presentations ; it has been noticed that the
memory of a succession of sounds with which one falls asleep
becomes transformed while sinking into sleep into an hallucina
tion of the same melody, so as to make room again on awaken
ing, which may repeatedly alternate with falling into a slumber,
for the softer memory presentations which are differently
formed in quality .
The transformation of an idea into an hallucination is not
the only deviation of the dream from a waking thought which
perhaps corresponds to it. From these pictures the dream
forms a situation, it presents something in the present , it
dramatises an idea, as Spitta 64 (p . 145) puts it . * But the
characteristic of this side of the dream life becomes complete
only when it is remembered that while dreaming we do not
—as a rule ; the exceptions require a special explanation—
imagine that we are thinking, but that we are living through
an experience, i.e. , we accept the hallucination with full
belief. The criticism that this has not been experienced but
only thought in a peculiar manner-dreamt-comes to us only
on awakening. This character distinguishes the genuine
sleeping dream from day dreaming, which is never confused
with reality.
The characteristics of the dream life thus far considered
have been summed up by Burdach (p . 476 ) in the following
sentences : “ As characteristic features of the dream we may

* Silberer has shown by nice examples how in the state of sleepiness even
abstract thoughts may be changed into illustrative plastic pictures w
express the same thing (Jahrbuch von Bleuler-Freud, vol.
42 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

add (a) that the subjective activity of our mind appears as

objective, inasmuch as our faculty of perception perceives the
products of phantasy as if they were sensory activities ...
(b) sleep abrogates one's self-command, hence falling asleep
necessitates a certain amount of passivity . . . . The slumber
pictures are conditioned by the relaxation of one's self
command. "
It is a question now of attempting to explain the credulity
of the mind in reference to the dream hallucinations, which
can only appear after the suspension of a certain arbitrary
activity. Strümpell 66 asserts that the mind behaves in this
respect correctly, and in conformity with its mechanism.
The dream elements are by no means mere presentations , but
true and real experiences of the mind, similar to those that
appear in the waking state as a result of the senses (p. 34 ) .
Whereas in the waking state the mind represents and thinks
in word pictures and language, in the dream it represents and
thinks in real tangible pictures (p . 35). Besides , the dream
manifests a consciousness of space by transferring the sensa
tions and pictures, just as in the waking state, into an outer
space (p . 36 ). It must therefore be admitted that the mind
in the dream is in the same relation to its pictures and per
ceptions as in the waking state (p . 43 ) . If, however, it is
thereby led astray, this is due to the fact that it lacks in sleep
the criticism which alone can distinguish between the sensory
perceptions emanating from within or from without . It
cannot subject its pictures to the tests which alone can prove
their objective reality. It furthermore neglects to differentiate
between pictures that are arbitrarily interchanged and others
where there is no free choice. It errs because it cannot apply
to its content the law of causality (p . 58 ) . In brief, its aliena
tion from the outer world contains also the reason for its
belief in the subjective dream world .
Delbœuf 16 reaches the same conclusion through a some
what different line of argument. We give to the dream
pictures the credence of reality because in sleep we have no
other impressions to compare them with, because we are
cut off from the outer world . But it is not perhaps because
we are unable to make tests in our sleep, that we believe in the
truth of our hallucinations . The dream may delude us with
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 45

expresses himself as follows (p . 17) : " With the cessation of

the objectively active outlook and of the normal consciousness ,
the psyche loses the foundation in which were rooted the
feelings, desires , interests, and actions. Those psychic states,
feelings , interests, estimates which cling in the waking state
to the memory pictures also succumb to . . . an obscure
pressure, in consequence of which their connection with the
pictures becomes severed ; the perception pictures of things ,
persons, localities, events, and actions of the waking state
are singly very abundantly reproduced, but none of these
brings along its psychic value. The latter is removed from
them, and hence they float about in the mind dependent upon
""
their own resources . ...
This deprivation the picture suffers of its psychic value,
which again goes back to the derivation from the outer world ,
is according to Strümpell mainly responsible for the impression
of strangeness with which the dream is confronted in our
memory.
We have heard that even falling asleep carries with it the
abandonment of one of the psychic activities— namely, the
voluntary conduct of the presentation course, Thus the
supposition, suggested also by other grounds, obtrudes itself,
that the sleeping state may extend its influence also over the
psychic functions . One or the other of these functions is
perhaps entirely suspended ; whether the remaining ones
continue to work undisturbed , whether they can furnish normal
work under the circumstances , is the next question . The
idea occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may be
explained through the inferior psychic activity during the
sleeping state, but now comes the impression made by the
dream upon our waking judgment which is contrary to such a
conception. The dream is disconnected, it unites without
hesitation the worst contradictions, it allows impossibilities,
it disregards our authoritative knowledge from the day, and
evinces ethical and moral dulness . He who would behave in
the waking state as the dream does in its situations would be
considered insane. He who in the waking state would speak
in such manner or report such things as occur in the dream
content, would impress us as confused and weak-minded.
Thus we believe that we are only finding words for the fact
44 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

not excited by sensory stimuli . . . but it is not the lack of

sensory stimuli that conditions sleep, but rather a lack of
interest for the same ; some sensory impressions are even
necessary in so far as they serve to calm the mind ; thus the
miller can fall asleep only when he hears the rattling of his
mill, and he who finds it necessary to burn a light at night, as
a matter of precaution , cannot fall asleep in the dark " (p. 457).
" The psyche isolates itself during sleep from the outer
world, and withdraws from the periphery. . . . Nevertheless ,
the connection is not entirely interrupted ; if one did not hear
and feel even during sleep , but only after awakening , he
would certainly never awake. The continuance of sensation
is even more plainly shown by the fact that we are not always
awakened by the mere sensory force of the impression, but by
the psychic relation of the same ; an indifferent word does not
arouse the sleeper, but if called by name he awakens . • :
hence the psyche differentiates sensations during sleep . · ·
It is for this reason that we may be awakened by the lack of a
sensory stimulus if it relates to the presentation of an important
thing ; thus one awakens when the light is extinguished , and
the miller when the mill comes to a standstill ; that is, the
awakening is due to the cessation of a sensory activity, which
presupposes that it has been perceived, and that it has not
""
disturbed the mind, being indifferent or rather gratifying '
(p . 460, &c.).
If we are willing to disregard these objections, which are
not to be taken lightly, we still must admit that the qualities
of the dream life thus far considered , which originate by
withdrawing from the outer world , cannot fully explain the
strangeness of the dream. For otherwise it would be possible
to change back the hallucinations of the dream into presenta
tions and the situations of the dream into thoughts , and thus
to perform the task of dream interpretation. Now this is
what we do when we reproduce the dream from memory after
awakening, and whether we are fully or only partially success
ful in this back translation the dream still retains its mysterious
ness undiminished.
Furthermore all the authors assume unhesitatingly that
still other more far-reaching alterations take place in the
presentation material of waking life. One of them, Strümpell , 66
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 45

expresses himself as follows (p . 17) : " With the cessation of

the objectively active outlook and of the normal consciousness,
the psyche loses the foundation in which were rooted the
feelings, desires, interests , and actions. Those psychic states,
feelings, interests, estimates which cling in the waking state
to the memory pictures also succumb to . . . an obscure
pressure, in consequence of which their connection with the
pictures becomes severed ; the perception pictures of things ,
persons , localities, events, and actions of the waking state
are singly very abundantly reproduced , but none of these
brings along its psychic value. The latter is removed from
them, and hence they float about in the mind dependent upon
their own resources . · ""

This deprivation the picture suffers of its psychic value,

which again goes back to the derivation from the outer world,
is according to Strümpell mainly responsible for the impression
of strangeness with which the dream is confronted in our
memory.
We have heard that even falling asleep carries with it the
abandonment of one of the psychic activities-namely, the
voluntary conduct of the presentation course, Thus the
supposition, suggested also by other grounds, obtrudes itself,
that the sleeping state may extend its influence also over the
psychic functions. One or the other of these functions is
perhaps entirely suspended ; whether the remaining ones
continue to work undisturbed, whether they can furnish normal
work under the circumstances, is the next question. The
idea occurs to us that the peculiarities of the dream may be
explained through the inferior psychic activity during the
sleeping state, but now comes the impression made by the
dream upon our waking judgment which is contrary to such a
conception. The dream is disconnected, it unites without
hesitation the worst contradictions , it allows impossibilities ,
it disregards our authoritative knowledge from the day, and
evinces ethical and moral dulness . He who would behave in
the waking state as the dream does in its situations would be
considered insane. He who in the waking state would speak
in such manner or report such things as occur in the dream
content, would impress us as confused and weak-minded.
Thus we believe that we are only finding words for the fact
46 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

when we place but little value on the psychic activity in the

dream, and especially when we declare that the higher in
tellectual activities are suspended or at least much impaired in
the dream .
With unusual unanimity-the exceptions will be dealt with
elsewhere the authors have pronounced their judgments on the
dream -such judgments as lead immediately to a definite
theory or explanation of the dream life. It is time that I
should supplement the résumé which I have just given with a
collection of the utterances of different authors-philosophers
and physicians on the psychological character of the dream.
According to Lemoine,42 the incoherence of the dream
picture is the only essential character of the dream .
Maury 48 agrees with him ; he says (p. 163 ) : " Il n'y a pas
des rêves absolument raisonnables et qui ne contiennent quelque
incohérence, quelque anachronisme, quelque absurdité. "
According to Hegel, quoted by Spitta,64 the dream lacks all
objective and comprehensible connection .
Dugas 19 says : " Le rêve, c'est l'anarchie psychique,
affective et mentale, c'est le jeu des fonctions livrées à elles
mêmes et s'exerçant sans contrôle et sans but ; dans le rêve
l'esprit est un automate spirituel."
" The relaxation, solution, and confusion of the presenta
tion life which is held together through the logical force of the
central ego " is conceded even by Volkelt 72 (p . 14 ) , according to
whose theory the psychic activity during sleep seems in no
way aimless.
The absurdity of the presentation connections appearing in
the dream can hardly be more strongly condemned than it was
by Cicero (De Divin. II. ) : " Nihil tam praepostere, tam in
condite, tam monstruose cogitari potest, quod non possimus
somniare."
Fechner 52 says (p . 522) : " It is as if the psychological
activity were transferred from the brain of a reasonable being
into the brain of a fool ."
Radestock 35 (p . 145) says : " It seems indeed impossible
to recognise in this absurd action any firm law. Having with
drawn itself from the strict police of the rational will guiding the
waking presentation life, and of the attention , the dream
whirls everything about kaleidoscopically in mad play."
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 47

Hildebrandt 35 (p . 45) says : " What wonderful jumps the

dreamer allows himself, e.g. , in his chain of reasoning ! With
what unconcern he sees the most familiar laws of experience
turned upside down ! What ridiculous contradictions he can
tolerate in the orders of nature and society before things go
too far, as we say, and the overstraining of the nonsense
brings an awakening ! We often multiply quite unconcernedly :
three times three make twenty ; we are not at all surprised
when a dog recites poetry for us, when a dead person walks
to his grave, and when a rock swims on the water ; we go in
all earnestness by high command to the duchy of Bernburg or
the principality of Lichtenstein in order to observe the navy
of the country, or we allow ourselves to be recruited as a
volunteer by Charles XII . shortly before the battle of Poltawa."
Binz (p. 33 ) points to a dream theory resulting from the
impressions. " Among ten dreams nine at least have an
absurd content. We unite in them persons or things which do
not bear the slightest relation to one another. In the next
moment, as in a kaleidoscope, the grouping changes, if possible
to one more nonsensical and irrational than before ; thus the
changing play of the imperfectly sleeping brain continues until
we awaken, and put our hand to our forehead and ask ourselves
whether we really still possess the faculty of rational imagina
tion and thought."
Maury 48 (p . 50) finds for the relation of the dream picture
to the waking thoughts, a comparison most impressive for the
physician : " La production de ces images que chez l'homme
éveillé fait le plus souvent naître la volonté, correspond, pour
l'intelligence, à ce que cont pour la motilité certains mouvements
""
que nous offrent la chorée et les affections paralytiques. •
For the rest, he considers the dream " toute une série de dégra
dation de la faculté pensant et raisonant " (p . 27) .
It is hardly necessary to mention the utterances of the
authors which repeat Maury's assertion for the individual
higher psychic activities.
According to Strümpell, some logical mental operations
based on relations and connections disappear in the dream
naturally also at points where the nonsense is not obvious
(p. 26). According to Spitta,64 (p . 148) the presentations in
the dream are entirely withdrawn from the laws of causality.
48 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Radestock 54 and others emphasize the weakness of judgment

and decision in the dream. According to Jodl 37 (p . 123), there
is no critique in the dream, and no correcting of a series of
perceptions through the content of the sum of consciousness.
The same author states that " all forms of conscious activity
occur in the dream, but they are imperfect, inhibited, and
isolated from one another." The contradictions manifested in
the dream towards our conscious knowledge are explained
by Stricker 77 78 (and many others) , on the ground that facts
are forgotten in the dream and logical relations between pre
sentations are lost (p. 98), &c ., & c .
The authors who in general speak thus unfavourably about
the psychic capacities in the dream, nevertheless admit that
the dream retains a certain remnant of psychic activity.
Wundt, 76 whose teaching has influenced so many other workers
in the dream problems, positively admits this. One might
inquire as to the kind and behaviour of the remnants of the
psychic life which manifest themselves in the dream. It is
now quite universally acknowledged that the reproductive
capacity, the memory in the dream, seems to have been least
affected ; indeed it may show a certain superiority over the
same function in the waking life (vid . supra , p . 10), although a
part of the absurdities of the dream are to be explained by
just this forgetfulness of the dream life . According to Spitta ,64
it is the emotional life of the psyche that is not overtaken by
sleep and that then directs the dream. " By emotion
[" Gemüth "] we understand the constant comprehension of
the feelings as the inmost subjective essence of man " (p . 84).
Scholz 59 (p . 37) sees a psychic activity manifested in the
dream in the " allegorising interpretation " to which the
dream material is subjected . Siebeck 62 verifies also in the
dream the " supplementary interpretative activity " (p . 11 )
which the mind exerts on all that is perceived and viewed .
The judgment of the apparently highest psychic function,
the consciousness, presents for the dream a special difficulty.
As we can know anything only through consciousness, there
can be no doubt as to its retention ; Spitta, however, believes
that only consciousness is retained in the dream, and not self
consciousness . Delbœuf 16 confesses that he is unable to
conceive this differentiation .
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 49

The laws of association which govern the connection of

ideas hold true also for the dream pictures ; indeed, their
domination evinces itself in a purer and stronger expression
in the dream than elsewhere. Strümpell 62 (p. 70) says : " The
dream follows either the laws of undisguised presentations as
it seems exclusively or organic stimuli along with such pre
sentations , that is, without being influenced by reflection and
reason, æsthetic sense, and moral judgment." The authors
whose views I reproduce here conceive the formation of the
dream in about the following manner : The sum of sensation
stimuli affecting sleep from the various sources, discussed
elsewhere, at first awaken in the mind a sum of presentations
which represent themselves as hallucinations (according to
Wundt, it is more correct to say as illusions , because of their
origin from outer and inner stimuli). These unite with one
another according to the known laws of association, and ,
following the same rules, in turn evoke a new series of pre
sentations (pictures) . This entire material is then elaborated
as well as possible by the still active remnant of the organising
and thinking mental faculties (cf. Wundt 76 and Weygandt 75).
But thus far no one has been successful in finding the motive
which would decide that the awakening of pictures which do
not originate objectively follow this or that law of association.
But it has been repeatedly observed that the associations
which connect the dream presentations with one another are
of a particular kind, and different from those found in the
waking mental activity. Thus Volkelt 72 says : " In the dream ,
the ideas chase and hunt each other on the strength of acci
dental similarities and barely perceptible connections. All
dreams are pervaded by such loose and free associations ."
Maury 48 attaches great value to this characteristic of connec
tion between presentations, which allows him to bring the
dream life in closer analogy to certain mental disturbances .
He recognises two main characters of the délire : " (1 ) une
action spontanée et comme automatique de l'esprit ; (2) une
association vicieuse et irregulière des idées " (p. 126). Maury
gives us two excellent examples from his own dreams, in which
the mere similarity of sound forms the connection of the
dream presentations. He dreamed once that he undertook
a pilgrimage (pélerinage) to Jerusalem or Mecca. After many
D
50 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

adventures he was with the chemist Pelletier ; the latter after

some talk gave him a zinc shovel (pelle) which became his
long battle sword in the dream fragment which followed
(p. 137) . On another occasion he walked in a dream on the
highway and read the kilometres on the milestones ; presently
he was with a spice merchant who had large scales with which
to weigh Maury ; the spice merchant then said to him : " You
are not in Paris ; but on the island Gilolo . " This was followed
by many pictures , in which he saw the flower Lobelia , then
the General Lopez, of whose demise he had read shortly before.
He finally awoke while playing a game of lotto.
We are, however, quite prepared to hear that this de
preciation of the psychic activities of the dream has not remained
without contradiction from the other side. To be sure, con
tradiction seems difficult here. Nor is it of much significance
that one of the depreciators of dream life, Spitta 64 (p . 118 ) ,
assures us that the same psychological laws which govern the
waking state rule the dream also, or that another (Dugas 19)
states : " Le rêve n'est pas déraison ni même irraison pure ,"
as long as neither of them has made any effort to bring this
estimation into harmony with the psychic anarchy and dis
solution of all functions in the dream described by them.
Upon others, however, the possibility seems to have dawned
that the madness of the dream is perhaps not without its
method that it is perhaps only a sham, like that of the Danish
prince, to whose madness the intelligent judgment here cited
refers . These authors must have refrained from judging by
appearances, or the appearance which the dream showed to
them was quite different .
Without wishing to linger at its apparent absurdity,
Havelock Ellis 23 considers the dream as " an archaic world of
vast emotions and imperfect thoughts," the study of which
may make us acquainted with primitive stages of development
of the psychic life. A thinker like Delboeuf 16 asserts- to
be sure without adducing proof against the contradictory
material, and hence indeed unjustly : " Dans le sommeil, hormis
la perception, toutes les facultés de l'esprit , intelligence , imagina
tion, mémoire, volonté, moralité, restant intactes dans leur
essence ; seulement , elles s'appliquent à des objets imaginaires
et mobiles . Le songeur est un acteur qui joue à volonté les
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 51

fous et les sages, les bourreaus et les victimes, les nains et les
géants, les démons et les anges " (p . 222) . The Marquis of
Hervey, who is sharply controverted by Maury,48 and whose
work I could not obtain despite all effort, seems to combat
most energetically the under-estimation of the psychic capacity
in the dream. Maury speaks of him as follows (p . 19) : " M. le
Marquis d'Hervey prête à l'intelligence, durant le sommeil
toute sa liberté d'action et d'attention et il ne semble faire
consister le sommeil que dans l'occlusion des sens, dans leur
fermeture au monde extérieur ; en sorte que l'homme qui dort
ne se distingué guère , selon sa manière de voir, de l'homme qui
laisse vaguer sa pensée en se bouchant les sens ; toute la
différence qui séparé alors la pensée ordinaire du celle du
dormeur c'est que, chez celui-ci, l'idée prend une forme visible ,
objective et ressemble , à s'y meprendre, à la sensation déter
minée par les objets extérieurs ; le souvenir revêt l'apparence
du fait présent ."
Maury adds, however ; " Qu'il y a une différence de plus
et capitale à savoir que les facultés intellectuelles de l'homme
endormi n'offrent pas l'équilibre qu'elles gardent chez l'homme
l'éveillé."
The scale of the estimation of the dream as a psychic
product has a great range in the literature ; it reaches from
the lowest under-estimation, the expression of which we have
come to know, through the idea of a value not yet revealed to
the over-estimation which places the dream far above the
capacities of the waking life. Hildebrandt, 35 who, as we know,
sketches the psychological characteristics into three anti
nomies, sums up in the third of these contradistinctions the
extreme points of this series as follows (p. 19) : " It is between
a climax, often an involution which raises itself to virtuosity,
and on the other hand a decided diminution and weakening of
the psychic life often leading below the human niveau."
" As for the first, who could not confirm from his own
experience that, in the creations and weavings of the genius
of the dream, there sometimes comes to light a profundity
and sincerity of emotion, a tenderness of feeling, a clearness of
view, a fineness of observation, and a readiness of wit, all
which we should modestly have to deny that we possess as a
constant property during the waking life ? The dream has a
52 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

wonderful poetry, an excellent allegory, an incomparable

humour, and a charming irony. It views the world under the
guise of a peculiar idealisation, and often raises the effect of its
manifestations into the most ingenious understanding of the
essence lying at its basis . It represents for us earthly beauty
in true heavenly radiance, the sublime in the highest majesty,
the actually frightful in the most gruesome figure, and the
ridiculous in the indescribably drastic comical ; and at times
we are so full of one of these impressions after awakening that
we imagine that such a thing has never been offered to us by
the real world."
One may ask, is it really the same object that the de
preciating remarks and these inspired praises are meant for ?
Have the latter overlooked the stupid dreams and the former
the thoughtful and ingenious dreams ? And if both kinds do
occur that is, dreams that merit to be judged in this or that
manner---does it not seem idle to seek the psychological character
of the dream ? would it not suffice to state that everything is
possible in the dream, from the lowest depreciation of the
psychic life to a raising of the same which is unusual in the
waking state ? As convenient as this solution would be it has
this against it, that behind the efforts of all dream investigators ,
it seems to be presupposed that there is such a definable
character of the dream, which is universally valid in its essen
tial features and which must eliminate these contradictions .
It is unquestionable that the psychic capacities of the
dream have found quicker and warmer recognition in that
intellectual period which now lies behind us , when philosophy
rather than exact natural science ruled intelligent minds.
Utterances like those of Schubert, that the dream frees the
mind from the power of outer nature, that it liberates the soul
from the chains of the sensual, and similar opinions expressed
by the younger Fichte, * and others , who represent the dream
as a soaring up of the psychic life to a higher stage, hardly
seem conceivable to us to-day ; they are only repeated at
present by mystics and devotees. With the advance of the
scientific mode of thinking, a reaction took place in the estima
tion of the dream. It is really the medical authors who are
most prone to underrate the psychic activity in the dream ,
* Cf. Haffner 32 and Spitta 4.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 53

as being insignificant and invaluable, whereas, philosophers

and unprofessional observers amateur psychologists— whose
contributions in this realm can surely not be overlooked , in
better agreement with the popular ideas, have mostly adhered
to the psychic value of the dream. He who is inclined to under
rate the psychic capacity in the dream prefers, as a matter
of course, the somatic exciting sources in the etiology of the
dream ; he who leaves to the dreaming mind the greater part
of its capacities , naturally has no reason for not also admitting
independent stimuli for dreaming.
Among the superior activities which, even on sober com
parison, one is tempted to ascribe to the dream life, memory
is the most striking ; we have fully discussed the frequent
experiences which prove this fact. Another superiority of
the dream life, frequently extolled by the old authors , viz.
that it can regard itself supreme in reference to distance of
time and space, can be readily recognised as an illusion .
This superiority, as observed by Hildebrandt ,35 is only illusional ;
the dream takes as much heed of time and space as the waking
thought, and this because it is only a form of thinking. The
dream is supposed to enjoy still another advantage in reference
to time ; that is, it is independent in still another sense of the
passage of time. Dreams like the guillotine dream of Maury,48
reported above, seem to show that the dream can crowd
together more perception content in a very short space of time
than can be controlled by our psychic activity in the waking
mind. These conclusions have been controverted , however,
by many arguments ; the essays of Le Lorrain 45 and Egger 20
" Concerning the apparent duration of dreams " gave rise to a
long and interesting discussion which has probably not said
the last word upon this delicate and far-reaching question .
That the dream has the ability to take up the intellectual
work of the day and bring to a conclusion what has not been
settled during the day, that it can solve doubt and problems,
and that it may become the source of new inspiration in poets
and composers , seems to be indisputable, as is shown by many
reports and by the collection compiled by Chabaneix.11 But
even if there be no dispute as to the facts, nevertheless their
interpretation is open in principle to a great many doubts .
Finally the asserted divinatory power of the dream forms
54 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

an object of contention in which hard unsurmountable reflec

tion encounters obstinate and continued faith . It is indeed just
that we should refrain from denying all that is based on fact
in this subject, as there is a possibility that a number of such
cases may perhaps be explained on a natural psychological
basis.
(f) The Ethical Feelings in the Dream.-For reasons which
will be understood only after cognisance has been taken of my
own investigations of the dream , I have separated from the
psychology of the dream the partial problem whether and to
what extent the moral dispositions and feelings of the waking
life extend into the dreams. The same contradictions which
we were surprised to observe in the authors ' descriptions of all
the other psychic capacities strike us again here. Some
affirm decidedly that the dream knows nothing of moral
obligations ; others as decidedly that the moral nature of man
remains even in his dream life.
A reference to our dream experience of every night seems
to raise the correctness of the first assertion beyond doubt.
Jessen 36 says (p. 553) : " Nor does one become better or more
virtuous in the dream ; on the contrary, it seems that con
science is silent in the dream, inasmuch as one feels no com
passion and can commit the worst crimes , such as theft,
murder, and assassination, with perfect indifference and
without subsequent remorse."
Radestock 54 (p . 146) says : " It is to be noticed that in the
dream the associations terminate and the ideas unite without
being influenced by reflection and reason, æsthetic taste, and
moral judgment ; the judgment is extremely weak, and ethical
indifference reigns supreme."
Volkelt 72 (p. 23) expresses himself as follows : " As every
one knows, the sexual relationship in the dream is especially
unbridled . Just as the dreamer himself is shameless in the
extreme, and wholly lacking moral feeling and judgment, so
also he sees others , even the most honoured persons , engaged
in actions which even in thought he would blush to associate
with them in his waking state."
Utterances like those of Schopenhauer, that in the dream
every person acts and talks in accordance with his character,
form the sharpest contrast to those mentioned above. R. P.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 55

Fischer * maintains that the subjective feelings and desires

or affects and passions manifest themselves in the wilfulness
of the dream life, and that the moral characteristics of a person
are mirrored in his dream.
Haffner 32 (p . 25) : " With rare exceptions . . . a virtuous
person will be virtuous also in his dreams ; he will resist
temptation, and show no sympathy for hatred , envy, anger,
and all other vices ; while the sinful person will, as a rule, also
find in his dreams the pictures which he has before him while
awake."
Scholz 59 (p . 36) : " In the dream there is truth ; despite all
masking in pride or humility, we still recognise our own self.
The honest man does not commit any dishonourable
offence even in the dream, or, if this does occur, he is terrified
over it as if over something foreign to his nature. The Roman
emperor who ordered one of his subjects to be executed because
he dreamed that he cut off the emperor's head, was not wrong
in justifying his action on the ground that he who has such
dreams must have similar thoughts while awake. About a
thing that can have no place in our mind we therefore say
significantly : ' I would never dream of such a thing.' "
Pfaff, varying a familiar proverb, says : " Tell me for a
time your dreams, and I will tell you what you are within."
The short work of Hildebrandt,35 from which I have already
taken so many quotations, a contribution to the dream problem
as complete and as rich in thought as I found in the literature,
places the problem of morality in the dream as the central
point of its interest . For Hildebrandt, too , it is a strict rule
that the purer the life, the purer the dream ; the impurer the
former, the impurer the latter.
The moral nature of man remains even in the dream :
" But while we are not offended nor made suspicious by an
arithmetical error no matter how obvious, by a reversal of
science no matter how romantic, or by an anachronism no
matter how witty, we nevertheless do not lose sight of the
difference between good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and
vice. No matter how much of what follows us during the

* Grundzüge des Systems der Anthropologie. T (quoted by

Spitta).
+ Das Traumleben und seine Deutung, 1868 2).
56 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

day may vanish in our hours of sleep-Kant's categorical

imperative sticks to our heels as an inseparable companion
from whom we cannot rid ourselves even in slumber. . . .
This can be explained, however, only by the fact that the
fundamental in human nature, the moral essence, is too firmly
fixed to take part in the activity of the kaleidoscopic shaking up
to which phantasy, reason, memory, and other faculties of the
same rank succumb in the dream " (p. 45, &c .) .
In the further discussion of the subject we find remarkable
distortion and inconsequence in both groups of authors.
Strictly speaking , interest in immoral dreams would cease for
all those who assert that the moral personality of the person
crumbles away in the dream. They could just as calmly
reject the attempt to hold the dreamer responsible for his
dreams , and to draw inferences from the badness of his dreams
as to an evil strain in his nature, as they rejected the ap
parently similar attempt to demonstrate the insignificance of
his intellectual life in the waking state from the absurdity of
his dreams. The others for whom " the categorical im
perative " extends also into the dream, would have to accept
full responsibility for the immoral dreams ; it would only be
desirable for their own sake that their own objectionable
dreams should not lead them to abandon the otherwise firmly
held estimation of their own morality.
Still it seems that no one knows exactly about himself
how good or how bad he is, and that no one can deny the
recollection of his own immoral dreams. For besides the
opposition already mentioned in the criticism of the morality
of the dream, both groups of authors display an effort to
explain the origin of the immoral dream and a new opposition
is developed , depending on whether their origin is sought in
the functions of the psychic life or in the somatically deter
mined injuries to this life. The urgent force of the facts then
permits the representatives of the responsibility, as well as
of the irresponsibility of the dream life, to agree in the re
cognition of a special psychic source for the immorality of
dreams .
All those who allow the continuance of the morality in
the dream nevertheless guard against accepting full responsi
1
lity for their dreams. Haffner 32 says (p. 24) : " We are not
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 57

responsible for dreams because the basis upon which alone our
life has truth and reality is removed from our thoughts .
Hence there can be no dream wishing and dream acting, no
virtue or sin." Still the person is responsible for the sinful
dream in so far as he brings it about indirectly. Just as in
the waking state, it is his duty to cleanse his moral mind,
particularly so before retiring to sleep.
The analysis of this mixture of rejection and recognition
of responsibility for the moral content of the dream is followed
much further by Hildebrandt . After specifying that the
dramatic manner of representation in the dream, the crowding
together of the most complicated processes of deliberation in
the briefest period of time, and the depreciation and the
confusion of the presentation elements in the dream admitted
by him must be recognised as unfavourable to the immoral
aspect of dreams ; he nevertheless confesses that, yielding to
the most earnest reflection, he is inclined simply to deny all
responsibility for faults and dream sins.
(P. 49) : " If we wish to reject very decisively any unjust
accusation, especially one that has reference to our intentions
and convictions, we naturally make use of the expression : I
should never have dreamed of such a thing. By this we mean
to say, of course, that we consider the realm of the dream the
last and remotest place in which we are to be held responsible
for our thoughts, because there these thoughts are only loosely
and incoherently connected with our real being, so that we
should hardly still consider them as our own ; but as we feel
impelled expressly to deny the existence of such thoughts,
even in this realm, we thus at the same time indirectly admit
that our justification will not be complete if it does not reach
to that point. And I believe that, though unconsciously, we
here speak the language of truth ."
(P. 52) : " No dream thought can be imagined whose first
motive has not already moved through the mind while awake
as some wish, desire, or impulse." Concerning this original
impulse we must say that the dream has not discovered it
it has only imitated and extended it, it has only elaborated
a bit of historical material which it has found in us, into
dramatic form ; it enacts the words of the apostle : He who
hates his brother is a murderer. And whereas, after we
58 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

awaken and become conscious of our moral strength, we may

smile at the boldly executed structure of the depraved dream ,
the original formative material, nevertheless, has no ridicu
lous side. One feels responsible for the transgressions of the
dreamer, not for the whole sum, but still for a certain percentage.
" In this sense, which is difficult to impugn, we understand the
words of Christ : Out of the heart come evil thoughts-for
we can hardly help being convinced that every sin committed
in the dream brings with it at least a vague minimum of
guilt ."
Hildebrandt thus finds the source of the immorality of
dreams in the germs and indications of evil impulses which
pass through our minds during the day as tempting thoughts ,
and he sees fit to add these immoral elements to the moral
estimation of the personality. It is the same thoughts and
the same estimation of these thoughts, which , as we know,
have caused devout and holy men of all times to lament that
they are evil sinners.
There is certainly no reason to doubt the general occurrence
of these contrasting presentations- in most men and even also
in other than ethical spheres. The judgment of these at
times has not been very earnest. In Spitta 64 we find the follow
ing relevant expression from A. Zeller (Article " Irre " in the
Allgemeinen Encyklopädie der Wissenchaften of Ersch and
Grüber, p. 144 ) : " The mind is rarely so happily organised
as to possess at all times power enough not to be disturbed,
not only by unessential but also by perfectly ridiculous ideas
running counter to the usual clear trend of thought ; indeed,
the greatest thinkers have had cause to complain of this dream
like disturbing and painful rabble of ideas, as it destroys their
profoundest reflection and their most sacred and earnest
mental work. "
A clearer light is thrown on the psychological status of
this idea of contrast by another observation of Hildebrandt,
that the dream at times allows us to glance into the deep and
inmost recesses of our being, which are generally closed to us in
our waking state (p . 55) . The same knowledge is revealed
by Kant in his Anthropology, when he states that the dream
exists in order to lay bare for us our hidden dispositions and to
reveal to us not what we are, but what we might have been if
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 59

we had a different education . Radestock 54 (p . 84) says that

the dream often only reveals to us what we do not wish to
admit to ourselves , and that we therefore unjustly condemn
it as a liar and deceiver. That the appearance of impulses
which are foreign to our consciousness is merely analogous
to the already familiar disposition which the dream makes of
other material of the presentation , which is either absent or
plays only an insignificant part in the waking state, has been
called to our attention by observations like those of Benini,3
who says : "Certe nostre inclinazione che si credevano suffocate
a spente da un pezzo , si ridestano ; passioni vecchie e sepolte
rivivono ; cose e persone a cui non pensiamo mai, ci vengono
""
dinanzi (p . 149) . Volkelt 72 expresses himself in a similar
way : " Even presentations which have entered into our
consciousness almost unnoticed, and have never perhaps been
brought out from oblivion, often announce through the
dream their presence in the mind (p . 105). Finally, it is not
out of place to mention here that, according to Schleiermacher, 61
the state of falling asleep is accompanied by the appearance
of undesirable presentations (pictures) .
We may comprise under " undesirable presentations " this
entire material of presentations, the occurrence of which
excites our wonder in immoral as well as in absurd dreams .
The only important difference consists in the fact that our
undesirable presentations in the moral sphere exhibit an
opposition to our other feelings, whereas the others simply
appear strange to us. Nothing has been done so far to enable
us to remove this difference through a more penetrating
knowledge.
But what is the significance of the appearance of un
desirable presentations in the dream ? What inferences may
be drawn for the psychology of the waking and dreaming
mind from these nocturnal manifestations of contrasting
ethical impulses ? We may here note a new diversity of
opinion, and once more a different grouping of the authors.
The stream of thought followed by Hildebrandt , and by
others who represent his fundamental view, cannot be con
tinued in any other way than by ascribing to the immoral
impulses a certain force even in the waking state, which, to
be sure, is inhibited from advancing to action, and asserting
60 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that something falls off during sleep , which, having the effect
of an inhibition, has kept us from noticing the existence of
such an impulse. The dream thus shows the real, if not the
entire nature of man, and is a means of making the hidden
psychic life accessible to our understanding. It is only on
such assumption that Hildebrandt can attribute to the dream the
rôle of monitor who calls our attention to the moral ravages in
the soul, just as in the opinion of physicians it can announce a
hitherto unobserved physical ailment. Spitta,64 too , cannot be
guided by any other conception when he refers to the stream of
excitement which, e.g. , flows in upon the psyche during puberty,
and consoles the dreamer by saying that he has done every
thing in his power when he has led a strictly virtuous life
during his waking state, when he has made an effort to suppress
the sinful thoughts as often as they arise, and has kept them
from maturing and becoming actions. According to this con
ception, we might designate the " undesirable " presentations
as those that are " suppressed " during the day, and must
recognise in their appearance a real psychic phenomenon.
If we followed other authors we would have no right to the
last inference. For Jessen 36 the undesirable presentations in
the dream as in the waking state, in fever and other deliria,
merely have " the character of a voluntary activity put to
rest and a somewhat mechanical process of pictures and
""
presentations produced by inner impulses (p . 360) . An
immoral dream proves nothing for the psychic life of the dreamer
except that he has in some way become cognizant of the ideas
in question ; it is surely not a psychic impulse of his own.
Another author, Maury,48 makes us question whether he, too ,
does not attribute to the dream state the capacity for dividing
the psychic activity into its components instead of destroying
it aimlessly. He speaks as follows about dreams in which one
goes beyond the bounds of morality : " Ce sont nos penchants
qui parlent et qui nous font agir, sans que la conscience nous
retienne, bien que parfoit elle nous avertisse. J'ai mes défauts
et mes penchants vicieux ; à l'état de veille, je tache de lutter
contre eux , et il m'arrive assez souvent de n'y pas succomber.
Mais dans mes songes j'y succombe toujours ou pour mieux
dire j'agis , par leur impulsion , sans crainte et sans remords . . . .
Evidement les visions qui se déroulent devant ma pensée et
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 61

qui constituent le rêve, me sont suggérées par les incitations

que je ressens et que ma volonté absente ne cherche pas à
réfouler " (p. 113 ).
If one believes in the capacity of the dream to reveal
an actually existing but repressed or concealed immoral dis
position of the dreamer, he could not emphasize his opinion
more strongly than with the words of Maury (p . 115) : " En
rêve l'homme se révèle donc tout entier à soi-même dans sa
nudité et sa misère natives . Dès qu'il suspend l'exercice de sa
volonté, il dévient le jouet de toutes les passions contre les
quelles, à l'état de veille, la conscience, le sentiment d'honneur,
la crainte nous défendent." In another place he finds the
following striking words (p. 462) : " Dans le rêve, c'est surtout
l'homme instinctif que se révèle. • · . L'homme revient pour
ainsi dire à l'état de nature quand il rêve ; mais moins les idées
acquises ont pénétre dans son esprit, plus les penchants en
désaccord avec elles conservent encore sur lui d'influence
dans le rêve." He then mentions as an example that his
dreams often show him as a victim of just those superstitions
which he most violently combats in his writing.
The value of all these ingenious observations for a psycho
logical knowledge of the dream life, however, is marred by
Maury through the fact that he refuses to recognise in the
phenomena so correctly observed by him any proof of the
66
automatisme psychologique " which in his opinion dominates
the dream life. He conceives this automatism as a perfect
contrast to the psychic activity.
A passage in the studies on consciousness by Stricker "
reads : " The dream does not consist of delusions merely ; if,
e.g., one is afraid of robbers in the dream, the robbers are, of
course, imaginary, but the fear is real. One's attention is
thus called to the fact that the effective development in the
dream does not admit of the judgment which one bestows upon
the rest of the dream content, and the problem arises what
part of the psychic processes in the dream may be real, i.e.
what part of them may demand to be enrolled among the
psychic processes of the waking state ? "
(g) Dream Theories and Functions ofthe Dream .- A statement
concerning the dream which as far as possible attempts to
explain from one point of view many of its noted characters , and
62 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which at the same time determines the relation of the dream to

a more comprehensive sphere of manifestations, may be called
a theory of dreams . Individual theories of the dream will be
distinguished from one another through the fact that they
raise to prominence this or that characteristic of the dream ,
and connect explanations and relations with it . It will not
be absolutely necessary to derive from the theory a function ,
i.e. a use or any such activity of the dream, but our expecta
tion , which is usually adjusted to teleology, will nevertheless
welcome those theories which promise an understanding of
the function of the dream .
We have already become acquainted with many concep
tions of the dream which, more or less, merit the name of dream
theories in this sense . The belief of the ancients that the
dream was sent by the gods in order to guide the actions of
man was a complete theory of the dream giving information
concerning everything in the dream worth knowing. Since
the dream has become an object of biological investigation we
have a greater number of theories, of which, however, some
are very incomplete.
If we waive completeness , we may attempt the following
loose grouping of dream theories based on their fundamental
conception of the degree and mode of the psychic activity in
the dream :
1. Theories , like those of Delboeuf,16 which allow the full
psychic activity of the waking state to continue into the
dream . Here the mind does not sleep ; its apparatus remains
intact, and, being placed under the conditions different from
the waking state, it must in normal activity furnish results
different from those of the waking state. In these theories
it is a question whether they are in position to derive the
distinctions between dreaming and waking thought altogether
from the determinations of the sleeping state. They moreover
lack a possible access to a function of the dream ; one cannot
understand why one dreams, why the complicated mechanism
of the psychic apparatus continues to play even when it is
placed under conditions for which it is not apparently adapted.
There remain only two expedient reactions-to sleep dream
lessly or to awake when approached by disturbing stimuli
instead of the third, that of dreaming.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 63

2. Theories which, on the contrary, assume for the dream

a diminution for the psychic activity, a loosening of the con
nections, and an impoverishment in available material. In
accordance with these theories, one must assume for sleep a
psychological character entirely different from the one given
by Delbœuf. Sleep extends far beyond the mind-it does
not consist merely in a shutting off of the mind from the outer
world ; on the contrary, it penetrates into its mechanism, causing
it at times to become useless . If I may draw a comparison
from psychiatrical material, I may say that the first theories
construct the dream like a paranoia, while the second make
it after the model of a dementia or an amentia.
The theory that only a fragment of the psychic activity
paralysed by sleep comes to expression is by far the favourite
among the medical writers and in the scientific world. As
far as one may presuppose a more general interest in dream
interpretation, it may well be designated as the ruling theory
of the dream . It is to be emphasized with what facility this
particular theory escapes the worst rock threatening every
dream interpretation, that is to say, being shipwrecked upon
one of the contrasts embodied in the dream. As this theory
considers the dream the result of a partial waking (or as
Herbart's Psychology of the dream says, “ a gradual, partial,
and at the same time very anomalous waking " ), it succeeds in
covering the entire series of inferior activities in the dream
which reveal themselves in its absurdities , up to the full con
centration of mental activity, by following a series of states
which become more and more awake until they reach full
awakening .
One who finds the psychological mode of expression indis
pensable, or who thinks more scientifically, will find this theory
of the dream expressed in the discussion of Binz 4 (p . 43 ) :
" This state [of numbness] , however, gradually approaches
its end in the early morning hours. The accumulated material
of fatigue in the albumen of the brain gradually becomes
less . It is gradually decomposed or carried away by the
constantly flowing circulation . Here and there some masses
of cells can be distinguished as awake, while all around
everything still remains in a state of torpidity . The isolated
work of the individual groups now appears before our clouded
64 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

consciousness , which lacks the control of other parts of the

brain governing the associations. Hence the pictures created,
which mostly correspond to the objective impressions of the
recent past, fit with each other in a wild and irregular manner.
The number of the brain cells set free becomes constantly
greater, the irrationality of the dream constantly less."
The conception of the dream as an incomplete, partial
waking state, or traces of its influence, can surely be found
among all modern physiologists and philosophers. It is most
completely represented by Maury.48 It often seems as if this
author represented to himself the state of being awake or
asleep in anatomical regions ; at any rate it appears to him
that an anatomical province is connected with a definite
psychic function . I may here merely mention that if the
theory of partial waking could be confirmed , there would
remain much to be accomplished in its elaboration.
Naturally a function of the dream cannot be found in this
conception of the dream life. On the contrary, the criticism
of the status and importance of the dream is consistently
uttered in this statement of Binz (p. 357) : " All the facts , as
we see, urge us to characterise the dream as a physical process
in all cases useless, in many cases even morbid."
The expression " physical " in reference to the dream,
which owes its prominence to this author, points in more than
one direction . In the first place, it refers to the etiology of
the dream , which was especially clear to Binz , as he studied
the experimental production of dreams by the administration
of poisons. It is certainly in keeping with this kind of dream
theory to ascribe the incitement of the dream exclusively to
somatic origin whenever possible. Presented in the most
extreme form, it reads as follows : After we have put ourselves
to sleep by removing the stimuli, there would be no need and
no occasion for dreaming until morning, when the gradual
awakening through the incoming stimuli would be reflected in
the phenomenon of dreaming. But as a matter of fact, it is
not possible to keep sleep free from stimuli ; just as Mephisto
complains about the germs of life, so stimuli reach the sleeper
from every side from without, from within, and even from
certain bodily regions which never give us any concern during
the waking state . Thus sleep is disturbed ; the mind is
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 65

aroused, now by this, now by that little thing, and functionates

for a while with the awakened part only to be glad to fall
asleep again . The dream is a reaction to the stimulus causing
a disturbance of sleep-to be sure, it is a purely superfluous
reaction.
To designate the dream as a physical process, which for
all that remains an activity of the mental organ, has still
another sense . It is meant to dispute the dignity of a psychic
process for the dream. The application to the dream of the
very old comparison of the " ten fingers of a musically ignorant
person running over the keyboard of an instrument," perhaps
best illustrates in what estimation the dream activity has been
held by the representatives of exact science . In this sense it
becomes something entirely untranslatable, for how could the
ten fingers of an unmusical player produce any music ?
The theory of partial wakefulness has not passed without
objection even in early times . Thus Burdach ,8 in 1830 , says :
" If we say that the dream is a partial wakefulness, in the
first place, we explain thereby neither the waking nor the
sleeping state ; secondly, this expresses nothing more than
that certain forces of the mind are active in the dream while
others are at rest . But such irregularities take place throughout
life . . . " (p. 483).
Among extant dream theories which consider the dream a
" physical " process , there is one very interesting conception
of the dream, first propounded by Robert 55 in 1866 , which is
attractive because it assigns to the dream a function or a useful
end. As a basis for this theory, Robert takes from observa
tion two facts which we have already discussed in our con
sideration of the dream material (see p . 13) . These facts are :
that one very often dreams about the insignificant impressions
of the day, and that one rarely carries over into the dream the
absorbing interests of the day . Robert asserts as exclusively
correct, that things which have been fully settled never become
dream inciters , but only such things as are incomplete in the
mind or touch it fleetingly (p . 11 ) . " We cannot usually
explain our dreams because their causes are to be found in
sensory impressions of the preceding day which have not attained
sufficient recognition by the dreamer." The conditions allowing
an impression to reach the dream are therefore, either that
E
66 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

this impression has been disturbed in its elaboration , or that

being too insignificant it has no claim to such elaboration .
Robert therefore conceives the dream " as a physical
process of elimination which has reached to cognition in the
psychic manifestation of its reaction ." Dreams are elimina
tions of thoughts nipped in the bud. " A man deprived of the
capacity for dreaming would surely in time become mentally
unbalanced, because an immense number of unfinished and
unsolved thoughts and superficial impressions would accumu
late in his brain, under the pressure of which there would be
crushed all that should be incorporated as a finished whole
into memory." The dream acts as a safety-valve for the over
burdened brain. Dreams possess healing and unburdening
properties (p. 32) .
It would be a mistake to ask Robert how representation in
the dream can bring about an unburdening of the mind . The
author apparently concluded from those two peculiarities of
the dream material that during sleep such ejection of worthless
impressions is effected as a somatic process , and that dreaming
is not a special psychic process but only the knowledge that
we receive of such elimination. To be sure an elimination is
not the only thing that takes place in the mind during sleep .
Robert himself adds that the incitements of the day are also
elaborated, and " what cannot be eliminated from the un
digested thought material lying in the mind becomes con
nected by threads of thought borrowed from the phantasy into a
finished whole, and thus enrolled in the memory as a harmless
phantasy picture " (p. 23).
But it is in his criticism of the dream sources that Robert
appears most bluntly opposed to the ruling theory. Whereas
according to the existing theory there would be no dream if
the outer and inner sensory stimuli did not repeatedly wake
the mind, according to Robert the impulse to dream lies in
the mind itself. It lies in the overcharging which demands
discharge, and Robert judges with perfect consistency when
he maintains that the causes determining the dream which
depend on the physical state assume a subordinate rank, and
could not incite dreams in a mind containing no material for
dream formation taken from waking consciousness . It is
admitted, however, that the phantasy pictures originating in
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 67

the depths of the mind can be influenced by the nervous

stimuli (p. 48) . Thus , according to Robert , the dream is not
quite so dependent on the somatic element . To be sure, it is
not a psychic process, and has no place among the psychic
processes of the waking state ; it is a nocturnal somatic
process in the apparatus devoted to mental activity, and has
a function to perform, viz . to guard this apparatus against
overstraining, or, if the comparison may be changed , to cleanse
the mind.
Another author, Yves Delage, 15 bases his theory on the
same characteristics of the dream, which become clear in the
selection of the dream material, and it is instructive to observe
how a slight turn in the conception of the same things gives
a final result of quite different bearing.
Delage, after having lost through death a person very dear
to him, found from his own experience that we do not dream
of what occupies us intently during the day, or that we begin
to dream of it only after it is overshadowed by other interests
of the day. His investigations among other persons corro
borated the universality of this state of affairs . Delage
makes a nice observation of this kind, if it turn out to be
generally true, about the dreaming of newly married people :
" S'ils ont été fortement épris , presque jamais ils n'ont rêve
l'un de l'autre avant le mariage ou pendant la lune de miel ;
et s'ils ont rêve d'amour c'est pour être infidèles avec quelque
personne indifférente ou odieuse. " But what does one dream
of ? Delage recognises that the material occurring in our
dreams consists of fragments and remnants of impressions
from the days preceding and former times . All that appears
in our dreams, what at first we may be inclined to consider
creations of the dream life, proves on more thorough investiga
tion to be unrecognised reproductions, " souvenir inconscient."
But this presentation material shows a common character ; it
originates from impressions which have probably affected
our senses more forcibly than our mind, or from which the
attention has been deflected soon after their appearance. The
less conscious , and at the same time the stronger the impression ,
the more prospect it has of playing a part in the next dream.
These are essentially the same two categories of impressions,
the insignificant and the unadjusted , which were emphasized
68 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

by Robert,55 but Delage changes the connection by assuming

that these impressions become the subject of dreams, not
because they are indifferent, but because they are unadjusted .
The insignificant impressions, too, are in a way not fully ad
justed ; they, too , are from their nature as new impressions
" autant de ressorts tendus," which will be relaxed during
sleep . Still more entitled to a rôle in the dream than the weak
and almost unnoticed impression is a strong impression which
has been accidentally detained in its elaboration or intentionally
repressed . The psychic energy accumulated during the day
through inhibition or suppression becomes the main-spring
of the dream at night.
Unfortunately Delage stops here in his train of thought ;
he can ascribe only the smallest part to an independent psychic
activity in the dream, and thus in his dream theory reverts to
the ruling doctrine of a partial sleep of the brain : " En somme
le rêve est le produit de la pensée errante, sans but et sans
direction , se fixant successivement sur les souvenirs , qui ont
gardé assez d'intensité pour se placer sur sa route et l'arrêter
au passage, établissant entre eux un lien tantôt faible et
indécis, tantôt plus fort et plus serré, selon que l'activité
actuelle du cerveau est plus ou moins abolie par le sommeil. "
In a third group we may include those dream theories
which ascribe to the dreaming mind the capacity and pro
pensity for a special psychic activity, which in the waking
state it can accomplish either not at all or only in an imperfect
manner. From the activity of these capacities there usually
results a useful function of the dream. The dignity bestowed
upon the dream by older psychological authors falls chiefly
in this category. I shall content myself, however, with quoting,
8
in their place, the assertions of Burdach, by virtue of which
the dream " is the natural activity of the mind, which is not
limited by the force of the individuality, not disturbed by self
consciousness and not directed by self-determination, but is
the state of life of the sensible central point indulging in free
play " (p . 486) .
Burdach and others apparently consider this revelling in
the free use of one's own powers as a state in which the mind
refreshes itself and takes on new strength for the day work,
something after the manner of a vacation holiday. Burdach ,
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 69

therefore, cites with approval the admirable words in which

the poet Novalis lauds the sway of the dream : " The dream
is a bulwark against the regularity and commonness of life,
a free recreation of the fettered phantasy, in which it mixes
together all the pictures of life and interrupts the continued
earnestness of grown-up men with a joyous children's play.
Without the dream we should surely age earlier, and thus the
dream may be considered perhaps not a gift directly from
above, but a delightful task , a friendly companion , on our
pilgrimage to the grave."
The refreshing and curative activity of the dream is even
more impressively depicted by Purkinje.53 " The productive
dreams in particular would perform these functions. They
are easy plays of the imagination, which have no connection
with the events of the day. The mind does not wish to con
tinue the tension of the waking life, but to release it and re
cuperate from it. It produces , in the first place, conditions
opposed to those of the waking state. It cures sadness through
joy, worry through hope and cheerfully distracting pictures,
hatred through love and friendliness , and fear through courage
and confidence ; it calms doubt through conviction and firm
belief, and vain expectations through realisation. Many
sore spots in the mind, which the day keeps continually open,
sleep heals by covering them and guarding against fresh
excitement. Upon this the curative effect of time is partially
based ." We all feel that sleep is beneficial to the psychic
life, and the vague surmise of the popular consciousness ap
parently cannot be robbed of the notion that the dream is
one of the ways in which sleep distributes its benefits .
The most original and most far-reaching attempt to explain
the dream as a special activity of the mind, which can freely
display itself only in the sleeping state, was the one under
taken by Scherner 58 in 1861. Scherner's book, written in a
heavy and bombastic style, inspired by an almost intoxicated
enthusiasm for the subject, which must repel us unless it can
carry us away with it, places so many difficulties in the way
of an analysis that we gladly resort to the clearer and shorter
description in which the philosopher Volkelt 72 presents
Scherner's theories : " From the mystic conglomerations and
from all the gorgeous and magnificent billows there indeed
70 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

flashes and irradiates an ominous light of sense, but the path

of the philosopher does not thereby become clearer." Such
is the criticism of Scherner's description from one of his own
adherents .
Scherner does not belong to those authors who allow the
mind to take along its undiminished capacities into the dream
life . He indeed explains how in the dream the centrality and
the spontaneous energy of the ego are enervated , how cogni
tion , feeling , will, and imagination become changed through
this decentralisation, and how no true mental character, but
only the nature of a mechanism , belongs to the remnants of
these psychic forces . But instead, the activity of the mind
designated as phantasy, freed from all rational domination
and hence completely uncontrolled , rises in the dream to
absolute supremacy. To be sure, it takes the last building
stones from the memory of the waking state, but it builds with
them constructions as different from the structures of the
waking state as day and night. It shows itself in the dream
not only reproductive , but productive . Its peculiarities give
to the dream life its strange character. It shows a preference
for the unlimited , exaggerated, and prodigious , but because
freed from the impeding thought categories, it gains a greater
flexibility and agility and new pleasure ; it is extremely
sensitive to the delicate emotional stimuli of the mind and to
the agitating affects, and it rapidly recasts the inner life into
the outer plastic clearness . The dream phantasy lacks the
language of ideas ; what it wishes to say, it must clearly depict ;
and as the idea now acts strongly, it depicts it with the richness ,
force, and immensity of the mode in question . Its language,
however simple it may be, thus becomes circumstantial ,
cumbersome, and heavy. Clearness of language is rendered
especially difficult by the fact that it shows a dislike for ex
pressing an object by its own picture, but prefers a strange
picture, if the latter can only express that moment of the
object which it wishes to describe . This is the symbolising
activity of the phantasy. . . . It is, moreover, of great
significance that the dream phantasy copies objects not in
detail, but only in outline and even this in the broadest
manner. Its paintings, therefore, appear ingeniously light and
graceful. The dream phantasy, however, does not stop at
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 71

the mere representation of the object, but is impelled from

within to mingle with the object more or less of the dream ego,
and in this way to produce an action. The visual dream, e.g.,
depicts gold coins in the street ; the dreamer picks them up,
rejoices, and carries them away.
According to Scherner, the material upon which the dream
phantasy exerts its artistic activity is preponderately that of
the organic sensory stimuli which are so obscure during the
day (comp . p . 29) ; hence the phantastic theory of Scherner,
and the perhaps over-sober theories of Wundt and other physio
logists , though otherwise diametrically opposed , agree perfectly
in their assumption of the dream sources and dream excitants.
But whereas , according to the physiological theory, the psychic
reaction to the inner physical stimuli becomes exhausted with
the awakening of any ideas suitable to these stimuli , these
ideas then by way of association calling to their aid other ideas,
and with this stage the chain of psychic processes seeming to
terminate according to Scherner, the physical stimuli only
supply the psychic force with a material which it may render
subservient to its phantastic intentions . For Scherner the
formation of the dream only commences where in the con
ception of others it comes to an end.
The treatment of the physical stimuli by the dream phantasy
surely cannot be considered purposeful. The phantasy plays
a tantalising game with them, and represents the organic
source which gives origin to the stimuli in the correspondent
dream, in any plastic symbolism. Indeed Scherner holds the
opinion, not shared by Volkelt and others , that the dream
phantasy has a certain favourite representation for the entire
organism ; this representation would be the house. Fortu
nately, however, it does not seem to limit itself in its presenta
tion to this material ; it may also conversely employ a whole
series of houses to designate a single organ, e.g., very long rows
of houses for the intestinal excitation . On other occasions
particular parts of the house actually represent particular parts
of the body, as e.g. , in the headache-dream, the ceiling of the
room (which the dream sees covered with disgusting reptile
like spiders) represents the head .
Quite irrespective of the house symbolism , any other
suitable object may be employed for the representation of
72 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

66
these parts of the body which excite the dream . Thus the
breathing lungs find their symbol in the flaming stove with its
gaseous roaring, the heart in hollow boxes and baskets, the
bladder in round, bag-shaped , or simply hollowed objects.
The male dream of sexual excitement makes the dreamer find
in the street the upper portion of a clarinette , next to it the
same part of a tobacco pipe, and next to that a piece of fur.
The clarinette and tobacco pipe represent the approximate
shape of the male sexual organ, while the fur represents the
pubic hair. In the female sexual dream the tightness of the
closely approximated thighs may be symbolised by a narrow
courtyard surrounded by houses, and the vagina by a very
narrow, slippery and soft footpath, leading through the court
yard, upon which the dreamer is obliged to walk, in order
perhaps to carry a letter to a gentleman " (Volkelt , p . 39) . It
is particularly noteworthy that at the end of such a physically
exciting dream , the phantasy, as it were, unmasks by repre
senting the exciting organ or its function unconcealed . Thus
the " tooth-exciting dream " usually ends with the dreamer
taking a tooth out of his mouth.
The dream phantasy may, however, not only direct its atten
tion to the shape of the exciting organ, but it may also make the
substance contained therein the object of the symbolisation .
Thus the dream of intestinal excitement, e.g., may lead us
through muddy streets, the bladder-exciting dream to foaming
water. Or the stimulus itself, the manner of its excitation, and
the object it covets , are represented symbolically, or the dream
ego enters into a concrete combination with the symbolisation
of its own state, as e.g. , when, in the case of painful stimuli , we
struggle desperately with vicious dogs or raging bulls , or when
in the sexual dream the dreamer sees herself pursued by a naked
man . Disregarding all the possible prolixity of elaboration, a
symbolising phantastic activity remains as the central force of
every dream . Volkelt, 72 in his finely and fervently written book,
next attempted to penetrate further into the character of this
phantasy and to assign to the psychical activity thus recognised ,
its position in a system of philosophical ideas , which, however,
remains altogether too difficult of comprehension for any one
who is not prepared by previous schooling for the sympathetic
comprehension of philosophical modes of thinking.
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 73

Scherner connects no useful function with the activity of

the symbolising phantasy in dreams . In the dream the psyche
plays with the stimuli at its disposal. One might presume
that it plays in an improper manner. One might also ask us
whether our thorough study of Scherner's dream theory, the
arbitrariness and deviation of which from the rules of all
investigation are only too obvious , can lead to any useful results.
It would then be proper for us to forestall the rejection of
Scherner's theory without examination by saying that this
would be too arrogant. This theory is built up on the im
pression received from his dreams by a man who paid great
attention to them, and who would appear to be personally very
well fitted to trace obscure psychic occurrences. Furthermore
it treats a subject which, for thousands of years, has appeared
mysterious to humanity though rich in its contents and re
lations ; and for the elucidation of which stern science, as it
confesses itself, has contributed nothing beyond attempting,
in entire opposition to popular sentiment, to deny the substance
and significance of the object. Finally, let us frankly admit
that apparently we cannot avoid the phantastical in our
attempts to elucidate the dream. There are also phantastic
ganglia cells ; the passage cited on p. 63 from a sober and
exact investigator like Binz , which depicts how the aurora
of awakening flows along the dormant cell masses of the
cerebrum, is not inferior in fancifulness and in improbability
to Scherner's attempts at interpretation. I hope to be able
to demonstrate that there is something actual underlying the
latter, though it has only been indistinctly observed and does
not possess the character of universality entitling it to the
claim of a dream theory. For the present , Scherner's theory
of the dream , in its contrast to the medical theory, may perhaps
lead us to realise between what extremes the explanation of
dream life is still unsteadily vacillating.
(h) Relations between the Dream and Mental Diseases .- When
we speak of the relation of the dream to mental disturbances ,
we may think of three different things : (1 ) Etiological and
clinical relations, as when a dream represents or initiates a
psychotic condition , or when it leaves such a condition behind
it. (2) Changes to which the dream life is subjected in mental
diseases. (3) Inner relations between the dream and the
74 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

psychoses, analogies indicating an intimate relationship .

These manifold relations between the two series of phenomena
have been a favourite theme of medical authors in the earlier
periods of medical science and again in recent times-as we
learn from the literature on the subject gathered from Spitta,64
Radestock,54 Maury,48 and Tissié.68 Sante de Sanctis has
lately directed his attention to this relationship . For the
purposes of our discussion it will suffice merely to glance at
this important subject.
In regard to the clinical and etiological relations between
the dream and the psychoses, I will report the following
observations as paradigms. Hohnbaum asserts (see Krauss ,
p . 39) , that the first attack of insanity frequently originates
in an anxious and terrifying dream , and that the ruling idea
has connection with this dream. Sante de Sanctis adduces
similar observations in paranoiacs , and declares the dream
to be, in some of them, the " vraie cause déterminante de la
folie." The psychosis may come to life all of a sudden with the
dream causing and containing the explanation for the mental
disturbances, or it may slowly develop through further dreams
that have yet to struggle against doubt. In one of de Sanctis's
cases , the affecting dream was accompanied by light hysterical
attacks, which in their turn were followed by an anxious ,
melancholic state. Féré (cited by Tissié) refers to a dream
which caused an hysterical paralysis . Here the dream is
offered us as an etiology of mental disturbance, though we
equally consider the prevailing conditions when we declare
that the mental disturbance shows its first manifestation in
dream life, that it has its first outbreak in the dream . In
other instances the dream life contained the morbid symp
toms, or the psychosis was limited to the dream life. Thus
Thomayer 70 calls attention to anxiety dreams which must be
conceived as equivalent to epileptic attacks . Allison has
described nocturnal insanity (cited by Radestock) , in which
the subjects are apparently perfectly well in the day-time,
while hallucinations , fits of frenzy, and the like regularly
appear at night. De Sanctis and Tissié report similar ob
servations (paranoiac dream-equivalent in an alcoholic , voices
accusing a wife of infidelity). Tissié reports abundant ob
servations from recent times in which actions of a pathological
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 75

character (based on delusions , obsessive impulses ) had their

origin in dreams. Guislain describes a case in which sleep
was replaced by an intermittent insanity.
There is hardly any doubt that along with the psychology
of the dream , the physician will one day occupy himself with
the psychopathology of the dream.
In cases of convalescence from insanity, it is often especially
obvious that, while the functions of the day are normal, the
dream life may still belong to the psychosis. Gregory is said
first to have called attention to such cases (cited by Krauss 39) .
Macario (reported by Tissié) gives account of a maniac who,
a week after his complete recovery again experienced in
dreams the flight of ideas and the passionate impulses of his
disease.
Concerning the changes to which the dream life is sub
jected in chronic psychotic persons , very few investigations
have so far been made. On the other hand, timely attention
has been called to the inner relationship between the dream
and mental disturbance, which shows itself in an extensive
agreement of the manifestations occurring to both. According
to Maury,47 Cubanis, in his Rapports du physique et du moral,
first called attention to this ; following him came Lelut,
J. Moreau, and more particularly the philosopher Maine de
Biran. To be sure, the comparison is still older. Radestock 54
begins the chapter dealing with this comparison, by giving a
collection of expressions showing the analogy between the
dream and insanity. Kant somewhere says : " The lunatic
is a dreamer in the waking state. " According to Krauss
66
Insanity is a dream with the senses awake. " Schopenhauer
terms the dream a short insanity, and insanity a long dream.
Hagen describes the delirium as dream life which has not
been caused by sleep but by disease. Wundt, in the Physio
66
logical Psychology, declares : ' As a matter of fact we may in
the dream ourselves live through almost all symptoms which
we meet in the insane asylums. "
The specific agreements, on the basis of which such an
identification commends itself to the understanding, are
enumerated by Spitta.64 And indeed , very similarly, by Maury
in the following grouping : " ( 1 ) Suspension or at least re
tardation, of self- consciousness , consequent ignorance of the
76 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

condition as such, and hence incapability of astonishment

and lack of moral consciousness . (2 ) Modified perception of
the sensory organs ; that is, perception is diminished in the
dream and generally enhanced in insanity. (3) Combination
of ideas with each other exclusively in accordance with the
laws of association and of reproduction, hence automatic
formation of groups and for this reason disproportion in the
relations between ideas (exaggerations, phantasms ). And as
a result of all this : (4) Changing or transformation of the
personality and at times of the peculiarities of character
(perversities)."
Radestock gives some additional features or analogies in
the material : " Most hallucinations and illusions are found in
the sphere of the senses of sight and hearing and general
sensation. As in the dream, the smallest number of elements
is supplied by the senses of smell and taste. The fever
patient, like the dreamer, is assaulted by reminiscences from
the remote past ; what the waking and healthy man seems
to have forgotten is recollected in sleep and in disease." The
analogy between the dream and the psychosis receives its full
value only when, like a family resemblance, it is extended to
the finer mimicry and to the individual peculiarities of facial
expression.
" To him who is tortured by physical and mental sufferings
the dream accords what has been denied him by reality, to
wit, physical well-being and happiness ; so the insane, too,
see the bright pictures of happiness, greatness , sublimity, and
riches . The supposed possession of estates and the imaginary
fulfilment of wishes, the denial or destruction of which have
just served as a psychic cause of the insanity, often form the
main content of the delirium. The woman who has lost a
dearly beloved child , in her delirium experiences maternal
joys ; the man who has suffered reverses of fortune deems
himself immensely wealthy ; and the jilted girl pictures herself
in the bliss of tender love."
The above passage from Radestock, an abstract of a keen
discussion of Griesinger 31 (p . 111 ) , reveals with the greatest
clearness the wish fulfilment as a characteristic of the imagina
tion, common to the dream and the psychosis. (My own
stigations have taught me that here the key to a
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 77

psychological theory of the dream and of the psychosis is to

be found . )
" Absurd combinations of ideas and weakness of judgment
are the main characteristics of the dream and of insanity."
The over-estimation of one's own mental capacity, which
appears absurd to sober judgment, is found alike both in one
and the other, and the rapid course of ideas in the dream
corresponds to the flight of ideas in the psychosis. Both are
devoid of any measure of time. The dissociation of personality
in the dream, which, for instance, distributes one's own know
ledge between two persons , one of whom, the strange one,
corrects in the dream one's own ego, fully corresponds to the
well-known splitting of personality in hallucinatory paranoia ;
the dreamer, too , hears his own thoughts expressed by strange
voices. Even the constant delusions find their analogy in the
stereotyped recurring pathological dreams (réve obsedant).
After recovering from a delirium, patients not infrequently
declare that the disease appeared to them like an uncomfort
able dream ; indeed, they inform us that occasionally, even
during the course of their sickness, they have felt that they
were only dreaming, just as it frequently happens in the
sleeping dream .
Considering all this, it is not surprising that Radestock
condenses his own opinion and that of many others into the
following : " Insanity, an abnormal phenomenon of disease , is
to be regarded as an enhancement of the periodically recurring
normal dream states " (p. 228).
Krauss 39 attempted to base the relationship between the
dream and insanity upon the etiology (or rather upon the
exciting sources) , perhaps making the relationship even more
intimate than was possible through the analogy of the pheno
mena they manifest. According to him, the fundamental
element common to both is, as we have learned , the organically
determined sensation, the sensation of physical stimuli , the
general feeling produced by contributions from all the organs .
Cf. Peise, cited by Maury 48 (p. 60).
The incontestable agreement between the dream and
mental disturbance, extending into characteristic details,
constitutes one of the strongest supports of the medical theory
of dream life, according to which the dream is represented as a
78 THE INTERPRETA OF DREAMS
TION

useless and disturbing process and as the expression of a reduced

psychic activity. One cannot expect, however, to derive the
final explanation of the dream from the mental disturbances ,
as it is generally known in what unsatisfactory state our
understanding of the origin of the latter remains . It is very
probably, however, that a modified conception of the dream
must also influence our views in regard to the inner mechanism
of mental disturbances, and hence we may say that we are
engaged in the elucidation of the psychosis when we endeavour
to clear up the mystery of the dream .
I shall have to justify myself for not extending my summary
of the literature of the dream problems over the period be
tween the first appearance of this book and its second edition .
If this justification may not seem very satisfactory to the
reader, I was nevertheless influenced by it. The motives
which mainly induced me to summarise the treatment of the
dream in the literature have been exhausted with the foregoing
introduction ; to have continued with this work would have
cost me extraordinary effort and would have afforded little
advantage or knowledge. For the period of nine years referred
to has yielded nothing new or valuable either for the conception
of the dream in actual material or in points of view. In most
of the publications that have since appeared my work has
remained unmentioned and unregarded ; naturally least
attention has been bestowed upon it by the so-called “ investi
gators of dreams," who have thus afforded a splendid example
of the aversion characteristic of scientific men to learning
something new. " Les savants ne sont pas curieux," said
the scoffer Anatole France. If there were such a thing in
science as right to revenge, I in turn should be justified in
ignoring the literature since the appearance of this book.
The few accounts that have appeared in scientific journals
are so full of folly and misconception that my only possible
answer to my critics would be to request them to read this
book over again . Perhaps also the request should be that
they read it as a whole.
In the works of those physicians who make use of the
psychoanalytic method of treatment (Jung, Abraham, Riklin ,
Muthmann, Stekel, Rank, and others), an abundance of dreams
have been reported and interpreted in accordance with my
 LITERATURE OF THE DREAM 79

instructions. In so far as these works go beyond the con

firmation of my assertions I have noted their results in the
context of my discussion . A supplement to the literary
index at the end of this book brings together the most im
portant of these new publications. The voluminous book on
the dream by Sante de Sanctis , of which a German translation
appeared soon after its publication, has, so to speak, crossed
with mine, so that I could take as little notice of him as the
Italian author could of me. Unfortunately, I am further
obliged to declare that this laborious work is exceedingly
poor in ideas, so poor that one could never divine from it the
existence of the problems treated by me.
I have finally to mention two publications which show a
near relation to my treatment of the dream problems. A
younger philosopher, H. Swoboda, who has undertaken to
extend W. Fliesse's discovery of biological periodicity (in
groups of twenty-three and twenty-eight days) to the psychic
field, has produced an imaginative work,* in which, among
other things, he has used this key to solve the riddle of the
dream . The interpretation of dreams would herein have
fared badly ; the material contained in dreams would be
explained through the coincidence of all those memories
which during the night complete one of the biological periods
for the first or the n-th time. A personal statement from the
author led me to assume that he himself no longer wished to
advocate this theory earnestly. But it seems I was mistaken
in this conclusion ; I shall report in another place some ob
servations in reference to Swoboda's assertion , concerning the
conclusions of which I am, however, not convinced . It gave
me far greater pleasure to find accidentally, in an unexpected
place, a conception of the dream in essentials fully agreeing
with my own . The circumstances of time preclude the possi
bility that this conception was influenced by a reading of my
book ; I must therefore greet this as the only demonstrable
concurrence in the literature with the essence of my dream
theory. The book which contains the passage concerning the
dream which I have in mind was published as a second edition
in 1900 by Lynkus under the title Phantasien eines Realisten.

* H. Swoboda, Die Perioden des Menschlichen Organismus, 1904.

 II

METHOD OF DREAM INTERPRETATION

THE ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE DREAM

THE title which I have given my treatise indicates the tradition

which I wish to make the starting-point in my discussion of
dreams . I have made it my task to show that dreams are
capable of interpretation, and contributions to the solution
of the dream problems that have just been treated can only be
yielded as possible by-products of the settlement of my own
particular problem . With the hypothesis that dreams are
interpretable, I at once come into contradiction with the
prevailing dream science, in fact with all dream theories except
that of Scherner, for to " interpret a dream " means to declare
its meaning, to replace it by something which takes its place
in the concatenation of our psychic activities as a link of full
importance and value . But, as we have learnt, the scientific
theories of the dream leave no room for a problem of dream
interpretation, for, in the first place, according to these, the
dream is no psychic action, but a somatic process which makes
itself known to the psychic apparatus by means of signs . The
opinion of the masses has always been quite different. It
asserts its privilege of proceeding illogically, and although it
admits the dream to be incomprehensible and absurd, it
cannot summon the resolution to deny the dream all significance .
Led by a dim intuition, it seems rather to assume that the
dream has a meaning, albeit a hidden one ; that it is intended
as a substitute for some other thought process, and that it is
only a question of revealing this substitute correctly in order
to reach the hidden signification of the dream .
23
The laity has, therefore, always endeavoured to “ interpret
the dream , and in doing so has tried two essentially different
methods . The first of these procedures regards the dream
content as a whole and seeks to replace it by another content
80
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 81

which is intelligible and in certain respects analogous. This

is symbolic dream interpretation ; it naturally goes to pieces
at the outset in the case of those dreams which appear not only
unintelligible but confused. The construction which the
biblical Joseph places upon the dream of Pharaoh furnishes
an example of its procedure. The seven fat kine, after which
came seven lean ones which devour the former, furnish a
symbolic substitute for a prediction of seven years of famine
in the land of Egypt , which will consume all the excess which
seven fruitful years have created . Most of the artificial dreams
contrived by poets are intended for such symbolic interpreta
tion, for they reproduce the thought conceived by the poet
in a disguise found to be in accordance with the characteristics
of our dreaming, as we know these from experience. * The
idea that the dream concerns itself chiefly with future events
whose course it surmises in advance-a relic of the prophetic
significance with which dreams were once credited- now
becomes the motive for transplanting the meaning of the
dream, found by means of symbolic interpretation, into the
future by means of an " it shall."
A demonstration of the way in which such symbolic inter
pretation is arrived at cannot, of course, be given . Success
remains a matter of ingenious conjecture, of direct intuition ,
and for this reason dream interpretation has naturally been
elevated to an art, which seems to depend upon extraordinary
gifts .† The other of the two popular methods of dream
interpretation entirely abandons such claims . It might be

In a novel, Gradiva, of the poet W. Jensen, I accidentally discovered

several artificial dreams which were formed with perfect correctness and
which could be interpreted as though they had not been invented, but had
been dreamt by actual persons. The poet declared, upon my inquiry, that
he was unacquainted with my theory of dreams. I have made use of this
correspondence between my investigation and the creative work of the poet
as a proof of the correctness of my method of dream analysis (" Der Wahn
und die Träume," in W. Jensen's Gradiva, No. 1 of the Schriften zur
angewandten Seelenkunde, 1906, edited by me). Dr. Alfred Robitsek has
since shown that the dream of the hero in Goethe's Egmont may be inter
preted as correctly as an actually experienced dream (" Die Analyse von
Egmont's Träume," Jahrbuch, edited by Bleuler-Freud , vol. ii. , 1910.)
+ After the completion of my manuscript, a paper by Stumpf (65) came
to my notice which agrees with my work in attempting to prove that the
dream is full of meaning and capable of interpretation. But the interpre
tation is undertaken by means of an allegorising symbolism, without warrant
for the universal applicability of the procedure.
F
82 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

designated as the " cipher method, " since it treats the dream
as a kind of secret code, in which every sign is translated into
another sign of known meaning, according to an established
key. For example, I have dreamt of a letter, and also of a
funeral or the like ; I consult a " dream book," and find that
"letter " is to be translated by " vexation," and “ funeral ”
by " marriage, engagement." It now remains to establish a
connection , which I again am to assume pertains to the future,
by means of the rigmarole which I have deciphered . An
interesting variation of this cipher procedure, a variation by
which its character of purely mechanical transference is to a
certain extent corrected, is presented in the work on dream
interpretation by Artemidoros of Daldis. Here not only the
dream content, but also the personality and station in life of
the dreamer, are taken into consideration , so that the same
dream content has a significance for the rich man, the married
man, or the orator, which is different from that for the poor
man, the unmarried man, or, say, the merchant . The essential
point, then, in this procedure is that the work of interpretation
is not directed to the entirety of the dream, but to each portion
of the dream content by itself, as though the dream were a
conglomeration, in which each fragment demands a particular
disposal. Incoherent and confused dreams are certainly the
ones responsible for the invention of the cipher method . *

* Dr. Alfred Robitsek calls my attention to the fact that Oriental dream
books, of which ours are pitiful plagiarisms, undertake the interpretation of
dream elements, mostly according to the assonance and similarity of the
words. Since these relationships must be lost by translation into our
language, the incomprehensibility of the substitutions in our popular " dream
books " may have its origin in this fact. Information as to the extraordinary
significance of puns and punning in ancient Oriental systems of culture may
be found in the writings of Hugo Winckler. The nicest example of a dream
interpretation which has come
2 down to us from antiquity is based on a play
upon words. Artemidoros relates the following (p. 225) : " It seems to me
that Aristandros gives a happy interpretation to Alexander of Macedon.
When the latter held Tyros shut in and in a state of siege, and was angry
and depressed over the great loss of time, he dreamed that he saw a Satyros
dancing on his shield. It happened that Aristandros was near Tyros and in
the convoy of the king, who was waging war on the Syrians. By disjoining
the word Satyros into oa and rúpos, he induced the king to become more
aggressive in the siege, and thus he became master of the city. (Za rúpos
thine is Tyros.) The dream, indeed , is so intimately connected with verbal
expression that Ferenczi 7 may justly remark that every tongue has its
own dream language. Dreams are, as a rule, not translatable into other
languages.
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 83

The worthlessness of both these popular interpretation

procedures for the scientific treatment of the subject cannot be
questioned for a moment. The symbolic method is limited
in its application and is capable of no general demonstration.
In the cipher method everything depends upon whether the
key, the dream book, is reliable, and for that all guarantees
are lacking. One might be tempted to grant the contention
of the philosophers and psychiatrists and to dismiss the
problem of dream interpretation as a fanciful one.
I have come, however, to think differently. I have been
forced to admit that here once more we have one of those not
infrequent cases where an ancient and stubbornly retained
popular belief seems to have come nearer to the truth of the
matter than the judgment of the science which prevails to-day.
I must insist that the dream actually has significance, and that
a scientific procedure in dream interpretation is possible . I
have come upon the knowledge of this procedure in the follow
ing manner :
For several years I have been occupied with the solution
of certain psychopathological structures in hysterical phobias,
compulsive ideas, and the like, for therapeutic purposes. I
have been so occupied since becoming familiar with an import
ant report of Joseph Breuer to the effect that in those struc
tures, regarded as morbid symptoms, solution and treatment
go hand in hand . * Where it has been possible to trace such
a pathological idea back to the elements in the psychic life of
the patient to which it owes its origin, this idea has crumbled
away, and the patient has been relieved of it. In view of the
failure of our other therapeutic efforts, and in the face of the
mysteriousness of these conditions, it seems to me tempting , in
spite of all difficulties , to press forward on the path taken by
Breuer until the subject has been fully understood . We shall
have elsewhere to make a detailed report upon the form which
the technique of this procedure has finally assumed, and the
results of the efforts which have been made. In the course
of these psychoanalytical studies , I happened upon dream
interpretation. My patients, after I had obliged them to
inform me of all the ideas and thoughts which came to them in
connection with the given theme, related their dreams, and
* Breuer and Freud, Studien über Hysterie, Vienna, 1895 ; 2nd ed . 1909.
 84 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

thus taught me that a dream may be linked into the psychic

concatenation which must be followed backwards into the
J
memory from the pathological idea as a starting-point . The
next step was to treat the dream as a symptom, and to apply
to it the method of interpretation which had been worked out
for such symptoms .
For this a certain psychic preparation of the patient is
necessary. The double effort is made with him, to stimulate
his attention for his psychic perceptions and to eliminate the
critique with which he is ordinarily in the habit of viewing
the thoughts which come to the surface in him. For the pur
pose of self-observation with concentrated attention, it is
advantageous that the patient occupy a restful position and
close his eyes ; he must be explicitly commanded to resign
the critique of the thought-formations which he perceives.
He must be told further that the success of the psychoanalysis
depends upon his noticing and telling everything that passes
through his mind, and that he must not allow himself to
suppress one idea because it seems to him unimportant or
irrelevant to the subject, or another because it seems non
sensical. He must maintain impartiality towards his ideas ;
for it would be owing to just this critique if he were unsuccessful
in finding the desired solution of the dream, the obsession, or
the like.
I have noticed in the course of my psychoanalytic work
that the state of mind of a man in contemplation is entirely
different from that of a man who is observing his psychic
processes . In contemplation there is a greater play of psychic
action than in the most attentive self-observation ; this is
also shown by the tense attitude and wrinkled brow of
contemplation, in contrast with the restful features of self
observation . In both cases, there must be concentration of
attention, but, besides this , in contemplation one exercises a
critique, in consequence of which he rejects some of the ideas
which he has perceived, and cuts short others , so that he does
not follow the trains of thought which they would open ;
toward still other thoughts he may act in such a manner that
they do not become conscious at all-that is to say, they are
suppressed before they are perceived. In self-observation,
on the other hand, one has only the task of suppressing the
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 85

critique ; if he succeeds in this, an unlimited number of ideas,

which otherwise would have been impossible for him to grasp,
come to his consciousness . With the aid of this material ,
newly secured for the purpose of self-observation, the inter
pretation of pathological ideas , as well as of dream images, can
be accomplished. As may be seen, the point is to bring about
a psychic state to some extent analogous as regards the appor
tionment of psychic energy (transferable attention) to the
state prior to falling asleep (and indeed also to the hypnotic
state). In falling asleep, the " undesired ideas " come into
prominence on account of the slackening of a certain arbitrary
(and certainly also critical) action , which we allow to exert
an influence upon the trend of our ideas ; we are accustomed
""
to assign " fatigue as the reason for this slackening ; the
emerging undesired ideas as the reason are changed into visual
and acoustic images. (Cf. the remarks of Schleiermacher 61)
and others, p. 40. ) In the condition which is used for the
analysis of dreams and pathological ideas , this activity is
purposely and arbitrarily dispensed with, and the psychic
energy thus saved, or a part of it, is used for the attentive
following of the undesired thoughts now coming to the surface,
which retain their identity as ideas (this is the difference from
the condition of falling asleep). "Undesired ideas " are thus
changed into " desired " ones .
The suspension thus required of the critique for these
apparently " freely rising " ideas, which is here demanded
and which is usually exercised on them, is not easy for some
persons . The " undesired ideas " are in the habit of starting
the most violent resistance, which seeks to prevent them from
coming to the surface. But if we may credit our great poet
philosopher Friedrich Schiller, a very similar tolerance must
be the condition of poetic production . At a point in his
correspondence with Koerner, for the noting of which we are
indebted to Mr. Otto Rank, Schiller answers a friend who
complains of his lack of creativeness in the following words :
66
The reason for your complaint lies, it seems to me, in the
constraint which your intelligence imposes upon your imagina
tion. I must here make an observation and illustrate it by an
allegory. It does not seem beneficial, and it is harmful for
the creative work of the mind, if the intelligence inspects too
86 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

closely the ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates.

Regarded by itself, an idea may be very trifling and very ad
venturous, but it perhaps becomes important on account of
one which follows it ; perhaps in a certain connection with
others, which may seem equally absurd, it is capable of forming
a very useful construction . The intelligence cannot judge all
these things if it does not hold them steadily long enough to
see them in connection with the others . In the case of a
creative mind, however, the intelligence has withdrawn its
watchers from the gates , the ideas rush in pell-mell, and it is
only then that the great heap is looked over and critically
examined. Messrs . Critics , or whatever else you may call
yourselves, you are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and
transitory madness which is found in all creators , and whose
longer or shorter duration distinguishes the thinking artist
from the dreamer. Hence your complaints about barrenness ,
for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely " (Letter
of December 1 , 1788).
And yet, " such a withdrawal of the watchers from the
gates of intelligence, " as Schiller calls it, such a shifting into
the condition of uncritical self- observation, is in no way
difficult .
Most of my patients accomplish it after the first instructions ;
I myself can do it very perfectly, if I assist the operation by
writing down my notions. The amount , in terms of psychic
energy, by which the critical activity is in this manner reduced ,
and by which the intensity of the self-observation may be
increased, varies widely according to the subject matter upon
which the attention is to be fixed .
The first step in the application of this procedure now
teaches us that not the dream as a whole, but only the parts
of its contents separately, may be made the object of our
attention . If I ask a patient who is as yet unpractised :
" What occurs to you in connection with this dream ? " as
a rule he is unable to fix upon anything in his psychic field of
vision. I must present the dream to him piece by piece, then
for every fragment he gives me a series of notions, which
may be designated as the " background thoughts " of this
part of the dream. In this first and important condition, then,
the method of dream interpretation which I employ avoids
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 87

the popular, traditional method of interpretation by symbolism

famous in the legends , and approaches the second, the " cipher
method ." Like this one it is an interpretation in detail, not
en masse ; like this it treats the dream from the beginning as
something put together as a conglomeration of psychic images .
In the course of my psychoanalysis of neurotics , I have
indeed already subjected many thousand dreams to inter
pretation, but I do not now wish to use this material in the
introduction to the technique and theory of dream interpreta
tion. Quite apart from the consideration that I should expose
myself to the objection that these are dreams of neuropathic
subjects, the conclusions drawn from which would not admit
of reapplication to the dreams of healthy persons, another
reason forces me to reject them. The theme which is naturally
always the subject of these dreams, is the history of the disease
which is responsible for the neurosis. For this purpose there
would be required a very long introduction and an investiga
tion into the nature and logical conditions of psychoneuroses ,
things which are in themselves novel and unfamiliar in the
highest degree, and which would thus distract attention from
the dream problem. My purpose lies much more in the
direction of preparing the ground for a solution of difficult
problems in the psychology of the neuroses by means of the
solution of dreams. But if I eliminate the dreams of neurotics ,
I must not treat the remainder too discriminatingly. Only
those dreams still remain which have been occasionally related
to me by healthy persons of my acquaintance, or which I find
as examples in the literature of dream life . Unfortunately
in all these dreams the analysis is lacking, without which I
cannot find the meaning of the dream. My procedure is, of
course, not as easy as that of the popular cipher method , which
translates the given dream content according to an established
key ; I am much more prepared to find that the same dream
may cover a different meaning in the case of different persons ,
and in a different connection I must then resort to my own
dreams, as an abundant and convenient material, furnished
by a person who is about normal, and having reference to many
incidents of everyday life. I shall certainly be with doubts
as to the trustworthiness of these " self-analyses." Arbitrari
ness is here in no way avoided . In my opinion , conditions are
88 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

more likely to be favourable in self-observation than in the

observation of others ; in any case, it is permissible to see how
much can be accomplished by means of self-analysis. I must
overcome further difficulties arising from inner self. One has
a readily understood aversion to exposing so many intimate
things from one's own psychic life, and one does not feel safe
from the misinterpretation of strangers. But one must be
""
able to put one's self beyond this. " Toute psychologiste,'
writes Delbœuf,26 " est obligé de faire l'aveu même de ses
faiblesses s'il croit par là jeter du jour sur quelque problème
obscure." And I may assume that in the case of the reader,
the immediate interest in the indiscretions which I must
commit will very soon give way to exclusive engrossment in
the psychological problems which are illuminated by them.
I shall, therefore, select one of my own dreams and use it to
elucidate my method of interpretation. Every such dream
necessitates a preliminary statement. I must now beg the
reader to make my interests his own for a considerable time,
and to become absorbed with me in the most trifling details
of my life, for an interest in the hidden significance of dreams
imperatively demands such transference.
Preliminary statement : In the summer of 1895 I had
psychoanalytically treated a young lady who stood in close
friendship to me and those near to me. It is to be understood
that such a complication of relations may be the source of
manifold feelings for the physician , especially for the psycho
therapist. The personal interest of the physician is greater,
his authority is less . A failure threatens to undermine the
friendship with the relatives of the patient. The cure ended
with partial success, the patient got rid of her hysterical fear ,
but not of all her somatic symptoms . I was at that time
not yet sure of the criteria marking the final settlement of a
hysterical case, and expected her to accept a solution which did
not seem acceptable to her. In this disagreement, we cut
short the treatment on account of the summer season. One
day a younger colleague, one of my best friends, who had
visited the patient- Irma-and her family in their country
resort, came to see me. I asked him how he found her, and
received the answer : " She is better, but not altogether well."
I realise that those words of my friend Otto, or the tone of
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 89

voice in which they were spoken, made me angry. I thought

I heard a reproach in the words, perhaps to the effect that I
had promised the patient too much, and rightly or wrongly
I traced Otto's supposed siding against me to the influence
of the relatives of the patient, who, I assume, had never
approved of my treatment. Moreover, my disagreeable im
pression did not become clear to me, nor did I give it ex
pression. The very same evening, I wrote down the history
of Irma's case, in order to hand it, as though for my justifica
tion , to Dr. M. , a mutual friend, who was at that time a leading
figure in our circle. During the night following this evening
(perhaps rather in the morning) I had the following dream,
which was registered immediately after waking :—

DREAM OF JULY 23-24, 1895

A great hall-many guests whom we are receiving- among

them Irma, whom I immediately take aside, as though to answer
her letter, to reproach her for not yet accepting the " solution."
I say to her : " If you still have pains, it is really only your own
fault." She answers : " If you only knew what pains I now
have in the neck, stomach, and abdomen ; I am drawn together."
I am frightened and look at her. She looks pale and bloated ; I
think that after all I must be overlooking some organic affection.
I take her to the window and look into her throat. She shows
some resistance to this, like a woman who has a false set of teeth.
I think anyway she does not need them. The mouth then really
opens without difficulty and I find a large white spot to the right,
and at another place I see extended grayish-white scabs attached
to curious curling formations, which have obviously been formed
like the turbinated bone-I quickly call Dr. M., who repeats the
examination and confirms it. . . . Dr. M.'s looks are altogether
unusual ; he is very pale, limps, and has no beard on his chin.
My friend Otto is now also standing next to her, and my
66
friend Leopold percusses her small body and says : She has
some dulness on the left below," and also calls attention to an
infiltrated portion of the skin on the left shoulder (something
which I feel as he does, in spite of the dress) . . . . M. says : " No
doubt it is an infection, but it does not matter ; dysentery will
develop too, and the poison will be excreted . . . . We also ha
90 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

immediate knowledge of the origin of the infection . My friend

Otto has recently given her an injection with a propyl preparation
when she felt ill, propyls. Propionic acid . . . Trimethy
lamine (the formula of which I see printed before me in heavy
type). . . . Such injections are not made so rashly. . . . Pro
bably also the syringe was not clean.
This dream has an advantage over many others. It is
at once clear with what events of the preceding day it is con
nected, and what subject it treats. The preliminary statement
gives information on these points . The news about Irma's
health which I have received from Otto, the history of the
illness upon which I have written until late at night, have
occupied my psychic activity even during sleep. In spite of
all this, no one, who has read the preliminary report and has
knowledge of the content of the dream, has been able to guess
what the dream signifies . Nor do I myself know. I wonder
about the morbid symptoms, of which Irma complains in the
dream , for they are not the same ones for which I have treated
her. I smile about the consultation with Dr. M. I smile at
the nonsensical idea of an injection with propionic acid, and at
the consolation attempted by Dr. M. Towards the end the
dream seems more obscure and more terse than at the be
ginning. In order to learn the significance of all this, I am
compelled to undertake a thorough analysis .

ANALYSIS

The hall—many guests, whom we are receiving.

We were living this summer at the Bellevue, in an isolated
house on one of the hills which lie close to the Kahlenberg.
This house was once intended as a place of amusement, and
on this account has unusually high , hall-like rooms. The
dream also occurred at the Bellevue, a few days before the
birthday of my wife. During the day, my wife had expressed
the expectation that several friends, among them Irma, would
come to us as guests for her birthday. My dream , then,
anticipates this situation : It is the birthday of my wife, and
many people, among them Irma , are received by us as guests
in the great hall of the Bellevue.
I reproach Irma for not having accepted the solution. I say :
"If you still have pains, it is your own fault."
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 91

I might have said this also , or did say it, while awake. At
that time I had the opinion (recognised later to be incorrect)
that my task was limited to informing patients of the hidden
meaning of their symptoms . Whether they then accepted or
did not accept the solution upon which success depended - for
that I was not responsible. I am thankful to this error, which
fortunately has now been overcome, for making life easier for
me at a time when, with all my unavoidable ignorance, I
was to produce successful cures . But I see in the speech
which I make to Irma in the dream, that above all things I
do not want to be to blame for the pains which she still feels.
If it is Irma's own fault, it cannot be mine. Should the
purpose of the dream be looked for in this quarter ?
Irma's complaints ; pains in the neck, abdomen, and stomach ;
she is drawn together.
Pains in the stomach belonged to the symptom-complex of
my patient, but they were not very prominent ; she com
plained rather of sensations of nausea and disgust. Pains in
the neck and abdomen and constriction of the throat hardly
played a part in her case. I wonder why I decided upon this
choice of symptoms, nor can I for the moment find the reason.
She looks pale and bloated.
My patient was always ruddy. I suspect that another
person is here being substituted for her.
I am frightened at the thought that I must have overlooked some
organic affection.
This , as the reader will readily believe, is a constant fear
with the specialist, who sees neurotics almost exclusively,
and who is accustomed to ascribe so many manifestations,
which other physicians treat as organic, to hysteria. On the
other hand, I am haunted by a faint doubt-I know not whence
it comes as to whether my fear is altogether honest . If
Irma's pains are indeed of organic origin, I am not bound to
cure them. My treatment, of course, removes only hysterical
pains. It seems to me, in fact, that I wish to find an error in
the diagnosis ; in that case the reproach of being unsuccessful
would be removed .
I take her to the window in order to look into her throat. She
resists a little, like a woman who has false teeth. I think she does
not need them anyway.
92 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I had never had occasion to inspect Irma's aural cavity.

The incident in the dream reminds me of an examination ,
made some time before, of a governess who at first gave an
impression of youthful beauty, but who upon opening her
mouth took certain measures for concealing her teeth. Other
memories of medical examinations and of little secrets which
are discovered by them, unpleasantly for both examiner and
examined, connect themselves with this case. "She does not
need them anyway," is at first perhaps a compliment for
Irma ; but I suspect a different meaning. In careful analysis
one feels whether or not the " background thoughts " which
are to be expected have been exhausted . The way in which
Irma stands at the window suddenly reminds me of another
experience. Irma possesses an intimate woman friend, of
whom I think very highly. One evening on paying her a visit
I found her in the position at the window reproduced in the
dream, and her physician, the same Dr. M. , declared that she
had a diphtheritic membrane. The person of Dr. M. and the
membrane return in the course of the dream. Now it occurs
to me that during the last few months, I have been given every
reason to suppose that this lady is also hysterical. Yes, Irma
herself has betrayed this to me. But what do I know about
her condition ? Only the one thing, that like Irma she
suffers from hysterical choking in dreams. Thus in the
dream I have replaced my patient by her friend . Now I
remember that I have often trifled with the expectation that
this lady might likewise engage me to relieve her of her
symptoms. But even at the time I thought it improbable,
for she is of a very shy nature. She resists, as the dream
shows. Another explanation might be that she does not need
it ; in fact, until now she has shown herself strong enough to
master her condition without outside help . Now only a few
features remain, which I can assign neither to Irma nor to her
friend : Pale, bloated, false teeth . The false teeth lead me to
the governess ; I now feel inclined to be satisfied with bad
teeth. Then another person, to whom these features may
allude, occurs to me. She is not my patient, and I do not
wish her to be my patient, for I have noticed that she is not
at her ease with me, and I do not consider her a docile patient.
She is generally pale, and once, when she had a particularly
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 93

good spell, she was bloated . * I have thus compared my

patient Irma with two others, who would likewise resist
treatment. What can it mean that I have exchanged her for
her friend in the dream ? Perhaps that I wish to exchange
her ; either the other one arouses in me stronger sympathies
or I have a higher opinion of her intelligence. For I consider
Irma foolish because she does not accept my solution . The
other one would be more sensible, and would thus be more
likely to yield . The mouth then really opens without difficulty ;
she would tell more than Irma.†
What I see in the throat ; a white spot and scabby nostrils.
The white spot recalls diphtheria, and thus Irma's friend ,
but besides this it recalls the grave illness of my eldest daughter
two years before and all the anxiety of that unfortunate time.
The scab on the nostrils reminds me of a concern about my own
health. At that time I often used cocaine in order to suppress
annoying swellings in the nose, and had heard a few days before
that a lady patient who did likewise had contracted an ex
tensive necrosis of the nasal mucous membrane. The re
commendation of cocaine, which I had made in 1885 , had also
brought grave reproaches upon me. A dear friend , already
dead in 1895, had hastened his end through the misuse of this
remedy.
I quickly call Dr. M. , who repeats the examination.
This would simply correspond to the position which M.
occupied among us. But the word " quickly " is striking
enough to demand a special explanation . It reminds me of a
sad medical experience. By the continued prescription of a
remedy (sulfonal ) which was still at that time considered
harmless, I had once caused the severe intoxication of a
woman patient, and I had turned in great haste to an older ,
The complaint, as yet unexplained, of pains in the abdomen, may also
be referred to this third person. It is my own wife, of course, who is in
question ; the abdominal pains remind me of one of the occasions upon
which her shyness became evident to me. I must myself admit that I do
not treat Irma and my wife very gallantly in this dream, but let it be said
for my excuse that I am judging both of them by the standard of the
courageous, docile, female patient.
I suspect that the interpretation of this portion has not been carried
far enough to follow every hidden meaning. If I were to continue the
comparison of the three women, I would go far afield. Every dream has at
least one point at which it is unfathomable, a central point, as it were, con
necting it with the unknown.
94 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

more experienced colleague for assistance. The fact that I

really had this case in mind is confirmed by an accessory
circumstance. The patient, who succumbed to the intoxica
tion, bore the same name as my eldest daughter. I had never
thought of this until now ; now it seems to me almost like a
retribution of fate as though I ought to continue the replace
ment of the persons here in another sense ; this Matilda for
that Matilda ; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth . It is as
though I were seeking every opportunity to reproach myself
with lack of medical conscientiousness.
Dr. M. is pale, without a beard on his chin, and he limps.
Of this so much is correct, that his unhealthy appearance
often awakens the concern of his friends. The other two
characteristics must belong to another person . A brother
living abroad occurs to me, who wears his chin clean-shaven ,
and to whom, if I remember aright, M. of the dream on the
whole bears some resemblance. About him the news arrived
some days before that he was lame on account of an arthritic
disease in the hip . There must be a reason why I fuse the two
persons into one in the dream. I remember that in fact I
was on bad terms with both of them for similar reasons. Both
of them had rejected a certain proposal which I had recently
made to them .
My friend Otto is now standing next to the sick woman, and
my friend Leopold examines her and calls attention to a dulness
on the left below.
My friend Leopold is also a physician, a relative of Otto .
Since the two practise the same specialty, fate has made them
competitors, who are continually being compared with each
other. Both of them assisted me for years, while I was still
directing a public dispensary for nervous children. Scenes
like the one reproduced in the dream have often taken place
there. While I was debating with Otto about the diagnosis of
a case, Leopold had examined the child anew and had made
an unexpected contribution towards the decision. For there
was a difference of character between the two similar to that
between Inspector Brassig and his friend Charles . The one
was distinguished for his brightness , the other was slow,
thoughtful, but thorough. If I contrast Otto and the careful
Leopold in the dream, I do it , apparently, in order to extol
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 95

Leopold. It is a comparison similar to the one above between

the disobedient patient Irma and her friend who is thought to
be more sensible. I now become aware of one of the tracks
along which the thought association of the dream progresses ;
from the sick child to the children's asylum. The dulness to
the left, below, recalls a certain case corresponding to it, in
every detail in which Leopold astonished me by his thorough
ness . Besides this , I have a notion of something like a metastatic
affection, but it might rather be a reference to the lady patient
whom I should like to have instead of Irma. For this lady, as
far as I can gather, resembles a woman suffering from tuber
culosis.
An infiltrated portion of skin on the left shoulder.
I see at once that this is my own rheumatism of the shoulder,
which I always feel when I have remained awake until late at
night. The turn of phrase in the dream also sounds ambiguous ;
66 Feel
something which I feel . . . in spite of the dress . on
my own body " is intended . Moreover, I am struck with the
unusual sound of the term " infiltrated portion of skin." " An
infiltration behind on the upper left " is what we are accus
tomed to ; this would refer to the lung, and thus again to
tuberculosis patients .
In spite of the dress.
This , to be sure, is only an interpolation . We, of course ,
examine the children in the clinic undressed ; it is some sort
of contradiction to the manner in which grown-up female
patients must be examined . The story used to be told of a
prominent clinician that he always examined his patients
physically only through the clothes. The rest is obscure to
me ; I have, frankly, no inclination to follow the matter
further.
Dr. M. says : " It is an infection, but it does not matter.
Dysentery will develop, and the poison will be excreted .
This at first seems ridiculous to me ; still it must be care
fully analysed like everything else . Observed more closely,
it seems, however, to have a kind of meaning . What I had
found in the patient was local diphtheritis. I remember the
discussion about diphtheritis and diphtheria at the time of
my daughter's illness . The latter is the general infection
which proceeds from local diphtheritis . Leopold proves the
96 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

existence of such general infection by means of the dulness,

which thus suggests a metastatic lesion . I believe, however,
that just this kind of metastasis does not occur in the case of
diphtheria. It rather recalls pyæmia.
It does not matter, is a consolation. I believe it fits in as
follows : The last part of the dream has yielded a content to
the effect that the pains of the patient are the result of a serious
organic affection. I begin to suspect that with this I am only
trying to shift the blame from myself. Psychic treatment
cannot be held responsible for the continued presence of
diphtheritic affection. But now, in turn, I am disturbed at
inventing such serious suffering for Irma for the sole purpose
of exculpating myself. It seems cruel. I need (accordingly)
the assurance that the result will be happy, and it does not
seem ill-advised that I should put the words of consolation
into the mouth of Dr. M. But here I consider myself superior
to the dream, a fact which needs explanation .
But why is this consolation so nonsensical ?
Dysentery :
Some sort of far-fetched theoretical notion that pathological
material may be removed through the intestines. Am I in
this way trying to make fun of Dr. M.'s great store of far
fetched explanations, his habit of finding curious pathological
relationships ? Dysentery suggests something else. A few
months ago I had in charge a young man suffering from re
markable pains during evacuation of the bowels, a case which
66
colleagues had treated as anæmia with malnutrition. " I
realised that it was a question of hysteria ; I was unwilling
to use my psychotherapy on him, and sent him off on a sea
voyage. Now a few days before I had received a despairing
letter from him from Egypt, saying that while there he had
suffered a new attack, which the physician had declared to be
dysentery. I suspect, indeed , that the diagnosis was only an
error of my ignorant colleague, who allows hysteria to make a
fool of him ; but still I cannot avoid reproaching myself for
putting the invalid in a position where he might contract an
organic affection of the bowels in addition to his hysteria.
Furthermore, dysentery sounds like diphtheria , a word which
does not occur in the dream .
Indeed it must be that, with the consoling prognosis :
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 97

" Dysentery will develop, &c. , " I am making fun of Dr. M.,
for I recollect that years ago he once jokingly told a very similar
story of another colleague. He had been called to consult
with this colleague in the case of a woman who was very
seriously ill and had felt obliged to confront the other phy
sician, who seemed very hopeful, with the fact that he found
albumen in the patient's urine. The colleague, however, did
not let this worry him, but answered calmly : " That does not
matter, doctor ; the albumen will without doubt be excreted ."
Thus I can no longer doubt that derision for those colleagues
who are ignorant of hysteria is contained in this part of the
dream. As though in confirmation, this question now arises
in my mind : " Does Dr. M. know that the symptoms of his
patient, of our friend Irma , which give cause for fearing
tuberculosis , are also based on hysteria ? Has he recognised
this hysteria, or has he stupidly ignored it ? "
But what can be my motive in treating this friend so badly ?
This is very simple : Dr. M. agrees with my solution as little
as Irma herself. I have thus already in this dream taken
revenge on two persons, on Irma in the words , " If you still
have pains, it is your own fault," and on Dr. M. in the wording
of the nonsensical consolation which has been put into his
mouth.
We have immediate knowledge of the origin of the infection.
This immediate knowledge in the dream is very remarkable.
Just before we did not know it, since the infection was first
demonstrated by Leopold .
My friend Otto has recently given her an injection when she
felt ill.
Otto had actually related that in the short time of his visit
to Irma's family , he had been called to a neighbouring hotel
in order to give an injection to some one who fell suddenly ill.
Injections again recall the unfortunate friend who has poisoned
himself with cocaine. I had recommended the remedy to
him merely for internal use during the withdrawal of morphine,
but he once gave himself injections of cocaine.
With a propyl preparation . . . propyls .. propionic acid.
How did this ever occur to me ? On the same evening on
which I had written part of the history of the disease before
having the dream, my wife opened a bottle of cordial labelled
G
98 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

" Ananas, ” * (which was a present from our friend Otto.

For he had a habit of making presents on every possible
occasion ; I hope he will some day be cured of this by a wife). †
Such a smell of fusel oil arose from this cordial that I refused
to taste it. My wife observed : " We will give this bottle to
the servants," and I, still more prudent, forbade it , with the
philanthropic remark : " They mustn't be poisoned either. " The
smell of fusel oil (amyl . . . ) has now apparently awakened
in my memory the whole series , propyl, methyl, &c. , which has
furnished the propyl preparation of the dream . In this, it is
true, I have employed a substitution ; I have dreamt of
propyl, after smelling amyl, but substitutions of this kind are
perhaps permissible , especially in organic chemistry.
Trimethylamin. I see the chemical formula of this substance
in the dream, a fact which probably gives evidence of a great
effort on the part of my memory, and, moreover, the formula is
printed in heavy type, as if to lay special stress upon something
of particular importance, as distinguished from the context. To
what does this trimethylamin lead , which has been so forcibly
called to my attention ? It leads to a conversation with
another friend who for years has known all my germinating
activities, as I have his. At that time he had just informed
me of some of his ideas about sexual chemistry, and had
mentioned, among others , that he thought he recognised in tri
methylamin one of the products of sexual metabolism. This
substance thus leads me to sexuality, to that factor which I
credit with the greatest significance for the origin of the nervous
affections which I attempt to cure. My patient Irma is a
young widow ; if I am anxious to excuse the failure of her
cure, I suppose I shall best do so by referring to this condition,
which her admirers would be glad to change. How remarkably,
too, such a dream is fashioned ! The other woman, whom I
take as my patient in the dream instead of Irma, is also a
young widow.
I suspect why the formula of trimethylamin has made

* " Ananas," moreover, has a remarkable assonance to the family name of

my patient Irma.
f In this the dream did not turn out to be prophetic. But in another
sense, it proved correct, for the " unsolved " stomach pains, for which I did
not want to be to blame, were the forerunners of a serious illness caused by
gall stones.
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 99

itself so prominent in the dream. So many important things

are gathered up in this one word : Trimethylamin is not only
an allusion to the overpowering factor of sexuality , but also
to a person whose sympathy I remember with satisfaction when
I feel myself forsaken in my opinions . Should not this friend,
who plays such a large part in my life, occur again in the chain
of thoughts of the dream ? Of course, he must ; he is par
ticularly acquainted with the results which proceed from
affections of the nose and its adjacent cavities, and has re
vealed to science several highly remarkable relations of the
turbinated bones to the female sexual organs (the three
curly formations in Irma's throat) . I have had Irma examined
by him to see whether the pains in her stomach might be
of nasal origin. But he himself suffers from suppurative
rhinitis , which worries him, and to this perhaps there is an
allusion in pyæmia , which hovers before me in the metastases
of the dream .
Such injections are not made so rashly. Here the reproach of
carelessness is hurled directly at my friend Otto. I am under
the impression that I had some thought of this sort in the
afternoon, when he seemed to indicate his siding against
me by word and look. It was perhaps : " How easily he
can be influenced ; how carelessly he pronounces judgment."
Furthermore, the above sentence again points to my deceased
friend, who so lightly took refuge in cocaine injections . As
I have said, I had not intended injections of the remedy at
all . I see that in reproaching Otto I again touch upon the
story of the unfortunate Matilda , from which arises the same
reproach against me. Obviously I am here collecting examples
of my own conscientiousness , but also of the opposite.
Probably also the syringe was not clean . Another reproach
directed at Otto , but originating elsewhere. The day before I
happened to meet the son of a lady eighty-two years of age
whom I am obliged to give daily two injections of morphine.
At present she is in the country, and I have heard that she is
suffering from an inflammation of the veins . I immediately
thought that it was a case of infection due to contamination
from the syringe. It is my pride that in two years I have not
given her a single infection ; I am constantly concerned , of
course, to see that the syringe is perfectly clean. For I am
100 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

conscientious . From the inflammation of the veins, I return

to my wife, who had suffered from emboli during a period of
pregnancy, and now three related situations come to the
surface in my memory, involving my wife, Irma , and the
deceased Matilda, the identity of which three persons plainly
justifies my putting them in one another's place.
I have now completed the interpretation of the dream . *
In the course of this interpretation I have taken great pains
to get possession of all the notions to which a comparison
between the dream content and the dream thoughts hidden
29
behind it must have given rise. Meanwhile, the " meaning
of the dream has dawned upon me. I have become conscious
of a purpose which is realised by means of the dream, and which
must have been the motive for dreaming. The dream fulfils
several wishes, which have been actuated in me by the events
of the preceding evening (Otto's news, and the writing down of
the history of the disease). For the result of the dream is
that I am not to blame for the suffering which Irma still has,
and that Otto is to blame for it. Now Otto has made me angry
by his remark about Irma's imperfect cure ; the dream avenges
me upon him by turning the reproach back upon himself.
The dream acquits me of responsibility for Irma's condition
by referring it to other causes, which indeed furnish a great
number of explanations. The dream represents a certain
condition of affairs as I should wish it to be ; the content of the
dream is thus the fulfilment of a wish ; its motive is a wish.
This much is apparent at first sight. But many things in
the details of the dream become intelligible when regarded from
the point of view of wish-fulfilment. I take revenge on Otto,
not only for hastily taking part against me, in that I accuse
him of a careless medical operation (the injection) , but I am
also avenged on him for the bad cordial which smells like fusel
oil, and I find an expression in the dream which unites both
reproaches ; the injection with a preparation of propyl. Still
I am not satisfied , but continue my revenge by comparing
him to his more reliable competitor. I seem to say by this :
" I like him better than you." But Otto is not the only one
who must feel the force of my anger. I take revenge on the

* Even if I have not, as may be understood, given account of everything

which occurred to me in connection with the work of interpretation .
 METHOD OF INTERPRETATION 101

disobedient patient by exchanging her for a more sensible ,

more docile one. Nor do I leave the contradiction of Dr. M.
unnoticed, but express my opinion of him in an obvious
allusion, to the effect that his relation to the question is that of
an ignoramus (" dysentery will develop," &c.).
It seems to me, indeed, as though I were appealing from him
to some one better informed (my friend, who has told me about
trimethylamin ) ; just as I have turned from Irma to her
friend , I turn from Otto to Leopold . Rid me of these three
persons , replace them by three others of my own choice, and
I shall be released from the reproaches which I do not wish
to have deserved ! The unreasonableness itself of these re
proaches is proved to me in the dream in the most elaborate
way. Irma's pains are not charged to me, because she herself
is to blame for them, in that she refuses to accept my solution.
Irma's pains are none of my business, for they are of an
organic nature, quite impossible to be healed by a psychic
cure. Irma's sufferings are satisfactorily explained by her
widowhood (trimethylamin !) ; a fact which, of course, I
cannot alter. Irma's illness has been caused by an incautious
injection on the part of Otto, with an ill-suited substance
in a way I should never have made an injection . Irma's
suffering is the result of an injection made with an unclean
syringe, just like the inflammation of the veins in my old
lady, while I never do any such mischief with my injections .
I am aware, indeed , that these explanations of Irma's illness ,
which unite in acquitting me, do not agree with one another ;
they even exclude one another. The whole pleading this
dream is nothing else-recalls vividly the defensive argument
of a man who was accused by his neighbour of having returned
a kettle to him in a damaged condition. In the first place,
he said, he had returned the kettle undamaged ; in the second,
it already had holes in it when he borrowed it ; and thirdly, he
had never borrowed the kettle from his neighbour at all. But
so much the better ; if even one of these three methods of
defence is recognised as valid , the man must be acquitted .
Still other subjects mingle in the dream, whose relation
to my release from responsibility for Irma's illness is not so
transparent the illness of my daughter and that of a patient
of the same name, the harmfulness of cocaine, the illness of
102 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

my patient travelling in Egypt, concern about the health of

my wife, my brother, of Dr. M. , my own bodily troubles, and
concern about the absent friend who is suffering from sup
purative rhinitis. But if I keep all these things in view, they
combine into a single train of thought, labelled perhaps :
Concern for the health of myself and others -professional con
scientiousness . I recall an undefined disagreeable sensation
as Otto brought me the news of Irma's condition . I should
like to note finally the expression of this fleeting sensation,
which is part of the train of thought that is mingled into the
dream. It is as though Otto had said to me : " You do not
take your physician's duties seriously enough, you are not
conscientious , do not keep your promises." Thereupon this
train of thought placed itself at my service in order that I
might exhibit proof of the high degree in which I am con
scientious, how intimately I am concerned with the health
of my relatives , friends, and patients . Curiously enough, there
are also in this thought material some painful memories , which
correspond rather to the blame attributed to Otto than to
the accusation against me. The material has the appearance
of being impartial, but the connection between this broader
material, upon which the dream depends, and the more limited
theme of the dream which gives rise to the wish to be innocent
of Irma's illness, is nevertheless unmistakable.
I do not wish to claim that I have revealed the meaning
of the dream entirely, or that the interpretation is flawless .
I could still spend much time upon it ; I could draw further
explanations from it, and bring up new problems which it
bids us consider. I even know the points from which further
thought associations might be traced ; but such considerations
as are connected with every dream of one's own restrain me
from the work of interpretation. Whoever is ready to con
demn such reserve, may himself try to be more straightforward
than I. I am content with the discovery which has been just
made. If the method of dream interpretation here indicated
is followed, it will be found that the dream really has meaning ,
and is by no means the expression of fragmentary brain
activity, which the authors would have us believe. When the
work of interpretation has been completed the dream may be
recognised as the fulfilment of a wish.
 III

THE DREAM IS THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH

WHEN after passing a defile one has reached an eminence

where the ways part and where the view opens out broadly
in different directions, it is permissible to stop for a moment
and to consider where one is to turn next . Something like
this happens to us after we have mastered this first dream
interpretation. We find ourselves in the open light of a sudden
cognition. The dream is not comparable to the irregular
sounds of a musical instrument , which, instead of being touched
by the hand of the musician, is struck by some outside force ;
the dream is not senseless, not absurd, does not presuppose
that a part of our store of ideas is dormant while another part
begins to awaken. It is a psychic phenomenon of full value,
and indeed the fulfilment of a wish ; it takes its place in the
concatenation of the waking psychic actions which are intelli
gible to us, and it has been built up by a highly complicated
intellectual activity. But at the very moment when we are
inclined to rejoice in this discovery, a crowd of questions over
whelms us. If the dream, according to the interpretation,
represents a wish fulfilled , what is the cause of the peculiar
and unfamiliar manner in which this fulfilment is expressed ?
What changes have occurred in the dream thoughts before they
are transformed into the manifest dream which we remember
upon awaking ? In what manner has this transformation
taken place ? Whence comes the material which has been
worked over into the dream ? What causes the peculiarities
which we observe in the dream thoughts, for example, that
they may contradict one another ? (The analogy of the kettle,
p. 87) . Is the dream capable of teaching us something new
about our inner psychic processes , and can its content correct
opinions which we have held during the day ? I suggest
that for the present all these questions be laid aside, and that
a single path be pursued. We have found that the dream
103
104 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

represents a wish as fulfilled . It will be our next interest to

ascertain whether this is a universal characteristic of the
dream , or only the accidental content of the dream (" of Irma's
injection ") with which we have begun our analysis, for even
if we make up our minds that every dream has a meaning and
psychic value, we must nevertheless allow for the possibility
that this meaning is not the same in every dream . The first
dream we have considered was the fulfilment of a wish ; another
may turn out to be a realised apprehension ; a third may have
a reflection as to its content ; a fourth may simply reproduce
a reminiscence. Are there then other wish dreams ; or are
there possibly nothing but wish dreams ?
It is easy to show that the character of wish-fulfilment in
dreams is often undisguised and recognisable, so that one
may wonder why the language of dreams has not long since
been understood . There is, for example, a dream which I
can cause as often as I like, as it were experimentally. If in
the evening I eat anchovies, olives , or other strongly salted
foods, I become thirsty at night, whereupon I waken. The
awakening, however, is preceded by a dream, which each time
has the same content, namely, that I am drinking. I quaff
water in long draughts, it tastes as sweet as only a cool drink
can taste when one's throat is parched, and then I awake
and have an actual desire to drink. The occasion for this
dream is thirst, which I perceive when I awake. The wish
to drink originates from this sensation, and the dream shows
me this wish as fulfilled . It thereby serves a function the
nature of which I soon guess . I sleep well, and am not accus
tomed to be awakened by a bodily need. If I succeed in
assuaging my thirst by means of the dream that I am drinking,
I need not wake up in order to satisfy it. It is thus a dream
of convenience . The dream substitutes itself for action, as
elsewhere in life. Unfortunately the need of water for quench
ing thirst cannot be satisfied with a dream, like my thirst for
revenge upon Otto and Dr. M. , but the intention is the same.
This same dream recently appeared in modified form . On
this occasion I became thirsty before going to bed , and emptied
the glass of water which stood on the little chest next to my
bed. Several hours later in the night came a new attack of
thirst, accompanied by discomfort . In order to obtain water,
 THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH 105

I should have had to get up and fetch the glass which stood on
the night-chest of my wife. I thus quite appropriately dreamt
that my wife was giving me a drink from a vase ; this vase
was an Etruscan cinerary urn which I had brought home
from an Italian journey and had since given away. But the
water in it tasted so salty (apparently from the ashes ) that
I had to wake. It may be seen how conveniently the dream
is capable of arranging matters ; since the fulfilment of a wish
is its only purpose, it may be perfectly egotistic. Love of
comfort is really not compatible with consideration for others.
The introduction of the cinerary urn is probably again the
fulfilment of a wish ; I am sorry that I no longer possess this
vase ; it, like the glass of water at my wife's side, is inaccessible
to me. The cinerary urn is also appropriate to the sensation
of a salty taste which has now grown stronger, and which I
know will force me to wake up. '
Such convenience dreams were very frequent with me in
the years of my youth. Accustomed as I had always been to
work until late at night, early awakening was always a matter
of difficulty for me. I used then to dream that I was out of
bed and was standing at the wash-stand. After a while I
could not make myself admit that I have not yet got up, but
meanwhile I had slept for a time. I am acquainted with the
same dream of laziness as dreamt by a young colleague of
mine, who seems to share my propensity for sleep. The
lodging-house keeper with whom he was living in the neigh
bourhood of the hospital had strict orders to wake him on
time every morning, but she certainly had a lot of trouble when
she tried to carry out his orders. One morning sleep was
particularly sweet. The woman called into the room : " Mr.
Joe, get up ; you must go to the hospital. " Whereupon the
* The facts about dreams of thirst were known also to Weygandt,75 who
expresses himself about them (p. 11) as follows : "It is just the sensation of
thirst which is most accurately registered of all ; it always causes a repre
sentation of thirst quenching. The manner in which the dream pictures the
act of thirst quenching is manifold, and is especially apt to be formed accord
ing to a recent reminiscence. Here also a universal phenomenon is that
disappointment in the slight efficacy of the supposed refreshments sets in
immediately after the idea that thirst has been quenched." But he over
looks the fact that the reaction of the dream to the stimulus is universal.
If other persons who are troubled by thirst at night awake without dreaming
beforehand, this does not constitute an objection to my experiment, but
characterises those others as persons who sleep poorly.
106 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

sleeper dreamt of a room in the hospital, a bed in which he

J
was lying, and a chart pinned over his head reading : " oe
H.... cand . med . 22 years old . " He said to himself in the
dream : “ If I am already at the hospital, I don't have to
go there," turned over and slept on. He had thus frankly
admitted to himself his motive for dreaming.
Here is another dream , the stimulus for which acts during
sleep itself : One of my women patients , who had had to
undergo an unsuccessful operation on the jaw, was to wear a
cooling apparatus on the affected cheek, according to the
orders of the physicians . But she was in the habit of throwing
it off as soon as she had got to sleep . One day I was asked
to reprove her for doing so ; for she had again thrown the
apparatus on the floor. The patient defended herself as
follows : " This time I really couldn't help it ; it was the
result of a dream which I had in the night. In the dream, I
was in a box at the opera and was taking a lively interest in
the performance. But Mr. Karl Meyer was lying in the sana
torium and complaining pitifully on account of pains in his
jaw. I said to myself, ' Since I haven't the pains, I don't
need the apparatus either,' that's why I threw it away."
This dream of the poor sufferer is similar to the idea in the
expression which comes to our lips when we are in a disagree
able situation : " I know something that's a great deal more
fun." The dream presents this great deal more fun . Mr. Karl
Meyer, to whom the dreamer attributed her pains, was the
most indifferent young man of her acquaintance whom she
could recall.
It is no more difficult to discover the fulfilment of wishes
in several dreams which I have collected from healthy persons.
A friend who knew my theory of dreams and had imparted it
to his wife, said to me one day : " My wife asked me to tell
you that she dreamt yesterday that she was having her menses.
You will know what that means .' Of course I know if the
young wife dreams that she is having her menses , the menses
have stopped. I can understand that she would have liked
to enjoy her freedom for a time longer before the discomforts
of motherhood began. It was a clever way of giving notice
of her first pregnancy. Another friend writes that his wife
had recently dreamt that she noticed milk stains on the bosom of
 THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH 107

her waist. This is also an indication of pregnancy , but this time

not of the first one ; the young mother wishes to have more
nourishment for the second child than she had for the first.
A young woman, who for weeks had been cut off from
company because she was nursing a child that was suffering
from an infectious disease, dreams , after its safe termination,
of a company of people in which A. Daudet , Bourget , M.
Prevost, and others are present, all of whom are very pleasant
to her and entertain her admirably. The different authors
in the dream also have the features which their pictures give
them. M. Prevost, with whose picture she is not familiar,
looks like the disinfecting man who on the previous day
had cleaned the sick rooms and had entered them as the first
visitor after a long period . Apparently the dream might be
perfectly translated thus : " It is about time now for something
more entertaining than this eternal nursing."
Perhaps this selection will suffice to prove that often and
under the most complex conditions dreams are found which
can be understood only as fulfilments of wishes, and which
present their contents without concealment . In most cases
these are short and simple dreams, which stand in pleasant
contrast to the confused and teeming dream compositions
which have mainly attracted the attention of the authors.
But it will pay to spend some time upon these simple dreams.
The most simple dreams of all, I suppose, are to be expected
in the case of children, whose psychic activities are certainly
less complicated than those of adults. The psychology of
children, in my opinion, is to be called upon for services similar
to those which a study of the anatomy and development of the
lower animals renders to the investigation of the structure of
the highest classes of animals . Until now only a few conscious
efforts have been made to take advantage of the psychology
of children for such a purpose .
The dreams of little children are simple fulfilments of wishes ,
and as compared , therefore , with the dreams of adults, are
not at all interesting . They present no problem to be solved ,
but are naturally invaluable as affording proof that the dream
in its essence signifies the fulfilment of a wish. I have been
able to collect several examples of such dreams from the
material furnished by my own children.
108 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

For two dreams, one of my daughters, at that time eight

and a half years old , the other of a boy five and a quarter years
of age, I am indebted to an excursion to the beautiful Hallstatt
in the summer of 1896. I must make the preliminary statement
that during this summer we were living on a hill near Aussee,
from which, when the weather was good, we enjoyed a splendid
view of the Dachstein from the roof of our house. The Simony
Hut could easily be recognised with a telescope. The little
ones often tried to see it through the telescope-I do not
know with what success . Before the excursion I had told
the children that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein .
They looked forward to the day with great joy. From Hall
statt we entered the valley of Eschern, which highly pleased
the children with its varying aspects. One of them, however,
the boy of five, gradually became discontented . As often as a
mountain came in view, he would ask : " Is that the Dach
stein ? " whereupon I would have to answer : " No, only a
foot-hill." After this question had been repeated several
times , he became altogether silent ; and he was quite unwilling
to come along on the flight of steps to the waterfall. I thought
he was tired out. But the next morning, he approached me
radiant with joy, and said : " Last night I dreamt that we were
at Simony Hut. " I understood him now ; he had expected,
as I was speaking of the Dachstein, that on the excursion to
Hallstatt, he would ascend the mountain and would come face
to face with the hut, about which there had been so much
discussion at the telescope. When he learned that he was
expected to be regaled with foot-hills and a waterfall, he was
disappointed and became discontented . The dream com
pensated him for this. I tried to learn some details of the
dream ; they were scanty. " Steps must be climbed for six
hours," as he had heard .
On this excursion wishes , destined to be satisfied only in
dreams, had arisen also in the mind of the girl of eight and a
half years. We had taken with us to Halstatt the twelve
year-old boy of our neighbour-an accomplished cavalier,
who, it seems to me, already enjoyed the full sympathy of the
little woman. The next morning , then , she related the follow
ing dream : " Just think, I dreamt that Emil was one of us ,
that he said papa and mamma to you , and slept at our house
 THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH 109

in the big room like our boys. Then mamma came into the
room and threw a large handful of chocolate bars under our
beds ." The brothers of the girl, who evidently had not in
herited a familiarity with dream interpretation , declared just
like the authors : " That dream is nonsense." The girl
defended at least a part of the dream , and it is worth while,
from the point of view of the theory of neuroses , to know which
66
part : That about Emil belonging to us is nonsense, but that
about the bars of chocolate is not." It was just this latter
part that was obscure to me. For this mamma furnished me
the explanation . On the way home from the railway station
the children had stopped in front of a slot machine, and had
desired exactly such chocolate bars wrapped in paper with a
metallic lustre, as the machine, according to their experience,
had for sale. But the mother had rightly thought that the day
had brought enough wish-fulfilment, and had left this wish to be
satisfied in dreams . This little scene had escaped me. I at
once understood that portion of the dream which had been con
demned by my daughter . I had myself heard the well-behaved
guest enjoining the children to wait until papa or mamma had
come up. For the little one the dream made a lasting adoption
based on this temporary relation of the boy to us. Her tender
nature was as yet unacquainted with any form of being together
except those mentioned in the dream , which are taken from her
brothers. Why the chocolate bars were thrown under the bed
could not, of course, be explained without questioning the child .
From a friend I have learnt of a dream very similar to
that of my boy. It concerned an eight-year-old girl. The
father had undertaken a walk to Dornbach with the children,
intending to visit the Rohrerhütte, but turned back because
it had grown too late, and promised the children to make up
for their disappointment some other time. On the way back,
they passed a sign which showed the way to the Hameau .
The children now asked to be taken to that place also, but had
to be content, for the same reason, with a postponement to
another day. The next morning, the eight-year-old girl came
to the father, satisfied, saying : " Papa, I dreamt last night
that you were with us at the Rohrerhütte and on the Hameau ."
Her impatience had thus in the dream anticipated the fulfil
ment of the promise made by her father.
110 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Another dream, which the picturesque beauty of the Aussee

inspired in my daughter, at that time three and a quarter years
old, is equally straightforward. The little one had crossed
the lake for the first time, and the trip had passed too quickly
for her. She did not want to leave the boat at the landing,
and cried bitterly. The next morning she told us : " Last
night I was sailing on the lake." Let us hope that the dura
tion of this dream ride was more satisfactory to her.
My eldest boy, at that time eight years of age, was already
dreaming of the realisation of his fancies. He had been riding
in a chariot with Achilles, with Diomed as charioteer. He
had , of course, on the previous day shown a lively interest
in the Myths of Greece, which had been given to his elder
sister.
If it be granted that the talking of children in sleep likewise
belongs to the category of dreaming, I may report the following
as one of the most recent dreams in my collection . My youngest
girl, at that time nineteen months old, had vomited one morn
ing, and had therefore been kept without food throughout
the day. During the night which followed upon this day of
hunger, she was heard to call excitedly in her sleep : " Anna
Feud, strawberry, huckleberry, omelette, pap ! " She used her
name in this way in order to express her idea of property ;
the menu must have included about everything which would
seem to her a desirable meal ; the fact that berries appeared
in it twice was a demonstration against the domestic sanitary
regulations, and was based on the circumstance, by no means
overlooked by her, that the nurse ascribed her indisposition
to an over-plentiful consumption of strawberries ; she thus
in the dream took revenge for this opinion which was distaste
ful to her.*
If we call childhood happy because it does not yet know
sexual desire, we must not forget how abundant a source of
disappointment and self-denial, and thus of dream stimulation,
* The dream afterwards accomplished the same purpose in the case of
the grandmother, who is older than the child by about seventy years, as it
did in the case of the granddaughter. After she had been forced to go
hungry for several days on account of the restlessness of her floating kidney,
she dreamed, apparently with a transference into the happy time of her
flowering maidenhood, that she had been " asked out," invited as a guest for
both the important meals, and each time had been served with the most
delicious morsels.
 THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH 111

the other of the great life-impulses may become for it.* Here
is a second example showing this . My nephew of twenty-two
months had been given the task of congratulating me upon
my birthday, and of handing me, as a present, a little basket of
cherries, which at that time of the year were not yet in season .
It seemed difficult for him, for he repeated again and again :
" Cherries in it," and could not be induced to let the little
basket go out of his hands. But he knew how to secure his
compensation. He had, until now, been in the habit of telling
his mother every morning that he had dreamt of the " white
soldier," an officer of the guard in a white cloak, whom he
had once admired on the street. On the day after the birthday,
he awakened joyfully with the information which could have
had its origin only in a dream : " He(r)man eat up all the
cherries ! " t
* A more searching investigation into the psychic life of the child
teaches us, to be sure, that sexual motive powers in infantile forms, which
have been too long overlooked, play a sufficiently great part in the psychic
activity of the child. This raises some doubt as to the happiness of the
child, as imagined later by the adults. Cf. the author's " Three Contribu
tions to the Sexual Theory," translated by A. A. Brill, Journal of Nervous
and Mental Diseases Publishing Company.
+ It should not be left unmentioned that children sometimes show com
plex and more obscure dreams, while, on the other hand, adults will often
under certain conditions show dreams of an infantile character. How rich
in unsuspected material the dreams of children of from four to five years
might be is shown by examples in my " Analyse der Phobie eines fünfjahr
igen Knaben " (Jahrbuch, ed. by Bleuler & Freud, 1909), and in Jung's
Ueber Konflikte der kindlichen Seele " (ebda. ii . vol., 1910). On the other
hand, it seems that dreams of an infantile type reappear especially often in
adults if they are transferred to unusual conditions of life. Thus Otto
Nordenskjold, in his book Antarctic (1904), writes as follows about the crew
who passed the winter with him. "6 Very characteristic for the trend of our
inmost thoughts were our dreams, which were never more vivid and
numerous than at present. Even those of our comrades with whom dream
ing had formerly been an exception had long stories to tell in the morning
when we exchanged our experiences in the world of phantasies. They all
referred to that outer world which was now so far from us, but they often
fitted into our present relations. An especially characteristic dream was the
one in which one of our comrades believed himself back on the bench at
school, where the task was assigned him of skinning miniature seals which
were especially made for the purposes of instruction. Eating and drinking
formed the central point around which most of our dreams were grouped.
One of us, who was fond of going to big dinner parties at night, was exceed
ingly glad if he could report in the morning ' that he had had a dinner con
sisting of three courses.' Another dreamed of tobacco-of whole mountains
of tobacco ; still another dreamed of a ship approaching on the open sea
under full sail. Still another dream deserves to be mentioned . The letter
carrier brought the mail, and gave a long explanation of why he had had to
wait so long for it ; he had delivered it at the wrong place, and only after
112 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

What animals dream of I do not know. A proverb for

which I am indebted to one of my readers claims to know,
for it raises the question : " What does the goose dream of ? "
the answer being : " Of maize ! " The whole theory that the
dream is the fulfilment of a wish is contained in these sentences . *
We now perceive that we should have reached our theory
of the hidden meaning of the dream by the shortest road if
we had merely consulted colloquial usage. The wisdom of
proverbs, it is true, sometimes speaks contemptuously enough
of the dream -it apparently tries to justify science in expressing
the opinion that " Dreams are mere bubbles ; " but still for
colloquial usage the dream is the gracious fulfiller of wishes .
" I should never have fancied that in the wildest dream ,"
exclaims one who finds his expectations surpassed in reality.

great effort had been able to get it back. To be sure, we occupied ourselves
in sleep with still more impossible things, but the lack of phantasy in
almost all the dreams which I myself dreamed or heard others relate was
quite striking. It would surely have been of great psychological interest if
all the dreams could have been noted. But one can readily understand how
we longed for sleep. It alone could afford us everything that we all most
ardently desired."
* A Hungarian proverb referred to by Ferenczi 87states more explicitly
that "the pig dreams of acorns, the goose of maize."
 IV

DISTORTION IN DREAMS

IF I make the assertion that wish fulfilment is the meaning of

every dream, that, accordingly, there can be no dreams except
wish dreams, I am sure at the outset to meet with the most
emphatic contradiction. Objections will be made to this
effect : " The fact that there are dreams which must be under
stood as fulfilments of wishes is not new, but, on the contrary,
has long since been recognised by the authors. Cf. Radestock 54
(pp . 137-138 ) , Volkelt 72 (pp. 110-111 ) , Tissié 68 (p . 70), M.
Simon 63 (p. 42) on the hunger dreams of the imprisoned Baron
Trenck) , and the passage in Griesinger 31 (p. 11 ). The assump
tion that there can be nothing but dreams of wish fulfilment ,
however, is another of those unjustified generalisations by
which you have been pleased to distinguish yourself of late.
Indeed dreams which exhibit the most painful content, but
not a trace of wish fulfilment , occur plentifully enough. The
pessimistic philosopher, Edward von Hartman, perhaps
stands furthest from the theory of wish fulfilment. He ex
presses himself in his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II.
(stereotyped edition , p . 34), to the following effect :—
" As regards the dream, all the troubles of waking life are
transferred by it to the sleeping state ; only the one thing,
which can in some measure reconcile a cultured person to
life-scientific and artistic enjoyment is not transferred . . . .
But even less discontented observers have laid emphasis on
the fact that in dreams pain and disgust are more frequent
than pleasure ; so Scholz 59 (p. 39) , Volkelt 72 (p. 80), and
others . Indeed two ladies , Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam,33
have found from the elaboration of their dreams a mathe
matical expression for the preponderance of displeasure in
dreams . They designate 58 per cent. of the dreams as dis
agreeable, and only 28.6 per cent. as positively pleasant . Besides
those dreams which continue the painful sensations of life
113 H
114 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

during sleep, there are also dreams of fear, in which this most
terrible of all disagreeable sensations tortures us until we
awake, and it is with just these dreams of fear that children
are so often persecuted (Cf. Debacker 17 concerning the Pavor
Nocturnus), though it is in the case of children that you have
found dreams of wishing undisguised ."
Indeed it is the anxiety dreams which seem to prevent a
generalisation of the thesis that the dream is a wish-fulfilment ,
which we have established by means of the examples in the
last section ; they seem even to brand this thesis as an ab
surdity.
It is not difficult, however, to escape these apparently
conclusive objections . Please observe that our doctrine does
not rest upon an acceptance of the manifest dream content,
but has reference to the thought content which is found to lie
behind the dream by the process of interpretation . Let us
contrast the manifest and the latent dream content. It is true
that there are dreams whose content is of the most painful
nature. But has anyone ever tried to interpret these dreams ,
to disclose their latent thought content ? If not, the two
objections are no longer valid against us ; there always remains
the possibility that even painful and fearful dreams may be
discovered to be wish fulfilments upon interpretation .*
In scientific work it is often advantageous, when the solu
tion of one problem presents difficulties, to take up a second
problem, just as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead
of separately. Accordingly we are confronted not merely
with the problem : How can painful and fearful dreams be
the fulfilments of wishes ? but we may also, from our discussion
so far, raise the question : Why do not the dreams which
show an indifferent content, but turn out to be wish-fulfilments ,
show this meaning undisguised ? Take the fully reported
dream of Irma's injection ; it is in no way painful in its nature ,
and can be recognised, upon interpretation, as a striking wish
fulfilment. Why, in the first place, is an interpretation
necessary ? Why does not the dream say directly what it
means ? As a matter of fact, even the dream of Irma's in

It is quite incredible with what stubbornness readers and critics

exclude this consideration, and leave unheeded the fundamental differentia
tion between the manifest and the latent dream content.
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 115

jection does not at first impress us as representing a wish of

the dreamer as fulfilled . The reader will not have received
this impression, and even I myself did not know it until I had
undertaken the analysis. If we call this peculiarity of the
dream of needing an explanation the fact of the distortion of
dreams, then a second question arises : What is the origin
of this disfigurement of dreams ?
If one's first impressions on this subject were consulted ,
one might happen upon several possible solutions ; for example,
that there is an inability during sleep to find an adequate
expression for the dream thoughts . The analysis of certain
dreams , however, compels us to give the disfigurement of
dreams another explanation . I shall show this by employing
a second dream of my own, which again involves numerous
indiscretions, but which compensates for this personal sacrifice
by affording a thorough elucidation of the problem.
Preliminary Statement.- In the spring of 1897 I learnt
that two professors of our university had proposed me for
appointment as Professor extraord . (assistant professor).
This news reached me unexpectedly and pleased me con
siderably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two
eminent men which could not be explained by personal in
terest. But, I immediately thought, I must not permit myself
to attach any expectation to this event. The university
government had during the last few years left proposals of
this kind unconsidered , and several colleagues, who were
ahead of me in years, and who were at least my equals in merit,
had been waiting in vain during this time for their appoint
ment. I had no reason to suppose I should fare better. I
resolved then to comfort myself. I am not, so far as I know,
ambitious, and I engage in medical practice with satisfying
results even without the recommendation of a title. Moreover,
it was not a question whether I considered the grapes sweet or
sour, for they undoubtedly hung much too high for me.
One evening I was visited by a friend of mine, one of those
colleagues whose fate I had taken as a warning for myself.
As he had long been a candidate for promotion to the position
of professor, which in our society raises the physician to a
demigod among his patients, and as he was less resigned than
I, he was in the habit of making representations from time to
 |

116 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

time, at the offices of the university government, for the pur

pose of advancing his interests. He came to me from a visit
of that kind. He said that this time he had driven the exalted
gentleman into a corner, and had asked him directly whether
considerations of creed were not really responsible for the
deferment of his appointment. The answer had been that
to be sure in the present state of public opinion- His Ex
cellency was not in a position, &c. " Now I at least know
what I am at," said my friend in closing his narrative, which
told me nothing new, but which was calculated to confirm me
in my resignation . For the same considerations of creed
applied to my own case.
On the morning after this visit , I had the following dream ,
which was notable on account of its form. It consisted of
two thoughts and two images, so that a thought and an image
alternated . But I here record only the first half of the dream ,
because the other half has nothing to do with the purpose
which the citation of the dream should serve.
I. Friend R. is my uncle-I feel great affection for him.
II. I see before me his face somewhat altered.
It seems to be elongated ; a yellow beard, which surrounds it,
is emphasised with peculiar distinctness.
Then follow the other two portions, again a thought and
an image, which I omit.
The interpretation of this dream was accomplished in the
following manner :
As the dream occurred to me in the course of the forenoon ,
""
I laughed outright and said : " The dream is nonsense.'
But I could not get it out of my mind, and the whole day it
pursued me, until, at last, in the evening I reproached myself
with the words : " If in the course of dream interpretation
C
one of your patients had nothing better to say than That is
nonsense,' you would reprove him, and would suspect that
behind the dream there was hidden some disagreeable affair,
the exposure of which he wanted to spare himself. Apply
the same thing in your own case ; your opinion that the
dream is nonsense probably signifies merely an inner resistance
to its interpretation . Do not let yourself be deterred ." I
then proceeded to the interpretation .
" R. is my uncle." What does that mean. I have had
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 117

only one uncle, my uncle Joseph. * His story, to be sure, was

a sad one. He had yielded to the temptation, more than
thirty years before, of engaging in dealings which the law
punishes severely, and which on that occasion also it had
visited with punishment. My father, who thereupon became
grey from grief in a few days, always used to say that Uncle
Joseph was never a wicked man, but that he was indeed a
simpleton ; so he expressed himself. If, then, friend R. is
my uncle Joseph, that is equivalent to saying : " R. is a
simpleton." Hardly credible and very unpleasant ! But there
is that face which I see in the dream, with its long features
and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a face
long and surrounded by a handsome blond beard. My friend
R. was quite dark , but when dark-haired persons begin to
grow grey, they pay for the glory of their youthful years.
Their black beard undergoes an unpleasant change of color,
each hair separately ; first it becomes reddish brown , then
yellowish brown, and then at last definitely grey. The beard
of my friend R. is now in this stage, as is my own moreover, a
fact which I notice with regret. The face which I see in the
dream is at once that of my friend R. and that of my uncle.
It is like a composite photograph of Galton , who , in order
to emphasise family resemblances, had several faces photo
graphed on the same plate. No doubt is thus possible, I
am really of the opinion that my friend R. is a simpleton—
like my uncle Joseph.
I have still no idea for what purpose I have constructed
this relationship , to which I must unconditionally object . But it
is not a very far-reaching one, for my uncle was a criminal,
my friend R. is innocent- perhaps with the exception of
having been punished for knocking down an apprentice with
his bicycle. Could I mean this offence ? That would be
making ridiculous comparisons . Here I recollect another
conversation which I had with another colleague, N., and
indeed upon the same subject . I met N. on the street . He
likewise has been nominated for a professorship, and having
* It is remarkable how my memory narrows here for the purposes of
analysis while I am awake. I have known five of my uncles, and have
loved and honoured one of them. But at the moment when I overcame my
resistance to the interpretation of the dream I said to myself, " I have only
one uncle, the one who is intended in the dream ."
118 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

heard of my being honoured , congratulated me upon it . I

declined emphatically, saying, " You are the last man to make
a joke like this , because you have experienced what the nomi
nation is worth in your own case." Thereupon he said, though
probably not in earnest, " You cannot be sure about that.
Against me there is a very particular objection. Don't you
know that a woman once entered a legal complaint against
me ? I need not assure you that an inquiry was made ; it
was a mean attempt at blackmail, and it was all I could do
to save the plaintiff herself from punishment. But perhaps
the affair will be pressed against me at the office in order that
I may not be appointed . You, however, are above reproach."
Here I have come upon a criminal, and at the same time upon
the interpretation and trend of the dream. My uncle Joseph
represents for me both colleagues who have not been appointed
to the professorship, the one as a simpleton, the other as a
criminal. I also know now for what purpose I need this re
presentation. If considerations of creed are a determining
factor in the postponement of the appointment of my friends,
then my own appointment is also put in question : but if I
can refer the rejection of the two friends to other causes, which
do not apply to my case, my hope remains undisturbed . This
is the procedure of my dream ; it makes the one, R. , a
simpleton, the other, N., a criminal ; since, however, I am
neither the one nor the other, our community of interest is
destroyed , I have a right to enjoy the expectation of being
appointed a professor, and have escaped the painful applica
tion to my own case of the information which the high official
has given to R.
I must occupy myself still further with the interpretation
of this dream . For my feelings it is not yet sufficiently cleared
up. I am still disquieted by the ease with which I degrade
two respected colleagues for the purpose of clearing the way
to the professorship for myself. My dissatisfaction with
my procedure has indeed diminished since I have learnt to
evaluate statements made in dreams. I would argue against
anyone who urged that I really consider R. a simpleton, and
that I do not credit N.'s account of the blackmail affair. I
do not believe either that Irma has been made seriously ill by
an injection given her by Otto with a preparation of propyl,
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 119

Here, as before, it is only the wish that the case may be as the
dream expresses it. The statement in which my wish is realised
sounds less absurd in the second dream than in the first ; it is
made here with a more skilful utilisation of facts as points of
attachment, something like a well-constructed slander , where
" there is something in it." For my friend R. had at that
time the vote of a professor from the department against him,
and my friend N. had himself unsuspectingly furnished me
with the material for slander. Nevertheless, I repeat, the
dream seems to me to require further elucidation .
I remember now that the dream contains still another
portion which so far our interpretation has not taken into
account. After it occurs to me that my friend R. is my uncle,
I feel great affection for him. To whom does this feeling
belong ? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have never had
any feelings of affection. For years my friend R. has been
beloved and dear to me ; but if I were to go to him and ex
press my feelings for him in terms which came anywhere near
corresponding to the degree of affection in the dream, he
would doubtless be surprised . My affection for him seems
untrue and exaggerated , something like my opinion of his
psychic qualities, which I express by fusing his personality
with that of my uncle ; but it is exaggerated in an opposite
sense. But now a new state of affairs becomes evident to me.
The affection in the dream does not belong to the hidden
content, to the thoughts behind the dream ; it stands in
opposition to this content ; it is calculated to hide the informa
tion which interpretation may bring. Probably this is its
very purpose. I recall with what resistance I applied myself
to the work of interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it,
and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I know
from my psychoanalytical treatments how such condemna
tion is to be interpreted . It has no value as affording in
formation, but only as the registration of an affect. If my
little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she
asserts that the apple has a bitter taste, without even having
tasted it. If my patients act like the little girl, I know that
it is a question of a notion which they want to suppress. The
same applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it
because it contains something to which I object . After the
120 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

interpretation of the dream has been completed, I find out

what it was I objected to ; it was the assertion that R. is a
simpleton. I may refer the affection which I feel for R. not
to the hidden dream thoughts, but rather to this unwillingness
of mine. If my dream as compared with its hidden content
is disfigured at this point, and is disfigured , moreover, into
something opposite, then the apparent affection in the dream
serves the purpose of disfigurement ; or, in other words , the
disfigurement is here shown to be intended : it is a means of
dissimulation . My dream thoughts contain an unfavourable
reference to R.; in order that I may not become aware of it,
its opposite, a feeling of affection for him, makes its way into
the dream .
The fact here recognised might be of universal applica
bility. As the examples in Section III. have shown, there are
dreams which are undisguised wish-fulfilments . Wherever
a wish-fulfilment is unrecognisable and concealed , there must
be present a feeling of repulsion towards this wish, and in
consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain ex
pression except in a disfigured state. I shall try to find a case
in social life which is parallel to this occurrence in the inner
psychic life. Where in social life can a similar disfigurement
of a psychic act be found ? Only where two persons are in
question, one of whom possesses a certain power, while the
other must have a certain consideration for this power. This
second person will then disfigure his psychic actions , or, as
we may say, he will dissimulate. The politeness which I
practise every day is largely dissimulation of this kind . If I
interpret my dreams for the benefit of the reader I am forced
to make such distortions . The poet also complains about such
disfigurement :

" You may not tell the best that you know to the youngsters."

The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell to

the government finds himself in the same position. If he
tells them without reserve, the government will suppress
them -subsequently in case of a verbal expression of opinion,
preventatively, if they are to be published in print. The
writer must fear censure ; he therefore modifies and disfigures
the expression of his opinion . He finds himself compelled ,
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 121

according to the sensitiveness of this censure, either to re

strain himself from certain particular forms of attack or to
speak in allusion instead of direct designations . Or he must
disguise his objectionable statement in a garb that seems
harmless . He may, for instance, tell of an occurrence between
two mandarins in the Orient, while he has the officials of his
own country in view. The stricter the domination of the
censor, the more extensive becomes the disguise, and often
the more humorous the means employed to put the reader
back on the track of the real meaning .
The correspondence between the phenomena of the censor
and those of dream distortion, which may be traced in detail,
justifies us in assuming similar conditions for both. We
should then assume in each human being, as the primary
cause of dream formation, two psychic forces (streams, systems) ,
of which one constitutes the wish expressed by the dream,
while the other acts as a censor upon this dream wish, and by
means of this censoring forces a distortion of its expression.
The only question is as to the basis of the authority of this
second instance * by virtue of which it may exercise its censor
ship. If we remember that the hidden dream thoughts are
not conscious before analysis, but that the apparent dream
content is remembered as conscious, we easily reach the
assumption that admittance to consciousness is the privilege
of the second instance. Nothing can reach consciousness
from the first system which has not first passed the second
instance, and the second instance lets nothing pass without
exercising its rights and forcing such alterations upon the
candidate for admission to consciousness as are pleasant to
itself. We are here forming a very definite conception of the
" essence " of consciousness ; for us the state of becoming
conscious is a particular psychic act, different from and
independent of becoming fixed or of being conceived, and
consciousness appears to us as an organ of sense, which per
ceives a content presented from another source. It may be
shown that psychopathology cannot possibly dispense with
these fundamental assumptions . We may reserve a more
thorough examination of these for a later time.

* The word is here used in the original Latin sense instantia, meaning
energy, continuance or persistence in doing. (Translator.)
122 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

If I keep in mind the idea of the two psychic instances and

their relations to consciousness , I find in the sphere of politics
a very exact analogy for the extraordinary affection which I
feel for my friend R. , who suffers such degradation in the
course of the dream interpretation . I turn my attention to
a political state in which a ruler, jealous of his rights, and a
live public opinion are in conflict with each other. The people
are indignant against an official whom they hate, and demand
his dismissal ; and in order not to show that he is compelled
to respect the public wish, the autocrat will expressly confer
upon the official some great honour, for which there would
otherwise have been no occasion. Thus the second instance
referred to , which controls access to consciousness , honours
my friend R. with a profusion of extraordinary tenderness,
because the wish activities of the first system, in accordance
with a particular interest which they happen to be pursuing,
are inclined to put him down as a simpleton. *
Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream inter
pretation 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
analysed as the fulfilments 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

* Such hypocritical dreams are not unusual occurrences with me or

with others. While I am working up a certain scientific problem, I am
visited for many nights in rapid succession by a somewhat confusing dream
which has as its content reconciliation with a friend long ago dropped. After
three or four attempts, I finally succeeded in grasping the meaning of this
dream . It was in the nature of an encouragement to give up the little con
sideration still left for the person in question, to drop him completely, but it
disguised itself shamefacedly in the opposite feeling. I have reported a
"hypocritical oedipus dream" of a person, in which the hostile feelings and
the wishes of death of the dream thoughts were replaced by manifest tender
ness . (" Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Oedipustraumes," Zentralblatt
für Psychoanalyse, Bd . 1, Heft 1-11 , 1910. ) Another class of hypocritical
dreams will be reported in another place.
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 123

which is disagreeable to the second instance , but which at

the same time fulfils 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 a 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 fulfilment 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 dis
cussion . 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 un
sparing criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I
must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis
that all dreams are the fulfilments 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
124 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of

66
a wish-fulfilment . But what occurrence 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."
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 honour , 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. 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 hypnotised 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 com
pelled 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 ?

* To sit for the painter. Goethe : " And if he has no backside, how can
the nobleman sit ?"
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 125

The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the inter

pretation 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 com
pany." 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 favourite 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 inter
pretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circum
stance. 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
126 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 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 necessary. Identi
fication 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 experi
ences, 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 repro
duction. 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
unconscious concluded process, as an
corresponds to an unconscious
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 love
sickness or the like, is the cause of it . Their sympathy is aroused,
and the following syllogism, which does not reach conscious
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 127

ness, 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 realisa
tion 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 inter
course 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 suffi
cient 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 speci
fically as follows : She puts herself in the place of her friend
in the dream, because her friend has taken her own place in
relation to her husband, and because she would like to take
her friend's place in the esteem of her husband . *
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-fulfilment of one wish signifies the fulfil
ment of another. I had one day explained to her that the
dream is a wish-fulfilment. The next day she brought me a
dream to the effect that she was travelling with her mother-in

* I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the psycho

pathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary representation
and of being torn from all connection with the subject, cannot have a very
enlightening influence. If these passages are capable of throwing light upon
the intimate relations between the dream and the psychoneuroses, they have
served the purpose for which I have taken them up.
128 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

law to their common summer resort. Now I knew that she

had struggled violently against spending the summer in the
neighbourhood 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-fulfilment 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 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 thewrong, 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 fulfilment of a wish. He went home, dreamt
that he had lost all his suits- he was a lawyer-and then com
66 One
plained to me about it. I took refuge in the evasion :
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 favourite ; it was I who really
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 129

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 :
I
130 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

" 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 sup
pressed 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 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 demeanour,
and who still showed these qualities at least in the notions
which occurred to her in the course of treatment . In con
nection 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-fulfilment, but herself
suspected that the detail of the box must lead to a different
conception of the dream.* 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, theatre 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
Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred supper.
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 131

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 fulfilment of a wish, but a wish which had been
put aside for fifteen years, and it is not surprising that the
fulfilment of the wish was no longer recognised 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-fulfilments . For the following dream , which again
was told me in order to deter me from a hasty generalisation of
the theory of wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a
patient, but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. " I
me, " that I am walking in front
dream," my informant tells me,
Here a closed wagon is
of my house with a lady on my arm.
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 ?
66
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." * " And under what circumstances did you
* It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a recollec
tion of the omitted portions appears 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 .
132 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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
66
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
66 66
what I have told you ." The woman is married ? " Yes."
66 And you do not wish her to conceive a child ? ' " No ; that
""
might betray us. " Then you do not practise normal
coitus ? " " I take the precaution to withdraw before ejacu
lation." " Am I permitted to assume that you did this trick
several times during the night, and that in the morning you
66
were not quite sure whether you had succeeded ? " That
might be the case." " Then your dream is the fulfilment 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 re
called the medieval 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. Doubt
less 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." 66 Another echo of your dream. And now
I shall demonstrate to you another subordinate wish-fulfilment
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-fulfilment, 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
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 133

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-fulfilment. 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 fulfilment 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 .
66 I wish he would strike me ! 39
The answer of the girl was :
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
134 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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-fulfilment. * I may even expect this
to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfil 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 re
latives and the authorities whom she has 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 fulfilment
of a wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem ,
the solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where
does she get the words which she puts into my mouth ? Of
course I have never told her anything like that, but one of
her brothers , the very one who has the greatest influence over
her, has been kind enough to make this remark about me. It
is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should
remain in the right ; and she does not try to justify this
brother merely in the dream ; it is her purpose in life and the
motive for her being ill.
The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that
there is danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in
my own case. In the sexual make-up of many people there is
a masochistic component, which has arisen through the con
version 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.

* Similar " counter wish-dreams " have been repeatedly reported to me

within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their first en
counter with the " wish theory of the dream."
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 135

It is obvious that such persons can have counter wish-dreams

and disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing
but wish-fulfilments , 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 has 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 analysed
as the fulfilments 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 endeavours- 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 ; everyone 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 disfigure
ment, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and
that the wish-fulfilment 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
136 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to

light if we reword our formula as follows : The dream is the
(disguised) fulfilment 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 corre
sponding 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 accom
panies 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," † I maintained
that neurotic fear has its origin in the sexual life, and corre
sponds 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

We may mention here the simplification and modification of this

fundamental formula, propounded by Otto Rank : " On the basis and with
the help of repressed infantile sexual material, the dream regularly repre
sents as fulfilled actual, and as a rule also erotic, wishes, in a disguised and
symbolic form." (" Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet," Jahrbuch, v. , Bleuler
Freud, II . B., p. 519, 1910. )
† See Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, p. 133, trans
lated by A. A. Brill, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Monograph
Series.
 DISTORTION IN DREAMS 137

content has been transformed into fear. Later on I shall

have opportunity to support this assertion by the analysis of
several dreams of neurotics . I shall have occasion to revert
to the determinations in anxiety dreams and their com
patibility with the theory of wish-fulfilment when I again
attempt to approach the theory of dreams.
 V
!
THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS

AFTER coming to realise from the analysis of the dream of

Irma's injection that the dream is the fulfilment of a wish,
our interest was next directed to ascertaining whether we had
thus discovered a universal characteristic of the dream , and
for the time being we put aside every other question which
may have been aroused in the course of that interpretation .
Now that we have reached the goal upon one of these paths,
we may turn back and select a new starting- point for our
excursions among the problems of the dream, even though we
may lose sight for a time of the theme of wish-fulfilment,
which has been as yet by no means exhaustively treated.
Now that we are able, by applying our process of inter
pretation, to discover a latent dream content which far sur
passes the manifest dream content in point of significance, we
are impelled to take up the individual dream problems afresh,
in order to see whether the riddles and contradictions which
seemed, when we had only the manifest content, beyond our
reach may not be solved for us satisfactorily.
The statements of the authors concerning the relation of
the dream to waking life, as well as concerning the source of
the dream material, have been given at length in the intro
ductory chapter. We may recall that there are three pecu
liarities of recollection in the dreams , which have been often
remarked but never explained :
1. That the dream distinctly prefers impressions of the
few days preceding (Robert,55 Strümpell,66 Hildebrandt,35 also
Weed -Hallam 33) .
2. That it makes its selection according to principles other
than those of our waking memory, in that it recalls not what
is essential and important , but what is subordinate and dis
regarded (cf. p. 13) .
138
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 139

3. That it has at its disposal the earliest impressions of

our childhood , and brings to light details from this period of
life which again seem trivial to us, and which in waking life
were considered long ago forgotten. *
These peculiarities in the selection of the dream material
have of course been observed by the authors in connection
with the manifest dream content.

(a) Recent and Indifferent Impressions in the Dream

If I now consult my own experience concerning the source

of the elements which appear in the dream, I must at once
express the opinion that some reference to the experiences of
the day which has most recently passed is to be found in every
dream . Whatever dream I take up, whether my own or
another's, this experience is always re-affirmed . Knowing
this fact, I can usually begin the work of interpretation by
trying to learn the experience of the previous day which has
stimulated the dream ; for many cases, indeed , this is the
quickest way. In the case of the two dreams which I have
subjected to close analysis in the preceding chapter (of Irma's
injection, and of my uncle with the yellow beard ) the reference
to the previous day is so obvious that it needs no further
elucidation. But in order to show that this reference may be
regularly demonstrated , I shall examine a portion of my own
dream chronicle . I shall report the dreams only so far as is
necessary for the discovery of the dream stimulus in question.
1. I make a visit at a house where I am admitted only with
difficulty, &c . , and meanwhile I keep a woman waiting for me.
Source. -A conversation in the evening with a female
relative to the effect that she would have to wait for some aid
which she demanded until, & c.
2. I have written a monograph about a certain (obscure)
species of plant.
Source.- I have seen in the show-window of a book store a
monograph upon the genus cyclamen.
* It is clear that the conception of Robert, that the dream is intended to
rid our memory of the useless impressions which it has received during the
day, is no longer tenable, if indifferent memories of childhood appear in the
dream with some degree of frequency. The conclusion would have to be
drawn that the dream ordinarily performs very inadequately the duty which
is prescribed for it.
140 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

3. I see two women on the street, mother and daughter, the

latter of whom is my patient .
Source. A female patient who is under treatment has told
me what difficulties her mother puts in the way of her continu
ing the treatment.
4. At the book store of S. and R. I subscribe to a periodical
which costs 20 florins annually.
Source.- During the day my wife has reminded me that I
still owe her 20 florins of her weekly allowance.
5. I receive a communication, in which I am treated as a
member, from the Social Democratic Committee.
Source . I have received communications simultaneously from
the Liberal Committee on Elections and from the president of
the Humanitarian Society, of which I am really a member.
6. A man on a steep rock in the middle of the ocean, after
the manner of Boecklin .
Source.- Dreyfus on Devil's Island ; at the same time news
from my relatives in England, & c .
The question might be raised , whether the dream is in
variably connected with the events of the previous day, or
whether the reference may be extended to impressions from a
longer space of time in the immediate past . Probably this
matter cannot claim primary importance, but I should like
to decide in favour of the exclusive priority of the day before
the dream (the dream-day). As often as I thought I had
found a case where an impression of two or three days before
had been the source of the dream, I could convince myself,
after careful investigation , that this impression had been
remembered the day before, that a demonstrable reproduction
had been interpolated between the day of the event and the
time of the dream, and, furthermore, I was able to point out the
recent occasion upon which the recollection of the old im
pression might have occurred . On the other hand, I was
unable to convince myself that a regular interval (H. Swoboda
calls the first one of this kind eighteen hours) of biological
significance occurs between the stimulating impression of the
day and its repetition in the dream. *
As mentioned in the first chapter, p. 67, H. Swoboda applies broadly
to the psychic activity, the biological intervals of twenty-three and twenty
eight days discovered by W. Fliess, and lays especial emphasis upon the fact
that these periods are determinant for the appearance of the dream elements
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 141

I am, therefore, of the opinion that the stimulus for

every dream is to be found among those experiences " upon
which one has not yet slept " for a night.
Thus the impressions of the immediate past (with the
exception of the day before the night of the dream) stand in
no different relation to the dream content from those of times
which are as far removed in the past as you please. The dream
may select its material from all times of life, provided only,

in dreams. There would be no material change in dream interpretation if

this could be proven, but it would result in a new source for the origin of
the dream material. I have recently undertaken some examination of my
own dreams in order to test the applicability of the " Period Theory " to the
dream material, and I have selected for this purpose especially striking
elements of the dream content, whose origin could be definitely ascertained :

I.-Dreamfrom October 1-2, 1910

(Fragment) ... Somewhere in Italy. Three daughters show me small
costly objects, as if in an antiquity shop. At the same time they sit down
on my lap. Of one of the pieces I remark : " Why, you got this from me."
I also see distinctly a small profile mask with the angular features of
Savonarola.
When have I last seen a picture of Savonarola ? According to my travel
ling diary, I was in Florence on the fourth and fifth of September, and while
there thought of showing my travelling companion the plaster medallion of
the features of the fanatical monk in the Piazza Signoria, the same place
where he met his death by burning. I believe that I called his attention to
it at 3 A.M. To be sure, from this impression, until its return in the dream ,
there was an interval of twenty-seven and one days-a " feminine period ,"
according to Fliess. But, unfortunately for the demonstrative force of this
example, I must add that on the very day of the dream I was visited (the
first time after my return) bythe able but melancholy-looking colleague
whom I had already years before nicknamed " Rabbi Savonarola." He
brought me a patient who had met with an accident on the Pottebba rail
road, on which I had myself travelled eight days before, and my thoughts
were thus turned to my last Italian journey. The appearance in the dream
content of the striking element of Savonarola is explained by the visit of
my colleague on the day of the dream ; the twenty-eight day interval had no
significance in its origin.

II.-Dreamfrom October 10-11

I am again studying chemistry in the University laboratory. Court
Councillor L. invites me to come to another place, and walks before me in
the corridor carrying in front of him in his uplifted hand a lamp or some
other instrument, and assuming a peculiar attitude, his head stretched for
ward. We then come to an open space (rest forgotten) .
In this dream content, the most striking part is the manner in which
Court Councillor L. carries the lamp (or lupe) in front of him, his gaze
directed into the distance. I have not seen L. for many years, but I now
know that he is only a substitute for another greater person-for Archimedes
near the Arethusa fountain in Syracuse, who stands there exactly like L.
in the dream, holding the burning mirror and gazing at the besieging army
 142 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that a chain of thought starting from one of the experiences

of the day of the dream (one of the " recent " impressions)
reaches back to these earlier ones.
But why this preference for recent impressions ? We shall
reach some conjectures on this point if we subject one of the
dreams already mentioned to a more exact analysis . I select
the dream about the monograph.
Content of the dream.-I have written a monograph upon a

of the Romans. When had I first (and last ) seen this monument ? Accord
ing to my notes, it was on the seventeenth day of September, in the evening,
and from this date to the dream there really passed 13 and 10, equals
23, days according to Fliess, a " masculine period."
But I regret to say that here, too, this connection seems somewhat less
inevitable when we enter into the interpretation of this dream. The dream
was occasioned by the information, received on the day of the dream , that
the lecture-room in the clinic in which I was invited to deliver my lectures
had been changed to some other place. I took it for granted that the new
room was very inconveniently situated, and said to myself, it is as bad as not
having any lecture-room at my disposal. My thoughts must have then
taken me back to the time when I first became a docent, when I really had
no lecture-room, and when, in my efforts to get one, I met with little en
couragement from the very influential gentlemen councillors and professors.
In my distress at that time, I appealed to L., who then had the title of dean,
and whom I considered kindly disposed . He promised to help me, but that
was all I ever heard from him. In the dreamn he is the Archimedes, who
gives me the Thorw and leads me into the other room. That neither the
desire for revenge nor the consciousness of one's own importance is absent
in this dream will be readily divined by those familiar with dream inter
pretation. I must conclude, however, that without this motive for the
dream, Archimedes would hardly have got into the dream that night. I
am not certain whether the strong and still recent impression of the statue
in Syracuse did not also come to the surface at a different interval of time.

III.-Dreamfrom October 2-3, 1910.

(Fragment) . • Something about Professor Oser, who himself prepared
the menu for me, which served to restore me to great peace of mind (rest
forgotten).
The dream was a reaction to the digestive disturbances of this day, which
made me consider asking one of my colleagues to arrange a diet for me.
That in the dream I selected for this purpose Professor Oser, who had died
in the summer, is based on the recent death (October 1 ) of another university
teacher, whom I highly revered . But when did Oser die, and when did I
hear of his death ? According to the newspaper notice, he died on the
22nd of August, but as I was at the time in Holland, whither my Vienna
newspapers were regularly sent me, I must have read the obituary notice
on the 24th or 25th of August. This interval no longer corresponds to any
period. It takes in 7 and 30 and 2, equals 39, days, or perhaps 38 days. I
cannot recall having spoken or thought of Oser during this interval.
Such intervals as were not available for the " period theory " without
further elaboration, were shown from my dreams to be far more frequent
than the regular ones. As maintained in the text, the only thing constantly
found is the relation to an impression of the day of the dream itself.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 143

certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just turning over
a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound
with every copy, as though from a herbarium.
Analysis. In the forenoon I saw in the show-window of a
book store a book entitled , The Genus Cyclamen, apparently
a monograph on this plant.
The cyclamen is the favourite flower of my wife . I re
proach myself for so seldom thinking to bring her flowers, as
she wishes. In connection with the theme " bringing flowers , '
I am reminded of a story which I recently told in a circle of
friends to prove my assertion that forgetting is very often the
purpose of the unconscious, and that in any case it warrants
a conclusion as to the secret disposition of the person who
forgets. A young woman who is accustomed to receive a
bunch of flowers from her husband on her birthday, misses
this token of affection on a festive occasion of this sort, and
thereupon bursts into tears. The husband comes up, and
66
is unable to account for her tears until she tells him, To-day
is my birthday." He strikes his forehead and cries, " Why,
I had completely forgotten it, " and wants to go out to get her
some flowers . But she is not to be consoled, for she sees in
the forgetfulness of her husband a proof that she does not
play the same part in his thoughts as formerly. This Mrs. L.
met my wife two days before, and told her that she was feeling
well, and asked about me. She was under my treatment years
ago.
Supplementary facts : I once actually wrote something
like a monograph on a plant, namely, an essay on the coca
plant, which drew the attention of K. Koller to the anesthetic
properties of cocaine. I had hinted at this use of the alkaloid
in my publication, but I was not sufficiently thorough to
pursue the matter further. This suggests that on the forenoon
of the day after the dream (for the interpretation of which I
did not find time until the evening) I had thought of cocaine
in a kind of day phantasy. In case I should ever be afflicted
with glaucoma, I was going to go to Berlin , and there have
myself operated upon, incognito, at the house of my Berlin
friend, by a physician whom he would recommend to me. The
surgeon, who would not know upon whom he was operating,
would boast as usual how easy these operations had become
 142 THE INTERPRETATION OF DRE

that a chain of thought starting from one of the exper

of the day of the dream (one of the " recent " impres
reaches back to these earlier ones .
But why this preference for recent impressions ? W
reach some conjectures on this point if we subject one
dreams already mentioned to a more exact analysis. I
the dream about the monograph.
Content of the dream.-I have written a monograph u

of the Romans. When had I first (and last) seen this monument ?
ing to my notes, it was on the seventeenth day of September, in the e
and from this date to the dream there really passed 13 and 10,
23, days according to Fliess, a " masculine period."
But I regret to say that here, too, this connection seems somew
inevitable when we enter into the interpretation of this dream. The
was occasioned by the information, received on the day of the dres
the lecture-room in the clinic in which I was invited to deliver my
had been changed to some other place. I took it for granted that t
room was very inconveniently situated, and said to myself, it is as ba
having any lecture-room at my disposal. My thoughts must ha
taken me back to the time when I first became a docent, when I rea
no lecture-room, and when, in my efforts to get one, I met with li
couragement from the very influential gentlemen councillors and pro
In my distress at that time, I appealed to L., who then had the title
and whom I considered kindly disposed. He promised to help me,
was all I ever heard from him. In the dream he is the Archimed
gives me the Thorw and leads me into the other room. That neit
desire for revenge nor the consciousness of one's own importance is
in this dream will be readily divined by those familiar with drear
pretation. I must conclude, however, that without this motive
dream, Archimedes would hardly have got into the dream that n
am not certain whether the strong and still recent impression of th
in Syracuse did not also come to the surface at a different interval of

III.-Dream from October 2-3, 1910.

(Fragment) . Something about Professor Oser, who himself I
the menu for me, which served to restore me to great peace of mi
forgotten).
The dream was a reaction to the digestive disturbances of this day Le
made me consider asking one of my colleagues to arrange a diet
That in the dream I selected for this purpose Professor Oser, who h
in the summer, is based on the recent death (October 1 ) of another ur
teacher, whom I highly revered . But when did Oser die, and whe
hear of his death ? According to the newspaper notice, he died
22nd of August, but as I was at the time in Holland, whither my
newspapers were regularly sent me, I must have read the obituar
on the 24th or 25th of August. This interval no longer corresponds
period. It takes in 7 and 30 and 2, equals 39, days, or perhaps 38 "
cannot recall having spoken or thought of Oser during this interval.
Such intervals as were not available for the " period theory " Ca
further elaboration, were shown from my dreams to be far more 1 C
ada
than the regular ones. As maintained in the text, the only thing co
found is the relation to an impression of the day of the dream itself. C T
STT T
T
 MS 143
RIAL F EA
THE MATE O DR
ing ver
The booklies before me, I am just turn o
m e n t d
dplat.e A dried spec i of the pla n is boun

ow f
-Inthe forenoon I saw iniutmhe show-wind o a
y g h m r b a r n ly
ya ,as tkhou tflreod a he nus . clame rent
boo enti , The Ge Cy , appa

te er of my wife. I re
men is the favouri flow
f m k i n g g ers, as
my s e l for so sel d o th i n to brin her ficw
p n t
ap on thnisnpelcatio.n th he heme g
gin dewers.
In co wi t t " brin
n tly oid n e
e d
d o asf t o r y w h i c h I r e c e t i a circl of
n t t i n g
io is very often the
prove my assert that forge
c i ous ants
the un c o n s , a n d t h a t n
i oa n n y case is warr
s i t i o n
on as to the secret dispo of t ehde per
s who
n stom ve
young woma who is accu to recei a
rs and n er irthday, misses
ifowe from her husb o h b
on ve ccasion f his ort
a of affecti on a festi o o t s , and
s s b a n d e s
4bu
rst into tear . The hus com up , and
t s
accoun for her tear until she tells him. “ To-day
es is orehead and cries. “ Why.
thday. " He strik h f
y tt e n s o o ut o et er
pletel forgo it ," and want t clegd c t g h
. But she is not to be eccs , for she sees in
and f
lness of her husb ghtsa proo etrhlayt she does not
se par in his tht o u as form . This Mrs. L
r e ng
ve tw da o y s be f o d
, an to he th l d r a t she waesnfteeli
t r t m
ked abo u me . She was und e my tre a years

entary facts : I once actuall

y ing
wrote someth

graph oh ne a p lantion amely ll ner estsoat y on theth

he anes ceo
s
ts
iodrew t attent , nof K. K, oa
c a i n e t e d a l d
of co . I had hin at this use of the alk
i o n t s i c i e n t ly r o u g h
ca t , bu I wa t
no suf f tho to
her s r
matter furt . This suggest that on the forenoo
a m r e t a t i on
after the dre (for the interp of who? ?
e t i
n l
t a sy n i n g d g h t
oft
d m
diay pu hna e e d l o
th .evIn cas)eII hsahouth ever boef au coffe
ana , I was going to go to Berlin , and there have

o
ested ucp on ognit , at the house dof my
incm
y s i ian , h o k n o w ommheen wa
uuplodnrwehco so owia
ph w he wo to mpe

as usual how easy these operations had

would not
144 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

since the introduction of cocaine ; I would not betray by a

single sign that I had had a share in making this discovery.
With this phantasy were connected thoughts of how difficult
it really is for a doctor to claim the medical services of a
colleague for his own person . I should be able to pay the
Berlin eye specialist, who did not know me, like anyone else .
Only after recalling this day-dream do I realise that the
recollection of a definite experience is concealed behind it.
Shortly after Koller's discovery my father had , in fact, become
ill with glaucoma ; he was operated upon by my friend, the
eye specialist, Dr. Koenigstein. Dr. Koller attended to the
cocaine anæsthetisation , and thereupon made the remark
that all three of the persons who had shared in the intro
duction of cocaine had been brought together on one case.
I now proceed to think of the time when I was last re
minded of this affair about the cocaine. This was a few days
before, when I received a Festschrift, with whose publication 1
grateful scholars had commemorated the anniversary of their
teacher and laboratory director . Among the honours
ascribed to persons connected with the laboratory, I found a
notice to the effect that the discovery of the anesthetic pro
perties of cocaine had been made there by K. Koller. Now I
suddenly become aware that the dream is connected with an
experience of the previous evening. I had just accompanied
Dr. Koenigstein to his home, and had spoken to him about a
matter which strongly arouses my interest whenever it is
mentioned. While I was talking with him in the vestibule,
Professor Gärtner and his young wife came up. I could
not refrain from congratulating them both upon their healthy
appearance . Now Professor Gärtner is one of the authors
of the Festschrift of which I have just spoken, and may well
have recalled it to me. Likewise Mrs. L. , whose birthday
disappointment I have referred to , had been mentioned , in
another connection , to be sure, in the conversation with Dr.
Koenigstein.
I shall now try to explain the other determinations of the
dream content . A dried specimen of the plant accompanies
the monograph as though it were a herbarium . A recollection
of the gymnasium (school) is connected with the herbarium .
The director of our gymnasium once called the scholars of the
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 145

higher classes together in order to have them inspect and

clean the herbarium. Small worms had been found-book
worms. The director did not seem to have much confidence
in my help, for he left only a few leaves for me. I know to this
day that there were crucifers on them. My interest in botany
was never very great. At my preliminary examination in
botany, I was required to identify a crucifer, and did not
recognise it. I would have fared badly if my theoretical
knowledge had not helped me out . Crucifers suggest com
posites. The artichoke is really a composite, and the one
which I might call my favourite flower. My wife, who is
more thoughtful than I, often brings this favourite flower of
mine home from the market.
I see the monograph which I have written lying before me.
This, too, is not without its reference. The friend whom I
pictured wrote to me yesterday from Berlin : " I think a
great deal about your dream book. I see it lying before me
finished, and am turning over its leaves." How I envied him
this prophetic power ! If I could only see it lying already
finished before me !
The folded Coloured Plate. - While I was a student of medicine,
I suffered much from a fondness for studying in monographs
exclusively. In spite of my limited means, I subscribed to a
number of the medical archives, in which the coloured plates
gave me much delight . I was proud of this inclination for
thoroughness . So , when I began to publish on my own account,
I had to draw the plates for my own treatises, and I remember
one of them turned out so badly that a kindly-disposed col
league ridiculed me for it . This suggests, I don't know exactly
how, a very early memory from my youth. My father once
thought it would be a joke to hand over a book with coloured
plates (Description of a Journey in Persia) to me and my eldest
sister for destruction . This was hardly to be justified from
an educational point of view. I was at the time five years
old , and my sister three, and the picture of our blissfully tearing
this book to pieces (like an artichoke, I must add , leaf by leaf)
is almost the only one from this time of life which has remained
fresh in my memory. When I afterwards became a student ,
I developed a distinct fondness for collecting and possessing
books (an analogy to the inclination for studying from mono
K
 146 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

graphs, a hobby which occurs in the dream thoughts with

reference to cyclamen and artichoke). I became a book-worm
(cf. herbarium) . I have always referred this first passion of
my life since I am engaging in retrospect to this childhood
impression, or rather I have recognised in this childish scene
a " concealing recollection " for my subsequent love of books. *
Of course I also learned at an early age that our passions are
often our sorrows . When I was seventeen years old I had a
very respectable bill at the book store, and no means with
which to pay it, and my father would hardly accept the excuse
that my inclination had not been fixed on something worse.
But the mention of this later youthful experience immediately
brings me back to my conversation that evening with my
friend Dr. Koenigstein. For the talk on the evening of the
dream-day brought up the same old reproach that I am too
fond of my hobbies.
For reasons which do not belong here, I shall not continue
the interpretation of this dream, but shall simply indicate the
path which leads to it . In the course of the interpretation ,
I was reminded of my conversation with Dr. Koenigstein, and
indeed of more than one portion of it. If I consider the
subjects touched upon in this conversation, the meaning of
the dream becomes clear to me. All the thought associations
which have been started, about the hobbies of my wife and of
myself, about the cocaine, about the difficulty of securing
medical treatment from one's colleagues, my preference for
J monographic studies, and my neglect of certain subjects such
as botany-all this continues and connects with some branch
of this widely ramified conversation . The dream again takes
on the character of a justification, of a pleading for my rights ,
like the first analysed dream of Irma's injection ; it even
continues the theme which that dream started, and discusses
it with the new subject matter which has accrued in the interval
between the two dreams . Even the apparently indifferent
manner of expression of the dream receives new importance.
The meaning is now : " I am indeed the man who has written
that valuable and successful treatise (on cocaine)," just as at
that time I asserted for my justification : " I am a thorough

* Cf. my essay, " Ueber Deckerinnerungen," in the Monatschrift für

Psychiatrie und Neurologie, 1899.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 147

and industrious student ; " in both cases, then : " I can afford
to do that." But I may dispense with the further inter
pretation of the dream, because my only purpose in reporting
it was to examine the relation of the dream content to the
experience of the previous day which arouses it . As long as
I know only the manifest content of this dream , but one
relation to a day impression becomes obvious ; after I have
made the interpretation , a second source of the dream becomes
evident in another experience of the same day. The first of
these impressions to which the dream refers is an indifferent
one, a subordinate circumstance. I see a book in a shop
window whose title holds me for a moment, and whose contents
could hardly interest me. The second experience has great
psychic value ; I have talked earnestly with my friend, the
eye specialist, for about an hour, I have made allusions in
this conversation which must have touched both of us closely,
and which awakened memories revealing the most diverse
feelings of my inner self. Furthermore, this conversation was
broken off unfinished because some friends joined us . What ,
now, is the relation of these two impressions of the day to each
other and to the dream which followed during the next night ?
I find in the manifest content merely an allusion to the
indifferent impression, and may thus reaffirm that the dream
preferably takes up into its content non-essential experiences .
In the dream interpretation , on the contrary, everything con
verges upon an important event which is justified in demanding
attention. If I judge the dream in the only correct way,
according to the latent content which is brought to light in
the analysis , I have unawares come upon a new and important
fact. I see the notion that the dream deals only with the
worthless fragments of daily experience shattered ; I am
compelled also to contradict the assertion that our waking
psychic life is not continued in the dream, and that the dream
instead wastes psychic activity upon a trifling subject matter.
The opposite is true ; what has occupied our minds during the
day also dominates our dream thoughts, and we take pains to
dream only of such matters as have given us food for thought
during the day.
Perhaps the most obvious explanation for the fact that I
dream about some indifferent impression of the day, while
148 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the impression which is justifiably stirring furnishes the

occasion for dreaming , is that this again is a phenomenon of
the dream -disfigurement, which we have above traced to a
psychic power acting as a censor. The recollection of the
monograph on the genus cyclamen is employed as though it
were an allusion to the conversation with my friend, very
much as mention of the friend in the dream of the deferred
supper is represented by the allusion " smoked salmon." The
only question is, by what intermediate steps does the im
pression of the monograph come to assume the relation of an
allusion to the conversation with the eye specialist , since such
a relation is not immediately evident. In the example of the
deferred supper, the relation is set forth at the outset ; " smoked
salmon," as the favourite dish of the friend, belongs at once
to the series of associations which the person of the friend would
call up in the lady who is dreaming. In our new example
we have two separated impressions , which seem at first glance
to have nothing in common except that they occur on the
same day. The monograph catches my attention in the
forenoon ; I take part in the conversation in the evening.
The answer supplied by the analysis is as follows : Such re
lations between the two impressions do not at first exist, but
are established subsequently between the presentation content
of the one impression and the presentation content of the
other. I have recently emphasised the components in this
relation in the course of recording the analysis . With the
notion of the monograph on cyclamen I should probably
associate the idea that cyclamen is my wife's favourite flower
only under some outside influence, and this is perhaps the
further recollection of the bunch of flowers missed by Mrs. L.
I do not believe that these underlying thoughts would have
been sufficient to call forth a dream.

"There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave

To tell us this,"

as we read in Hamlet. But behold ! I am reminded in

the analysis that the name of the man who interrupted our
conversation was Gärtner (Gardener), and that I found his
wife in blooming health ; * I even remember now that one of
* Ger., blühend.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 149

my female patients, who bears the pretty name of Flora, was

for a time the main subject of our conversation. It must
have happened that I completed the connection between the
two events of the day, the indifferent and the exciting one, by
means of these links from the series of associations belonging
to the idea of botany. Other relations are then established ,
that of cocaine, which can with perfect correctness form a go
between connecting the person of Dr. Koenigstein with the
botanical monograph which I have written, and strengthen
the fusion of the two series of associations into one, so that now
a portion of the first experience may be used as an allusion to
the second .
I am prepared to find this explanation attacked as arbitrary
or artificial. What would have happened if Professor Gärtner
and his blooming wife had not come up, and if the patient
who was talked about had been called , not Flora , but Anna ?
The answer is easy, however. If these thought - relations had
not been present, others would probably have been selected .
It is so easy to establish relations of this sort, as the joking
questions and conundrums with which we amuse ourselves
daily suffice to show. The range of wit is unlimited . To go a
step further if it had been impossible to establish inter
relations of sufficient abundance between the two impressions
of the day, the dream would simply have resulted differently ;
another of the indifferent impressions of the day, such as come
to us in multitudes and are forgotten, would have taken the
place of the monograph in the dream, would have secured a
connection with the content of the talk, and would have repre
sented it in the dream . Since it was the impression of the
monograph and no other that had this fate, this impression
was probably the most suitable for the establishment of the
connection. One need not be astonished, like Lessing's
Hanschen Schlau , because " it is the rich people of the world
who possess the most money."
Still the psychological process by which, according to our
conception, the indifferent experience is substituted for the
psychologically important one, seems odd to us and open to
question. In a later chapter we shall undertake the task of
making this seemingly incorrect operation more intelligible.
We are here concerned only with consequences of this pro
172 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

fashion. He asks, " What business are the Turkish (drawings,

strips of cloth . ) of yours ? But we then become quite
friendly with each other.
In the analysis of this dream there occurs to me quite
unexpectedly the novel which I read , that is to say, which I
began with the end of the first volume, when I was perhaps
thirteen years old. I have never known the name of the novel
or of its author, but the conclusion remains vividly in my
memory. The hero succumbs to insanity, and continually
calls the names of the three women that have signified the
greatest good and ill fortune for him during life. Pélagie is
one of these names. I still do not know what to make of
this name in the analysis . À propos of the three women there
now come to the surface the three Parca who spin the fate of
man, and I know that one of the three women, the hostess
in the dream , is the mother who gives life, and who, moreover ,
as in my case, gives the first nourishment to the living creature .
Love and hunger meet at the mother's breast . A young man
-so runs an anecdote- who became a great admirer of womanly
beauty, once when the conversation turned upon a beautiful
wet nurse who had nourished him as a child, expressed himself
to the effect that he was sorry that he had not taken better
advantage of his opportunity at the time. I am in the habit
of using the anecdote to illustrate the factor of subsequence
in the mechanism of psychoneuroses . ...
. . . One of the Parcæ ,
then, is rubbing the palms of her hands together as though she
were making dumplings. A strange occupation for one of
the Fates , which is urgently in need of an explanation ! This
is now found in another and earlier childhood memory. When
I was six years old , and was receiving my first instructions from
my mother, I was asked to believe that we are made of earth ,
and that therefore we must return to earth. But this did not
suit me, and I doubted her teaching. Thereupon my mother
rubbed the palms of her hands together-just as in making
dumplings , except that there was no dough between them—
and showed me the blackish scales of epidermis which were
thus rubbed off as a proof that it is earth of which we are
made. My astonishment at this demonstration ad oculos
was without limit , and I acquiesced in the idea which I was
later to hear expressed in words : " Thou owest nature a
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 173 227

death.” : con
." Thus the women are really Parte whom I vis
in the kitchen, as I have done so often in my childhood TRACK egotis
when I was hungry, and when my mother used to order me to ugh it
wait until lunch was ready. And now for the dumping sed in

At least one of my teachers at the University, the very the a de

to whom I am indebted for my bokpal brvH ght to
everal
(epidermis), might be reminded by the name Kooed Gems
Knoedel dumplings ) of a person whom he had so prene
for committing a plagiarism of his writings. To som : He
! meat,
plagiarism , to appropriate anything one can get even thng
en up.
it belongs to another , obviously leads to the second pun i
the dream , in which I am treated like a certain over thef
who for a time plied his trade in the auditoria I wrote d´vi repast
must
the expression plagiarism-without any rawo -teste I
y had
presented itself to me, and now I perceive that it must beling
to the latent dream-content, because it were a thog s pre
am he
between different parts of the manifest dream -oncent
ved of
chain of associations -Pélagie -plagiarism - plazmom.
-fish bladder -connects the cd novel with the afar inger
(sharks )
of Knoedl and with the overcoats (German tierséier = ting ld get
drawn over-overcoat or condom , wie danny mie 1 that
uence
an object belonging to the technique of serale The IA
shows
true , is a very forced and irrational connection be I
nevertheless one which I could not eating a ving de doubt

if it had not been already established by the way of the >ward

dream. Indeed , as though nothing were wd be the But

impulse to force connections , the beived tame Brenge re, as

les of
(bridge of words , see above), now serves to and me of the
institution in which I spent my happiest born as a museen. The

quite without any cares (“ So you will ever fad una peamis
book
at the breasts of knowledge without mecze
ollec
complete contrast to the urgent desires LÊ THỊ DE VLA
I he .ono
dream . And finally there comes to the mufas to be o
tion of another dear teacher, whose name was wrote &c.).
ated,
vasan wish
* Boththe emotions which belongtothese dita t
and resignation to the inevitable- hat appeared 1 & fram komot DTIME ; the
which was the first thing that brought back the nemom of 2 3 the
experience . is to
+ I do not elaborate plazostomi purposely : de sala w‫ܫ‬a and
angry disgrace before the same teacher ‫ܐ ܐ ܘ ܘ ܦܡܡ‬f im
Cf. Maury'sdream about kilomite, p. 3...
150 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

cedure, whose assumption we have been forced to make by

the regularly recurring experiences of dream analysis. But
the process seems to be that, in the course of those inter
mediate steps , a displacement- let us say of the psychic accent
-has taken place, until ideas that are at first weakly charged
with intensity, by taking over the charge from ideas which
have a stronger initial intensity, reach a degree of strength,
which enables them to force their way into consciousness .
Such displacements do not at all surprise us when it is a
question of the bestowal of affects or of the motor actions in
general. The fact that the woman who has remained single
transfers her affection to animals, that the bachelor becomes a
passionate collector, that the soldier defends a scrap of coloured
cloth , his flag, with his life-blood, that in a love affair a momen
tary clasping of hands brings bliss , or that in Othello a
lost handkerchief causes a burst of rage-all these are examples
of psychic displacement which seem unquestionable to us.
But if, in the same manner and according to the same funda
mental principles , a decision is made as to what is to reach our
consciousness and what is to be withheld from it, that is to
say, what we are to think- this produces an impression of
morbidity, and we call it an error of thought if it occurs in
waking life . We may here anticipate the result of a dis
cussion which will be undertaken later- namely, to the effect
that the psychic process which we have recognised as dream
displacement proves to be not a process morbidly disturbed,
but a process differing from the normal merely in being of a
more primitive nature.
We thus find in the fact that the dream content takes up
remnants of trivial experiences a manifestation of dream
disfigurement (by means of displacement), and we may recall
that we have recognised this dream disfigurement as the work
of a censor which controls the passage between two psychic
instances. We accordingly expect that dream analysis will
regularly reveal to us the genuine, significant source of
the dream in the life of the day, the recollection of which has
transferred its accent to some indifferent recollection . This
conception brings us into complete opposition to Robert's 55
theory, which thus becomes valueless for us . The fact which
Robert was trying to explain simply doesn't exist ; its assump
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 151

tion is based upon a misunderstanding, upon the failure to

substitute the real meaning of the dream for its apparent
content. Further objection may be made to Robert's doctrine :
If it were really the duty of the dream, by means of a special
psychic activity, to rid our memory of the " slag " of the re
collections of the day, our sleep would have to be more troubled
and employed in a more strained effort than we may suppose
it to be from our waking life. For the number of indifferent
impressions received during the day, against which we should
have to protect our memory, is obviously infinitely large ; the
night would not be long enough to accomplish the task. It is
very much more probable that the forgetting of indifferent
impressions takes place without any active interference on the
part of our psychic powers.
Still something cautions us against taking leave of Robert's
idea without further consideration . We have left unex
plained the fact that one of the indifferent day-impressions—
one from the previous day indeed- regularly furnished a
contribution to the dream- content. Relations between this
impression and the real source of the dream do not always
exist from the beginning ; as we have seen, they are estab
lished only subsequently, in the course of the dream-work,
as though in order to serve the purpose of the intended dis
placement. There must, therefore, be some necessity to form
connections in this particular direction, of the recent, although
indifferent impression ; the latter must have special fitness
for this purpose because of some property. Otherwise it
would be just as easy for the dream thoughts to transfer their
accent to some inessential member of their own series of
associations .
The following experiences will lead us to an explanation .
If a day has brought two or more experiences which are fitted
to stimulate a dream, then the dream fuses the mention of
both into a single whole ; it obeys an impulse to fashion a whole
out of them ; for instance : One summer afternoon I entered
a railroad compartment, in which I met two friends who were
unknown to each other. One of them was an influential col
league, the other a member of a distinguished family, whose
physician I was ; I made the two gentlemen acquainted with
each other ; but during the long ride I was the go-between
150 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

cedure, whose assumption we have been forced to make by

the regularly recurring experiences of dream analysis. But
the process seems to be that , in the course of those inter
mediate steps, a displacement-let us say of the psychic accent
-has taken place, until ideas that are at first weakly charged
with intensity, by taking over the charge from ideas which
have a stronger initial intensity, reach a degree of strength,
which enables them to force their way into consciousness .
Such displacements do not at all surprise us when it is a
question of the bestowal of affects or of the motor actions in
general . The fact that the woman who has remained single
transfers her affection to animals , that the bachelor becomes a
passionate collector, that the soldier defends a scrap of coloured
cloth, his flag, with his life-blood , that in a love affair a momen
tary clasping of hands brings bliss , or that in Othello a
lost handkerchief causes a burst of rage-all these are examples
of psychic displacement which seem unquestionable to us .
But if, in the same manner and according to the same funda
mental principles, a decision is made as to what is to reach our
consciousness and what is to be withheld from it, that is to
say, what we are to think-this produces an impression of
morbidity, and we call it an error of thought if it occurs in
waking life. We may here anticipate the result of a dis
cussion which will be undertaken later-namely, to the effect
that the psychic process which we have recognised as dream
displacement proves to be not a process morbidly disturbed ,
but a process differing from the normal merely in being of a
more primitive nature.
We thus find in the fact that the dream content takes up
remnants of trivial experiences a manifestation of dream
disfigurement (by means of displacement), and we may recall
that we have recognised this dream disfigurement as the work
of a censor which controls the passage between two psychic
instances. We accordingly expect that dream analysis will
regularly reveal to us the genuine, significant source of
the dream in the life of the day, the recollection of which has
transferred its accent to some indifferent recollection . This
conception brings us into complete opposition to Robert's 55
theory, which thus becomes valueless for us. The fact which
Robert was trying to explain simply doesn't exist ; its assump
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 151

tion is based upon a misunderstanding, upon the failure to

substitute the real meaning of the dream for its apparent
content . Further objection may be made to Robert's doctrine :
If it were really the duty of the dream, by means of a special
psychic activity, to rid our memory of the " slag " of the re
collections of the day, our sleep would have to be more troubled
and employed in a more strained effort than we may suppose
it to be from our waking life . For the number of indifferent
impressions received during the day, against which we should
have to protect our memory, is obviously infinitely large ; the
night would not be long enough to accomplish the task. It is
very much more probable that the forgetting of indifferent
impressions takes place without any active interference on the
part of our psychic powers.
Still something cautions us against taking leave of Robert's
idea without further consideration . We have left unex
plained the fact that one of the indifferent day-impressions
one from the previous day indeed-regularly furnished a
contribution to the dream-content . Relations between this
impression and the real source of the dream do not always
exist from the beginning ; as we have seen, they are estab
lished only subsequently, in the course of the dream-work,
as though in order to serve the purpose of the intended dis
placement. There must, therefore, be some necessity to form
connections in this particular direction , of the recent, although
indifferent impression ; the latter must have special fitness
for this purpose because of some property. Otherwise it
would be just as easy for the dream thoughts to transfer their
accent to some inessential member of their own series of
associations .
The following experiences will lead us to an explanation.
If a day has brought two or more experiences which are fitted
to stimulate a dream, then the dream fuses the mention of
both into a single whole ; it obeys an impulse to fashion a whole
out of them ; for instance : One summer afternoon I entered
a railroad compartment, in which I met two friends who were
unknown to each other. One of them was an influential col
league, the other a member of a distinguished family, whose
physician I was ; I made the two gentlemen acquainted with
each other ; but during the long ride I was the go-between
152 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

in the conversation , so that I had to treat a subject of con

versation now with the one, now with the other. I asked
my colleague to recommend a common friend who had just
begun his medical practice . He answered that he was con
vinced of the young man's thoroughness, but that his plain
appearance would make his entrance into households of rank
difficult. I answered : " That is just why he needs recom
mendation." Soon afterwards I asked the other fellow
traveller about the health of his aunt-the mother of one of
my patients who was at the time prostrated by a serious
illness . During the night after this journey I dreamt that the
young friend, for whom I had asked assistance, was in a
splendid salon , and was making a funeral oration to a select
company with the air of a man of the world—the oration being
upon the old lady (now dead for the purposes of the dream )
who was the aunt of the second fellow-traveller. (I confess
frankly that I had not been on good terms with this lady .)
My dream had thus found connections between the two im
pressions of the day, and by means of them composed a unified
situation .
In view of many similar experiences, I am driven to conclude
that a kind of compulsion exists for the dream function ,
forcing it to bring together in the dream all the available
sources of dream stimulation into a unified whole. * In a
subsequent chapter (on the dream function ) we shall become
acquainted with this impulse for putting together as a part of
condensation another primary psychic process .
I shall now discuss the question whether the source from
which the dream originates , and to which our analysis leads ,
must always be a recent (and significant ) event, or whether
a subjective experience, that is to say, the recollection of a
psychologically valuable experience-a chain of thought-can
take the part of a dream stimulus . The answer, which results
most unequivocally from numerous analyses , is to the following
effect . The stimulus for the dream may be a subjective
occurrence, which has been made recent, as it were, by the

* The tendency of the dream function to fuse everything of interest

which is present into simultaneous treatment has already been noticed by
16
several authors, for instance, by Delage, p. 41 , Delboeuf,16 Rapprochement
Forcé, p. 236.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 153

mental activity during the day. It will probably not be out of

place here to give a synopsis of various conditions which may
be recognised as sources of dreams.
The source of a dream may be :
(a) A recent and psychologically significant experience
which is directly represented in the dream . *
(b) Several recent , significant experiences, which are united
by the dream into a whole.†
(c) One or more recent and significant experiences , which
are represented in the dream by the mention of a contem
porary but indifferent experience .‡
(d) A subjective significant experience (a recollection, train
of thought), which is regularly represented in the dream by the
mention of a recent but indifferent impression . §
As may be seen, in dream interpretation the condition is
firmly adhered to throughout that each component of the
dream repeats a recent impression of the day. The element
which is destined to representation in the dream may either
belong to the presentations surrounding the actual dream
stimulus itself-and , furthermore, either as an essential or an
inessential element of the same or it may originate in the
neighbourhood of an indifferent impression, which, through
associations more or less rich, has been brought into relation
with the thoughts surrounding the dream stimulus . The
apparent multiplicity of the conditions here is produced by
the alternative according to whether displacement has or has not
taken place, and we may note that this alternative serves
to explain the contrasts of the dream just as readily as the
ascending series from partially awake to fully awake brain
cells in the medical theory of the dream (cf. p . 64).
Concerning this series, it is further notable that the element
which is psychologically valuable, but not recent (a train of
thought, a recollection ) may be replaced , for the purposes of
dream formation, by a recent, but psychologically indifferent ,
element, if only these two conditions be observed : 1. That
the dream shall contain a reference to something which has
* The dream of Irma's injection ; the dream of the friend who is my
uncle.
The dream of the funeral oration of the young physician.
The dream of the botanical monograph .
The dreams of my patients during analysis are mostly of this kind.
154 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

been recently experienced ; 2. That the dream stimulus shall

remain a psychologically valuable train of thought . In a
single case (a) both conditions are fulfilled by the same im
pression. If it be added that the same indifferent impressions
which are used for the dream , as long as they are recent, lose
this availability as soon as they become a day (or at most
several days) older, the assumption must be made that the
very freshness of an impression gives it a certain psychological
value for dream formation , which is somewhat equivalent to
the value of emotionally accentuated memories or trains of
thought. We shall be able to see the basis of this value of
recent impressions for dream formation only with the help
of certain psychological considerations which will appear
later.*
Incidentally our attention is called to the fact that im
portant changes in the material comprised by our ideas and
our memory may be brought about unconsciously and at
night . The injunction that one should sleep for a night upon
any affair before making a final decision about it is obviously
fully justified . But we see that at this point we have pro
ceeded from the psychology of dreaming to that of sleep , a
step for which there will often be occasion .
Now there arises an objection threatening to invalidate the
conclusions we have just reached . If indifferent impressions
oan get into the dream only in case they are recent, how does
it happen that we find also in the dream content elements
from earlier periods in our lives, which at the time when they
were recent possessed, as Strümpell expresses it, no psychic
value, which, therefore, ought to have been forgotten long ago,
and which, therefore, are neither fresh nor psychologically
significant ?
This objection can be fully met if we rely upon the results
furnished by psychoanalysis of neurotics. The solution is as
follows : The process of displacement which substitutes in
different material for that having psychic significance (for
dreaming as well as for thinking) has already taken place in
those earlier periods of life, and has since become fixed in the
memory. Those elements which were originally indifferent
are in fact no longer so, since they have acquired the value of
* Cf. Chap. VII. upon " Transference. "
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 155

psychologically significant material. That which has actually

remained indifferent can never be reproduced in the dream .
It will be correct to suppose from the foregoing discussion
that I maintain that there are no indifferent dream stimuli ,
and that, accordingly, there are no harmless dreams . This I
believe to be the case, thoroughly and exclusively, allowance
being made for the dreams of children and perhaps for short
dream reactions to nocturnal sensations . Whatever one may
dream, it is either manifestly recognisable as psychically
significant or it is disfigured , and can be judged correctly only
after a complete interpretation , when, as before, it may be
recognised as possessing psychic significance . The dream
never concerns itself with trifles ; we do not allow ourselves
to be disturbed in our sleep by matters of slight importance.
Dreams which are apparently harmless turn out to be sinister
if one takes pains to interpret them ; if I may be permitted
the expression, they all have " the mark of the beast." As this
is another point on which I may expect opposition, and as
I am glad of an opportunity to show dream - disfigurement
at work, I shall here subject a number of dreams from my
collection to analysis.
1. An intelligent and refined young lady, who, however,
in conduct, belongs to the class we call reserved , to the “ still
waters ," relates the following dream :
66 ""
Her husband asks : Should not the piano be tuned ?
She answers : " It won't pay ; the hammers would have to be
newly buffed too." This repeats an actual event of the previous
day. Her husband had asked such a question , and she had
answered something similar. But what is the significance of
her dreaming it ? She tells of the piano , indeed, that it is a
disgusting old box which has a bad tone ; it is one of the things
which her husband had before they were married ,* & c . , but
the key to the true solution lies in the phrase : It won't pay.
This originated in a visit made the day before to a lady friend.
Here she was asked to take off her coat, but she declined,
saying, " It won't pay. I must go in a moment . At this
point , I recall that during yesterday's analysis she suddenly
took hold of her coat, a button of which had opened. It is ,

Substitution of the opposite, as will become clear to us after inter

pretation.
156 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

therefore, as if she had said, " Please don't look in this direc
66
tion ; it won't pay." Thus " box " develops into chest," or
breast-box (" bust "), and the interpretation of the dream
leads directly to a time in her bodily development when she
was dissatisfied with her shape. It also leads to earlier periods ,
if we take into consideration " disgusting " and " bad tone,"
and remember how often in allusions and in dreams the two
small hemispheres of the feminine body take the place as a
substitute and as an antithesis -of the large ones .
II. I may interrupt this dream to insert a brief harmless
dream of a young man . He dreamt that he was putting on his
winter overcoat again, which was terrible. The occasion for this
dream is apparently the cold weather, which has recently set
in again. On more careful examination we note that the two
short portions of the dream do not fit together well , for what
is there " terrible " about wearing a heavy or thick coat in
the cold ? Unfortunately for the harmlessness of this dream ,
the first idea educed in analysis is the recollection that on the
previous day a lady had secretly admitted to him that her
last child owed its existence to the bursting of a condom .
He now reconstructs his thoughts in accordance with this
suggestion : A thin condom is dangerous, a thick one is bad.
The condom is an " overcoat " (Ueberzieher), for it is put over
something ; Ueberzieher is also the name given in German to a
thin overcoat. An experience like the one related by the lady
66
would indeed be terrible " for an unmarried man.-We
may now return to our other harmless dreamer.
III. She puts a candle into a candlestick ; but the candle is
broken, so that it does not stand straight. The girls at school say
she is clumsy ; the young lady replies that it is not her fault.
Here, too , there is an actual occasion for the dream ; the
day before she had actually put a candle into a candlestick ;
but this one was not broken. A transparent symbolism has
been employed here. The candle is an object which excites
the feminine genitals ; its being broken, so that it does not
stand straight, signifies impotence on the man's part (" it is
not her fault ") . But does this young woman, carefully
brought up , and a stranger to all obscenity, know of this
application of the candle ? She happens to be able to tell how
she came by this information . While riding in a boat on the
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 157

Rhine, another boat passes containing students who are singing

or rather yelling, with great delight : " When the Queen of
Sweden with closed shutters and the candles of Apollo . . ."
She does not hear or understand the last word . Her
husband is asked to give her the required explanation. These
verses are then replaced in the dream content by the harmless
recollection of a command which she once executed clumsily
at a girls' boarding school, this occurring by means of the
common features closed shutters . The connection between the
theme of onanism and that of impotence is clear enough.
""
" Apollo in the latent dream content connects this dream
with an earlier one in which the virgin Pallas figured . All this
is obviously not harmless.
IV. Lest it may seem too easy a matter to draw con
clusions from dreams concerning the dreamer's real circum
stances, I add another dream coming from the same person
which likewise appears harmless . " I dreamt of doing some
thing," she relates , " which I actually did during the day, that
is to say, I filled a little trunk so full of books that I had difficulty
in closing it. My dream was just like the actual occurrence."
Here the person relating the dream herself attaches chief im
portance to the correspondence between the dream and reality.
All such criticisms upon the dream and remarks about it,
although they have secured a place in waking thought, re
gularly belong to the latent dream content, as later examples
I
will further demonstrate We are told, then, that what the
dream relates has actually taken place during the day. It
would take us too far afield to tell how we reach the idea of
using the English language to help us in the interpretation of
this dream . Suffice it to say that it is again a question of a
little box (cf. p. 130 , the dream of the dead child in the box)
which has been filled so full that nothing more can go into it .
Nothing in the least sinister this time.
66 ""
In all these harmless dreams the sexual factor as a
motive for the exercise of the censor receives striking pro
minence. But this is a matter of primary importance, which
we must postpone .

(b) Infantile Experiences as the Source of Dreams

As the third of the peculiarities of the dream content, we

158 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

have cited from all the authors (except Robert) the fact that
impressions from the earliest times of our lives , which seem
not to be at the disposal of the waking memory, may appear
in the dream. It is , of course, difficult to judge how often or
how seldom this occurs, because the respective elements of the
dream are not recognised according to their origin after waking.
The proof that we are dealing with childhood impressions must
thus be reached objectively, and the conditions necessary for
this happen to coincide only in rare instances . The story is
told by A. Maury,48 as being particularly conclusive, of a man
who decided to visit his birthplace after twenty years ' absence.
During the night before his departure, he dreams that he is in
an altogether strange district, and that he there meets a strange
man with whom he has a conversation. Having afterward
returned to his home, he was able to convince himself that
this strange district really existed in the neighbourhood of his
home town, and the strange man in the dream turned out to
be a friend of his dead father who lived there. Doubtless , a
conclusive proof that he had seen both the man and the dis
trict in his childhood. The dream, moreover, is to be inter
preted as a dream of impatience, like that of the girl who
carries her ticket for the concert of the evening in her pocket
(p . 110), of the child whose father had promised him an ex
cursion to the Hameau, and the like. The motives explaining
why just this impression of childhood is reproduced for the
dreamer cannot, of course, be discovered without an analysis .
One of the attendants at my lectures , who boasted that his
dreams were very rarely subject to disfigurement, told me
that he had sometime before in a dream seen his former tutor
in bed with his nurse, who had been in the household until he
was eleven years old . The location of this scene does not
occur to him in the dream. As he was much interested , he
told the dream to his elder brother, who laughingly confirmed
its reality. The brother said he remembered the affair very
well , for he was at the time six years old . The lovers were in
the habit of making him, the elder boy, drunk with beer,
whenever circumstances were favourable for nocturnal re
lations. The smaller child , at that time three years old—our
dreamer-who slept in the same room as the nurse, was not
considered an obstacle.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 159

In still another case it may be definitely ascertained, without

the aid of dream interpretation , that the dream contains
elements from childhood ; that is , if it be a so-called perennial
dream, which being first dreamt in childhood , later appears
again and again after adult age has been reached . I may add
a few examples of this sort to those already familiar, although
I have never made the acquaintance of such a perennial dream
in my own case. A physician in the thirties tells me that a
yellow lion, about which he can give the most detailed in
formation , has often appeared in his dream-life from the
earliest period of his childhood to the present day. This lion,
known to him from his dreams, was one day discovered in
natura as a long-forgotten object made of porcelain , and on
that occasion the young man learned from his mother that
this object had been his favourite toy in early childhood , a fact
which he himself could no longer remember.
If we now turn from the manifest dream content to the
dream thoughts which are revealed only upon analysis , the
co-operation of childhood experiences may be found to exist
even in dreams whose content would not have led us to suspect
anything of the sort . I owe a particularly delightful and
instructive example of such a dream to my honoured colleague
of the " yellow lion."
lion ." After reading Nansen's account of his
polar expedition , he dreamt that he was giving the bold ex
plorer electrical treatment in an ice field for an ischemia of
which the latter complained ! In the analysis of this dream ,
he remembered a story of his childhood , without which the
dream remains entirely unintelligible. When he was a child ,
three or four years old , he was listening attentively to a con
versation of older people about trips of exploration, and
presently asked papa whether exploration was a severe illness .
He had apparently confused "trips " with " rips , " and the
ridicule of his brothers and sisters prevented his ever forgetting
the humiliating experience .
The case is quite similar when , in the analysis of the dream
of the monograph on the genus cyclamen , I happen upon the
recollection, retained from childhood, that my father allowed
me to destroy a book embellished with coloured plates when I
was a little boy five years old . It will perhaps be doubted
whether this recollection actually took part in the composition
162 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I take upon his Excellency ! He refuses to appoint me pro

fessor extraordinarius , and in return I put myself in his place
in the dream .
Another case establishes the fact that although the wish
which actuates the dream is a present one, it nevertheless draws
great intensification from childhood memories . I refer to a
series of dreams which are based upon the longing to go to
Rome. I suppose I shall still have to satisfy this longing by
means of dreams for a long time to come, because, at the time
of year which is at my disposal for travelling, a stay at Rome
is to be avoided on account of considerations of health . *
Thus I once dreamt of seeing the Tiber and the bridge of St.
Angelo from the window of a railroad compartment ; then
the train starts , and it occurs to me that I have never entered
the city at all. The view which I saw in the dream was modelled
after an engraving which I had noticed in passing the day
before in the parlour of one of my patients . On another
occasion some one is leading me upon a hill and showing me
Rome half enveloped in mist, and so far in the distance that
I am astonished at the distinctness of the view. The content
of this dream is too rich to be fully reported here. The motive,
66
to see the promised land from afar," is easily recognisable in
it. The city is Lübeck, which I first saw in the mist ; the
original of the hill is the Gleichenberg. In a third dream , I am
at last in Rome, as the dream tells me. To my disappointment ,
the scenery which I see is anything but urban . A little river
with black water, on one side of which are black rocks, on the
other large white flowers. I notice a certain Mr. Zucker (with
whom I am superficially acquainted ) , and make up my mind
to ask him to show me the way into the city. It is apparent that
I am trying in vain to see a city in the dream which I have
never seen in waking life. If I resolve the landscape into its
elements, the white flowers indicate Ravenna, which is known
to me, and which, for a time at least, deprived Rome of its
leading place as capital of Italy. In the swamps around
Ravenna we had seen the most beautiful water-lilies in the
middle of black pools of water ; the dream makes them grow
on meadows , like the narcissi of our own Aussee, because at

* I have long since learned that it only requires a little courage to fulfil
even such unattainable wishes.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 161

to me ? Here I remember a story which I heard often in my

childhood, that at my birth an old peasant's wife had pro
phesied to my happy mother (I was her first-born) that she had
given to the world a great man. Such prophecies must occur
very frequently ; there are so many mothers happy in ex
pectation, and so many old peasant wives whose influence on
earth has waned, and who have therefore turned their eyes
towards the future . The prophetess was not likely to suffer
for it either. Might my hunger for greatness have originated
from this source ? But here I recollect an impression from the
later years of my childhood , which would serve still better as
an explanation . It was of an evening at an inn on the Prater,*
where my parents were accustomed to take me when I was
eleven or twelve years old . We noticed a man who went
from table to table and improvised verses upon any subject
that was given to him. I was sent to bring the poet to our
table and he showed himself thankful for the message . Before
asking for his subject he threw off a few rhymes about me, and
declared it probable, if he could trust his inspiration, that I
would one day become a " minister." I can still distinctly
remember the impression made by this second prophecy. It
was at the time of the election for the municipal ministry ; my
father had recently brought home pictures of those elected to
the ministry- Herbst, Giskra, Unger, Berger, and others—
and we had illuminated them in honour of these gentlemen.
There were even some Jews among them ; every industrious
Jewish schoolboy therefore had the making of a minister in
him . Even the fact that until shortly before my enrolment
in the University I wanted to study jurisprudence, and changed
my plans only at the last moment , must be connected with the
impressions of that time. A minister's career is under no
circumstances open to a medical man. And now for my
dream ! I begin to see that it transplants me from the sombre
present to the hopeful time of the municipal election , and
fulfils my wish of that time to the fullest extent . In treating
my two estimable and learned colleagues so badly, because
they are Jews , the one as a simpleton and the other as a
criminal- in doing this I act as though I were the minister of
education, I put myself in his place. What thorough revenge
* The Prater is the principal drive of Vienna. (Transl.)
L
162 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I take upon his Excellency ! He refuses to appoint me pro

fessor extraordinarius, and in return I put myself in his place
in the dream .
Another case establishes the fact that although the wish
which actuates the dream is a present one, it nevertheless draws
great intensification from childhood memories. I refer to a
series of dreams which are based upon the longing to go to
Rome. I suppose I shall still have to satisfy this longing by
means of dreams for a long time to come, because, at the time
of year which is at my disposal for travelling, a stay at Rome
is to be avoided on account of considerations of health . *
Thus I once dreamt of seeing the Tiber and the bridge of St.
Angelo from the window of a railroad compartment ; then
the train starts, and it occurs to me that I have never entered
the city at all. The view which I saw in the dream was modelled
after an engraving which I had noticed in passing the day
before in the parlour of one of my patients . On another
occasion some one is leading me upon a hill and showing me
Rome half enveloped in mist, and so far in the distance that
I am astonished at the distinctness of the view. The content
of this dream is too rich to be fully reported here. The motive,
" to see the promised land from afar," is easily recognisable in
it. The city is Lübeck, which I first saw in the mist ; the
original of the hill is the Gleichenberg. In a third dream, I am
at last in Rome, as the dream tells me. To my disappointment,
the scenery which I see is anything but urban. A little river
with black water, on one side of which are black rocks, on the
other large white flowers. I notice a certain Mr. Zucker (with
whom I am superficially acquainted) , and make up my mind
to ask him to show me the way into the city. It is apparent that
I am trying in vain to see a city in the dream which I have
never seen in waking life. If I resolve the landscape into its
elements, the white flowers indicate Ravenna, which is known
to me, and which, for a time at least, deprived Rome of its
leading place as capital of Italy. In the swamps around
Ravenna we had seen the most beautiful water-lilies in the
middle of black pools of water ; the dream makes them grow
on meadows , like the narcissi of our own Aussee, because at

* I have long since learned that it only requires a little courage to fulfil
even such unattainable wishes,
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 165

general, and whose fulfilment sometimes seems as little

favoured by fortune as the wish of Hannibal's life to enter
Rome.
And now for the first time I happen upon the youthful
experience which, even to-day, still manifests its power in all
these emotions and dreams. I may have been ten or twelve
years old when my father began to take me with him on his
walks, and to reveal to me his views about the things of this
world in his conversation. In this way he once told me, in
order to show into how much better times I had been born
than he, the following : " While I was a young man , I was
walking one Saturday on a street in the village where you
were born ; I was handsomely dressed and wore a new fur
cap. Along comes a Christian, who knocks my cap into the
mud with one blow and shouts : " Jew, get off the sidewalk."
" And what did you do ? " " I went into the street and picked
up the cap," was the calm answer. That did not seem heroic
on the part of the big strong man , who was leading me, a
little fellow, by the hand. I contrasted this situation , which
did not please me, with another more in harmony with my
feelings the scene in which Hannibal's father, Hamilcar *
Barka made his boy swear at the domestic altar to take
vengeance on the Romans. Since that time Hannibal has
had a place in my phantasies .
I think I can follow my enthusiasm for the Carthaginian
general still further back into my childhood , so that possibly
we have here the transference of an already formed emotional
relation to a new vehicle. One of the first books which fell
into my childish hands , after I learned to read, was Thiers'
Konsulat und Kaiserreich (Consulship and Empire) ; I re
member I pasted on the flat backs of my wooden soldiers little
labels with the names of the Imperial marshals, and that at
that time Masséna (as a Jew Menasse) was already my avowed
favourite. Napoleon himself follows Hannibal in crossing the
Alps . And perhaps the development of this martial ideal
can be traced still further back into my childhood , to the wish
which the now friendly, now hostile, intercourse during my

In the first edition there was printed here the name Hasdrubal, a con
fusing error, the explanation of which I have given in my Psychopathologie
des Alltagalebens.
164 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

have understood the Czech language in the first three years of

my childhood , because I was born in a small village of Moravia,
inhabited by Slavs . A Czech nursery rhyme, which I heard
in my seventeenth year, became, without effort on my part, so
imprinted upon my memory that I can repeat it to this day,
although I have no idea of its meaning. There is then no lack
in these dreams also of manifold relations to impressions from
the first years of my life.
It was during my last journey to Italy, which, among other
places , took me past Lake Trasimenus , that I at last found
what re-enforcement my longing for the Eternal City had
received from the impressions of my youth ; this was after I
had seen the Tiber, and had turned back with painful emotions
when I was within eighty kilometers of Rome. I was just
broaching the plan of travelling to Naples via Rome the next
year, when this sentence, which I must have read in one of
our classical authors , occurred to me : " It is a question which
of the two paced up and down in his room the more im
patiently after he had made the plan to go to Rome-Assistant
Headmaster Winckelman or the great general Hannibal. ” I
myself had walked in Hannibal's footsteps ; like him I was
destined never to see Rome, and he too had gone to Campania
after the whole world had expected him in Rome . Hannibal,
with whom I had reached this point of similarity, had been
my favourite hero during my years at the Gymnasium ; like so
many boys of my age, I bestowed my sympathies during the
Punic war, not on the Romans, but on the Carthaginians.
Then, when I came finally to understand the consequences of
belonging to an alien race, and was forced by the anti-semitic
sentiment among my class-mates to assume a definite attitude,
the figure of the semitic commander assumed still greater pro
portions in my eyes . Hannibal and Rome symbolised for me
as a youth the antithesis between the tenaciousness of the
Jews and the organisation of the Catholic Church . The signi
ficance for our emotional life which the anti-semitic movement
has since assumed helped to fix the thoughts and impressions
of that earlier time. Thus the wish to get to Rome has become
the cover and symbol in my dream-life for several warmly
cherished wishes, for the realisation of which one might work
with the perseverance and single-mindedness of the Punic
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 165

general, and whose fulfilment sometimes seems as little

favoured by fortune as the wish of Hannibal's life to enter
Rome.
And now for the first time I happen upon the youthful
experience which, even to-day, still manifests its power in all
these emotions and dreams. I may have been ten or twelve
years old when my father began to take me with him on his
walks, and to reveal to me his views about the things of this
world in his conversation . In this way he once told me, in
order to show into how much better times I had been born
than he, the following : " While I was a young man, I was
walking one Saturday on a street in the village where you
were born ; I was handsomely dressed and wore a new fur
cap. Along comes a Christian, who knocks my cap into the
mud with one blow and shouts : " Jew, get off the sidewalk."
" And what did you do ? " " I went into the street and picked
up the cap," was the calm answer. That did not seem heroic
on the part of the big strong man, who was leading me, a
little fellow, by the hand. I contrasted this situation, which
did not please me, with another more in harmony with my
feelings the scene in which Hannibal's father, Hamilcar *
Barka made his boy swear at the domestic altar to take
vengeance on the Romans . Since that time Hannibal has
had a place in my phantasies.
I think I can follow my enthusiasm for the Carthaginian
general still further back into my childhood , so that possibly
we have here the transference of an already formed emotional
relation to a new vehicle. One of the first books which fell
into my childish hands , after I learned to read, was Thiers '
Konsulat und Kaiserreich (Consulship and Empire) ; I re
member I pasted on the flat backs of my wooden soldiers little
labels with the names of the Imperial marshals , and that at
that time Masséna (as a Jew Menasse) was already my avowed
favourite. Napoleon himself follows Hannibal in crossing the
Alps . And perhaps the development of this martial ideal
can be traced still further back into my childhood , to the wish
which the now friendly, now hostile, intercourse during my

* In the first edition there was printed here the name Hasdrubal, a con
fusing error, the explanation of which I have given in my Psychopathologie
des Alltagalebens .
166 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

first three years with a boy a year older than myself must
have actuated in the weaker of the two playmates.
The deeper one goes in the analysis of dreams, the more
often one is put on the track of childish experiences which
play the part of dream sources in the latent dream
content.
We have learned (p . 16 ) that the dream very rarely repro
duces experiences in such a manner that they constitute the
sole manifest dream content , unabridged and unchanged.
Still some authentic examples showing this process have been
reported, and I can add some new ones which again refer to
infantile scenes . In the case of one of my patients, a dream
once gave a barely disfigured reproduction of a sexual occur
rence, which was immediately recognised as an accurate
recollection . The memory of it indeed had never been lost
in waking life , but it had been greatly obscured, and its revivi
fication was a result of the preceding work of analysis. The
dreamer had at the age of twelve visited a bed-ridden school
mate, who had exposed himself by a movement in bed, pro
bably only by chance. At the sight of the genitals, he was
seized by a kind of compulsion , exposed himself and took hold
of the member belonging to the other boy, who, however,
looked at him with surprise and indignation, whereupon he
became embarrassed and let go . A dream repeated this scene
twenty-three years later, with all the details of the emotions
occurring in it, changing it , however, in this respect , that the
dreamer took the passive part instead of the active one,
while the person of the school-mate was replaced by one
belonging to the present.
As a rule, of course, a childhood scene is represented in the
manifest dream content only by an allusion, and must be
extricated from the dream by means of interpretation . The
citation of examples of this kind cannot have a very con
vincing effect, because every guarantee that they are experi
ences of childhood is lacking ; if they belong to an earlier
time of life, they are no longer recognised by our memory.
Justification for the conclusion that such childish experiences
generally exist in dreams is based upon a great number of
factors which become apparent in psychoanalytical work, and
which seem reliable enough when regarded as a whole. But
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 167

when, for the purposes of dream interpretation , such re

ferences of dreams to childish experiences are torn from
their context, they will perhaps not make much impression,
especially since I never give all the material upon which the
interpretation depends. However , I shall not let this prevent
me from giving some examples.
I. The following dream is from another female patient :
She is in a large room, in which there are all kinds of machines,
perhaps, as she imagines, an orthopaedic institute. She hears
that I have no time, and that she must take the treatment along
with five others. But she resists, and is unwilling to lie down on
the bed or whatever it is- which is intended for her. She stands
in a corner and waits for me to say " It is not true." The others,
meanwhile, laugh at her, saying it is all foolishness on her part.
At the same time it is as if she were called upon to make many
small squares.
The first part of the content of this dream is an allusion to
the treatment and a transference on me. The second contains
an allusion to a childhood scene ; the two portions are con
nected by the mention of the bed. The orthopedic institute
refers to one of my talks in which I compared the treatment
as to its duration and nature with an orthopedic treatment .
At the beginning of the treatment I had to tell her that for
the present I had little time for her, but that later on I would
devote a whole hour to her daily. This aroused in her the
old sensitiveness , which is the chief characteristic of children
who are to be hysterical. Their desire for love is insatiable.
My patient was the youngest of six brothers and sisters (hence,
66
with five others " ) , and as such the favourite of her father,
but in spite of that she seems to have found that her beloved
father devoted too little time and attention to her. The detail
of her waiting for me to say " It is not true," has the following
explanation : A tailor's apprentice had brought her a dress ,
and she had given him the money for it. Then she asked her
husband whether she would have to pay the money again if
the boy were to lose it . To tease her, her husband answered
" Yes " (the teasing in the dream), and she asked again and
again, and waited for him to say " It is not true." The thought
of the latent dream-content may now be construed as follows :
Will she have to pay me the double amount if I devote twice
168 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the time to her ? a thought which is stingy or filthy. (The

uncleanliness of childhood is often replaced in the dream by
greediness for money ; the word filthy here supplies the
bridge. ) If all that about waiting until I should say, &c . ,
serves as a dream circumlocution for the word " filthy," the
standing-in-a-corner and not lying down-on-the-bed are in
keeping ; for these two features are component parts of a
scene of childhood, in which she had soiled her bed, and for
punishment was put into a corner, with the warning that papa
would not love her any more, and her brothers and sisters
laughed at her, &c . The little squares refer to her young
niece, who has shown her the arithmetical trick of writing
figures in nine squares, I believe it is, in such a way that
upon being added together in any direction they make
fifteen.
II. Here is the dream of a man : He sees two boys tussling
with each other, and they are cooper's boys, as he concludes from
the implements which are lying about ; one of the boys has thrown
the other down, the prostrate one wears ear-rings with blue stones.
He hurries after the wrongdoer with lifted cane, in order to
chastise him. The latter takes refuge with a woman who is
standing against a wooden fence, as though it were his mother.
She is the wife of a day labourer, and she turns her back to the
man who is dreaming. At last she faces about and stares at him
with a horrible look, so that he runs away in fright ; in her eyes
the red flesh of the lower lid seems to stand out.
The dream has made abundant use of trivial occurrences
of the previous day. The day before he actually saw two boys
on the street, one of whom threw the other one down. When
he hurried up to them in order to settle the quarrel, both of
them took flight . Coopers ' boys : this is explained only by a
subsequent dream , in the analysis of which he used the ex
pression, " To knock the bottom out of the barrel." Ear-rings
with blue stones, according to his observation , are chiefly
worn by prostitutes . Furthermore, a familiar doggerel rhyme
about two boys comes up : " The other boy, his name was
Mary " (that is, he was a girl) . The woman standing up :
after the scene with the two boys, he took a walk on the
bank of the Danube, and took advantage of being alone
rinate against a wooden fence. A little later during
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 169

his walk, a decently dressed elderly lady smiled at him

very pleasantly, and wanted to hand him her card with
her address .
Since in the dream the woman stood as he had while
urinating, it is a question of a woman urinating, and this
explains the " horrible look," and the prominence of the red
flesh, which can only refer to the genitals which gap in squat
ting. He had seen genitals in his childhood , and they had
66
appeared in later recollection as proud flesh " and as
66
wound." The dream unites two occasions upon which, as
a young boy, the dreamer had had opportunity to see the
genitals of little girls , in throwing one down, and while another
was urinating ; and, as is shown by another association , he
had kept in memory a punishment or threat of his father's ,
called forth by the sexual curiosity which the boy manifested
on these occasions.
III. A great mass of childish memories , which have been
hastily united in a phantasy, is to be found behind the follow
ing dream of a young lady.
She goes out in trepidation, in order to do some shopping.
On the Graben * she sinks to her knees as though broken down.
Many people collect around her, especially the hackney-coach
drivers ; but no one helps her to get up. She makes many un
availing attempts ; finally she must have succeeded, for she is
put into a hackney- coach which is to take her home. A large,
heavily laden basket (something like a market-basket) is thrown
after her through the window .
This is the same woman who is always harassed in her
dreams as she was harassed when a child . The first situation
of the dream is apparently taken from seeing a horse that
had fallen, just as " broken down " points to horse-racing.
She was a rider in her early years, still earlier she was probably
also a horse. Her first childish memory of the seventeen
year-old son of the porter, who , being seized on the street by
an epileptic fit, was brought home in a coach, is connected
with the idea of falling down . Of this, of course, she has only
heard, but the idea of epileptic fits and of falling down has
obtained great power over her phantasies, and has later in
fluenced the form of her own hysterical attacks. When a
* A street in Vienna.
170 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

person of the female sex dreams of falling, this almost re

gularly has a sexual significance ; she becomes a " fallen
woman," and for the purpose of the dream under considera
tion this interpretation is probably the least doubtful, for she
falls on the Graben, the place in Vienna which is known as
the concourse of prostitutes. The market-basket admits of
more than one interpretation ; in the sense of refusal (German,
Korb basket-snub, refusal) , she remembers the many snubs
which she first gave her suitors, and which she later, as she
thinks, received herself. Here belongs also the detail that
no one will help her up, which she herself interprets as being
disdained . Furthermore, the market -basket recalls phantasies
that have already appeared in the course of analysis, in which
she imagines she has married far beneath her station, and
now goes marketing herself . But lastly the market-basket
might be interpreted as the mark of a servant. This suggests
further childhood memories of a cook who was sent away
because she stole ; she, too , sank to her knees and begged for
mercy. The dreamer was at that time twelve years old.
Then there is a recollection of a chamber-maid, who was
dismissed because she had an affair with the coachman of
the household, who , incidently, married her afterwards.
This recollection, therefore, gives us a clue to the coachman
in the dream (who do not , in contrast with what is actually
the case, take the part of the fallen woman ) . But there still
remains to be explained the throwing of the basket, and the
throwing of it through the window. This takes her to the
transference of baggage on the railroad, to the Fensterln ,*
in the country, and to minor impressions received at a country
resort, of a gentleman throwing some blue plums to a lady
through her window, and of the dreamer's little sister being
frightened because a cretin who was passing looked in at the
window. And now from behind this there emerges an obscure
recollection , from her tenth year, of a nurse who made love at
the country resort with a servant of the household, of which

* Fensterln is the practice, now falling into disuse, found in rural dis
tricts of the German Schwarzwald, of lovers wooing at the windows of their
sweethearts, bringing ladders with them, and becoming so intimate that they
practically enjoy a system of trial marriages. The reputation of the young
woman never suffers on account of fensterln, unless she becomes intimate
with too many suitors. (Translator.)
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 171

the child had opportunity to see something, and who was

" fired " (thrown out) (in the dream the opposite : "thrown
into "), a story which we had also approached by several
other paths . The baggage, moreover, or the trunk of a servant,
66
is disparagingly referred to in Vienna as seven plums ."
" Pack up your seven plums and get out."
My collection, of course, contains an abundant supply of
such patients' dreams, whose analysis leads to childish im
pressions that are remembered obscurely or not at all, and
that often date back to the first three years of life . But it is
a mistake to draw conclusions from them which are to apply
to the dream in general ; we are in every case dealing with
neurotic , particularly with hysterical persons ; and the part
played by childhood scenes in these dreams might be con
ditioned by the nature of the neurosis, and not by that of the
dream . However, I am struck quite as often in the course of
interpreting my own dreams, which I do not do on account of
obvious symptoms of disease, by the fact that I unsuspectingly
come upon a scene of childhood in the latent dream content ,
and that a whole series of dreams suddenly falls into line with
conclusions drawn from childish experiences . I have already
given examples of this, and shall give still more upon various
occasions . Perhaps I cannot close the whole chapter more
fittingly than by citing several of my own dreams, in which
recent happenings and long-forgotten experiences of child
hood appear together as sources of dreams .
I. After I have been travelling and have gone to bed
hungry and tired , the great necessities of life begin to assert
their claims in sleep, and I dream as follows : I go into a
kitchen to order some pastry. Here three women are standing,
one of whom is the hostess, and is turning something in her hand
as though she were making dumplings. She answers that I
must wait until she has finished (not distinctly as a speech) .
I become impatient and go away insulted . I put on an overcoat ;
but the first one which I try is too long. I take it off, and am
somewhat astonished to find that it has fur trimming. A second
one has sewn into it a long strip of cloth with Turkish drawings.
A stranger with a long face and a short pointed beard comes up
and prevents me from putting it on, declaring that it belongs to
him. I now show him that it is embroidered all over in Turkish
172 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

fashion. He asks, " What business are the Turkish (drawings,

strips of cloth ... ) of yours ? But we then become quite
friendly with each other.
In the analysis of this dream there occurs to me quite
unexpectedly the novel which I read, that is to say, which I
began with the end of the first volume, when I was perhaps
thirteen years old . I have never known the name of the novel
or of its author, but the conclusion remains vividly in my
memory. The hero succumbs to insanity, and continually
calls the names of the three women that have signified the
greatest good and ill fortune for him during life . Pélagie is
one of these names . I still do not know what to make of
this name in the analysis . À propos of the three women there
now come to the surface the three Parca who spin the fate of
man, and I know that one of the three women, the hostess
in the dream, is the mother who gives life, and who, moreover,
as in my case, gives the first nourishment to the living creature.
Love and hunger meet at the mother's breast. A young man
-so runs an anecdote- who became a great admirer of womanly
beauty, once when the conversation turned upon a beautiful
wet nurse who had nourished him as a child, expressed himself
to the effect that he was sorry that he had not taken better
advantage of his opportunity at the time. I am in the habit
of using the anecdote to illustrate the factor of subsequence
in the mechanism of psychoneuroses . . . . One of the Parcæ,
then, is rubbing the palms of her hands together as though she
were making dumplings. A strange occupation for one of
the Fates, which is urgently in need of an explanation ! This
is now found in another and earlier childhood memory. When
I was six years old, and was receiving my first instructions from
my mother, I was asked to believe that we are made of earth ,
and that therefore we must return to earth. But this did not
suit me, and I doubted her teaching. Thereupon my mother
rubbed the palms of her hands together just as in making
dumplings, except that there was no dough between them
and showed me the blackish scales of epidermis which were
thus rubbed off as a proof that it is earth of which we are
made. My astonishment at this demonstration ad oculos
was without limit, and I acquiesced in the idea which I was
later to hear expressed in words : " Thou owest nature a
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 173

"" *
death ." Thus the women are really Parca whom I visit
in the kitchen, as I have done so often in my childhood years
when I was hungry , and when my mother used to order me to
wait until lunch was ready. And now for the dumplings !
At least one of my teachers at the University, the very one
to whom I am indebted for my histological knowledge
(epidermis) , might be reminded by the name Knoedl (German,
Knoedel = dumplings ) of a person whom he had to prosecute
for committing a plagiarism of his writings. To commit
plagiarism, to appropriate anything one can get, even though
it belongs to another, obviously leads to the second part of
the dream, in which I am treated like a certain overcoat thief,
who for a time plied his trade in the auditoria. I wrote down
the expression plagiarism-without any reason-because it
presented itself to me, and now I perceive that it must belong
to the latent dream-content , because it will serve as a bridge
between different parts of the manifest dream-content. The
chain of associations -Pélagie - plagiarism- plagiostomi †
+
(sharks) fish bladder -connects the old novel with the affair
of Knoedl and with the overcoats (German , Überzieher = thing
drawn over overcoat or condom), which obviously refer to
an object belonging to the technique of sexual life. This, it is
true, is a very forced and irrational connection, but it is
nevertheless one which I could not establish in waking life
if it had not been already established by the activity of the
dream . Indeed, as though nothing were sacred for this
impulse to force connections , the beloved name, Bruecke
(bridge of words, see above), now serves to remind me of the
institution in which I spent my happiest hours as a student,
quite without any cares (" So you will ever find more pleasure
at the breasts of knowledge without measure " ), in the most
complete contrast to the urgent desires which vex me while I
dream . And finally there comes to the surface the recollec
tion of another dear teacher, whose name again sounds like

* Both the emotions which belong to these childish scenes-astonishment

and resignation to the inevitable- had appeared in a dream shortly before,
which was the first thing that brought back the memory of this childhood
experience.
+ I do not elaborate plagiostomi purposely ; they recall an occasion of
angry disgrace before the same teacher.
Cf. Maury's dream about kilo- lotto, p . 50.
174 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

something to eat (Fleischl- German, Fleischmeat- like

Knoedl) , and of a pathetic scene, in which the scales of epidermis
play a part (mother-hostess), and insanity (the novel) , and
a remedy from the Latin kitchen which numbs the sensation
of hunger, to wit, cocaine.
In this manner I could follow the intricate trains of thought
still further, and could fully explain the part of the dream
which is missing in the analysis ; but I must refrain , because
the personal sacrifices which it would require are too great .
I shall merely take up one of the threads, which will serve to
lead us directly to the dream thoughts that lie at the bottom
of the confusion . The stranger, with the long face and
pointed beard, who wants to prevent me from putting on
the overcoat, has the features of a tradesman at Spalato , of
whom my wife made ample purchases of Turkish cloths . His
name was Popović, a suspicious name, which, by the way,
has given the humorist Stettenheim a chance to make a
significant remark : " He told me his name, and blushingly
shook my hand . " * Moreover, there is the same abuse of
names as above with Pélagie, Knoedl, Bruecke, Fleischl .
That such playing with names is childish nonsense can be
asserted without fear of contradiction ; if I indulge in it,
this indulgence amounts to an act of retribution , for my own
name has numberless times fallen a victim to such weak
minded attempts at humour. Goethe once remarked how
sensitive a man is about his name with which, as with his skin,
he feels that he has grown up, whereupon Herder composed
the following on his name :
"Thou who art born of gods, of Goths, or of Kot (mud)—
Thy godlike images, too, are dust."

I perceive that this digression about the abuse of names

was only intended to prepare for this complaint . But let us
stop here. . . . The purchase at Spalato reminds me of
another one at Cattaro, where I was too cautious, and missed
an opportunity for making some desirable acquisitions .
(Missing an opportunity at the breast of the nurse, see above.)
Another dream thought, occasioned in the dreamer by the
sensation of hunger, is as follows : One should let nothing
Popo backside in German nursery language.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 175

which one can have escape, even if a little wrong is done ; no

opportunity should be missed, life is so short, death inevitable.
Owing to the fact that this also has a sexual significance, and
that desire is unwilling to stop at a wrong, this philosophy
of carpe diem must fear the censor and must hide behind a
dream . This now makes articulate counter-thoughts of all
kinds , recollections of a time when spiritual food alone was
sufficient for the dreamer ; it suggests repressions of every
kind, and even threats of disgusting sexual punishments.
II. A second dream requires a longer preliminary state
ment :
I have taken a car to the West Station in order to begin a
vacation journey to the Aussee, and I reach the station in
time for the train to Ischl, which leaves earlier. Here I see
Count Thun, who is again going to see the Emperor at Ischl.
In spite of the rain, he has come in an open carriage, has
passed out at once through the door for local trains, and has
motioned back the gate-keeper, who does not know him and
who wants to take his ticket, with a little wave of his hand.
After the train to Ischl has left, I am told to leave the platform
and go back into the hot waiting-room ; but with difficulty
I secure permission to remain . I pass the time in watching
the people who make use of bribes to secure a compartment ;
I make up my mind to insist on my rights-that is, to demand
the same privilege . Meanwhile I sing something to myself,
which I afterwards recognise to be the aria from Figaro's
Wedding :

" If my lord Count wishes to try a dance,

Try a dance,
Let him but say so,
I'll play him a tune."

(Possibly another person would not have recognised the

song.)
During the whole afternoon I have been in an insolent ,
combative mood ; I have spoken roughly to the waiter and
the cabman , I hope without hurting their feelings ; now all
kinds of bold and revolutionary thoughts come into my head,
of a kind suited to the words of Figaro and the comedy of
Beaumarchais, which I had seen at the Comédie Française.
176 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

The speech about great men who had taken the trouble to be
born ; the aristocratic prerogative, which Count Almaviva
wants to apply in the case of Susan ; the jokes which our
malicious journalists of the Opposition make upon the name
of Count Thun (German, thun = doing) by calling him Count
Do-Nothing. I really do not envy him ; he has now a difficult
mission with the Emperor, and I am the real Count Do-Nothing,
for I am taking a vacation. With this, all kinds of cheerful
plans for the vacation . A gentleman now arrives who is
known to me as a representative of the Government at the
medical examinations, and who has won the flattering nick
66 99
name of Governmental bed-fellow by his activities in this
capacity. By insisting on his official station he secures half
of a first-class compartment, and I hear one guard say to the
other : " Where are we going to put the gentleman with the
first-class half-compartment ? " A pretty favouritism ; I
am paying for a whole first-class compartment . Now I get
a whole compartment for myself, but not in a through coach,
so that there is no toilet at my disposal during the night.
My complaints to the guard are without result ; I get even
by proposing that at least there be a hole made in the floor of
this compartment for the possible needs of the travellers . I
really awake at a quarter of three in the morning with a desire
to urinate, having had the following dream :
Crowd of people, meeting of students. . . . A certain
Count (Thun or Taafe) is making a speech. Upon being asked
to say something about the Germans, he declares with contemptuous
mien that their favourite flower is Colt's-foot, and then puts some
thing like a torn leaf, really the crumpled skeleton of a leaf, into
his buttonhole. I make a start, I make a start then, * but I am
surprised at this idea of mine . Then more indistinctly : It
seems as though it were the vestibule (Aula) , the exits are jammed,
as though it were necessary to flee. I make my way through a
suite of handsomely furnished rooms , apparently governmental
chambers, with furniture of a colour which is between brown and
violet, and at last I come to a passage where a housekeeper, an
elderly, fat woman (Frauenzimmer), is seated . I try to avoid

* This repetition has insinuated itself into the text of the dream appa
rently through my absent-mindedness, and I allow it to remain because the
analysis shows that it has its significance.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 177

talking to her, but apparently she thinks I have a right to pass

because she asks whether she shall accompany me with the lamp.
I signify to her to tell her that she is to remain standing on the
stairs, and in this I appear to myself very clever, for avoiding
being watched at last. I am downstairs now, and I find a narrow,
steep way along which I go.
Again indistinctly · . • It is as if my second task were to
get away out of the city, as my earlier was to get out of the house.
I am riding in a one-horse carriage, and tell the driver to take me
to a railway station . " I cannot ride with you on the tracks," I
say, after he has made the objection that I have tired him out.
Here it seems as though I had already driven with him along a
course which is ordinarily traversed on the railroad . The stations are
crowded ; I consider whether I shall go to Krems or to Znaim, but I
think that the court will be there, and I decide in favour of Graz or
something of the sort. Now I am seated in the coach, which is some
thing like a street-car, and I have in my buttonhole a long braided
thing, on which are violet-brown violets of stiff material, which
attracts the attention of many people. Here the scene breaks off.
I am again in frontof the railroad station, but I am with a elderly
gentleman. I invent a scheme for remaining unrecognised, but I also
see this plan already carried out. Thinking and experiencing are
here, as it were, the same thing. He pretends to be blind, at least in
one eye, and I hold a male urinal in front of him (which we have
had to buy in the city or did buy), I am thus a sick attendant, and
have to give him the urinal because he is blind. If the conductor
sees us in this position, he must pass us by without drawing atten
tion. At the same time the attitude of the person mentioned is
visually observed. Then I awake with a desire to urinate.
The whole dream seems a sort of phantasy, which takes the
dreamer back to the revolutionary year 1848 , the memory of
which had been renewed by the anniversary year 1898, as well
as by a little excursion to Wachau, where I had become ac
quainted with Emmersdorf, a town which I wrongly supposed
to be the resting-place of the student leader Fischof, to whom
several features of the dream content might refer. The
thought associations then lead me to England, to the house of
my brother, who was accustomed jokingly to tell his wife of
66
Fifty years ago, " according to the title of a poem by Lord
Tennyson, whereupon the children were in the habit of
M
178 THE INTERPRETATION OF DRE

correcting : " Fifteen years ago." This phantasy, howeve

subtilely attaches itself to the thoughts which the sigh
Count Thun has given rise to , is only like the façade
churches which is superimposed without being
connected with the building behind it ; unlike the
however, the phantasy is filled with gaps and co
the parts from within break through at many
first situation of the dream is concocted from se
into which I am able to separate it. The arroga
the Count in the dream is copied from a scene at t to
which took place in my fifteenth year. We ...ent
a conspiracy against an unpopular and ignora
leading spirit in which was a schoolmate wh i scene
taken Henry VIII . of England as his model . is point
carry out the coup-d'état, and a discussion tleman of
of the Danube (German Donau) for Austri re with an
the occasion upon which matters came to ence of the
A fellow-conspirator was the only arist Je justified at
whom we had-he was called the " giraffe was an aulic
conspicuous longitudinal development-a me the greater
the Count in the dream, while he was b ite of rooms in
the tyrant of the school , the Professor of Excellency , into
The explanation of the favourite flower ; but it signifies ,
the buttonhole of something which ag zimmer ; German
flower (which recalls the orchids , whic -woman, in order to
lady friend on the same day, and b the person of the
Jericho) prominently recalls the sce in intelligent elderly
torical plays which opens the civil good stories which I
White Roses ; the mention of Hen ture of the lamp goes
way to this reminiscence. It is no rming experience of a
to red and white carnations . Mer e use of in " Hero and
the one German, the other Spanis dcf love-the Armada
the analysis : " Roses, tulips, ca
Spani"sh
and is taken
Isabelita, nofrom
lloresFigaro,
que se 1 lysis of the two remaining
nations have become the insign select only those elements

red ones of the Social Democrats.

tion of an anti -Semitic challenge Mythos " Jahrbuch für Psycho
deavoured to show from this part
beautiful Saxony (Anglo - Saxone to reproduce not only the latent
ing to the formation of the fi proses in the dream formation
 TAL OF DREAMS 181

oke of which alone

www guess that it is
pression ; but he
on. Many things
esence of others are
e it is not a question
ina
m the solution , but of
.. 2-15-4 *** the real content of the
• nake that the analysis shows
mah **
2.
eat ful u peut" be impertinent boasting ,
l st iose idea which has long
evil ' life , which , however, dares
War content by one or two pro
nd which makes the arrogant
e dream perfectly intelligible .
epartments ; thus the mention
: What is the price of Graz ?
when we feel over-supplied with
all Master Rabelais's unexcelled
id Deeds of Gargantua and his Son
to supply the boastful content inti
of the dream. The following belongs
hes which have been promised . I had
1 this journey, whose colour, a brownish
e dream several times . (Violet- brown
material, next to a thing which is called
furniture in the governmental chambers ).
w attracts people's attention is a well
idren. Now I have been told the following
hood ; I remember hearing the story rather
nce itself. I am told that at the age of two
Ay wetted my bed, that I was often reproached
and that I consoled my father by promising
beautiful new red bed in N. (the nearest large
the detail inserted in the dream that we bought
the city or had to buy it ; one must keep one's
Attention is further cailed to the identity of the
. and the feminine trunk, box). All the megalo
Le child is contained in this pro The signi
the dream of difficulty in urinat of the
178 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

correcting : " Fifteen years ago." This phantasy, however, which

subtilely attaches itself to the thoughts which the sight of the
Count Thun has given rise to , is only like the façade of Italian
churches which is superimposed without being organically
connected with the building behind it ; unlike these façades ,
however, the phantasy is filled with gaps and confused, and
the parts from within break through at many places. The
first situation of the dream is concocted from several scenes ,
into which I am able to separate it . The arrogant attitude of
the Count in the dream is copied from a scene at the Gymnasium
which took place in my fifteenth year. We had contrived
a conspiracy against an unpopular and ignorant teacher, the
leading spirit in which was a schoolmate who seems to have
taken Henry VIII . of England as his model . It fell to me to
carry out the coup-d'état, and a discussion of the importance
of the Danube (German Donau) for Austria (Wachau ! ) was
the occasion upon which matters came to open indignation .
A fellow-conspirator was the only aristocratic schoolmate
whom we had he was called the " giraffe " on account of his
conspicuous longitudinal development-and he stood just like
the Count in the dream, while he was being reprimanded by
the tyrant of the school, the Professor of the German language.
The explanation of the favourite flower and the putting into
the buttonhole of something which again must have been a
flower (which recalls the orchids , which I had brought to a
lady friend on the same day, and besides that the rose of
Jericho ) prominently recalls the scene in Shakespeare's his
torical plays which opens the civil wars of the Red and the
White Roses ; the mention of Henry VIII . has opened the
way to this reminiscence. It is not very far now from roses
to red and white carnations . Meanwhile two little rhymes,
the one German , the other Spanish, insinuate themselves into
the analysis : " Roses, tulips , carnations , all flowers fade,"
and " Isabelita, no llores que se marchitan las flores." The
Spanish is taken from Figaro . Here in Vienna white car
nations have become the insignia of the Anti-Semites, the
red ones of the Social Democrats . Behind this is the recollec
tion of an anti- Semitic challenge during a railway trip in
beautiful Saxony (Anglo- Saxon). The third scene contribut
ing to the formation of the first situation in the dream takes
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 179

place in my early student life. There was a discussion in the

German students ' club about the relation of philosophy to the
general sciences. A green youth, full of the materialistic
doctrine, I thrust myself forward and defended a very one
sided view. Thereupon a sagacious older school-fellow, who
has since shown his capacity for leading men and organising
the masses, and who, moreover, bears a name belonging to
the animal kingdom, arose and called us down thoroughly ;
he too, he said, had herded swine in his youth, and had come
back repentant to the house of his father. I started up (as
in the dream ) , became very uncivil , and answered that since
I knew he had herded swine, I was not surprised at the tone of
his discourse. (In the dream I am surprised at my national
German sentiment. ) There was great commotion ; and the
demand came from all sides that I take back what I had said,
but I remained steadfast. The man who had been insulted
was too sensible to take the advice, which was given him, to
send a challenge, and let the matter drop .
The remaining elements of this scene of the dream are of
more remote origin. What is the meaning of the Count's
proclaiming the colt's foot ? Here I must consult my train
of associations. Colt's-foot (German : Huflattich)-lattice
lettuce salad-dog (the dog that grudges others what he cannot
eat himself) . Here plenty of opprobrious epithets may be
discerned : Gir-affe (German Affe = monkey, ape) , pig, sow,
dog ; I might even find means to arrive at donkey, on a detour
by way of a name, and thus again at contempt for an academic
teacher. Furthermore I translate colt's -foot (Huflattich)—I
do not know how correctly-by " pisse-en-lit ." I got this
idea from Zola's Germinal, in which children are ordered to
bring salad of this kind . The dog-chien - has a name sound
ing like the major function (chier, as pisser stands for the
minor one). Now we shall soon have before us the indecent
in all three of its categories ; for in the same Germinal, which
has a lot to do with the future revolution there is described
a very peculiar contest, depending upon the production of
gaseous excretions , called flatus . * And now I must remark

* Not in Germinal, but in La Terre-a mistake of which I became aware

only in the analysis. I may call attention also to the identity of the letters
in Huflattich and Flatus.
180 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

how the way to this flatus has been for a long while preparing ,
beginning with the flowers , and proceeding to the Spanish
rhyme of Isabelita to Ferdinand and Isabella, and, by way of
Henry VIII ., to English history at the time of the expedition
of the Armada against England , after the victorious termina
tion of which the English struck a medal with the in
66
scription : Afflavit et dissipati sunt," for the storm had
scattered the Spanish fleet . I had thought of taking this
phrase for the title of a chapter on " Therapeutics "-to
be meant half jokingly-if I should ever have occasion to
give a detailed account of my conception and treatment
of hysteria .
I cannot give such a detailed solution of the second scene
of the dream, out of regard for the censor. For at this point
I put myself in the place of a certain eminent gentleman of
that revolutionary period , who also had an adventure with an
eagle, who is said to have suffered from incontinence of the
bowels, and the like ; and I believe I should not be justified at
this point in passing the censor, although it was an aulic
councillor (aula, consilarius aulicus) who told me the greater
part of these stories . The allusion to the suite of rooms in
the dream relates to the private car of his Excellency, into
which I had opportunity to look for a moment ; but it signifies ,
as so often in dreams, a woman (Frauenzimmer ; German
Zimmer-room is appended to Frauen- woman, in order to
imply a slight amount of contempt ). * In the person of the
housekeeper I give scant recognition to an intelligent elderly
lady for the entertainment and the many good stories which I
have enjoyed at her house . . . . The feature of the lamp goes
back to Grillparzer, who notes a charming experience of a
similar nature, which he afterwards made use of in " Hero and
Leander " (the billows of the ocean and of love-the Armada
and the storm ).†
I must also forgo detailed analysis of the two remaining
portions of the dream ; I shall select only those elements
* Translator's note.
In his significant work (" Phantasie und Mythos," Jahrbuch für Psycho
analyse, Bd. ii ., 1910) , H. Silberer has endeavoured to show from this part
of the dream that the dreamwork is able to reproduce not only the latent
dream thoughts, but also the psychic processes in the dream formation
" Das functionale Phänomen ").
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 181

which lead to two childhood scenes, for the sake of which alone
I have taken up the dream. The reader will guess that it is
sexual matter which forces me to this suppression ; but he
need not be content with this explanation . Many things
which must be treated as secrets in the presence of others are
not treated as such with one's self, and here it is not a question
of considerations inducing me to hide the solution, but of
motives of the inner censor concealing the real content of the
dream from myself. I may say, then, that the analysis shows
these three portions of the dream to be impertinent boasting ,
the exuberance of an absurd grandiose idea which has long
since been suppressed in my waking life , which, however, dares
show itself in the manifest dream content by one or two pro
jections (I seem clever to myself) , and which makes the arrogant
mood of the evening before the dream perfectly intelligible.
It is boasting, indeed, in all departments ; thus the mention
of Graz refers to the phrase : What is the price of Graz ?
which we are fond of using when we feel over-supplied with
money. Whoever will recall Master Rabelais's unexcelled
description of the " Life and Deeds of Gargantua and his Son
Pantagruel," will be able to supply the boastful content inti
mated in the first portion of the dream. The following belongs
to the two childhood scenes which have been promised . I had
bought a new trunk for this journey, whose colour, a brownish
violet, appears in the dream several times . (Violet-brown
violets made of stiff material, next to a thing which is called
" girl-catcher " the furniture in the governmental chambers ) .
That something new attracts people's attention is a well
known belief of children . Now I have been told the following
story of my childhood ; I remember hearing the story rather
than the occurrence itself. I am told that at the age of two
I still occasionally wetted my bed, that I was often reproached
on this subject, and that I consoled my father by promising
to buy him a beautiful new red bed in N. (the nearest large
city). (Hence the detail inserted in the dream that we bought
the urinal in the city or had to buy it ; one must keep one's
promises . Attention is further called to the identity of the
male urinal and the feminine trunk, box ) . All the megalo
mania of the child is contained in this promise . The signi
ficance of the dream of difficulty in urinating in the case of the
182 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

child has been already considered in the interpretation of an

earlier dream (cf. the dream on p. 145).
Now there was another domestic occurrence, when I was
seven or eight years old, which I remember very well. One
evening, before going to bed I had disregarded the dictates of
discretion not to satisfy my wants in the bedroom of my
parents and in their presence, and in his reprimand for this
delinquency my father made the remark : " That boy will
never amount to anything ." It must have terribly mortified
my ambition, for allusions to this scene return again and again
in my dreams, and are regularly coupled with enumerations
of my accomplishments and successes, as though I wanted to
say : " You see, I have amounted to something after all."
Now this childhood scene furnishes the elements for the last
image of the dream , in which of course, the rôles are inter
changed for the sake of revenge. The elderly man, obviously
my father, for the blindness in one eye signifies his glaucoma
on one side is now urinating before me as I once urinated before
him. In glaucoma I refer to cocaine, which stood my father in
good stead in his operation, as though I had thereby fulfilled
my promises. Besides that I make sport of him ; since he is
blind I must hold the urinal in front of him, and I gloat over
allusions to my discoveries in the theory of hysteria , of which
I am so proud .†

* Another interpretation : He is one-eyed like Odin, the father of the

gods ... Odin's consolation. The consolation in the childish scene, that I
will buy him a new bed.
+ I here add some material for interpretation. Holding the urinal
recalls the story of a peasant who tries one glass after another at the opticians,
but still cannot read (peasant-catcher, like girl-catcher in a portion of the
dream). The treatment among the peasants of the father who has become
weak-minded in Zola's La Terre. The pathetic atonement that in his last
days the father soils his bed like a child ; hence, also, I am his sick-attendant
in the dream. Thinking and experiencing are here, as it were ; the same
thing recalls a highly revolutionary closet drama by Oscar Panizza, in which
the Godhead is treated quite contemptuously, as though he were a paralytic
old man. There occurs a passage : "Will and deed are the same thing with
him, and he must be prevented by his archangel, a kind of Ganymede, from
scolding and swearing, because these curses would immediately be fulfilled ."
Making plans is a reproach against my father, dating from a later period in
the development of my critical faculty ; just as the whole rebellious, sovereign
offending dream, with its scoff at high authority, originates in a revolt against
my father. The sovereign is called father of the land (Landesvater), and
the father is the oldest, first and only authority for the child, from the
absolutism of which the other social authorities have developed in the
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 183

If the two childhood scenes of urinating are otherwise

closely connected with the desire for greatness , their rehabilita
tion on the trip to the Aussee was further favoured by the
accidental circumstance that my compartment had no water
closet, and that I had to expect embarrassment on the ride as
actually happened in the morning. I awoke with the sensation
of a bodily need. I suppose one might be inclined to credit
these sensations with being the actual stimulus of the dream ;
I should, however , prefer a different conception— namely,
that it was the dream thoughts which gave rise to the desire
to urinate. It is quite unusual for me to be disturbed in sleep
by any need, at least at the time of this awakening, a quarter
of four in the morning. I may forestall further objection by
remarking that I have hardly ever felt a desire to urinate
after awakening early on other journeys made under more
comfortable circumstances. Moreover, I can leave this point
undecided without hurting my argument .
Since I have learned, further, from experience in dream
analysis that there always remain important trains of thought
proceeding from dreams whose interpretation at first seems
complete (because the sources of the dream and the actuation
of the wish are easily demonstrable) , trains of thought reaching
back into earliest childhood , I have been forced to ask myself
whether this feature does not constitute an essential condition
of dreaming. If I were to generalise this thesis , a connection
with what has been recently experienced would form a part
course of the history of human civilisation (in so far as the " mother's right "
does not force a qualification of this thesis) . The idea in the dream, "think
ing and experiencing are the same thing," refers to the explanation of
hysterical symptoms, to which the male urinal (glass) also has a relation. I
need not explain the principle of the " Gschnas " to a Viennese ; it consists in
constructing objects of rare and costly appearance out of trifles, and pre
ferably out of comical and worthless material-for example, making suits of
armour out of cooking utensils, sticks and " salzstangeln (elongated rolls) , as
our artists like to do at their jolly parties. I had now learned that hysterical
subjects do the same thing ; besides what has actually occurred to them, they
unconsciously conceive horrible or extravagant fantastic images, which they
construct from the most harmless and commonplace things they have ex
perienced. The symptoms depend solely upon these phantasies, not upon
the memory of their real experiences, be they serious or harmless . This
explanation helped me to overcome many difficulties and gave me much
pleasure. I was able to allude to it in the dream element " male urinal " (glass)
because I had been told that at the last " Gschnas " evening a poison chalice
of Lucretia Borgia had been exhibited, the chief constituent of which had
consisted of a glass urinal for men, such as is used in hospitals.
184 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of the manifest content of every dream and a connection with

what has been most remotely experienced , of its latent content ;
and I can actually show in the analysis of hysteria that in a
true sense these remote experiences have remained recent up
to the present time. But this conjecture seems still very
difficult to prove ; I shall probably have to return to the part
played by the earliest childhood experiences, in another con
nection (Chapter VII. ).
Of the three peculiarities of dream memory considered at
the beginning, one-the preference for the unimportant in
the dream content has been satisfactorily explained by tracing
it back to dream disfigurement. We have been able to estab
lish the existence of the other two-the selection of recent and
of infantile material-but we have found it impossible to
explain them by the motive of dream. Let us keep in mind
these two characteristics , which still remain to be explained
or evaluated ; a place for them will have to be found else
where, either in the psychology of the sleeping state, or in the
discussion of the structure of the psychic apparatus which we
shall undertake later, after we have learned that the inner
nature of the apparatus may be observed through dream
interpretation as though through a window.
Just here I may emphasize another result of the last few
dream analyses. The dream often appears ambiguous ; not
only may several wish-fulfilments , as the examples show, be
united in it , but one meaning or one wish-fulfilment may also
conceal another, until at the bottom one comes upon the
fulfilment of a wish from the earliest period of childhood ; and
here too, it may be questioned whether " often " in this sentence
may not more correctly be replaced by " regularly."

(c) Somatic Sources of Dreams

If the attempt be made to interest the cultured layman in

the problems of dreaming , and if, with this end in view, he be
asked the question from what source dreams originate according
to his opinion , it is generally found that the person thus interro
gated thinks himself in assured possession of a part of the
solution. He immediately thinks of the influence which a
disturbed or impeded digestion (" Dreams come from the
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 185

stomach "), accidental bodily position, and little occurrences

during sleep, exercise upon the formation of dreams, and he
seems not to suspect that even after the consideration of all
these factors there still remains something unexplained .
We have explained at length in the introductory chapter
(p . 16 ), what a rôle in the formation of dreams the scientific
literature credits to the account of somatic exciting sources,
so that we need here only recall the results of this investiga
tion. We have seen that three kinds of somatic exciting
sources are distinguished, objective sensory stimuli which
proceed from external objects , the inner states of excitation
of the sensory organs having only a subjective basis , and the
bodily stimuli which originate internally ; and we have noticed
the inclination on the part of the authors to force the psychic
sources of the dream into the background or to disregard them
altogether in favour of these somatic sources of stimulation
(p . 32) .
In testing the claims which are made on behalf of these
classes of somatic sources of stimulation , we have discovered
that the significance of the objective stimuli of the sensory
organs- whether accidental stimuli during sleep or those
stimuli which cannot be excluded from our dormant psychic
life has been definitely established by numerous observations
and is confirmed by experiments (p . 18) ; we have seen that
the part played by subjective sensory stimuli appears to be
demonstrated by the return of hypnogogic sensory images in
dreams , and that although the referring of these dream images
and ideas, in the broadest sense, to internal bodily stimulation
is not demonstrable in every detail , it can be supported by the
well-known influence which an exciting state of the digestive ,
urinary, and sexual organs exercise upon the contents of our
dreams.
"Nerve stimulus " and " bodily stimulus, " then, would be
the somatic sources of the dream - that is, the only sources
whatever of the dream, according to several authors .
But we have already found a number of doubts , which seem
to attack not so much the correctness of the somatic theory of
stimulation as its adequacy.
However certain all the representatives of this theory may
have felt about the actual facts on which it is based-especially
 186 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

in case of the accidental and external nerve stimuli, which

may be recognised in the content of the dream without any
trouble-nevertheless none of them has been able to avoid
the admission that the abundant ideal content of dreams does
not admit of explanation by external nerve-stimuli alone.
Miss Mary Whiton Calkins 12 has tested her own dreams and
those of another person for a period of six weeks with this idea
in mind, and has found only from 13.2 per cent . to 6.7 per cent.
in which the element of external sensory perception was
demonstrable ; only two cases in the collection could be re
ferred to organic sensations . Statistics here confirm what a
hasty glance at our own experience might have led us to
suspect .
The decision has been made repeatedly to distinguish the
" dream of nerve stimulus " from the other forms of the
dream as a well-established sub-species . Spitta 64 divided
dreams into dreams of nerve stimulus and association dreams.
{
But the solution clearly remained unsatisfactory as long as
the link between the somatic sources of dreams and their
ideal content could not be demonstrated.
Besides the first objection, of the inadequate frequency of
external exciting sources, there arises as a second objection the
inadequate explanation of dreams offered by the introduction
of this sort of dream sources. The representatives of the
theory accordingly must explain two things , in the first place,
why the external stimulus in the dream is never recognised
according to its real nature, but is regularly mistaken for
something else (cf. the alarm-clock dreams, p . 22) , and secondly,
why the reaction of the receiving mind to this misrecognised
stimulus should result so indeterminately and changefully.
As an answer to these questions, we have heard from Strümpell 66
that the mind, as a result of its being turned away from the
outer world during sleep, is not capable of giving correct inter
pretation to the objective sensory stimulus , but is forced to
form illusions on the basis of the indefinite incitements from
many directions . As expressed in his own words (p . 108 ) :
" As soon as a sensation, a sensational complex, a feeling,
or a psychic process in general, arises in the mind during sleep
from an outer or inner nerve-stimulus , and is perceived by the
mind, this process calls up sensory images, that is to say,
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 187

earlier perceptions, either unembellished or with the psychic

values belonging to them, from the range of waking experi
ences , of which the mind has remained in possession . It
seems to collect about itself, as it were, a greater or less number
of such images , from which the impression which originates
from the nerve-stimulus receives its psychic value. It is
usually said here, as the idiom does of waking thought, that
the mind interprets impressions of nerve-stimuli in sleep . The
result of this interpretation is the so-called nerve-stimulus
dream -that is to say, a dream whose composition is con
ditioned by the fact that a nerve-stimulus brings about its
effect in psychic life according to the laws of reproduction."
The opinion of Wundt 76 agrees in all essentials with this
theory. He says that the ideas in the dream are probably
the result, for the most part , of sensory stimuli , especially of
those of general sensation , and are therefore mostly phantastic
illusions-probably memory presentations which are only
partly pure, and which have been raised to hallucinations.
Strümpell has found an excellent simile (p . 84) . It is as " if
the ten fingers of a person ignorant of music should stray over
the keyboard of an instrument "-to illustrate the relation
between dream content and dream stimuli , which follows from
this theory. The implication is that the dream does not
appear as a psychic phenomenon, originating from psychic
motives, but as the result of a physiological stimulus , which is
expressed in psychic symptomology, because the apparatus
which is affected by the stimulus is not capable of any other
expression. Upon a similar assumption is based , for example,
the explanation of compulsive ideas which Meynert tried to
give by means of the famous simile of the dial on which in
dividual figures are prominent because they are in more
marked relief.
However popular this theory of somatic dream stimuli
may have become, and however seductive it may seem, it is
nevertheless easy to show the weak point in it. Every
somatic dream stimulus which provokes the psychic apparatus
to interpretation through the formation of illusions , is capable
of giving rise to an incalculable number of such attempts at
interpretation ; it can thus attain representation in the
dream content by means of an extraordinary number of
188 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

different ideas . But the theory of Strümpell and Wundt is

incapable of instancing any motive which has control over the
relation between the external stimulus and the dream idea
which has been selected to interpret it, and therefore of
explaining the " peculiar choice " which the stimuli " often
enough make in the course of their reproductive activity "
(Lipps , Grundtatsachen des Seelenlebens, p . 170). Other ob
jections may be directed against the fundamental assumption
of the whole theory of illusions-the assumption that during
sleep the mind is not in a condition to recognise the real nature
of the objective sensory stimuli. The old physiologist Burdach 8
proves to us that the mind is quite capable even during sleep
of interpreting correctly the sensory impressions which reach
it, and of reacting in accordance with the correct interpretation.
He establishes this by showing that it is possible to exempt
certain impressions which seem important to the individuals ,
from the neglect of sleeping (nurse and child), and that one is
more surely awakened by one's own name than by an in
different auditory impression , all of which presupposes, of
course, that the mind distinguishes among sensations , even in
sleep (Chapter I., p. 41 ) . Burdach infers from these observa
tions that it is not an incapability of interpreting sensory
stimuli in the sleeping state which must be assumed, but a
lack of interest in them. The same arguments which Burdach
used in 1830 , later reappear unchanged in the works of Lipps
in the year 1883 , where they are employed for the purpose of
attacking the theory of somatic stimuli. According to this
the mind seems to be like the sleeper in the anecdote, who,
66
upon being asked , " Are you asleep ? " answers ' No ," and
upon being again addressed with the words, " Then lend me
ten florins ," takes refuge in the excuse : " I am asleep."
The inadequacy of the theory of somatic dream stimuli
may also be demonstrated in another manner. Observations
show that I am not urged to dream by external stimulations ,
even if these stimulations appear in the dream as soon as, and
in case that, I dream. In response to the tactile or pressure
stimulus which I get while sleeping, various reactions are at
my disposal. I can overlook it and discover only upon awaken
ing that my leg has been uncovered or my arm under pressure ;
pathology shows the most numerous examples where power
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 189

fully acting sensory and motor stimuli of different sorts remain

without effect during sleep . I can perceive a sensation during
sleep through and through sleep , as it were, which happens
as a rule with painful stimuli, but without weaving the pain
into the texture of the dream ; thirdly, I can awaken on
account of the stimulus in order to obviate it. Only as a fourth
possible reaction , I may be impelled to dream by a nerve
stimulus ; but the other possibilities are realised at least as
often as that of dream formation . This could not be the case
if the motive for dreaming did not lie outside of the somatic
sources of dreams.
Taking proper account of the defect in the explanation of
dreams by somatic stimuli which has just been shown, other
authors -Scherner,58 who was joined by the philosopher
Volkelt 72 have tried to determine more exactly the psychic
activities which cause the variegated dream images to arise
from the somatic stimuli , and have thus transferred the
essential nature of dreams back to the province of the mind ,
and to that of psychic activity. Scherner not only gave a
poetically appreciative, glowing and vivid description of the
psychic peculiarities which develop in the course of dream
formation ; he also thought he had guessed the principle
according to which the mind proceeds with the stimuli that
are at its disposal. The dream activity, according to Scherner
-after phantasy has been freed from the shackles imposed
upon it during the day, and has been given free rein-strives
to represent symbolically the nature of the organ from which
the stimulus proceeds. Thus we have a kind of dream- book
as a guide for the interpretation of dreams, by means of which
bodily sensations, the conditions of the organs and of the
stimuli may be inferred from dream images. “ Thus the
image of a cat expresses an angry discontented mood, the
image of a light-coloured bit of smooth pastry the nudity of
the body. The human body as a whole is pictured as a house
by the phantasy of the dream, and each individual organ of
the body as a part of the house. In ' toothache-dreams ' a
high vaulted vestibule corresponds to the mouth and a stair
to the descent of the gullet to the alimentary canal ; in the
'headache-dream ' the ceiling of a room which is covered
with disgusting reptile-like spiders is chosen to denote the
190 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

upper part of the head " (Volkelt, p. 39). " Several different
symbols are used by the dream for the same organ, thus the
breathing lungs find their symbol in an oven filled with flames
and with a roaring draught, the heart in hollow chests and
baskets, and the bladder in round, bag-shaped objects or
anything else hollow. It is especially important that at the
end of a dream the stimulating organ or its function be repre
sented undisguised and usually on the dreamer's own body.
C
Thus the toothache-dream ' usually ends by the dreamer
drawing a tooth from his own mouth " (p. 35) . It cannot be
said that this theory has found much favour with the authors.
Above all, it seems extravagant ; there has been no inclination
even to discover the small amount of justification to which it
may, in my opinion, lay claim. As may be seen, it leads to a
revival of the dream interpretation by means of symbolism,
which the ancients used , except that the source from which
the interpretation is to be taken is limited to the human body.
The lack of a technique of interpretation which is scientifically
comprehensible must seriously limit the applicability of
Scherner's theory. Arbitrariness in dream interpretation
seems in no wise excluded , especially since a stimulus may be
expressed by several representations in the content of the
dream ; thus Scherner's associate , Volkelt, has already found
it impossible to confirm the representation of the body as a
house. Another objection is that here again dream activity
is attributed to the mind as a useless and aimless activity,
since according to the theory in question the mind is content
with forming phantasies about the stimulus with which it is
concerned, without even remotely contemplating anything
like a discharge of the stimulus .
But Scherner's theory of the symbolisation of bodily stimuli
by the dream receives a heavy blow from another objection .
These bodily stimuli are present at all times, and according to
general assumption the mind is more accessible to them during
sleep than in waking. It is thus incomprehensible why the
mind does not dream continually throughout the night, and
why it does not dream every night and about all the organs .
If one attempts to avoid this objection by making the condition
that especial stimuli must proceed from the eye, the ear, the
teeth, the intestines in order to arouse dream activity, one is
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 191

confronted by the difficulty of proving that this increase of

stimulation is objective, which is possible only in a small
number of cases. If the dream of flying is a symbolisation
of the upward and downward motion of the pulmonary lobes ,
either this dream , as has already been remarked by Strümpell,
would be dreamt much oftener, or an accentuation of the
function of breathing during the dream would have to be
demonstrable. Still another case is possible the most
probable of all-that now and then special motives directing
attention to the visceral sensations which are universally
present are active, but this case takes us beyond the range of
Scherner's theory.
The value of Scherner's and Volkelt's discussions lies in
the fact that they call attention to a number of characteristics
of the dream content which are in need of explanation, and
which seem to promise new knowledge. It is quite true that
symbolisations of organs of the body and of their functions
are contained in dreams, that water in a dream often signifies
a desire to urinate, that the male genital may often be repre
sented by a staff standing erect or by a pillar, &c. In dreams
which show a very animated field of vision and brilliant
colours , in contrast to the dimness of other dreams, the inter
pretation may hardly be dismissed that they are " dreams of
visual stimulation," any more than it may be disputed that
there is a contribution of illusory formations in dreams which
contain noise and confusion of voices . A dream like that of
Scherner, of two rows of fair handsome boys standing opposite
to each other on a bridge, attacking each other and then
taking their places again, until finally the dreamer himself
sits down on the bridge and pulls a long tooth out of his jaw ;
or a similar one of Volkelt's , in which two rows of drawers play
a part, and which again ends in the extraction of a tooth ;
dream formations of this sort, which are related in great
numbers by the authors, prevent our discarding Scherner's
theory as an idle fabrication without seeking to find its kernel
of truth . We are now confronted by the task of giving the
supposed symbolisation of the dental stimulus an explanation
of a different kind.
Throughout our consideration of the theory of the somatic
sources of dreams, I have refrained from urging the argument
192 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which is inferred from our dream analyses. If we have suc

ceeded in proving, by a procedure which other authors have
not applied in their investigation of dreams, that the dream
as a psychic action possesses value peculiar to itself, that a
wish supplies the motive for its formation, and that the experi
ences of the previous day furnish the immediate material for
its content, any other theory of dreams neglecting such an
important method of investigation, and accordingly causing
the dream to appear a useless and problematic psychic reaction
to somatic stimuli, is dismissible without any particular
comment. Otherwise there must be-which is highly im
probable-two entirely different kinds of dreams, of which
only one has come under our observation, while only the
other has been observed by the earlier connoisseurs of the
dream . It still remains to provide a place for the facts which
are used to support the prevailing theory of somatic dream
stimuli, within our own theory of dreams.
We have already taken the first step in this direction in
setting up the thesis that the dream activity is under a com
pulsion to elaborate all the dream stimuli which are simul
taneously present into a unified whole (p . 151 ) . We have
seen that when two or more experiences capable of making
an impression have been left over from the previous day, the
wishes which result from them are united into one dream ;
similarly, that an impression possessing psychic value and the
indifferent experiences of the previous day are united in the
dream material , provided there are available connecting ideas
between the two . Thus the dream appears to be a reaction to
everything which is simultaneously present as actual in the
sleeping mind. As far as we have hitherto analysed the
dream material, we have discovered it to be a collection of
psychic remnants and memory traces, which we were obliged
to credit (on account of the preference shown for recent and
infantile material) with a character of actuality, though the
nature of this was not at the time determinable. Now it will
not be difficult to foretell what will happen when new material
in the form of sensations is added to these actualities of
memory. These stimuli likewise derive importance for the
dream because they are actual ; they are united with the
other psychic actualities in order to make up the material for
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 193

dream formation . To express it differently, the stimuli

which appear during sleep are worked over into the fulfilment
of a wish, the other component parts of which are the remnants
of daily experience with which we are familiar. This union ,
however, is not inevitable ; we have heard that more than one
sort of attitude towards bodily stimuli is possible during sleep .
Wherever this union has been brought about, it has simply
been possible to find for the dream content that kind of pre
sentation material which will give representation to both
classes of dream sources , the somatic as well as the psychic .
The essential nature of the dream is not changed by this
addition of somatic material to the psychic sources of the
dream ; it remains the fulfilment of a wish without reference
to the way in which its expression is determined by the actual
material.
I shall gladly find room here for a number of peculiarities ,
which serve to put a different face on the significance of exter
nal stimuli for the dream . I imagine that a co-operation of
individual, physiological, and accidental factors , conditioned
by momentary circumstances , determines how one will act in
each particular case of intensive objective stimulation during
sleep ; the degree of the profoundness of sleep whether habitual
or accidental in connection with the intensity of the stimulus ,
will in one case make it possible to suppress the stimulus, so
that it will not disturb sleep ; in another case they will force
an awakening or will support the attempt to overcome the
stimulus by weaving it into the texture of the dream . In
correspondence with the multiplicity of these combinations ,
external objective stimuli will receive expression more frequently
in the case of one person than in that of another. In the case
of myself, who am an excellent sleeper, and who stubbornly
resists any kind of disturbance in sleep , this intermixture of
external causes of irritation into my dreams is very rare, while
psychic motives apparently cause me to dream very easily.
I have indeed noted only a single dream in which an objective ,
painful source of stimulation is demonstrable, and it will be
highly instructive to see what effect the external stimulus had
in this very dream.
I am riding on a grey horse, at first timidly and awkwardly,
as though I were only leaning against something. I meet a
N
194 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

colleague P., who is mounted on a horse and is wearing a heavy

woollen suit ; he calls my attention to something (probably to the
fact that my riding position is bad). Now I become more and
more expert on the horse, which is most intelligent ; I sit com
fortably, and I notice that I am already quite at home in the
saddle. For a saddle I have a kind of padding, which completely
fills the space between the neck and the rump of the horse. In
this manner I ride with difficulty between two lumber-wagons.
After having ridden up the street for some distance, I turn around
and want to dismount, at first in front of a little open chapel,
which is situated close to the street. Then I actually dismount in
front of a chapel which stands near the first ; the hotel is in the
same street, I could let the horse go there by itself, but I prefer to
lead it there. It seems as if I should be ashamed to arrive there
on horseback. In front of the hotel is standing a hall-boy who
shows me a card of mine which has been found, and who ridicules
me on account of it. On the card is written, doubly underlined,
" Eat nothing," and then a second sentence (indistinct) something
like " Do not work " ; at the same time a hazy idea that I am in a
strange city, in which I do no work.
It will not be apparent at once that this dream originated
under the influence, or rather under the compulsion, of a
stimulus of pain . The day before I had suffered from furuncles ,
which made every movement a torture, and at last a furuncle
had grown to the size of an apple at the root of the scrotum,
and had caused me the most intolerable pains that accom
panied every step ; a feverish lassitude, lack of appetite, and
the hard work to which I had nevertheless kept myself during
the day, had conspired with the pain to make me lose my
temper. I was not altogether in a condition to discharge my
duties as a physician, but in view of the nature and the location
of the malady, one might have expected some performance
other than riding, for which I was very especially unfitted .
It is this very activity, of riding into which I am plunged by
the dream ; it is the most energetic denial of the suffering
which is capable of being conceived . In the first place, I do
not know how to ride, I do not usually dream of it, and I
never sat on a horse but once-without a saddle and then I
did not feel comfortable. But in this dream I ride as though
I had no furuncle on the perineum, and why ? just because I
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 195

don't want any. According to the description my saddle is

the poultice which has made it possible for me to go to sleep .
Probably I did not feel anything of my pain-as I was thus
taken care of during the first few hours of sleeping. Then
the painful sensations announced themselves and tried to
wake me up, whereupon the dream came and said soothingly :
" Keep on sleeping, you won't wake up anyway ! You have
no furuncle at all, for you are riding on a horse, and with a
furuncle where you have it riding is impossible ! " And the
dream was successful ; the pain was stifled , and I went on
sleeping.
""
But the dream was not satisfied with " suggesting away
the furuncle by means of tenaciously adhering to an idea
incompatible with that of the malady, in doing which it behaved
like the hallucinatory insanity of the mother who has lost her
child, or like the merchant who has been deprived of his
fortune by losses . * In addition the details of the denied
sensation and of the image which is used to displace it are
employed by the dream as a means to connect the material
ordinarily actually present in the mind with the dream situa
tion, and to give this material representation. I am riding
on a grey horse—the colour of the horse corresponds exactly
to the pepper-and-salt costume in which I last met my colleague
P. in the country. I have been warned that highly seasoned
food is the cause of furunculosis, but in any case it is preferable
as an etiological explanation to sugar which ordinarily suggests
furunculosis. My friend P. has been pleased to " ride the high
horse " with regard to me, ever since he superseded me in the
treatment of a female patient, with whom I had performed
great feats (in the dream I first sit on the horse side-saddle
fashion, like a circus rider), but who really led me wherever
she wished, like the horse in the anecdote about the Sunday
equestrian. Thus the horse came to be a symbolic representa
tion of a lady patient (in the dream it is most intelligent) .
" I feel quite at home up here," refers to the position which I
occupied in the patient's household until I was replaced by my
colleague P. " I thought you were securely seated in the

* Cf. the passage in Griesinger 1 and the remarks in my second essay on

the " defence-neuropsychoses "-Selected Papers on Hysteria, translated by
A. A. Brill.
196 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

saddle," one of my few well-wishers among the great physicians

of this city recently said to me with reference to the same
household. And it was a feat to practise psychotherapy for
ten hours a day with such pains, but I know that I cannot
continue my particularly difficult work for any length of time
without complete physical health, and the dream is full of
gloomy allusions to the situation which must in that case
result (the card such as neurasthenics have and present to
doctors ) : No work and no food . With further interpretation
I see that the dream activity has succeeded in finding the
way from the wish-situation of riding to very early infantile
scenes of quarrelling, which must have taken place between
me and my nephew, who is now living in England, and who ,
moreover, is a year older than I. Besides it has taken up
elements from my journeys to Italy ; the street in the dream
is composed of impressions of Verona and Siena . Still more
exhaustive interpretation leads to sexual dream -thoughts,
and I recall what significance dream allusions to that beautiful
country had in the case of a female patient who had never been
in Italy (Itlay-German gen Italien-Genitalien—genitals).
At the same time there are references to the house in which I
was physician before my friend P. , and to the place where the
furuncle is located .
Among the dreams mentioned in the previous chapter
there are several which might serve as examples for the elabora
tion of so-called nerve stimuli. The dream about drinking in
full draughts is one of this sort ; the somatic excitement in it
seems to be the only source of the dream , and the wish resulting
from the sensation- thirst-the only motive for dreaming.
Something similar is true of the other simple dreams, if the
somatic excitement alone is capable of forming a wish. The
dream of the sick woman who throws the cooling apparatus
from her cheek at night is an instance of a peculiar way of
reacting to painful excitements with a wish-fulfilment ; it
seems as though the patient had temporarily succeeded in
making herself analgesic by ascribing her pains to a stranger.
My dream about the three Parcæ is obviously a dream of
hunger, but it has found means to refer the need for food back
to the longing of the child for its mother's breast, and to make
the harmless desire a cloak for a more serious one, which is
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 197

not permitted to express itself so openly. In the dream about

Count Thun we have seen how an accidental bodily desire is
brought into connection with the strongest, and likewise the
most strongly suppressed emotions of the psychic life. And
when the First Consul incorporates the sound of an exploding
bomb into a dream of battle before it causes him to wake, as
in the case reported by Garnier, the purpose for which psychic
activity generally concerns itself with sensations occurring
during sleep is revealed with extraordinary clearness . A young
lawyer, who has been deeply preoccupied with his first great
bankruptcy proceeding, and who goes to sleep during the
afternoon following, acts just like the great Napoleon. He
dreams about a certain G. Reich in Hussiatyn (German husten
to cough), whom he knows in connection with the bankruptcy
proceeding, but Hussiatyn forces itself upon his attention still
further, with the result that he is obliged to awaken, and hears
his wife who is suffering from bronchial catarrh- coughing
violently .
Let us compare the dream of Napoleon I. , who, incidentally,
was an excellent sleeper, with that of the sleepy student, who
was awakened by his landlady with the admonition that he
must go to the hospital, who thereupon dreams himself into
a bed in the hospital, and then sleeps on, with the following
account of his motives : If I am already in the hospital, I
shan't have to get up in order to go there. The latter is
obviously a dream of convenience ; the sleeper frankly admits
to himself the motive for his dreaming ; but he thereby
reveals one of the secrets of dreaming in general. In a certain
sense all dreams are dreams of convenience ; they serve the
purpose of continuing sleep instead of awakening. The dream
is the guardian of sleep, not the disturber of it. We shall justify
this conception with respect to the psychic factors of awakening
elsewhere ; it is possible, however, at this point to prove its
applicability to the influence exerted by objective external
excitements. Either the mind does not concern itself at all
with the causes of sensations , if it is able to do this in spite of
their intensity and of their significance, which is well understood
by it ; or it employs the dream to deny these stimuli ; or
thirdly, if it is forced to recognise the stimulus , it seeks to find
that interpretation of the stimulus which shall represent the
198 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

actual sensation as a component part of a situation which is

desired and which is compatible with sleep . The actual sen
sation is woven into the dream in order to deprive it of its
reality. Napoleon is permitted to go on sleeping ; it is only a
dream recollection of the thunder of the cannon at Arcole
which is trying to disturb him.*
The wish to sleep, by which the conscious ego has been sus
pended and which along with the dream-censor contributes its
share to the dream, must thus always be taken into account as a
motive for the formation of dreams, and every successful dream
is a fulfilment of this wish. The relation of this general, re
gularly present, and invariable sleep -wish to the other wishes ,
of which now the one, now the other is fulfilled , will be the
subject of a further explanation. In the wish to sleep we
have discovered a factor capable of supplying the deficiency
in the theory of Strümpell and Wundt, and of explaining the
perversity and capriciousness in the interpretation of the
outer stimulus . The correct interpretation, of which the
sleeping mind is quite capable, would imply an active interest
and would require that sleep be terminated ; hence, of those
interpretations which are possible at all, only those are ad
mitted which are agreeable to the absolute censorship of the
somatic wish . It is something like this : It's the nightingale
and not the lark. For if it's the lark, love's night is at an
end . From among the interpretations of the excitement
which are at the moment possible, that one is selected which
can secure the best connection with the wish-possibilities that
are lying in wait in the mind . Thus everything is definitely
determined, and nothing is left to caprice. The misinter
pretation is not an illusion, but if you will-an excuse.
Here again, however, there is admitted an action which is a
modification of the normal psychic procedure, as in the case
where substitution by means of displacement is effected for
the purposes of the dream-censor.
If the outer nerve stimuli and inner bodily stimuli are
sufficiently intense to compel psychic attention , they represent
-that is, in case they result in dreaming and not in awakening
-a definite point in the formation of dreams, a nucleus in the

In the two sources from which I am acquainted with this dream , the
report of its contents do not agree.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 199

dream material, for which an appropriate wish-fulfilment is

sought , in a way similar (see above) to the search for connecting
ideas between two dream stimuli. To this extent it is true
for a number of dreams that the somatic determines what their
content is to be. In this extreme case a wish which is not
exactly actual is aroused for the purpose of dream formation.
But the dream can do nothing but represent a wish in a situa
tion as fulfilled ; it is, as it were, confronted by the task of
seeking what wish may be represented and fulfilled by means
of the situation which is now actual. Even if this actual
material is of a painful or disagreeable character, still it is not
useless for the purposes of dream formation. The psychic
life has control even over wishes the fulfilment of which brings
forth pleasure a statement which seems contradictory, but
which becomes intelligible if one takes into account the presence
of two psychic instances and the censor existing between
them .
There are in the psychic life, as we have heard, repressed
wishes which belong to the first system, and to whose fulfilment
the second system is opposed. There are wishes of this kind
and we do not mean this in an historic sense, that there have
been such wishes and that these have then been destroyed
but the theory of repression, which is essential to the study of
psychoneurosis, asserts that such repressed wishes still exist ,
contemporaneously with an inhibition weighing them down.
Language has hit upon the truth when it speaks of the “ sup
pression " of such impulses. The psychic contrivance for
bringing such wishes to realisation remains preserved and in a
condition to be used . But if it happens that such a suppressed
wish is fulfilled, the vanquished inhibition of the second
system (which is capable of becoming conscious ) is then ex
pressed as a painful feeling. To close this discussion ; if
sensations of a disagreeable character which originate from
somatic sources are presented during sleep, this constellation
is taken advantage of by the dream activity to represent the
fulfilment with more or less retention of the censor-of an
otherwise suppressed wish.
This condition of affairs makes possible a number of anxiety
dreams, while another series of the dream formations which
are unfavourable to the wish theory exhibits a different
200 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

mechanism. For anxiety in dreams may be of a psycho

neurotic nature, or it may originate in psychosexual excite
ments, in which case the anxiety corresponds to a repressed
libido. Then this anxiety as well as the whole anxiety dream
has the significance of a neurotic symptom, and we are at the
dividing-line where the wish-fulfilling tendency of dreams
disappears. But in other anxiety-dreams the feeling of anxiety
comes from somatic sources (for instance in the case of persons
suffering from pulmonary or heart trouble, where there is
occasional difficulty in getting breath), and then it is used to
aid those energetically suppressed wishes in attaining fulfil
ment in the form of a dream, the dreaming of which from
psychic motives would have resulted in the same release of
fear. It is not difficult to unite these two apparently dis
crepant cases . Of two psychic formations, an emotional
inclination and an ideal content , which are intimately con
nected, the one, which is presented as actual, supports the
other in the dream ; now anxiety of somatic origin supports
the suppressed presentation content, now the ideal content,
which is freed from suppression, and which proceeds with the
impetus given by sexual emotion, assists the discharge of
anxiety. Of the one case it may be said that an emotion of
somatic origin is psychically interpreted ; in the other case
everything is of psychic origin but the content which has been
suppressed is easily replaced by a somatic interpretation which
is suited to anxiety. The difficulties which lie in the way of
understanding all this have little to do with the dream ; they
are due to the fact that in discussing these points we are
touching upon the problems of the development of anxiety
and of repression .
Undoubtedly the aggregate of bodily feelings is to be
included among the commanding dream stimuli which originate
internally. Not that it is able to furnish the dream content,
but it forces the dream thoughts to make a choice from the
material destined to serve the purpose of representation in the
dream content ; it does this by putting within easy reach
that part of the material which is suited to its own character,
while withholding the other. Moreover this general feeling,
which is left over from the day, is probably connected with the
psychic remnants which are significant for the dream .
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 201

If somatic sources of excitement occurring during sleep

that is , the sensations of sleep-are not of unusual intensity,
they play a part in the formation of dreams similar, in my
judgment, to that of the impressions of the day which have
remained recent but indifferent . I mean that they are drawn
into the dream formation, if they are qualified for being united
with the presentation content of the psychic dream-source,
but in no other case. They are treated as a cheap ever-ready
material, which is utilised as often as it is needed, instead of
prescribing, as a precious material does, the manner in which
it is to be utilised . The case is similar to that where a patron
of art brings to an artist a rare stone, a fragment of onyx, in
order that a work of art may be made of it. The size of the
stone, its colour, and its marking help to decide what bust or
what scene shall be represented in it, while in the case where
there is a uniform and abundant supply of marble or sandstone
the artist follows only the idea which takes shape in his mind.
Only in this manner, it seems to me, is the fact explicable
that the dream content resulting from bodily excitements
that have not been accentuated to a usual degree, does not
appear in all dreams and during every night.
Perhaps an example, which takes us back to the interpreta
tion of dreams, will best illustrate my meaning . One day I
was trying to understand the meaning of the sensations of
being impeded, of not being able to move from the spot , of
not being able to get finished , &c . , which are dreamt about so
often, and which are so closely allied to anxiety. That night
I had the following dream : I am very incompletely dressed,
and I go from a dwelling on the ground floor up a flight of stairs
to an upper story. In doing this I jump over three steps at a
time, and I am glad to find I can mount the steps so quickly.
Suddenly I see that a servant girl is coming down the stairs,
that is, towards me. I am ashamed and try to hurry away, and
now there appears that sensation of being impeded ; I am glued
to the steps and cannot move from the spot.
Analysis : The situation of the dream is taken from every
day reality . In a house in Vienna I have two apartments ,
which are connected only by a flight of stairs outside. My
consultation-rooms and my study are on an elevated portion
of the ground floor , and one story higher are my living-rooms .
202 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

When I have finished my work downstairs late at night, I

go up the steps into my bedroom . On the evening before the
dream I had actually gone this short distance in a somewhat
disorderly attire that is to say, I had taken off my collar,
cravat, and cuffs ; but in the dream this has changed into a
somewhat more advanced degree of undress, which as usual
is indefinite . Jumping over the steps is my usual method of
mounting stairs ; moreover it is the fulfilment of a wish that
has been recognised in the dream, for I have reassured myself
about the condition of my heart action by the ease of this
accomplishment . Moreover the manner in which I climb the
stairs is an effective contrast to the sensation of being impeded
which occurs in the second half of the dream. It shows me
something which needed no proof- that the dream has no
difficulty in representing motor actions as carried out fully
and completely ; think of flying in dreams !
But the stairs which I go up are not those of my house ; at
first I do not recognise them ; only the person coming toward
me reveals to me the location which they are intended to
signify. This woman is the maid of the old lady whom I
visit twice daily to give hypodermic injections ; the stairs ,
too, are quite similar to those which I must mount there twice
daily.
How do this flight of stairs and this woman get into my
dream ? Being ashamed because one is not fully dressed , is
undoubtedly of a sexual character ; the servant of whom I
dream is older than I, sulky, and not in the least attractive.
These questions call up exactly the following occurrences :
When I make my morning visit at this house I am usually
seized with a desire to clear my throat ; the product of the
expectoration falls upon the steps. For there is no spittoon
on either of these floors, and I take the view that the stairs
should not be kept clean at my expense, but by the provision
of a spittoon . The housekeeper, likewise an elderly and sulky
person, with instincts for cleanliness , takes another view of
the matter. She lies in wait for me to see whether I take
the liberty referred to , and when she has made sure of it, I
hear her growl distinctly. For days thereafter she refuses to
show me her customary regard when we meet . On the day
before the dream the position of the housekeeper had been
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 203

strengthened by the servant girl. I had just finished my usual

hurried visit to the patient when the servant confronted me in
the ante-room and observed : " You might as well have wiped
your shoes to-day, doctor, before you came into the room .
The red carpet is all dirty again from your feet." This is the
whole claim which the flight of stairs and the servant-girl
can make for appearing in my dream .
An intimate connection exists between my flying over the
stairs and my spitting on the stairs . Pharyngitis and diseases
of the heart are both said to be punishments for the vice of
smoking, on account of which vice, of course, I do not enjoy a
reputation for great neatness with my housekeeper in the one
house any more than in the other, both of which the dream
fuses into a single image .
I must postpone the further interpretation of this dream
until I can give an account of the origin of the typical dream of
incomplete dress. I only note as a preliminary result from
the dream which has just been cited that the dream sensation
of inhibited action is always aroused at a point where a certain
connection requires it. A peculiar condition of my motility
during sleep cannot be the cause of this dream content, for a
moment before I saw myself hurrying over the steps with ease,
as though in confirmation of this fact.

(d) Typical Dreams

In general we are not in a position to interpret the dream of

another person if he is unwilling to furnish us with the uncon
scious thoughts which lie behind the dream content, and for
this reason the practical applicability of our method of dream
interpretation is seriously curtailed. * But there are a certain
number of dreams-in contrast with the usual freedom dis
played by the individual in fashioning his dream world with
characteristic peculiarity, and thereby making it unintelligible
-which almost every one has dreamed in the same manner,
and of which we are accustomed to assume that they have
the same significance in the case of every dreamer. A peculiar

* An exception is furnished by those cases in which the dreamer utilises

in the expression of his latent dream thoughts the symbols which are
familiar to us.
204 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

interest belongs to these typical dreams for the reason that

they probably all come from the same sources with every
person, that they are thus particularly suited to give us
information upon the sources of dreams.
Typical dreams are worthy of the most exhaustive investi
gation. I shall, however, only give a somewhat detailed con
sideration to examples of this species, and for this purpose I
shall first select the so-called embarrassment dream of naked
ness , and the dream of the death of dear relatives .
The dream of being naked or scantily clad in the presence
of strangers occurs with the further addition that one is not
at all ashamed of it, &c . But the dream of nakedness is worthy
of our interest only when shame and embarrassment are felt
in it , when one wishes to flee or to hide, and when one feels the
strange inhibition that it is impossible to move from the spot
and that one is incapable of altering the disagreeable situation.
It is only in this connection that the dream is typical ; the
nucleus of its content may otherwise be brought into all kinds
of relations or may be replaced by individual amplifications .
It is essentially a question of a disagreeable sensation of the
nature of shame, the wish to be able to hide one's nakedness ,
chiefly by means of locomotion , without being able to accom
plish this. I believe that the great majority of my readers
will at some time have found themselves in this situation in a
dream .
Usually the nature and manner of the experience is indis
tinct. It is usually reported , " I was in my shirt," but this
is rarely a clear image ; in most cases the lack of clothing is so
indeterminate that it is designated in the report of the dream
by a set of alternatives : " I was in my chemise or in my
petticoat." As a rule the deficiency in the toilet is not serious
enough to justify the feeling of shame attached to it . For a
person who has served in the army, nakedness is often replaced
by a mode of adjustment that is contrary to regulations. “ I
""
am on the street without my sabre and I see officers coming,'
or " I am without my necktie," or " I am wearing checkered
civilian's trousers ," & c.
The persons before whom one is ashamed are almost always
strangers with faces that have been left undetermined . It
never occurs in the typical dream that one is reproved or even
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 205

noticed on account of the dress which causes the embarrass

ment to one's self. Quite on the contrary, the people have an
air of indifference, or, as I had opportunity to observe in a
particularly clear dream, they look stiffly solemn. This is
worth thinking about.
The shamed embarrassment of the dreamer and the in
difference of the spectators form a contradiction which often
occurs in the dream. It would better accord with the feelings
of the dreamer if the strangers looked at him in astonishment
and laughed at him, or if they grew indignant . I think,
however, that the latter unpleasant feature has been obviated
by the tendency to wish-fulfilment, while the embarrassment,
being retained on some account or other, has been left standing,
and thus the two parts fail to agree. We have interesting
evidence to show that the dream, whose appearance has been
partially disfigured by the tendency to wish-fulfilment, has not
been properly understood . For it has become the basis of a
fairy tale familiar to us all in Andersen's version, * and it has
recently received poetic treatment by L. Fulda in the Talisman.
In Andersen's fairy tale we are told of two impostors who
weave a costly garment for the Emperor, which, however, shall
be visible only to the good and true. The Emperor goes forth
clad in this invisible garment, and , the fabric serving as a sort
of touchstone, all the people are frightened into acting as
though they did not notice the nakedness of the Emperor.
But such is the situation in our dream. It does not require
great boldness to assume that the unintelligible dream content
has suggested the invention of a state of undress in which the
situation that is being remembered becomes significant . This
situation has then been deprived of its original meaning , and
placed at the service of other purposes. But we shall see
that such misunderstanding of the dream content often occurs
on account of the conscious activity of the second psychic
system, and is to be recognised as a factor in the ultimate
formation of the dream ; furthermore, that in the develop
ment of the obsessions and phobias similar misunderstandings ,
likewise within the same psychic personality, play a leading
part. The source from which in our dream the material
for this transformation is taken can also be explained . The
" The Emperor's New Clothes."
206 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

impostor is the dream, the Emperor is the dreamer himself, and

the moralising tendency betrays a hazy knowledge of the fact
that the latent dream content is occupied with forbidden
wishes which have become the victims of repression. The
connection in which such dreams appear during my analysis
of neurotics leaves no room for doubting that the dream is
based upon a recollection from earliest childhood. Only in
our childhood was there a time when we were seen by our
relatives as well as by strange nurses, servant girls, and visitors,
in scanty clothing, and at that time we were not ashamed of
our nakedness . *
It may be observed in the case of children who are a little
older that being undressed has a kind of intoxicating effect
upon them , instead of making them ashamed . They laugh,
jump about, and strike their bodies ; the mother, or whoever
is present, forbids them to do this, and says : " Fie, that is
shameful- you mustn't do that." Children often show ex
hibitional cravings ; it is hardly possible to go through a
village in our part of the country without meeting a two or
three-year-old tot who lifts up his or her shirt before the
traveller, perhaps in his honour. One of my patients has
reserved in his conscious memory a scene from the eighth year
of his life in which he had just undressed previous to going to
bed, and was about to dance into the room of his little sister
in his undershirt when the servant prevented his doing it.
In the childhood history of neurotics , denudation in the
presence of children of the opposite sex plays a great part ; in
paranoia the desire to be observed while dressing and un
dressing may be directly traced to these experiences ; among
those remaining perverted there is a class which has accen
tuated the childish impulse to a compulsion- they are the
exhibitionists.
This age of childhood in which the sense of shame is lacking
seems to our later recollections a Paradise, and Paradise itself
is nothing but a composite phantasy from the childhood of
the individual. It is for this reason, too , that in Paradise
human beings are naked and are not ashamed until the moment
arrives when the sense of shame and of fear are aroused ; ex

* The child also appears in the fairy tale, for there a child suddenly
calls : " Why, he hasn't anything on at all."
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 207

pulsion follows , and sexual life and cultural development

begin. Into this Paradise the dream can take us back every
night ; we have already ventured the conjecture that the
impressions from earliest childhood (from the prehistoric
period until about the end of the fourth year) in themselves,
and independently of everything else, crave reproduction,
perhaps without further reference to their content, and that
the repetition of them is the fulfilment of a wish. Dreams of
nakedness, then, are exhibition dreams .*
One's own person, which is seen not as that of a child, but
as belonging to the present, and the idea of scanty clothing,
which became buried beneath so many later négligée recollec
tions or because of the censor, turns out to be obscure-these
two things constitute the nucleus of the exhibition dream.
Next come the persons before whom one is ashamed . I
know of no example where the actual spectators at those
infantile exhibitions reappear in the dream. For the dream
is hardly ever a simple recollection . Strangely enough, those
persons who are the objects of our sexual interest during child
hood are omitted from all the reproductions of the dream, of
hysteria, and of the compulsion neurosis ; paranoia alone
puts the spectators back into their places, and is fanatically
convinced of their presence, although they remain invisible.
What the dream substitutes for these, the " many strange
people, " who take no notice of the spectacle which is presented ,
is exactly the wish-opposite of that single, intimate person for
66
whom the exposure was intended . ' Many strange people, "
moreover, are often found in the dream in any other favourable
connection ; as a wish-opposite they always signify " a secret ." †
It may be seen how the restoration of the old condition of
affairs, as it occurs in paranoia, is subject to this antithesis.
One is no longer alone. One is certainly being watched, but
66
the spectators are many strange, curiously indeterminate
people. "
Furthermore, repression has a place in the exhibition

Ferenczi has reported a number of interesting dreams of nakedness

in women which could be traced to an infantile desire to exhibit, but which
differ in some features from the " typical " dream of nakedness discussed
above.
+ For obvious reasons the presence of the " whole family " in the dream
has the same significance.
208 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

dream . For the disagreeable sensation of the dream is

the reaction of the second psychic instance to the fact
that the exhibition scene which has been rejected by it
has in spite of this succeeded in securing representation.
The only way to avoid this sensation would be not to revive
the scene .
Later on we shall again deal with the sensation of being
inhibited . It serves the dream excellently in representing
the conflict of the will, the negation. According to our un
conscious purpose exhibition is to be continued ; according to
the demands of the censor, it is to be stopped .
The relation of our typical dreams to fairy tales and to
other poetic material is neither a sporadic nor an accidental
one. Occasionally the keen insight of a poet has analytically
-
recognised the transforming process of which the poet is
usually the tool-and has followed it backwards, that is to
say, traced it to the dream. A friend has called my attention
to the following passage in G. Keller's Der Grüne Heinrich :
" I do not wish, dear Lee, that you should ever come to realise
from experience the peculiar piquant truth contained in the
situation of Odysseus, when he appears before Nausikaa and
her playmates , naked and covered with mud ! Would you
like to know what it means ? Let us consider the incident
closely. If you are ever separated from your home, and from
everything that is dear to you , and wander about in a strange
country, when you have seen and experienced much , when you
have cares and sorrows , and are, perhaps , even miserable and
forlorn, you will some night inevitably dream that you are
approaching your home ; you will see it shining and beaming
in the most beautiful colours ; charming, delicate and lovely
figures will come to meet you ; and you will suddenly discover
that you are going about in rags, naked and covered with dust .
A nameless feeling of shame and fear seizes you, you try to
cover yourself and to hide, and you awaken bathed in sweat .
As long as men exist , this will be the dream of the care-laden ,
fortune-battered man , and thus Homer has taken his situation
from the profoundest depths of the eternal character of
humanity."
This profound and eternal character of humanity, upon
the touching of which in his listeners the poet usually calculates,
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 209

is made up of the stirrings of the spirit which are rooted in

childhood, in the period which later becomes prehistoric .
Suppressed and forbidden wishes of childhood break forth
under cover of those wishes of the homeless man which are
unobjectionable and capable of becoming conscious , and for
that reason the dream which is made objective in the legend
of Nausikaa regularly assumes the form of a dream of
anxiety.
My own dream, mentioned on p. 201 , of hurrying up the
stairs, which is soon afterward changed into that of being glued
to the steps, is likewise an exhibition dream, because it shows
the essential components of such a dream. It must thus
permit of being referred to childish experiences , and the
possession of these ought to tell us how far the behaviour of
the servant girl towards me-her reproach that I had soiled
the carpet- helped her to secure the position which she occupies
in the dream . I am now able to furnish the desired explana
tion. One learns in psychoanalysis to interpret temporal
proximity by objective connection ; two thoughts , apparently
without connection , which immediately follow one another,
belong to a unity which can be inferred ; just as an a and a t,
which I write down together, should be pronounced as one
syllable, at. The same is true of the relation of dreams to one
another. The dream just cited , of the stairs, has been taken
from a series of dreams, whose other members I am familiar
with on account of having interpreted them . The dream which
is included in this series must belong to the same connection.
Now the other dreams of the series are based upon the recol
lection of a nurse to whom I was entrusted from some time in
the period when I was suckling to the age of two and a half
years, and of whom a hazy recollection has remained in my
consciousness . According to information which I have re
cently obtained from my mother, she was old and ugly, but
very intelligent and thorough ; according to inferences which
I may draw from my dreams , she did not always give me the
kindest treatment, and said hard words to me when I showed
insufficient aptitude for education in cleanliness . Thus by
attempting to continue this educational work the servant
girl develops a claim to be treated by me, in the dream, as an
incarnation of the prehistoric old woman. It is to be assumed
210 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that the child bestowed his love upon this governess in spite
of her bad treatment of him. *
Another series of dreams which might be called typical are
those which have the content that a dear relative, parent,
brother, or sister, child or the like, has died . Two classes of
these dreams must immediately be distinguished-those in
which the dreamer remains unaffected by sorrow while dream
ing, and those in which he feels profound grief on account of
the death, in which he even expresses this grief during sleep
by fervid tears.
We may ignore the dreams of the first group ; they have
no claim to be reckoned as typical . If they are analysed, it is
found that they signify something else than what they contain,
that they are intended to cover up some other wish . Thus it
is with the dream of the aunt who sees the only son of her
sister lying on a bier before her (p 129) . This does not signify
that she wishes the death of her little nephew ; it only con
ceals, as we have learned , a wish to see a beloved person once
more after long separation-the same person whom she had
seen again after a similar long intermission at the funeral of
another nephew. This wish, which is the real content of
the dream , gives no cause for sorrow, and for that reason no
sorrow is felt in the dream. It may be seen in this case that
the emotion which is contained in the dream does not belong
to the manifest content of the dream, but to the latent one,
and that the emotional content has remained free from the
disfigurement which has befallen the presentation content .
It is a different story with the dreams in which the death
of a beloved relative is imagined and where sorrowful emotion
is felt . These signify, as their content says, the wish that the
person in question may die, and as I may here expect that the
feelings of all readers and of all persons who have dreamt
anything similar will object to my interpretation , I must
strive to present my proof on the broadest possible basis .
We have already had one example to show that the wishes
* A supplementary interpretation of this dream : To spit on the stairs,
led me to " esprit d'escalier " by a free translation, owing to the fact that
" Spucken " (English : spit, and also to act like a spook, to haunt) is an occu
pation of ghosts. " Stair-wit " is equivalent to lack of quickness at repartee
(German : Schlagerfertigkeit-readiness to hit back, to strike), with which I
must really reproach myself. Is it a question, however, whether the nurse
was lacking in " readiness to hit" ?
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 211

represented in the dream as fulfilled are not always actual

wishes. They may also be dead , discarded , covered , and re
pressed wishes, which we must nevertheless credit with a sort
of continuous existence on account of their reappearance in
the dream. They are not dead like persons who have died in
our sense, but they resemble the shades in the Odyssey which
awaken a certain kind of life as soon as they have drunk blood .
In the dream of the dead child in the box (p . 130 ) we were
concerned with a wish that had been actual fifteen years
before, and which had been frankly admitted from that time.
It is, perhaps , not unimportant from the point of view of dream
theory if I add that a recollection from earliest childhood is at
the basis even of this dream . While the dreamer was a little
child- it cannot be definitely determined at what time-she
had heard that during pregnancy of which she was the fruit
her mother had fallen into a profound depression of spirits
and had passionately wished for the death of her child before
birth . Having grown up herself and become pregnant, she
now follows the example of her mother.
If some one dreams with expressions of grief that his
father or mother, his brother or sister, has died, I shall not
use the dream as a proof that he wishes them dead now.
The theory of the dreams does not require so much ; it is
satisfied with concluding that the dreamer has wished them
dead at some one time in childhood . I fear, however, that
this limitation will not contribute much to quiet the objectors ;
they might just as energetically contest the possibility that
they have ever had such thoughts as they are sure that they
do not cherish such wishes at present. I must, therefore,
reconstruct a part of the submerged infantile psychology on
the basis of the testimony which the present still furnishes . *
Let us at first consider the relation of children to their
brothers and sisters . I do not know why we presuppose that
it must be a loving one , since examples of brotherly and sisterly
enmity among adults force themselves upon every one's ex
perience, and since we so often know that this estrangement
originated even during childhood or has always existed . But

* Cf. " Analyse der Phobie eines fünfjährigen Knaben " in the Jahrbuch
für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen, vol. i., 1909, and
"Ueber infantile Sexualtheorien," in Sexualprobleme, vol. i., 1908.
212 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

many grown-up people, who to-day are tenderly attached to

their brothers and sisters and stand by them, have lived with
them during childhood in almost uninterrupted hostility.
The older child has ill-treated the younger, slandered it, and
deprived it of its toys ; the younger has been consumed by
helpless fury against the elder, has envied it and feared it ,
or its first impulse toward liberty and first feelings of injustice
have been directed against the oppressor . The parents say
that the children do not agree, and cannot find the reason for
it. It is not difficult to see that the character even of a well
behaved child is not what we wish to find in a grown-up person .
The child is absolutely egotistical ; it feels its wants acutely
and strives remorselessly to satisfy them, especially with its
competitors, other children, and in the first instance with its
brothers and sisters . For doing this we do not call the child
wicked - we call it naughty ; it is not responsible for its evil
deeds either in our judgment or in the eyes of the penal law.
And this is justifiably so ; for we may expect that within
this very period of life which we call childhood , altruistic
impulses and morality will come to life in the little egotist ,
and that, in the words of Meynert, a secondary ego will overlay
and restrain the primary one. It is true that morality does
not develop simultaneously in all departments , and further
more, the duration of the unmoral period of childhood is of
different length in different individuals. In cases where the
development of this morality fails to appear, we are pleased
to talk about " degeneration " ; they are obviously cases of
arrested development. Where the primary character has
already been covered up by later development , it may be at
least partially uncovered again by an attack of hysteria. The
correspondence between the so-called hysterical character
and that of a naughty child is strikingly evident. A com
pulsion neurosis, on the other hand, corresponds to a super
morality, imposed upon the primary character that is again
asserting itself, as an increased check.
Many persons , then, who love their brothers and sisters,
and who would feel bereaved by their decease, have evil wishes
towards them from earlier times in their unconscious wishes ,
which are capable of being realised in the dream. It is
particularly interesting to observe little children up to three
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 213

years old in their attitude towards their brothers and sisters .

So far the child has been the only one ; he is now informed that
the stork has brought a new child. The younger surveys the
arrival, and then expresses his opinion decidedly : " The stork
had better take it back again." *
I subscribe in all seriousness to the opinion that the child
knows enough to calculate the disadvantage it has to expect
on account of the new-comer. I know in the case of a lady of
my acquaintance who agrees very well with a sister four years
younger than herself, that she responded to the news of her
younger sister's arrival with the following words : " But I
shan't give her my red cap, anyway." Ifthe child comes to
this realisation only at a later time, its enmity will be aroused
at that point. I know of a case where a girl, not yet three
years old, tried to strangle a suckling in the cradle, because
its continued presence, she suspected, boded her no good .
Children are capable of envy at this time of life in all its in
tensity and distinctness. Again, perhaps, the little brother or
sister has really soon disappeared ; the child has again drawn
the entire affection of the household to itself, and then a new
child is sent by the stork ; is it then unnatural for the favourite
to wish that the new competitor may have the same fate as
the earlier one, in order that he may be treated as well as he
was before during the interval ? Of course this attitude of
the child towards the younger infant is under normal circum
stances a simple function of the difference of age. After a
certain time the maternal instincts of the girl will be excited
towards the helpless new-born child .
Feelings of enmity towards brothers and sisters must occur
far more frequently during the age of childhood than is noted
by the dull observation of adults.
In case of my own children, who followed one another
rapidly, I missed the opportunity to make such observations ;
I am now retrieving it through my little nephew, whose com
plete domination was disturbed after fifteen months by the
* The three-and -a-half-year-old Hans, whose phobia is the subject of
analysis in the above-mentioned publication, cries during fever shortly after
the birth of his sister : " I don't want a little sister." In his neurosis, one
and a half years later, he frankly confesses the wish that the mother should
drop the little one into the bath-tub while bathing it, in order that it may die.
With all this, Hans is a good-natured , affectionate child, who soon becomes
fond of his sister, and likes especially to take her under his protection.
214 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

arrival of a female competitor. I hear, it is true, that the

young man acts very chivalrously towards his little sister, that
he kisses her hand and pets her ; but in spite of this I have
convinced myself that even before the completion of his
second year he is using his new facility in language to criticise
this person who seems superfluous to him. Whenever the
conversation turns upon her, he chimes in and cries angrily :
' Too (1)ittle, too (l)ittle. " During the last few months, since
the child has outgrown this unfavourable criticism, owing to
its splendid development, he has found another way of justify
ing his insistence that she does not deserve so much attention.
On all suitable occasions he reminds us, "She hasn't any
teeth ." * We have all preserved the recollection of the eldest
daughter of another sister of mine-how the child which was
at that time six years old sought assurance from one aunt
after another for an hour and a half with the question : " Lucy
can't understand that yet, can she ? " Lucy was the com
petitor, two and a half years younger.
I have never failed in any of my female patients to find
this dream of the death of brothers and sisters denoting
exaggerated hostility. I have met with only one exception ,
which could easily be reinterpreted into a confirmation of the
rule. Once in the course of a sitting while I was explaining
this condition of affairs to a lady, as it seemed to have a bear
ing upon the symptoms under consideration , she answered, to
my astonishment, that she had never had such dreams . How
ever, she thought of another dream which supposedly had
nothing to do with the matter-a dream which she had first
dreamed at the age of four , when she was the youngest child,
and had since dreamed repeatedly. " A great number of
children, all of them the dreamer's brothers and sisters , and
male and female cousins , were romping about in a meadow.
Suddenly they all got wings , flew up, and were gone ." She
had no idea of the significance of the dream ; but it will not
be difficult for us to recognise it as a dream of the death of all
the brothers and sisters , in its original form, and little in
fluenced by the censor. I venture to insert the following
interpretation : At the death of one out of a large number of
The three-and-a-half-year old Hans embodies his crushing criticism of
his little sister in the identical word (see previous notes). He assumes that
she is unable to speak on account of her lack of teeth.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 215

children-in this case the children of two brothers were brought

up in common as brothers and sisters-is it not probable that
our dreamer, at that time not yet four years old , asked a wise,
"C
grown-up person : What becomes of children when they
are dead ? " The answer probably was : " They get wings
and become angels . " According to this explanation all the
brothers and sisters and cousins in the dream now have wings
like angels and this is the important thing -they fly away.
Our little angel-maker remains alone, think of it, the only
one after such a multitude ! The feature that the children
are romping about on a meadow points with little ambiguity
to butterflies, as though the child had been led by the same
association which induced the ancients to conceive Psyche
as having the wings of a butterfly.
Perhaps some one will now object that, although the inimical
impulses of children towards their brothers and sisters may
well enough be admitted , how does the childish disposition
arrive at such a height of wickedness as to wish death to a
competitor or stronger playmate, as though all transgressions
could be atoned for only by the death-punishment ? Whoever
talks in this manner forgets that the childish idea of “ being
""
dead has little else but the words in common with our own.
The child knows nothing of the horrors of decay, of shivering
in the cold grave, of the terror of the infinite Nothing, which
the grown-up person, as all the myths concerning the Great
Beyond testify, finds it so hard to bear in his conception . Fear
of death is strange to the child ; therefore it plays with the
horrible word and threatens another child : " If you do that
again you will die, as Francis died, " whereat the poor mother
shudders, for perhaps she cannot forget that the great majority
of mortals do not succeed in living beyond the years of child
hood . It is still possible, even for a child eight years old, on
returning from a museum of natural history, to say to its
mother : " Mamma, I love you so ; if you ever die, I am going
to have you stuffed and set you up here in the room so I can
always, always see you ! " So little does the childish conception
of being dead resemble our own. *

I heard the following idea expressed by a gifted boy of ten, after the
sudden death of his father : "I understand that father is dead, but I cannot
see why he does not come home for supper."
216 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Being dead means for the child, which has been spared
66
the scenes of suffering previous to dying, the same as being
gone," not disturbing the survivors any more. The child
does not distinguish the manner and means by which this
absence is brought about, whether by travelling, estrangement,
or death. If, during the prehistoric years of a child, a nurse
has been sent away and its mother has died a short while
after, the two experiences, as is revealed by analysis, overlap
in his memory. The fact that the child does not miss very
intensely those who are absent has been realised by many a
mother to her sorrow, after she has returned home after a
summer journey of several weeks, and has been told upon
inquiry : " The children have not asked for their mother a
single time." But if she really goes to that " undiscovered
country from whose bourn no traveller returns," the children
seem at first to have forgotten her, and begin only subsequently
to remember the dead mother.
If, then, the child has motives for wishing the absence of
another child, every restraint is lacking which would prevent
it from clothing this wish in the form that the child may die,
and the psychic reaction to the dream of wishing death proves
that, in spite of all the differences in content, the wish in the
case of the child is somehow or other the same as it is with H
adults .
If now the death-wish of the child towards its brothers and
sisters has been explained by the childish egotism, which causes
the child to regard its brothers and sisters as competitors ,
how may we account for the same wish towards parents, who
bestow love on the child and satisfy its wants, and whose pre
servation it ought to desire from these very egotistical motives ?
In the solution of this difficulty we are aided by the experi
ence that dreams of the death of parents predominantly refer
to that member of the parental couple which shares the sex
of the dreamer, so that the man mostly dreams of the death of
his father, the woman of the death of her mother. I cannot
claim that this happens regularly, but the predominating
occurrence of this dream in the manner indicated is so evident
that it must be explained through some factor that is uni
versally operative . To express the matter boldly, it is as
though a sexual preference becomes active at an early period,
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 217

as though the boy regards his father as a rival in love, and as

though the girl takes the same attitude toward her mother
a rival by getting rid of whom he or she cannot but profit.
Before rejecting this idea as monstrous , let the reader
consider the actual relations between parents and children.
What the requirements of culture and piety demand of this
relation must be distinguished from what daily observation
shows us to be the fact . More than one cause for hostile
feeling is concealed within the relations between parents and
children ; the conditions necessary for the actuation of wishes
which cannot exist in the presence of the censor are most
abundantly provided . Let us dwell at first upon the relation
between father and son. I believe that the sanctity which we
have ascribed to the injunction of the decalogue dulls our
perception of reality. Perhaps we hardly dare to notice that
the greater part of humanity neglects to obey the fifth
commandment . In the lowest as well as in the highest strata of
human society, piety towards parents is in the habit of receding
before other interests. The obscure reports which have come
to us in mythology and legend from the primeval ages of human
society give us an unpleasant idea of the power of the father
and the ruthlessness with which it was used. Kronos devours
his children, as the wild boar devours the brood of the sow ;
Zeus emasculates his father * and takes his place as a ruler .
The more despotically the father ruled in the ancient family,
the more must the son have taken the position of an enemy,
and the greater must have been his impatience, as designated
successor, to obtain the mastery himself after his father's
death . Even in our own middle-class family the father is
accustomed to aid the development of the germ of hatred which
naturally belongs to the paternal relation by refusing the son
the disposal of his own destiny, or the means necessary for
this . A physician often has occasion to notice that the son's
grief at the loss of his father cannot suppress his satisfaction
at the liberty which he has at last obtained . Every father
frantically holds on to whatever of the sadly antiquated potestas
At least a certain number of mythological representations. According
to others, emasculation is only practised by Kronos on his father.
With regard to mythological significance of this motive, cf. Otto Rank's
"Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden," fifth number of Schriften zur
angew. Seelenkunde, 1909.
218 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

patris still remains in the society of to-day, and every poet

who, like Ibsen, puts the ancient strife between father and son
in the foreground of his fiction is sure of his effect . The causes
of conflict between mother and daughter arise when the daughter
grows up and finds a guardian in her mother, while she desires
sexual freedom , and when , on the other hand, the mother has
been warned by the budding beauty of her daughter that the
time has come for her to renounce sexual claims.
All these conditions are notorious and open to everyone's
inspection. But they do not serve to explain dreams of the
death of parents found in the case of persons to whom piety
towards their parents has long since come to be inviolable.
We are furthermore prepared by the preceding discussion to
find that the death-wish towards parents is to be explained by
reference to earliest childhood.
This conjecture is reaffirmed with a certainty that makes
doubt impossible in its application to psychoneurotics through
the analyses that have been undertaken with them. It is
here found that the sexual wishes of the child- in so far as
they deserve this designation in their embryonic state
awaken at a very early period , and that the first inclinations of
the girl are directed towards the father, and the first childish
cravings of the boy towards the mother. The father thus
becomes an annoying competitor for the boy, as the mother
does for the girl, and we have already shown in the case of
brothers and sisters how little it takes for this feeling to lead
the child to the death-wish. Sexual selection , as a rule, early
becomes evident in the parents ; it is a natural tendency for
the father to indulge the little daughter, and for the mother
to take the part of the sons, while both work earnestly for the
education of the little ones when the magic of sex does not
prejudice their judgment. The child is very well aware of
any partiality , and resists that member of the parental couple
who discourages it. To find love in a grown-up person is for
the child not only the satisfaction of a particular craving, but
also means that the child's will is to be yielded to in other
respects. Thus the child obeys its own sexual impulse, and
at the same time re-enforces the feeling which proceeds from
the parents, if it makes a selection among the parents that
corresponds to theirs .
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 219

Most of the signs of these infantile inclinations are usually

overlooked ; some of them may be observed even after the
first years of childhood. An eight-year-old girl of my ac
quaintance, when her mother is called from the table , takes
advantage of the opportunity to proclaim herself her suc
cessor. " Now I shall be Mamma ; Charles , do you want some
more vegetables ? Have some, I beg you, " & c. A particu
larly gifted and vivacious girl, not yet four years old, with
whom this bit of child psychology is unusually transparent,
says outright : " Now mother can go away ; then father must
marry me and I shall be his wife." Nor does this wish by any
means exclude from child life the possibility that the child
may love his mother affectionately. If the little boy is allowed
to sleep at his mother's side whenever his father goes on a
journey, and if after his father's return he must go back to the
nursery to a person whom he likes far less, the wish may be
easily actuated that his father may always be absent, in order
that he may keep his place next to his dear, beautiful mamma ;
and the father's death is obviously a means for the attainment
of this wish ; for the child's experience has taught him that
" dead " folks , like grandpa , for example, are always absent ;
they never return .
Although observations upon little children lend them
selves , without being forced , to the proposed interpretation,
they do not carry the full conviction which psychoanalyses
of adult neurotics obtrude upon the physician . The dreams
in question are here cited with introductions of such a nature
that their interpretation as wish-dreams becomes unavoidable.
One day I find a lady sad and weeping. She says : " I do not
want to see my relatives any more ; they must shudder at
me." Thereupon, almost without any transition , she tells
that she remembers a dream , whose significance, of course,
she does not know. She dreamed it four years before , and it
is as follows : A fox or a lynx is taking a walk on the roof ; then
something falls down, or she falls down , and after that her mother is
carried out of the house dead-whereat the dreamer cries bitterly.
No sooner had I informed her that this dream must signify a
wish from her childhood to see her mother dead, and that it is
because of this dream that she thinks that her relatives must
shudder at her, than she furnished some material for explaining
220 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

""
the dream. " Lynx-eye is an opprobrious epithet which a
street boy once bestowed on her when she was a very small
child ; when she was three years old a brick had fallen on her
mother's head so that she bled severely.
I once had opportunity to make a thorough study of a
young girl who underwent several psychic states . In the state
of frenzied excitement with which the illness started , the
patient showed a very strong aversion to her mother ; she
struck and scolded her as soon as she approached the bed,
while at the same time she remained loving and obedient to a
much older sister. Then there followed a clear but somewhat
apathetic state with very much disturbed sleep. It was in
this phase that I began to treat her and to analyse her dreams.
An enormous number of these dealt in a more or less abstruse
manner with the death of the mother ; now she was present
at the funeral of an old woman, now she saw her sisters sitting
at the table dressed in mourning ; the meaning of the dreams
could not be doubted . During the further progress of the
convalescence hysterical phobias appeared ; the most tortur
ing of these was the idea that something happened to her
mother. She was always having to hurry home from wherever
she happened to be in order to convince herself that her mother
was still alive. Now this case, in view of my other experiences ,
was very instructive ; it showed in polyglot translations , as it
were, the different ways in which the psychic apparatus reacts
to the same exciting idea. In the state of excitement which
I conceive as the overpowering of the second psychic instance,
the unconscious enmity towards the mother became potent
as a motor impulse ; then, after calmness set in, following the
suppression of the tumult, and after the domination of the
censor had been restored , this feeling of enmity had access
only to the province of dreams in order to realise the wish that
the mother might die ; and after the normal condition had
been still further strengthened , it created the excessive concern
for the mother as a hysterical counter-reaction and manifesta
tion of defence. In the light of these considerations it is no
longer inexplicable why hysterical girls are so often extrava
gantly attached to their mothers .
On another occasion I had opportunity to get a profound
insight into the unconscious psychic life of a young man for
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 221

whom a compulsion-neurosis made life almost unendurable,

so that he could not go on the street, because he was harassed
by the obsession that he would kill every one he met. He spent
his days in arranging evidence for an alibi in case he should be
charged with any murder that might have occurred in the
city. It is superfluous to remark that this man was as moral
as he was highly cultured . The analysis -which, moreover,
led to a cure discovered murderous impulses toward the
young man's somewhat over-strict father as the basis of these
disagreeable ideas of compulsion-impulses which, to his great
surprise, had received conscious expression when he was seven
years old, but which, of course, had originated in much earlier
years of childhood. After the painful illness and death of
the father, the obsessive reproach transferred to strangers in
the form of the afore-mentioned phobia, appeared when the
young man was thirty-one years old. Anyone capable of
wishing to push his own father from a mountain-top into an
abyss is certainly not to be trusted to spare the lives of those
who are not so closely bound to him ; he does well to lock
himself into his room.
According to my experience, which is now large, parents
play a leading part in the infantile psychology of all later
neurotics, and falling in love with one member of the parental
couple and hatred of the other help to make up that fateful
sum of material furnished by the psychic impulses , which has
been formed during the infantile period, and which is of such
great importance for the symptoms appearing in the later
neurosis. But I do not think that psychoneurotics are here
sharply distinguished from normal human beings , in that
they are capable of creating something absolutely new and
peculiar to themselves. It is far more probable, as is shown
also by occasional observation upon normal children, that in
their loving or hostile wishes towards their parents psycho
neurotics only show in exaggerated form feelings which are
present less distinctly and less intensely in the minds of most
children. Antiquity has furnished us with legendary material
to confirm this fact, and the deep and universal effectiveness of
these legends can only be explained by granting a similar
universal applicability to the above-mentioned assumption in
infantile psychology .
 222 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I refer to the legend of King Oedipus and the drama of the

same name by Sophocles. Oedipus, the son of Laius, king of
Thebes, and of Jocasta, is exposed while a suckling, because
an oracle has informed the father that his son, who is still
unborn, will be his murderer. He is rescued , and grows up as
the king's son at a foreign court, until, being uncertain about
his origin, he also consults the oracle, and is advised to avoid
his native place, for he is destined to become the murderer of
his father and the husband of his mother. On the road leading
away from his supposed home he meets King Laius and strikes
him dead in a sudden quarrel. Then he comes to the gates
of Thebes, where he solves the riddle of the Sphynx who is
barring the way, and he is elected king by the Thebans in
gratitude, and is presented with the hand of Jocasta . He
reigns in peace and honour for a long time, and begets two sons
and two daughters upon his unknown mother, until at last a
plague breaks out which causes the Thebans to consult the
oracle anew . Here Sophocles ' tragedy begins . The mes
sengers bring the advice that the plague will stop as soon as the
murderer of Laius is driven from the country. But where is
he hidden ?
" Where are they to be found ? How shall we trace the
↓
perpetrators of so old a crime where no conjecture leads to
discovery ? " *
The action of the play now consists merely in a revelation,
which is gradually completed and artfully delayed -resembling
the work of a psychoanalysis of the fact that Oedipus
himself is the murderer of Laius, and the son of the dead man
and of Jocasta. Oedipus, profoundly shocked at the mon
strosities which he has unknowingly committed , blinds himself
and leaves his native place. The oracle has been fulfilled .
The Oedipus Tyrannus is a so-called tragedy of fate ; its
tragic effect is said to be found in the opposition between the
powerful will of the gods and the vain resistance of the human
beings who are threatened with destruction ; resignation to
the will of God and confession of one's own helplessness is the
lesson which the deeply-moved spectator is to learn from the
tragedy. Consequently modern authors have tried to obtain
a similar tragic effect by embodying the same opposition in a
* Act. i. sc. 2. Translated by George Somers Clark.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 223

story of their own invention . But spectators have sat unmoved

while a curse or an oracular sentence has been fulfilled on
blameless human beings in spite of all their struggles ; later
tragedies of fate have all remained without effect .
If the Oedipus Tyrannus is capable of moving modern men
no less than it moved the contemporary Greeks , the explana
tion of this fact cannot lie merely in the assumption that the
effect of the Greek tragedy is based upon the opposition be
tween fate and human will, but is to be sought in the peculiar
nature of the material by which the opposition is shown .
There must be a voice within us which is prepared to recognise
the compelling power of fate in Oedipus, while we justly con
demn the situations occurring in Die Ahnfrau or in other
tragedies of later date as arbitrary inventions . And there must
be a factor corresponding to this inner voice in the story of
King Oedipus . His fate moves us only for the reason that it
might have been ours, for the oracle has put the same curse
upon us before our birth as upon him . Perhaps we are all
destined to direct our first sexual impulses towards our
mothers, and our first hatred and violent wishes towards our
fathers ; our dreams convince us of it . King Oedipus , who
has struck his father Laius dead and has married his mother
Jocasta, is nothing but the realised wish of our childhood .
But more fortunate than he, we have since succeeded, unless
we have become psychoneurotics , in withdrawing our sexual
impulses from our mothers and in forgetting our jealousy of
our fathers . We recoil from the person for whom this primitive
wish has been fulfilled with all the force of the repression which
these wishes have suffered within us . By his analysis, showing
us the guilt of Oedipus, the poet urges us to recognise our own
inner self, in which these impulses , even if suppressed , are still
present . The comparison with which the chorus leaves us
66
• .. Behold ! this Oedipus, who unravelled the famous
riddle and who was a man of eminent virtue ; a man who
trusted neither to popularity nor to the fortune of his citizens ;
see how great a storm of adversity hath at last overtaken
him " (Act v. sc. 4).

This warning applies to ourselves and to our pride, to us, who

have grown so wise and so powerful in our own estimation
224 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

since the years of our childhood . Like Oedipus, we live in

ignorance of the wishes that offend morality, wishes which
nature has forced upon us, and after the revelation of which we
want to avert every glance from the scenes of our childhood.
In the very text of Sophocles ' tragedy there is an unmis
takable reference to the fact that the Oedipus legend originates
in an extremely old dream material, which consists of the
painful disturbance of the relation towards one's parents by
means of the first impulses of sexuality. Jocasta comforts
Oedipus-who is not yet enlightened, but who has become
worried on account of the oracle - by mentioning to him
the dream which is dreamt by so many people, though she
attaches no significance to it

" For it hath already been the lot of many men in dreams
to think themselves partners of their mother's bed . But he
passes most easily through life to whom these circumstances
are trifles " (Act iv. sc. 3).

The dream of having sexual intercourse with one's mother

occurred at that time, as it does to-day, to many people, who
tell it with indignation and astonishment . As may be under
stood, it is the key to the tragedy and the complement to the
dream of the death of the father . The story of Oedipus is
the reaction of the imagination to these two typical dreams ,
and just as the dream when occurring to an adult is experienced
with feelings of resistance, so the legend must contain terror
and self-chastisement . The appearance which it further
assumes is the result of an uncomprehending secondary elab
oration which tries to make it serve theological purposes
(cf. the dream material of exhibitionism, p. 206 ). The at
tempt to reconcile divine omnipotence with human responsi
bility must, of course, fail with this material as with every
other. *
* Another of the great creations of tragic poetry, Shakespeare's Hamlet,
is founded on the same basis as the Oedipus. But the whole difference in
the psychic life of the two widely separated periods of civilisation-the age
long progress of repression in the emotional life of humanity-is made
manifest in the changed treatment of the identical material. In Oedipus
the basic wish-phantasy of the child is brought to light and realised as it is
in the dream ; in Hamlet it remains repressed, and we learn of its existence
-somewhat as in the case of a neurosis- only by the inhibition which
results from it. The fact that it is possible to remain in complete darkness
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 225

I must not leave the typical dream of the death of dear

relatives without somewhat further elucidating the subject
concerning the character of the hero, has curiously shown itself to be consistent
with the overpowering effect of the modern drama. The play is based upon
Hamlet's hesitation to accomplish the avenging task which has been assigned
to him; the text does not avow the reasons or motives of this hesitation, nor
have the numerous attempts at interpretation succeeded in giving them.
According to the conception which is still current to-day, and which goes
back to Goethe, Hamlet represents the type of man whose prime energy
is paralysed by over-development of thought activity. (" Sicklied o'er with
the pale cast of thought.") According to others the poet has attempted to
portray a morbid, vacillating character who is subject to neurasthenia. The
plot of the story, however, teaches us that Hamlet is by no means intended
to appear as a person altogether incapable of action. Twice we see him
asserting himself actively, once in headlong passion, where he stabs the
eavesdropper behind the arras, and on another occasion where he sends the
two courtiers to the death which has been intended for himself doing this
deliberately, even craftily, and with all the lack of compunction of a prince
of the Renaissance. What is it, then, that restrains him in the accomplish
ment of the task which his father's ghost has set before him ? Here the
explanation offers itself that it is the peculiar nature of this task. Hamlet
can do everything but take vengeance upon the man who has put his father
out of the way, and has taken his father's place with his mother -upon the
man who shows him the realisation of his repressed childhood wishes. The
loathing which ought to drive him to revenge is thus replaced in him by
self-reproaches, by conscientious scruples, which represent to him that he
himself is no better than the murderer whom he is to punish. I have thus
translated into consciousness what had to remain unconscious in the mind
of the hero; if some one wishes to call Hamlet a hysteric subject I cannot
but recognise it as an inference from my interpretation. The sexual dis
inclination which Hamlet expresses in conversation with Ophelia, coincides
very well with this view-it is the same sexual disinclination which was to
take possession of the poet more and more during the next few years of his
life, until the climax of it is expressed in Timon of Athens. Of course it
can only be the poet's own psychology with which we are confronted in
Hamlet; from a work on Shakespeare by George Brandes ( 1896), I take
the fact that the drama was composed immediately after the death of
Shakespeare's father-that is to say, in the midst of recent mourning for
him during the revival, we may assume, of his childhood emotion towards
his father. It is also known that a son of Shakespeare's, who died early,
bore the name of Hamnet (identical with Hamlet). Just as Hamlet treats
of the relation of the son to his parents, Macbeth, which appears subse
quently, is based upon the theme of childlessness. Just as every neurotic
symptom, just as the dream itself, is capable of re-interpretation, and even
requires it in order to be perfectly intelligible, so every genuine poetical
creation must have proceeded from more than one motive, more than one
impulse in the mind of the poet, and must admit of more than one inter
pretation. I have here attempted to interpret only the most profound group
of impulses in the mind of the creative poet. The conception of the Hamlet
problem contained in these remarks has been later confirmed in a detailed
work based on many new arguments by Dr. Ernest Jones, of Toronto
(Canada). The connection of the Hamlet material with the " Mythus von
der Geburt des Helden " has also been demonstrated by O. Rank.-" The
Oedipus Complex as an Explanation of Hamlet's Mystery : a Study in Motive "
(American Journal of Psychology, January 1910, vol. xxi.).
Р
226 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of their significance for the theory of the dream in general .

These dreams show us a realisation of the very unusual case
where the dream thought, which has been created by the
repressed wish, completely escapes the censor, and is transferred
to the dream without alteration . There must be present
peculiar conditions making possible such an outcome. I find
circumstances favourable to these dreams in the two following
factors : First , there is no wish which we believe further from
us ; we believe such a wish " would never occur to us in a
dream " ; the dream censor is therefore not prepared for this
monstrosity, just as the legislation of Solon was incapable of
establishing a punishment for patricide . Secondly, the re
pressed and unsuspected wish is in just this case particularly
often met by a fragment of the day's experience in the shape
of a concern about the life of the beloved person . This con
cern cannot be registered in the dream by any other means
than by taking advantage of the wish that has the same
content ; but it is possible for the wish to mask itself behind
the concern which has been awakened during the day. If one
is inclined to think all this a more simple process , and that
one merely continues during the night and in dreams what
one has been concerned with during the day, the dream of the
death of beloved persons is removed from all connection with
dream explanation, and an easily reducible problem is uselessly
retained .
It is also instructive to trace the relation of these dreams to
anxiety dreams . In the dream of the death of dear persons
the repressed wish has found a way of avoiding the censor ,
and the distortion which it causes . In this case the inevitable
concomitant manifestation is that disagreeable sensations are
felt in the dream. Thus the dream of fear is brought about
only when the censor is entirely or partially overpowered,
and, on the other hand, the overpowering of the censor is made
easier when fear has already been furnished by somatic sources .
Thus it becomes obvious for what purpose the censor performs
its office and practises dream distortion ; it does this in order
to prevent the development of fear or other forms of disagreeable
emotion.
I have spoken above of the egotism of the infantile mind,
and I may now resume this subject in order to suggest that
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 227

dreams preserve this characteristic-thus showing their con

nection with infantile life. Every dream is absolutely egotis
tical ; in every dream the beloved ego appears, even though it
may be in a disguised form . The wishes that are realised in
dreams are regularly the wishes of this ego ; it is only a de
ceptive appearance if interest in another person is thought to
have caused the dream. I shall subject to analysis several
examples which appear to contradict this assertion .
I. A boy not yet four years old relates the following : He
saw a large dish garnished, and upon it a large piece of roast meat,
and the meat was all of a sudden- not cut to pieces—but eaten up.
He did not see the person who ate it.*
Who may this strange person be of whose luxurious repast
this little fellow dreams ? The experiences of the day must
give us the explanation of this. For a few days the boy had
been living on a diet of milk according to the doctor's pre
scription ; but on the evening of the day before the dream he
had been naughty, and as a punishment he had been deprived of
his evening meal. He had already undergone one such hunger
cure, and had acted very bravely. He knew that he would get
nothing to eat, but he did not dare to indicate by a word that
he was hungry. Education was beginning to have its influence
upon him ; this is expressed even in the dream which shows
the beginnings of dream disfigurement. There is no doubt
that he himself is the person whose wishes are directed toward
this abundant meal, and a meal of roast meat at that. But
since he knows that this is forbidden him, he does not dare, as
children do in the dream (cf. the dream about strawberries of
my little Anna, p. 110) , to sit down to the meal himself. The
person remains anonymous.
II. Once I dream that I see on the show-table of a book
store a new number in the Book-lovers' Collection- the collec
tion which I am in the habit of buying (art monographs, mono
graphs on the history of the world, famous art centres, & c.).
* Likewise, anything large, over-abundant, enormous, and exaggerated,
may be a childish characteristic. The child knows no more intense wish
than to become big, and to receive as much of everything as grown-ups ; the
child is hard to satisfy ; it knows no enough, and insatiably demands the
repetition of whatever has pleased it or tasted good to it. It learns to
practise moderation, to be modest and resigned, only through culture and
education. As is well known, the neurotic is also inclined toward im
moderation and excess.
228 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

The new collection is called Famous Orators (or Orations), and

the first number bears the name of Doctor Lecher.
In the course of analysis it appears improbable that the
fame of Dr. Lecher, the long-winded orator of the German
Opposition, should occupy my thoughts while I am dreaming.
The fact is that, a few days before, I undertook the psychic
cure of some new patients, and was now forced to talk for
from ten to twelve hours a day. Thus I myself am the long
winded orator.
III. Upon another occasion I dream that a teacher of my
acquaintance at the university says : My son, the Myopic.
Then there follows a dialogue consisting of short speeches and
replies . A third portion of the dream follows in which I and
my sons appear, and as far as the latent dream content is
concerned, father , son , and Professor M. are alike only lay
figures to represent me and my eldest son. I shall consider
this dream again further on because of another peculiarity.
IV. The following dream gives an example of really base
egotistical feelings, which are concealed behind affectionate
concern :
My friend Otto looks ill, his face is brown and his eyes bulge.
Otto is my family physician , to whom I owe a debt greater
than I can ever hope to repay, since he has guarded the health
of my children for years. He has treated them successfully
when they were taken sick, and besides that he has given them
presents on all occasions which gave him any excuse for doing
So. He came for a visit on the day of the dream , and my
wife noticed that he looked tired and exhausted . Then comes
my dream at night, and attributes to him a few of the symptoms
of Basedow's disease. Any one disregarding my rules for
dream interpretation would understand this dream to mean
that I am concerned about the health of my friend, and that
this concern is realised in the dream. It would thus be a
contradiction not only of the assertion that the dream is a
wish-fulfilment, but also of the assertion that it is accessible
only to egotistic impulses. But let the person who interprets
the dream in this manner explain to me why I fear that Otto
has Basedow's disease, for which diagnosis his appearance
does not give the slightest justification ? As opposed to this,
my analysis furnishes the following material, taken from an
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 229

occurrence which happened six years ago. A small party of

us, including Professor R. , were driving in profound darkness
through the forest of N., which is several hours distant from
our country home. The coachman, who was not quite sober,
threw us and the wagon down a bank, and it was only by a
lucky accident that we all escaped unhurt. But we were
forced to spend the night at the nearest inn, where the news of
our accident awakened great sympathy. A gentleman, who
showed unmistakable signs of the morbus Basedowii-nothing
but a brownish colour of the skin of the face and bulging eyes,
no goitre placed himself entirely at our disposal and asked
what he could do for us . Professor R. answered in his decided
way : “ Nothing but lend me a night-shirt ." Whereupon our
generous friend replied : " I am sorry but I cannot do that ,"
and went away.
In continuing the analysis, it occurs to me that Basedow
is the name not only of a physician, but also of a famous
educator. (Now that I am awake I do not feel quite sure of
this fact . ) My friend Otto is the person whom I have asked
to take charge of the physical education of my children
especially during the age of puberty (hence the night-shirt )—
in case anything should happen to me. By seeing Otto in
the dream with the morbid symptoms of our above-mentioned
generous benefactor, I apparently mean to say, " If anything
happens to me, just as little is to be expected for my children
from him as was to be expected then from Baron L. , in spite of
his well-meaning offers ." The egotistical turn of this dream
ought now to be clear. *
But where is the wish-fulfilment to be found ? It is not
in the vengeance secured upon my friend Otto , whose fate it
seems to be to receive ill-treatment in my dreams, but in the
following circumstances : In representing Otto in the dream
as Baron L., I have at the same time identified myself with
some one else, that is to say, with Professor R. , for I have asked
something of Otto, just as R. asked something of Baron L.

* While Dr. Jones was delivering a lecture before an American scientific

society, and speaking of egotism in dreams, a learned lady took exception
to this unscientific generalisation. She thought that the lecturer could only
pronounce such judgment on the dreams of Austrians, and had no right to
include the dreams of Americans. As for herself she was sure that all her
dreams were strictly altruistic.
230 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

at the time of the occurrence which has been mentioned . And

that is the point. For Professor R. has pursued his way
independently outside the schools , somewhat as I have done,
and has only in later years received the title which he earned
long ago. I am therefore again wishing to be a professor !
The very phrase " in later years " is the fulfilment of wish,
for it signifies that I shall live long enough to pilot my boy
through the age of puberty myself.

I gave only a brief account of the other forms of typical

dreams in the first edition of this book, because an insufficient
amount of good material was at my disposal. My experience,
which has since been increased, now makes it possible for me
to divide these dreams into two broad classes-first , those
which really have the same meaning every time, and secondly,
those which must be subjected to the most widely different
interpretations in spite of their identical or similar content .
Among the typical dreams of the first sort I shall closely
consider the examination dream and the so-called dream of
dental irritation .
Every one who has received his degree after having passed
the final college examination , complains of the ruthlessness
with which he is pursued by the anxiety dream that he will
fail, that he must repeat his work, &c . For the holder of the
university degree this typical dream is replaced by another ,
which represents to him that he has to pass the examination
for the doctor's degree, and against which he vainly raises the
objection in his sleep that he has already been practising for
years that he is already a university instructor or the head
of a law firm . These are the ineradicable memories of the
punishments which we suffered when we were children for
misdeeds which we had committed-memories which were
revived in us on that dies irae, dies illa of the severe exami
nation at the two critical junctures in our studies . The
"examination-phobia " of neurotics is also strengthened by
this childish fear. After we have ceased to be schoolboys it
is no longer our parents and guardians as at first, or our
teachers as later on , who see to our punishment ; the inexorable
chain of causes and effects in life has taken over our further
education . Now we dream of examinations for graduation
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 231

or for the doctor's degree-and who has not been faint-hearted

in these tests, even though he belonged to the righteous ?
whenever we fear that an outcome will punish us because we
have not done something, or because we have not accomplished
something as we should- in short whenever we feel the weight
of responsibility.
I owe the actual explanation of examination dreams to a
remark made by a well-informed colleague, who once asserted
in a scientific discussion that in his experience the examination
dream occurs only to persons who have passed the examina
tion, never to those who have gone to pieces on it. The
anxiety dream of the examination , which occurs, as is being
more and more corroborated, when the dreamer is looking
forward to a responsible action on his part the next day and
the possibility of disgrace, has therefore probably selected
an occasion in the past where the great anxiety has shown
itself to have been without justification and has been contra
dicted by the result. This would be a very striking example
of a misconception of the dream content on the part of the
waking instance . The objection to the dream, which is con
66
ceived as the indignant protest , But I am already a
doctor," &c. , would be in reality a consolation which the
dreams offer, and which would therefore be to the following
effect : " Do not be afraid of the morrow ; think of the fear
which you had before the final examination , and yet nothing
""
came of it. You are a doctor this minute,' &c. The fear,
however, which we attribute to the dream, originates in the
remnants of daily experience.
The tests of this explanation which I was able to make in
my own case and in that of others , although they were not
sufficiently numerous, have been altogether successful . I
failed , for example, in the examination for the doctor's degree
in legal medicine ; never once have I been concerned about
this matter in my dreams, while I have often enough been
examined in botany, zoology, or chemistry, in which subjects
I took the examinations with well-founded anxiety, but
escaped punishment through the clemency of fortune or of
the examiner. In my dreams of college examination , I am
regularly examined in history, a subject which I passed
brilliantly at the time, but only, I must admit, because my
232 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

good-natured professor-my one-eyed benefactor in another

dream (cf. p . 12 )-did not overlook the fact that on the list
of questions I had crossed out the second of three questions
as an indication that he should not insist on it. One of my
patients, who withdrew before the final college examinations
and made them up later, but who failed in the officer's exami
nation and did not become an officer, tells me that he dreams
about the former examination often enough, but never about
the latter.
The above-mentioned colleague (Dr. Stekel of Vienna )
calls attention to the double meaning of the word " Matura "
(Matura-examination for college degree : mature, ripe) , and
claims that he has observed that examination dreams occur
very frequently when a sexual test is set for the following day,
in which, therefore, the disgrace which is feared might consist
in the manifestation of slight potency. A German colleague
takes exception to this, as it appears , justly, on the ground
that this examination is denominated in Germany the Abiturium
and hence lacks this double meaning.
On account of their similar affective impression dreams of
missing a train deserve to be placed next to examination
dreams . Their explanation also justifies this relationship .
They are consolation dreams directed against another feeling
of fear perceived in the dream, the fear of dying. " To
depart " is one of the most frequent and one of the most easily
reached symbols of death. The dream thus says consolingly :
66
Compose yourself, you are not going to die (to depart)," just
as the examination dream calms us by saying " Fear not ,
nothing will happen to you even this time." The difficulty
in understanding both kinds of dreams is due to the fact that
the feeling of anxiety is directly connected with the expression
of consolation . Stekel treats fully the symbolisms of death
in his recently published book Die Sprache des Traumes.
The meaning of the " dreams of dental irritation," which
I have had to analyse often enough with my patients ,
escaped me for a long time, because, much to my astonishment ,
resistances that were altogether too great obstructed their
interpretation .
At last overwhelming evidence convinced me that, in the
case of men, nothing else than cravings for masturbation from
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 233

the time of puberty furnishes the motive power for these

dreams . I shall analyse two such dreams, one of which is
likewise " a dream of flight ." The two dreams are of the
same person-a young man with a strong homosexuality,
which, however, has been repressed in life.
He is witnessing a performance of Fidelio from the parquette
of the opera house ; he is sitting next to L. , whose personality is
congenial to him, and whose friendship he would like to have.
He suddenly flies diagonally clear across the parquette ; he
then puts his hand in his mouth and draws out two of his
teeth.
He himself describes the flight by saying it was as if he
were " thrown " into the air. As it was a performance of
Fidelio he recalls the poet's words :
""
" He who a charming wife acquired

But even the acquisition of a charming wife is not among the

wishes of the dreamer. Two other verses would be more
appropriate :
" He who succeeds in the lucky (big) throw,
"}
A friend of a friend to be ...

The dream thus contains the " lucky (big) throw," which
is not, however, a wish-fulfilment only. It also conceals the
painful reflection that in his striving after friendship he has
often had the misfortune to be " thrown down," and the fear
lest this fate may be repeated in the case of the young
man next whom he has enjoyed the performance of Fidelio.
This is now followed by a confession which quite puts this
refined dreamer to shame, to the effect that once, after such
a rejection on the part of a friend , out of burning desire he
merged into sexual excitement and masturbated twice in
succession.
The other dream is as follows : Two professors of the uni
versity who are known to him are treating him in my stead. One
of them does something with his penis ; he fears an operation .
The other one thrusts an iron bar at his mouth so that he loses
two teeth. He is bound with four silken cloths.
The sexual significance of this dream can hardly be doubted .
The silken cloths are equivalent to an identification with a
234 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

homosexual of his acquaintance. The dreamer, who has never

achieved coition , but who has never actually sought sexual
intercourse with men, conceives sexual intercourse after the
model of the masturbation which he was once taught during
the time of puberty .
I believe that the frequent modifications of the typical
dream of dental irritation-that, for example, of another
person drawing the tooth from the dreamer's mouth, are made
intelligible by means of the same explanation. It may,
""
however, be difficult to see how " dental irritation can come
to have this significance. I may then call attention to a
transference from below to above which occurs very frequently.
This transference is at the service of sexual repression , and
by means of it all kinds of sensations and intentions occurring
in hysteria which ought to be enacted in the genitals can be
realised upon less objectionable parts of the body. It is also
a case of such transference when the genitals are replaced by
the face in the symbolism of unconscious thought. This is
assisted by the fact that the buttocks resemble the cheeks, and
also by the usage of language which calls the nymphæ " lips, "
as resembling those that enclose the opening of the mouth .
The nose is compared to the penis in numerous allusions, and
in one place as in the other the presence of hair completes the
resemblance . Only one part of the anatomy-the teeth
are beyond all possibility of being compared with anything,
and it is just this coincidence of agreement and disagreement
which makes the teeth suitable for representation under
pressure of sexual repression .
I do not wish to claim that the interpretation of the dream
of dental irritation as a dream of masturbation, the justifica
tion of which I cannot doubt, has been freed of all obscurity. *
I carry the explanation as far as I am able, and must leave the
rest unsolved . But I must also refer to another connection
revealed by an idiomatic expression. In our country there is
in use an indelicate designation for the act of masturbation ,
namely : To pull one out, or to pull one down.† I am unable
to say whence these colloquialisms originate, and on what

* According to C. G. Jung, dreams of dental irritation in the case of

women have the significance of parturition dreams.
† Cf. the " biographic " dream on p. 235.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 235

symbolisms they are based, but the teeth would well fit in
with the first of the two . *
Dreams in which one is flying or hovering, falling, swimming,
or the like, belong to the second group of typical dreams . What
do these dreams signify ? A general statement on this point
cannot be made. They signify something different in each case,

As the dreams of pulling teeth, and teeth falling out, are interpreted
in popular belief to mean the death of a close friend, and as psychoanalysis
can at most only admit of such a meaning in the above indicated parodical
sense, I insert here a dream of dental irritation placed at my disposal by
Otto Rank 109.
"Upon the subject of dreams of dental irritation I have received the
following report from a colleague who has for some time taken a lively
interest in the problems of dream interpretation :
I recently dreamed that I went to the dentist who drilled out one of my back
teeth in the lower jaw. He worked so long at it that the tooth became useless. He
then grasped it with the forceps, and pulled it out with such perfect ease that it
astonished me. He said that I should not care about it, as this was not really the
tooth that had been treated ; and he put it on the table where the tooth (as it seems
to me now an upper incisor) fell apart into many strata. I arose from the
operating chair, stepped inquisitively nearer, and, full of interest, put a medical
question. While the doctor separated the individual pieces of the strikingly white
tooth and ground them up (pulverised them) with an instrument, he explained
to me that this had some connection with puberty, and that the teeth come out so
easily only before puberty ; the decisive moment for this in women is the birth of
a child. I then noticed (as I believe half awake) that this dream was accompanied
by a pollution which I cannot however definitely place at a particular point in
the dream ; I am inclined to think that it began with the pulling out of the
tooth.
Ithen continued to dream something which I can no longer remember, which
ended with the fact that I had left my hat and coat somewhere (perhaps at the
dentist's), hoping that they would be brought after me, and dressed only in my
overcoat I hastened to catch a departing train. I succeeded at the last moment
in jumping upon the last car, where someone was already standing. I could not,
however, get inside the car, but was compelled to make the journey in an un
comfortable position, from which I attempted to escape with final success. We
journeyed through a long tunnel, in which two trains from the opposite direction
passed through our own train as if it were a tunnel. I looked in as from the
outside through a car window.
As material for the interpretation of this dream, we obtained the follow
ing experiences and thoughts of the dreamer :
I. For a short time I had actually been under dental treatment, and at
the time of the dream I was suffering from continual pains in the tooth of
my lower jaw, which was drilled out in the dream , and on which the dentist
had in fact worked longer than I liked . On the forenoon of the day of the
dream I had again gone to the doctor's on account of the pain, and he had
suggested that I should allow him to pull out another tooth than the one
treated in the same jaw, from which the pain probably came. It was a
wisdom tooth ' which was just breaking through. On this occasion, and
in this connection, I had put a question to his conscience as a physician.
II. On the afternoon of the same day I was obliged to excuse myself to
a lady for my irritable disposition on account of the toothache, upon which
236 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

as we shall hear only the sensational material which they

contain always comes from the same source.
It is necessary to conclude, from the material obtained in
psychoanalysis , that these dreams repeat impressions from
childhood- that is, that they refer to the movement games
which have such extraordinary attractions for the child. What

she told me that she was afraid to have one of her roots pulled , though the
crown was almost completely gone. She thought that the pulling out of
eye teeth was especially painful and dangerous, although some acquaintance
had told her that this was much easier when it was a tooth of the lower
jaw. It was such a tooth in her case. The same acquaintance also told her
that while under an anesthetic one of her false teeth had been pulled-a
statement which increased her fear of the necessary operation. She then
asked me whether by eye teeth one was to understand molars or canines,
and what was known about them. I then called her attention to the vein
of superstitions in all these meanings, without however, emphasising the
real significance of some of the popular views. She knew from her own
experience, a very old and general popular belief, according to which if a
pregnant woman has toothache she will give birth to a boy.
III. This saying interested me in its relation to the typical significance
of dreams of dental irritation as a substitute for onanism as maintained by
Freud in his Traumdeutung (2nd edition, p. 193), for the teeth and the male
genital (Bub-boy) are brought in certain relations even in the popular
saying. On the evening of the same day I therefore read the passage in
question in the Traumdeutung, and found there among other things the
statements which will be quoted in a moment, the influence of which on my
dream is as plainly recognisable as the influence of the two above-mentioned
experiences. Freud writes concerning dreams of dental irritation that ' in
the case of men nothing else than cravings for masturbation from the time
of puberty furnishes the motive power for these dreams,' p . 193. Further,
' I am of the opinion that the frequent modifications of the typical dream
of dental irritation- that e.g. of another person drawing the tooth from the
dreamer's mouth-are made intelligible by means of the same explanation.
It may seem problematic, however, how " dental irritation " can arrive at this
significance. I here call attention to the transference from below to above
(in the dream in question from the lower to the upper jaw), which occurs
so frequently, which is at the service of sexual repression, and by means of
which all kinds of sensations and intentions occurring in hysteria which
ought to be enacted in the genitals can be realised upon less objectionable
parts of the body,' p. 194. ' But I must also refer to another connection
contained in an idiomatic expression. In our country there is in use an
indelicate designation for the act of masturbation, namely : To pull one out,
or to pull one down,' p. 195, 2nd edition. This expression had been familiar
to me in early youth as a designation for onanism , and from here on it will
not be difficult for the experienced dream interpreter to get access to the
infantile material which may lie at the basis of this dream. I only wish
to add that the facility with which the tooth in the dream came out, and
the fact that it became transformed after coming out into an upper incisor,
recalls to me an experience of childhood when I myself easily and painlessly
pulled out one of my wobbling front teeth. This episode, which I can still
to this day distinctly remember with all its details, happened at the same
early period in which my first conscious attempts at onanism began
(Concealing Memory) .
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 237

uncle has never made a child fly by running across the room
with it with arms outstretched, or has never played falling
with it by rocking it on his knee and then suddenly stretching
out his leg, or by lifting it up high and then pretending to
withdraw support. At this the children shout with joy, and
demand more untiringly, especially if there is a little fright

The reference of Freud to an assertion of C. G. Jung that dreams of

dental irritation in women signify parturition (footnote p. 194), together
with the popular belief in the significance of toothache in pregnant women,
has established an opposition between the feminine significance and the
masculine (puberty). In this connection I recall an earlier dream which I
dreamed soon after I was discharged by the dentist after the treatment, that
the gold crowns which had just been put in fell out, whereupon I was greatly
chagrined in the dream on account of the considerable expense, concerning
which I had not yet stopped worrying. In view of a certain experience this
dream now becomes comprehensible as a commendation of the material
advantages of masturbation when contrasted with every form of the economi
cally less advantageous object-love (gold crowns are also Austrian gold
coins).
Theoretically this case seems to show a double interest. First it verifies
the connection revealed by Freud, inasmuch as the ejaculation in the dream
takes place during the act of tooth-pulling. For no matter in what form
a pollution may appear, we areobliged to look upon it as a masturbatic
gratification which takes place without the help of mechanical excitation.
Moreover the gratification by pollution in this case does not take place, as is
usually the case, through an imaginary object, but it is without an object ;
and, if one may be allowed to say so, it is purely autoerotic, or at most it
perhaps shows a slight homosexual thread (the dentist).
The second point which seems to be worth mentioning is the following :
The objection is quite obvious that we are seeking here to validate the
Freudian conception in a quite superfluous manner, for the experiences of
the reading itself are perfectly sufficient to explain to us the content of the
dream. The visit to the dentist, the conversation with the lady, and the
reading of the Traumdeutung are sufficient to explain why the sleeper, who
was also disturbed during the night by toothache, should dream this dream ,
it may even explain the removalof the sleep-disturbing pain ( by means of
the presentation of the removal of the painful tooth and simultaneous over
accentuation of the dreaded painful sensation through libido). But no
matter how much of this assumption we may admit, we cannot earnestly
maintain that the readings of Freud's explanations have produced in the
dreamer the connection of the tooth-pulling with the act of masturbation ;
it could not even have been made effective had it not been for the fact,
as the dreamer himself admitted (' to pull one off ' ) that this association
had already been formed long ago. What may have still more stimulated
this association in connection with the conversation with the lady is shown
by a later assertion of the dreamer that while reading the Traumdeutung he
could not, for obvious reasons, believe in this typical meaning of dreams of
dental irritation, and entertained the wish to know whether it held true for
all dreams of this nature. The dream now confirms this at least for his own
person, and shows him why he had to doubt it. The dream is therefore also
in this respect the fulfilment of a wish ; namely, to be convinced of the
importance and stability of this conception of Freud."
238 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

and dizziness attached to it ; in after years they create a

repetition of this in the dream, but in the dream they omit
the hands which have held them, so that they now freely float
and fall . The fondness of all small children for games like
rocking and see-sawing is well known ; and if they see gym
nastic tricks at the circus their recollection of this rocking is
refreshed . With some boys the hysterical attack consists
simply in the reproduction of such tricks , which they accom
plish with great skill. Not infrequently sexual sensations are
excited by these movement games, harmless as they are in
themselves. To express the idea by a word which is current
among us, and which covers all of these matters : It is the wild
playing (" Hetzen ") of childhood which dreams about flying,
falling, vertigo, and the like repeat, and the voluptuous feelings
of which have now been turned into fear. But as every
mother knows, the wild playing of children has often enough
culminated in quarrelling and tears.
I therefore have good reason for rejecting the explanation
that the condition of our dermal sensations during sleep, the
sensations caused by the movements of the lungs , and the
like, give rise to dreams of flying and falling. I see that these
very sensations have been reproduced from the memory with
which the dream is concerned-that they are, therefore, a part
of the dream content and not of the dream sources.
This material, similar in its character and origin consisting
of sensations of motion, is now used for the representation of
the most manifold dream thoughts. Dreams of flying, for
the most part characterised by delight, require the most widely
different interpretations-altogether special interpretations in
the case of some persons, and even interpretations of a typical
nature in that of others . One of my patients was in the habit
of dreaming very often that she was suspended above the

* A young colleague, who is entirely free from nervousness, tells me in

this connection : " I know from my own experience that while swinging,
and at the moment at which the downward movement had the greatest
impetus, I used to get a curious feeling in my genitals, which I must desig
nate, although it was not really pleasant to me, as a voluptuous feeling."
I have often heard from patients that their first erections accompanied by
voluptuous sensations had occurred in boyhood while they were climbing.
It is established with complete certainty by psychoanalyses that the first
sexual impulses have often originated in the scufflings and wrestlings of
childhood.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 239

street at a certain height, without touching the ground. She

had grown only to a very small stature, and shunned every
kind of contamination which accompanies intercourse with
human beings . Her dream of suspension fulfilled both of her
wishes, by raising her feet from the ground and by allowing her
head to tower in the upper regions. In the case of other
female dreamers the dream of flying had the significance of a
longing : If I were a little bird ; others thus become angels
at night because they have missed being called that by day.
The intimate connection between flying and the idea of a bird
makes it comprehensible that the dream of flying in the case
of men usually has a significance of coarse sensuality . * We
shall also not be surprised to hear that this or that dreamer is
always very proud of his ability to fly.
Dr. Paul Federn (Vienna) has propounded the fascinating
theory that a great many flying dreams are erection dreams ,
since the remarkable phenomena of erection which so con
stantly occupy the human phantasy must strongly impress
upon it a notion of the suspension of gravity (cf. the winged
phalli of the ancients) .
Dreams of falling are most frequently characterised by
fear. Their interpretation, when they occur in women, is
subject to no difficulty because women always accept the
symbolic sense of falling, which is a circumlocution for the
indulgence of an erotic temptation. We have not yet ex
hausted the infantile sources of the dream of falling ; nearly
all children have fallen occasionally, and then been picked up
and fondled ; if they fell out of bed at night, they were picked
up by their nurse and taken into her bed.
People who dream often of swimming, of cleaving the waves,
with great enjoyment, &c., have usually been persons who
wetted their beds, and they now repeat in the dream a pleasure
which they have long since learned to forgo . We shall soon
learn from one example or another to what representation the
dreams of swimming easily lend themselves .
The interpretation of dreams about fire justifies a pro
hibition of the nursery which forbids children to burn matches
in order that they may not wet the bed at night . They too are

* This naturally holds true only for German-speaking dreamers who are
acquainted with the vulgarism " vögeln."
240 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

based on the reminiscence of enuresis nocturnus of childhood .

In the Bruchstück einer Hysterieanalyse, 1905, * I have given
the complete analysis and synthesis of such a fire-dream in
connection with the infantile history of the dreamer, and have
shown to the representation of what emotions this infantile
material has been utilised in maturer years.
It would be possible to cite a considerable number of other
66
typical " dreams, if these are understood to refer to the
frequent recurrence of the same manifest dream content in
the case of different dreamers, as, for example : dreams of
passing through narrow alleys, of walking through a whole
suite of rooms ; dreams of the nocturnal burglar against whom
nervous people direct precautionary measures before going to
sleep ; dreams of being chased by wild animals (bulls , horses) ,
or of being threatened with knives , daggers, and lances . The
last two are characteristic as the manifest dream content of
persons suffering from anxiety, & c. An investigation dealing
especially with this material would be well worth while. In
lieu of this I have two remarks to offer, which, however, do not
apply exclusively to typical dreams .
I. 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 analyses
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 recognise 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 com
ponents ,† 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

Sammlung kl. Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, zweite Folge, 1909.

Cf. the author's Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory, translated by
A. A. Brill.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 241

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 inter
pretation that they are even to be taken bisexually, inasmuch as
they result in an irrefutable secondary interpretation in which
they realise 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, as main
tained by W. Stekel, * and Alf. Adler, † seems to me to be a
generalisation 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
66
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.
Anyone 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

* W. Stekel, Die Sprache des Traumes, 1911 .

+ Alf. Adler, " Der Psychische Hermaphroditismus im Leben und in der
Neurose," Fortschrifte der Medizin, 1910, No. 16, and later works in the
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, 1 , 1910–1911.
242 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

commonest sexual symbolism, and will easily find in this

dream a representation of attempted coition from behind
(between the two stately buttocks of the female body) . The
narrow slanting passage is of course the vagina ; the assistance
attributed to the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation
that in reality it is only consideration for the wife which is
responsible for the detention from such an attempt . Moreover ,
inquiry shows that on the previous day a young girl had entered
the household of the dreamer who had pleased him, and who
had given him the impression that she would not be altogether
opposed to an approach of this sort . The little house between
the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin
in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of
that city.
If with my patients I emphasise 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

* I have published a typical example of such a veiled Oedipus dream in

No. 1 of the Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse ; another with a detailed analysis
was reported in the same journal, No. IV., by Otto Rank. Indeed the
ancients were not unfamiliar with the symbolic interpretation of the open
Oedipus dream (see O. Rank, 106 p. 534) ; thus a dream of sexual relations
with the mother has been transmitted to us by Julius Caesar which the
oneiroscopists interpreted as a favourable omen for taking possession of the
earth (Mother-earth) . It is also known that the oracle declared to the
Tarquinii that that one of them would become ruler of Rome who should
first kiss the mother (osculum matri tulerit), which Brutus conceived as
referring to the mother-earth (terram osculo contigit, scilicet quod ea communia
mater omnium mortalium esset, Livius, I., Ixi. ). These myths and interpreta
tions point to a correct psychological knowledge. I have found that persons
who consider themselves preferred or favoured by their mothers manifest
in life that confidence in themselves and that firm optimism which often
seems heroic and brings about real success by force.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 243

certainty of no other locality that one " has been there

before."
A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are con
cerned 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 im
pression. 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 treat
ment.
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 inter
pretation 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 recognised
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 recognises 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
244 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

a very bashful allusion to the wish to become a mother

herself. *
Another dream of parturition , with its interpretation, I
66
take from the work of E. Jones.95 She stood at the seashore
watching a small boy, who seemed to be hers, wading into the
water. This he did till the water covered him, and she could only
see his head bobbing up and down near the surface. The scene
then changed to the crowded hall of a hotel. Her husband left
6
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 inti
mate 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 cor
responded 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 .

It is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies

and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain the ex
planation 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 offear.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 245

Another parturition dream is related by Abraham " of a

young woman looking forward to her first confinement (p. 22) :
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.
II. 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 folk
lore, in the myths , legends, and manners of speech, in the

* For such a dream see Pfister : " Ein Fall von Psychanalytischer Seelen
sorge und Seelenheilung," Evangelische Freiheit, 1909. Concerning the symbol
of saving" see my lecture, " Die Zukünftigen Chancen der psychoanaly
tischen Therapie," Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, No I. , 1910. Also " Beit
räge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens, I. Ueber einen besonderen Typus der
objektwahl beim Manne," Jahrbuch, Bleuler-Freud, vol. ii., 1910.
246 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

proverbial sayings, and in the current witticisms of a nation

than in its dreams. *
The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in order to
give a disguised representation to its latent thoughts . Among
the symbols which are used in this manner there are of course
many which regularly, or almost regularly, mean the same thing.
Only it is necessary to keep in mind the curious plasticity of
psychic material. Now and then a symbol in the dream content
may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according to
its real meaning ; at another time the dreamer , owing to a
peculiar set of recollections, may create for himself the right to
use anything whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not
ordinarily used in that way. Nor are the most frequently
used sexual symbols unambiguous every time.
After these limitations and reservations I may call attention
to the following : Emperor and Empress (King and Queen ) in
most cases really represent the parents of the dreamer ; †
the dreamer himself or herself is the prince or princess . All
elongated objects , sticks , tree-trunks, and umbrellas (on account
of the stretching-up which might be compared to an erection !
all elongated and sharp weapons, knives , daggers, and pikes ,
are intended to represent the male member. A frequent, not
very intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account
of the rubbing and scraping ? ) . Little cases, boxes, caskets ,
closets, and stoves correspond to the female part . The sym
bolism 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 down
wards , are symbolic representations of the sexual act . Smooth
Cf. the works of Bleuler and of his pupils Maeder, Abraham, and
others of the Zurich school upon symbolism, and of those authors who are
not physicians ( Kleinpaul and others), to which they refer.
f In this country the President, the Governor, and the Mayor often
represent the father in the dream. (Translator. )
I may here repeat what I have said in another place (" Die Zukünf
tigen Chancen der psychoanalytischen Therapie," Zentralblatt für Psycho
analyse, I., No. 1 and 2, 1910) : " Some time ago I learned that a psychologist
who is unfamiliar with our work remarked to one of my friends that we are
surely over-estimating the secret sexual significance of dreams. He stated
that his most frequent dream was of climbing a stairway, and that there
was surely nothing sexual behind this. Our attention having been called
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 247

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 descrip
tion 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 recognised as descriptions of the genitals . Finally
where one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may think
of combinations made up of components having a sexual

to this objection, we directed our investigations to the occurrence of stair

ways, stairs, and ladders in the dream, and we soon ascertained that stairs
(or anything analogous to them) represent a definite symbol of coitus. The
basis for this comparison is not difficult to find ; under rhythmic intervals
and with increasing difficulty in breathing one reaches to a height, and may
come down again in a few rapid jumps. Thus the rhythm of coitus is re
cognisable in climbing stairs. Let us not forget to consider the usage of
language . It shows us that the " climbing " or " mounting " is, without
further addition, used as a substitutive designation of the sexual act. In
French the step of the stairway is called " la marche " ; " un vieux marcheur "
corresponds exactly to our 66 an old climber."
* In this country where the word " necktie " is almost exclusively used,
the translator has also found it to be a symbol of a burdensome woman
from whom the dreamer longs to be freed " necktie-something tied to my
neck like a heavy weight-my fiancée," are the associations from the dream
of a man who eventually broke his marriage engagement.
248 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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,
utilisation 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, 114 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 " (l.c. , p . 466 ) . Relatives in the
dream generally play the rôle of genitals (p . 473 ) . 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 (p . 479) .
Baggage with which one travels is the burden of sin by which
one is oppressed (ibid. ). 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 recognised as probable . In
a recently published book by W. Stekel, Die Sprache des
Traumes, which I was unable to utilise, there is a list (p . 72)
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
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 249

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, boxes, 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 uncon
scious fancy to utilise the sexual symbol bisexually betrays
an archaic trend , for in childhood a difference in the genitals
is unknown, and the same genitals are attributed to both
sexes.
These very incomplete suggestions may suffice to stimulate
others to make a more careful collection .*
I shall now add a few examples of the application of such
symbolisms in dreams, which will serve to show how im
possible it becomes to interpret a dream without taking into
account the symbolism of dreams, and how imperatively it
obtrudes itself in many cases.
1. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male genital) : † ✓
(a fragment from the dream of a young woman who suffered
from agoraphobia on account of a fear of temptation) .
" I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a straw hat
of peculiar shape, the middle piece of which is bent upwards
and the side pieces of which hang downwards (the description
became here obstructed), and in such a fashion that one is
lower than the other. I am cheerful and in a confidential
mood, and as I pass a troop of young officers I think to myself :
None of you can have any designs upon me."
As she could produce no associations to the hat, I said to
her : " The hat is really a male genital , with its raised middle
piece and the two downward hanging side pieces. " I inten
tionally 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

* In spite of all the differences between Scherner's conception of dream

symbolism and the one developed here, I must still assert that Scherner 58
should be recognised as the true discoverer of symbolism in dreams, and that
the experience of psychoanalysis has brought his book into honourable repute
after it had been considered fantastic for about fifty years.
+ From " Nachträge zur Traumdeutung," Zentralblattfür Psychoanalyse, I. ,
No. 5 and 6, 1911.
250 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 sanitorium 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
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 251

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 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 recognises this re
proach 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 connec
tion 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
66
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

* " Beiträge zur Traumdeutung," Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyt . und psychop.

Forsch. , Bd. I., 1909, p. 473. Here also (p. 475) a dream is reported in
which a hat with a feather standing obliquely in the middle symbolises the
(impotent) man.
252 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

in a 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 " symbolises 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 anyone 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 favourable 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 analysed 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
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 253

child with the genital, the smaller front structure is the

scrotum . In the dream his father asks him what this is all
for-that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement
of the genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs
should be turned around , and that he should be the questioner.
As such a questioning on the side of the father has never taken
place in reality, we must conceive the dream thought as a wish,
or take it conditionally, as follows : " If I had only asked my
father for sexual enlightenment ." The continuation of this
thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be
conceived symbolically in the first instance, but originates
from his father's place of business . For discretionary reasons
I have inserted the tin for another material in which the father
deals , without, however, changing anything in the verbal ex
pression 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 con
tinuation 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 (see above, p. 234) , 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 . *
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
* Cf. Zentralblattfür psychoanalyse, I.
254 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 symbolised 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 someone broke into the house and anxiously
called for a policeman. But he went with two tramps by
mutual consent into a church, * to which led a great many
stairs ; behind the church there was a mountain, on top of
which a dense forest.§ The policeman was furnished with a
helmet, a gorget , and a cloak. The two vagrants, who went
along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their
loins sack-like aprons . 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 in
debted to the same colleague who furnished us with the
dental-irritation dream reported on p. 235.
" I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after
a little girl, whom I wish to punish because she has done some
thing 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 practise 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

* Or chapel -vagina.
† Symbol of coitus. Mons veneris. § Crines pubis.
Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of
a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature.
The two halves of the scrotum .
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 255

sideways. During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and
above me (also as if in the air ) two small pictures, landscapes ,
representing a house on a green . On the smaller one my
surname stood in the place where the painter's signature
should be ; it seemed to be intended for my birthday present .
A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that
cheaper pictures could also be obtained . I then see myself
very indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at
the foot of the stairs , and I am awakened by a feeling of
dampness which came from the pollution ."
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on
the evening of the day of the dream, where, while he was wait
ing, 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 allu
sion 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 utilised 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
256 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 neighbouring children ,
in which he satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual sym
bolism that in the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost
regularly symbolises coitus, the dream becomes clear. Its
motive power as well as its effect, as is shown by the pollu
tion, 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 stair
way) . Up to this point the dream would be one of pure
sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpractised 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
utilisation of the stairway symbolism, and this dream especi
ally 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 " Weibs
bilder " (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).
See Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse , vol. i ., p. 2.
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 257

The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees him

self 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 pleasur
able scenes of bed-wetting.

6. A modified stair-dream.

To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer,

whose fancy was fixed on his mother , and who repeatedly
dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once
remarked that moderate masturbation would be less harmful
to him than enforced abstinence. This influence provoked
the following dream :
" His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano
playing, and for not practising 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 phenylmagnesiumbromid ; 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
R
 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 (syn
thesis) 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 over-sleep and to remain
 THE MATERIAL OF DREAMS 259

with his usual sexual objects (that is , with masturbation)

corresponds with his resistance.
In relation to the repetition of the name phenyl, he gives
the following thoughts : All these radicals ending in yl have
always been pleasing to him ; they are very convenient to
use : benzyl, azetyl, &c . That , however, explained nothing.
But when I proposed the radical Schlemihl * he laughed
heartily, and related that during the summer he had read a
book by Prévost which contained a chapter : " Les exclus de
l'amour," the description in which made him think of the
Schlemihls , and he added, " That is my case." He would
have again acted the Schlemihl if he had missed the rendezvous .

* This Hebrew word is well known in German-speaking countries, even

among non-Jews, and signifies an unlucky, awkward person. (Translator.)
 VI

THE DREAM-WORK

ALL previous attempts to solve the problems of the dream

have been based directly upon the manifest dream content
as it is retained in the memory, and have undertaken to obtain
an interpretation of the dream from this content, or, if inter
pretation was dispensed with, to base a judgment of the dream
upon the evidence furnished by this content. We alone are in
possession of new data ; for us a new psychic material inter
venes between the dream content and the results of our
investigations and this is the latent dream content or the
dream thoughts which are obtained by our method . We
develop a solution of the dream from this latter, and not
from the manifest dream content. We are also confronted
for the first time with a problem which has not before existed ,
that of examining and tracing the relations between the latent
dream thoughts and the manifest dream content, and the
processes through which the former have grown into the
latter.
We regard the dream thoughts and the dream content as
two representations of the same meaning in two different
languages ; or to express it better, the dream content appears
to us as a translation of the dream thoughts into another form
of expression , whose signs and laws of composition we are to
learn by comparing the original with the translation . The
dream thoughts are at once intelligible to us as soon as we
have ascertained them. The dream content is, as it were,
presented in a picture-writing, whose signs are to be trans
lated one by one into the language of the dream thoughts .
It would of course be incorrect to try to read these signs
according to their values as pictures instead of according to
their significance as signs. For instance, I have before me a
picture-puzzle (rebus ) : a house, upon whose roof there
is a boat ; then a running figure whose head has been
260
 THE DREAM-WORK 261

apostrophised away, and the like. I might now be tempted

as a critic to consider this composition and its elements non
sensical. A boat does not belong on the roof of a house and
a person without a head cannot run ; the person, too, is larger
than the house, and if the whole thing is to represent a land
scape, the single letters of the alphabet do not fit into it, for
of course they do not occur in pure nature. A correct judg
ment of the picture-puzzle results only if I make no such
objections to the whole and its parts, but if, on the contrary,
I take pains to replace each picture by the syllable or word
which it is capable of representing by means of any sort of
reference, the words which are thus brought together are no
longer meaningless, but may constitute a most beautiful and
sensible expression. Now the dream is a picture- puzzle of
this sort, and our predecessors in the field of dream inter
pretation have made the mistake of judging the rebus as an
artistic composition . As such it appears nonsensical and
worthless .

(a) The Condensation Work

The first thing which becomes clear to the investigator in

the comparison of the dream content with the dream thoughts
is that a tremendous work of condensation has taken place.
The dream is reserved , paltry, and laconic when compared
with the range and copiousness of the dream thoughts. The
dream when written down fills half a page ; the analysis , in
which the dream thoughts are contained, requires six, eight,
twelve times as much space. The ratio varies with different
dreams ; it never changes its essential meaning, as far as I
have been able to observe. As a rule the extent of the com
pression which has taken place is under-estimated , owing to
the fact that the dream thoughts which are brought to light
are considered the complete material, while continued work
of interpretation may reveal new thoughts which are con
cealed behind the dream. We have already mentioned that
one is really never sure of having interpreted a dream com
pletely ; even if the solution seems satisfying and flawless ,
it still always remains possible that there is a further meaning
which is manifested by the same dream. Thus the amount of
condensation is strictly speaking- indeterminable . An objec
262 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

tion, which at first sight seems very plausible, might be raised

against the assertion that the disproportion between dream
content and dream thought justifies the conclusion that an
abundant condensation of psychic material has taken place
in the formation of dreams . For we so often have the im
pression that we have dreamed a great deal throughout the
night and then have forgotten the greater part. The dream
which we recollect upon awakening would thus be only a
remnant of the total dream - work, which would probably
equal the dream thoughts in range if we were able to remember
the former completely. In part this is certainly true ; there
can be no mistake about the observation that the dream is
most accurately reproduced if one tries to remember it im
mediately after awakening, and that the recollection of it
becomes more and more defective towards evening . On the
other hand, it must be admitted that the impression that we
have dreamed a good deal more than we are able to reproduce
is often based upon an illusion , the cause of which will be
explained later. Moreover, the assumption of condensation
in the dream activity is not affected by the possibility of
forgetting in dreams , for it is proved by groups of ideas belong
ing to those particular parts of the dream which have remained
in the memory . If a large part of the dream has actually
been lost to memory, we are probably deprived of access to a
new series of dream thoughts . It is altogether unjustifiable
to expect that those portions of the dream which have been
lost also relate to the thoughts with which we are already
acquainted from the analysis of the portions which have been
preserved .
In view of the great number of ideas which analysis fur
nishes for each individual element of the dream content , the
chief doubt with many readers will be whether it is permissible
to count everything that subsequently comes to mind during
analysis as a part of the dream thoughts-to assume, in other
words, that all these thoughts have been active in the sleeping
state and have taken part in the formation of the dream .
Is it not more probable that thought connections are developed
in the course of analysis which did not participate in the
formation of the dream ? I can meet this doubt only con
ditionally. It is true, of course , that particular thought
 THE DREAM-WORK 263

connections first arise only during analysis ; but one may

always be sure that such new connections have been estab
lished only between thoughts which have already been con·
nected in the dream thoughts by other means ; the new
connections are, so to speak, corollaries, short circuits , which
are made possible by the existence of other more fundamental
means of connection . It must be admitted that the huge
number of trains of thought revealed by analysis have already
been active in the formation of the dream, for if a chain of
thoughts has been worked out, which seems to be without
connection with the formation of the dream, a thought is
suddenly encountered which, being represented in the dream ,
is indispensable to its interpretation- which nevertheless is
inaccessible except through that chain of thoughts . The reader
may here turn to the dream of the botanical monograph,
which is obviously the result of an astonishing condensation
activity, even though I have not given the analysis of it
completely .
But how, then, is the psychic condition during sleep which
precedes dreaming to be imagined ? Do all the dream thoughts
exist side by side, or do they occur one after another, or
are many simultaneous trains of thought constructed from
different centres, which meet later on ? I am of the opinion
that it is not yet necessary to form a plastic conception of
the psychic condition of dream formation . Only let us not
forget that we are concerned with unconscious thought, and
that the process may easily be a different one from that which
we perceive in ourselves in intentional contemplation accom
panied by consciousness .
The fact, however, that dream formation is based on a
process of condensation , stands indubitable . How, then, is
this condensation brought about ?
If it be considered that of those dream thoughts which are
found only the smallest number are represented in the dream
by means of one of its ideal elements , it might be concluded
that condensation is accomplished by means of ellipsis , in
that the dream is not an accurate translation or a projection
point by point of the dream thoughts , but a very incomplete
and defective reproduction of them. This view, as we shall
soon find, is a very inadequate one . But let us take it as a
264 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

starting point for the present , and ask ourselves : If only a

few of the elements of the dream thoughts get into the dream
content, what conditions determine their choice ?
In order to gain enlightenment on this subject let us turn
our attention to those elements of the dream content which
must have fulfilled the conditions we are seeking . A dream
to the formation of which an especially strong condensation
has contributed will be the most suitable material for this
investigation . I select the dream, cited on page 142 , of the
botanical monograph .
Dream content : I have written a monograph upon a
(obscure) certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just
turning over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the
plant is bound with every copy as though from a herbarium.
The most prominent element of this dream is the botanical
monograph. This comes from the impressions received on
the day of the dream ; I had actually seen a monograph on
the genus 66 cyclamen " in the show-window of a book-store.
The mention of this genus is lacking in the dream content,
in which only the monograph and its relation to botany have
remained . The " botanical monograph " immediately shows
its relation to the work on cocaine which I had once written ;
thought connections proceed from cocaine on the one hand
to a " Festschrift," and on the other to my friend, the eye
specialist, Dr. Koenigstein, who has had a share in the utili
sation of cocaine . Moreover, with the person of this Dr.
Koenigstein is connected the recollection of the interrupted
conversation which I had had with him on the previous
evening and of the manifold thoughts about remuneration
for medical services among colleagues . This conversation ,
then, is properly the actual stimulus of the dream ; the mono
graph about cyclamen is likewise an actuality but of an indif
ferent nature ; as I soon see , the " botanical monograph " of
the dream turns out to be a common mean between the two
experiences of the day, and to have been taken over unchanged
from an indifferent impression and bound up with the psycho
logically significant experience by means of the most abundant
associations .
Not only the combined idea, " botanical monograph,"
however, but also each of the separate elements , " botanical
 THE DREAM-WORK 265

and 66 monograph, " penetrates deeper and deeper into the

confused tangle of the dream thoughts . To " botanical "
belong the recollections of the person of Professor Gartner
(German : Gärtner = gardener), of his blooming wife, of my
patient whose name is Flora , and of a lady about whom I told
the story of the forgotten flowers. Gartner, again , is connected
with the laboratory and the conversation with Koenigstein ;
the mention of the two female patients also belongs to the
same conversation . A chain of thoughts , one end of which
is formed by the title of the hastily seen monograph, leads
off in the other direction from the lady with the flowers to the
favourite flowers of my wife. Besides this, " botanical "
recalls not only an episode at the Gymnasium, but an examina
tion taken while I was at the university ; and a new subject
matter- my hobbies -which was broached in the conversa
tion already mentioned , is connected by means of my
humorously so- called favourite flower, the artichoke , with the
chain of thoughts proceeding from the forgotten flowers ;
66 artichoke "" there is concealed on the one hand a
behind
recollection of Italy, and on the other a reminiscence of a
childhood scene in which I first formed my connection with
books which has since grown so intimate . " Botanical,"
then, is a veritable nucleus , the centre for the dream of many
trains of thought, which , I may assure the reader , were
correctly and justly brought into relation to one another in
the conversation referred to . Here we find ourselves in a
thought factory, in which, as in the " Weaver's Masterpiece " :
" One tread moves thousands of threads,
The little shuttles fly back and forth,
The threads flow on unseen ,
One stroke ties thousands of knots."
" Monograph " in the dream, again, has a bearing upon
two subjects , the one-sidedness of my studies and the costli
ness of my hobbies .
The impression is gained from this first investigation that
the elements " botanical " and " monograph " have been
accepted in the dream content because they were able to show
the most extensive connections with the dream thoughts ,
and thus represent nuclei in which a great number of dream
thoughts come together, and because they have manifold
266 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

significance for the dream interpretation . The fact upon

which this explanation is based may be expressed in another
form : Every element of the dream content turns out to be
over-determined that is, it enjoys a manifold representation
in the dream thoughts.
We shall learn more by testing the remaining component
parts of the dream as to their occurrence in the dream thoughts .
The coloured plate refers (cf. the analysis on p. 145 ) to a new
subject, the criticism passed upon my work by colleagues ,
and to a subject already represented in the dream- my
hobbies and also to a childish recollection in which I pull to
pieces the book with the coloured plates ; the dried specimen
of the plant relates to an experience at the Gymnasium
centering about and particularly emphasizing the herbarium .
Thus I see what sort of relation exists between the dream
content and dream thoughts : Not only do the elements of
the dream have a manifold determination in the dream
thoughts , but the individual dream thoughts are represented
in the dream by many elements . Starting from an element of
the dream the path of associations leads to a number of dream
thoughts ; and from a dream thought to several elements of
the dream . The formation of the dream does not , therefore ,
take place in such fashion that a single one of the dream
thoughts or a group of them furnishes the dream content
with an abridgment as its representative therein, and that
then another dream thought furnishes another abridgment
as its representative-somewhat as popular representatives
are elected from among the people-but the whole mass of the
dream thoughts is subjected to a certain elaboration, in the
course of which those elements that receive the greatest and
completest support stand out in relief, analogous , perhaps , to
election by scrutins des listes. Whatever dream I may subject
to such dismemberment, I always find the same fundamental
principle confirmed- that the dream elements are constructed
from the entire mass of the dream thoughts and that every one
of them appears in relation to the dream thoughts to have a
multiple determination .
It is certainly not out of place to demonstrate this relation
of the dream content to the dream thoughts by means of a
fresh example, which is distinguished by a particularly artful
 THE DREAM-WORK 267

intertwining of reciprocal relations . The dream is that of a

patient whom I am treating for claustrophobia (fear in enclosed
spaces ) . It will soon become evident why I feel myself called
upon to entitle this exceptionally intellectual piece of dream
activity in the following manner :

II. " A Beautiful Dream "

The dreamer is riding with much company to X-street, where
there is a modest road-house (which is not the fact) . A
theatrical performance is being given in its rooms. He is first
audience, then actor. Finally the company is told to change
their clothes, in order to get back into the city. Some of the
people are assigned to the rooms on the ground floor, others to
the first floor. Then a dispute arises . Those above are angry
because those below have not yet finished , so that they cannot
come down. His brother is upstairs , he is below, and he is angry
at his brother because there is such crowding . (This part
obscure.) Besides it has already been decided upon their arrival
who is to be upstairs and who down. Then he goes alone over
the rising ground, across which X- street leads toward the city,
and he has such difficulty and hardship in walking that he cannot
move from the spot . An elderly gentleman joins him and scolds
about the King of Italy. Finally, towards the end of the rising
ground walking becomes much easier.
The difficulties experienced in walking were so distinct
that for some time after waking he was in doubt whether
they were dream or reality.
According to the manifest content , this dream can hardly
be praised . Contrary to the rules , I shall begin with that
portion which the dreamer referred to as the most distinct .
The difficulties which were dreamed of, and which were
probably experienced during the dream- difficult climbing
accompanied by dyspnoea-is one of the symptoms which
the patient had actually shown years before, and which , in
conjunction with other symptoms, was at that time attributed
to tuberculosis (probably hysterically simulated ) . We are
already from exhibition dreams acquainted with this sensation
of being hindered , peculiar to the dream , and here again we
find it used for the purpose of any kind of representation , as
an ever-ready material. That part of the dream content
268 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

which ascribes the climbing as difficult at first, and as becoming

easier at the end of the hill , made me think while it was being
told of the well-known masterful introduction to Sappho
by A. Daudet . Here a young man carries the girl whom
he loves upstairs -she is at first as light as a feather ; but the
higher he mounts the more heavily she weighs upon his arm ,
and this scene symbolises a course of events by recounting
which Daudet tries to warn young men not to waste serious
affection upon girls of humble origin or of questionable past .
Although I knew that my patient had recently had a love
affair with a lady of the theatre, and had broken it off, I did
not expect to find that the interpretation which had occurred
to me was correct . Moreover, the situation in Sappho was the
reverse of that in the dream ; in the latter the climbing was
difficult at the beginning and easy later on ; in the novel the
symbolism serves only if what was at first regarded as easy
finally turns out to be a heavy load . To my astonishment,
the patient remarked that the interpretation corresponded
closely to the plot of a play which he had seen on the evening
before at the theatre. The play was called Round about
Vienna, and treated of the career of a girl who is respectable
at first but later goes over to the demi-monde, who has affairs
with persons in high places, thus " climbing," but finally
66
goes down " faster and faster. This play had reminded him
of another entitled From Step to Step, in the advertisement
of which had appeared a stairway consisting of several
steps .
Now to continue the interpretation . The actress with
whom he had had his most recent affair, a complicated one,
had lived in X-street . There is no inn in this street . How
ever, while he was spending a part of the summer in Vienna
for the sake of the lady, he had lodged (German abgestiegen =
stopped, literally stepped off) at a little hotel in the neighbour
hood . As he was leaving the hotel he said to the cab-driver,
" I am glad I didn't get any vermin anyway (which incidentally
is one of his phobias) . Whereupon the cab-driver answered :
" How could anybody stop there ! It isn't a hotel at all,
it's really nothing but a road-house ! "

* In estimating this description of the author one may recall the signi
ficance of stairway dreams, referred to on p. 246.
 THE DREAM-WORK 269

The road-house immediately suggests to the dreamer's

recollection a quotation :

" Of that marvellous host

I was once a guest."

But the host in the poem by Uhland is an apple tree. Now

a second quotation continues the train of thought :
FAUST (dancing with the young witch).
"A lovely dream once came to me ;
I then beheld an apple tree,
And there two fairest apples shone :
They lured me so, I climbed thereon."

THE FAIR ONE.

" Apples have been desired by you,

Since first in Paradise they grew ;
And I am moved with joy to know
That such within my garden grow."
Translated by BAYARD TAYLOR.

There remains not the slightest doubt what is meant by

the apple tree and the apples . A beautiful bosom stood high
among the charms with which the actress had bewitched our
dreamer .
According to the connections of the analysis we had every
reason to assume that the dream went back to an impression
from childhood . In this case it must have reference to the
nurse of the patient, who is now a man of nearly fifty years
of age. The bosom of the nurse is in reality a road-house for
the child . The nurse as well as Daudet's Sappho appears as
an allusion to his abandoned sweetheart .
The (elder) brother of the patient also appears in the
dream content ; he is upstairs , the dreamer himself is below.
This again is an inversion, for the brother, as I happen to know,
has lost his social position , my patient has retained his . In
reporting the dream content the dreamer avoided saying
that his brother was upstairs and that he himself was down.
It would have been too frank an expression, for a person is
said to be " down and out " when he has lost his fortune and
position . Now the fact that at this point in the dream some
thing is represented as inverted must have a meaning . The
inversion must apply rather to some other relation between
270 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the dream thoughts and dream content . There is an in

dication which suggests how this inversion is to be taken.
It obviously applies to the end of the dream , where the circum
stances of climbing are the reverse of those in Sappho. Now it
may easily be seen what inversion is referred to ; in Sappho
the man carries the woman who stands in a sexual relation
to him ; in the dream thoughts , inversely, a woman carries
a man, and as this state of affairs can only occur during
childhood, the reference is again to the nurse who carries
the heavy child . Thus the final portion of the dream
succeeds in representing Sappho and the nurse in the same
allusion.
Just as the name Sappho has not been selected by the
poet without reference to a Lesbian custom, so the elements
of the dream in which persons act above and below, point to
fancies of a sexual nature with which the dreamer is occupied
and which as suppressed cravings are not without connection
with his neurosis . Dream interpretation itself does not show
that these are fancies and not recollections of actual happen
ings ; it only furnishes us with a set of thoughts and leaves
us to determine their value as realities . Real and fantastic
occurrences at first appear here as of equal value-and not
only here but also in the creation of more important psychic
structures than dreams . Much company, as we already
know, signifies a secret. The brother is none other than a
representative, drawn into the childhood scene by " fancying
backwards , " of all of the later rivals for the woman . Through
the agency of an experience which is indifferent in itself, the
episode with the gentleman who scolds about the King of
Italy again refers to the intrusion of people of low rank into
aristocratic society. It is as though the warning which
Daudet gives to youth is to be supplemented by a similar
warning applicable to the suckling child . *
In order that we may have at our disposal a third example
for the study of condensation in dream formation, I shall cite

* The fantastic nature of the situation relating to the nurse of the

dreamer is shown by the objectively ascertained circumstance that the nurse
in this case was his mother. Furthermore, I may call attention to the
regret of the young man in the anecdote (p. 172), that he had not taken
better advantage of his opportunity with the nurse as probably the source
of the present dream.
 THE DREAM-WORK 271

the partial analysis of another dream for which I am in

debted to an elderly lady who is being psychoanalytically
treated . In harmony with the condition of severe anxiety
from which the patient suffered , her dreams contained a great
abundance of sexual thought material, the discovery of which
astonished as well as frightened her . Since I cannot carry
the interpretation of the dream to completion , the material
seems to fall apart into several groups without apparent
connection .
III. Content of the dream : She remembers that she has
two June bugs in a box, which she must set at liberty, for otherwise
they will suffocate. She opens the box, and the bugs are quite
exhausted ; one of them flies out of the window, but the other is
crushed on the casement while she is shutting the window, as some
one or other requests her to do (expressions of disgust).
Analysis : Her husband is away travelling, and her
fourteen-year-old daughter is sleeping in the bed next to her.
In the evening the little one calls her attention to the fact
that a moth has fallen into her glass of water ; but she neglects
to take it out, and feels sorry for the poor little creature in
the morning . A story which she had read in the evening told
of boys throwing a cat into boiling water, and the twitchings
of the animal were described . These are the occasions for
the dream , both of which are indifferent in themselves . She
is further occupied with the subject of cruelty to animals.
Years before, while they were spending the summer at a
certain place, her daughter was very cruel to animals . She
started a butterfly collection, and asked her for arsenic with
which to kill the butterflies . Once it happened that a moth
flew about the room for a long time with a needle through its
body ; on another occasion she found that some moths which
had been kept for metamorphosis had died of starvation .
The same child while still at a tender age was in the habit
of pulling out the wings of beetles and butterflies ; now she
would shrink in horror from these cruel actions , for she has
grown very kind.
Her mind is occupied with this contrast. It recalls another
contrast, the one between appearance and disposition , as it is
described in Adam Bede by George Eliot . There a beautiful
but vain and quite stupid girl is placed side by side with an
272 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

ugly but high-minded one. The aristocrat who seduces the

little goose, is opposed to the working man who feels aristo
cratic, and behaves accordingly. It is impossible to tell
character from people's looks . Who could tell from her looks
that she is tormented by sensual desires ?
In the same year in which the little girl started her butterfly
collection, the region in which they were staying suffered
much from a pest of June bugs . The children made havoc
among the bugs, and crushed them cruelly. At that time she
saw a person who tore the wings off the June bugs and ate
them . She herself had been born in June and also married
in June. Three days after the wedding she wrote a letter
home, telling how happy she was. But she was by no means
happy .
During the evening before the dream she had rummaged
among her old letters and had read various ones , comical and
serious , to her family-an extremely ridiculous letter from a
piano -teacher who had paid her attention when she was a
girl, as well as one from an aristocratic admirer. *
She blames herself because a bad book by de Maupassant
had fallen into the hands of one of her daughters . † The arsenic
which her little girl asks for recalls the arsenic pills which
restored the power of youth to the Duc de Mora in Nabab.
" Set at liberty " recalls to her a passage from the Magic
Flute :
" I cannot compel you to love,
But I will not give you your liberty."

" June bugs " suggests the speech of Katie : ‡

"I love you like a little beetle."
Meanwhile the speech from Tannhauser : " For you are
wrought with evil passion."
She is living in fear and anxiety about her absent husband.
The dread that something may happen to him on the journey
is expressed in numerous fancies of the day. A little while
before, during the analysis , she had come upon a complaint
This is the real inciter of the dream.
† By way of supplement. Such books are poison to a young girl. She
herself in youth had drawn much information from forbidden books.
A further train of thought leads to Penthesileia by the same author :
cruelty towards her lover.
 THE DREAM-WORK 273

about his " senility " in her unconscious thoughts . The wish
thought which this dream conceals may perhaps best be
conjectured if I say that several days before the dream she
was suddenly astounded by a command which she directed
to her husband in the midst of her work : " Go hang yourself."
It was found that a few hours before she had read somewhere
that a vigorous erection is induced when a person is hanged .
It was for the erection which freed itself from repression in
this terror-inspiring veiled form . " Go hang yourself " is as
much as to say : " Get up an erection , at any cost . " Dr.
Jenkin's arsenic pills in Nabab belong in this connection ; for
it was known to the patient that the strongest aphrodisiac ,
cantharides, is prepared by crushing bugs (so-called Spanish
flies) . The most important part of the dream content has a
significance to this effect.
Opening and shutting the window is the subject of a stand
ing quarrel with her husband . She herself likes to sleep with
plenty of air, and her husband does not . Exhaustion is the
chief ailment of which she complains these days .
In all three of the dreams just cited I have emphasized by
italics those phrases where one of the elements of the dream
recurs in the dream thoughts in order to make the manifold
references of the former obvious . Since, however, the
analysis of none of these dreams has been carried to com
pletion , it will be well worth while to consider a dream with a
fully detailed analysis , in order to demonstrate the manifold
determination of its content . I select the dream of Irma's
injection for this purpose . We shall see without effort in
this example that the condensation work has used more than
one means for the formation of the dream .
The chief person in the content of the dream is my patient
Irma, who is seen with the features which belong to her in
waking life, and who therefore in the first instance represents
herself. But her attitude as I examine her at the window is
taken from the recollection of another person , of the lady for
whom I should like to exchange my patient, as the dream
thoughts show. In as far as Irma shows a diphtheritic mem
brane which recalls my anxiety about my eldest daughter,
she comes to represent this child of mine, behind whom is
concealed the person of the patient who died from intoxication
S
274 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

and who is brought into connection by the identity of her

name. In the further course of the dream the significance of
Irma's personality changes (without the alteration of her
image as it is seen in the dream) ; she becomes one of the
children whom we examine in the public dispensaries for
children's diseases , where my friends show the difference of
their mental capabilities. The transference was obviously
brought about through the idea of my infant daughter. By
means of her unwillingness to open her mouth the same Irma
is changed into an allusion to another lady who was once
examined by me, and besides that to my wife , in the same
connection . Furthermore, in the morbid transformations
which I discover in her throat I have gathered allusions to a
great number of other persons .
All these people whom I encounter as I follow the associa
tions suggested by " Irma," do not appear personally in the
dream ; they are concealed behind the dream person " Irma,"
who is thus developed into a collective image, as might be
expected, with contradictory features. Irma comes to re
present these other persons , who are discarded in the work
of condensation, in that I cause to happen to her all the things
which recall these persons detail for detail.
I may also construct a collective person for the con
densation of the dream in another manner, by uniting the
actual features of two or more persons in one dream image.
It is in this manner that Dr. M. in my dream was constructed ,
he bears the name of Dr. M. , and speaks and acts as Dr. M.
does , but his bodily characteristics and his suffering belong to
another person , my eldest brother ; a single feature, paleness ,
is doubly determined , owing to the fact that it is common to
both persons . Dr. R. in my dream about my uncle is a similar
composite person . But here the dream image is prepared in
still another manner. I have not united features peculiar
to the one with features of the other, and thereby abridged
the remembered image of each by certain features , but I have
adopted the method employed by Galton in producing family
portraits, by which he projects both pictures upon one another,
whereupon the common features stand out in stronger relief,
while those which do not coincide neutralize one another and
become obscure in the picture . In the dream of my uncle the
 THE DREAM-WORK 275

blond beard stands out in relief, as an emphasized feature , from

the physiognomy, which belongs to two persons, and which is
therefore blurred ; furthermore the beard contains an allusion
to my father and to myself, which is made possible by its
reference to the fact of growing grey.
The construction of collective and composite persons is
one of the chief resources of the activity of dream condensa
tion. There will soon be an occasion for treating of this in
another connection.
The notion " dysentery " in the dream about the injection
likewise has a manifold determination , on the one hand
because of its paraphasic assonance with diphtheria, and on
the other because of its reference to the patient, whom I have
sent to the Orient, and whose hysteria has been wrongly
recognised .
The mention of " propyls " in the dream also proves to be
66
an interesting case of condensation . Not propyls " but
66
amyls " were contained in the dream thoughts . One might
think that here a simple displacement had occurred in the
dream formation . And this is the case, but the displacement
serves the purposes of condensation , as is shown by the
following supplementary analysis . If I dwell for a moment
upon the word " propyls ," its assonance to the word " pro
pylæum " suggests itself to me. But the propylæum is to be
found not only in Athens but also in Munich . In the latter
city I visited a friend the year before who was seriously ill ,
and the reference to him becomes unmistakable on account of
trimethylamin, which follows closely upon propyls.
I pass over the striking circumstance that here, as else
where in the analysis of dreams , associations of the most widely
different values are employed for the establishment of thought
connections as though they were equivalent, and I yield to the
temptation to regard the process by which amyls in the dream
thoughts are replaced by propyls, as though it were plastic
in the dream content .
On the one hand is the chain of ideas about my friend
Otto , who does not understand me, who thinks I am in the
wrong, and who gives me the cordial that smells like amyls ;
on the other the chain of ideas-connected with the first by
contrast-about my friend William, who understands me and
276 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

who would always think I was in the right, and to whom I

am indebted for so much valuable information about the
chemistry of the sexual processes .
Those characteristics of the associations centering about
Otto which ought particularly to attract my attention are
determined by the recent occasions which are responsible for
the dream ; amyls belong to these elements so determined
which are destined to get into the dream content . The group
of associations " William " is distinctly vivified by the con
trast to Otto, and the elements in it which correspond to those
already excited in the " Otto " associations are thrown into
relief. In this whole dream I am continually referring to a
person who excites my displeasure and to another person whom
I can oppose to him or her at will , and I conjure up the friend
as against the enemy, feature for feature. Thus amyls in the
Otto-group suggests recollections in the other group belonging
to chemistry ; trimethylamin , which receives support from
several quarters , finds its way into the dream content .
66
Amyls ," too , might have got into the dream content without
undergoing change, but it yields to the influence of the
" William " group of associations , owing to the fact that an
element which is capable of furnishing a double determina
tion for amyls is sought out from the whole range of recollec
66
tions which the name William " covers . The association
" propyls " lies in the neighbourhood of amyls ; Munich with
the propylæum comes to meet amyls from the series of associa
tions belonging to " William." Both groups are united in
propyls―propylæum . As though by a compromise, this inter
mediary element gets into the dream content . Here a
common mean which permits of a manifold determination has
been created . It thus becomes perfectly obvious that manifold
determination must facilitate penetration into the dream
content. A displacement of attention from what is really
intended to something lying near in the associations has
thoughtlessly taken place, for the sake of this mean-formation .
The study of the injection dream has now enabled us to
get some insight into the process of condensation which takes
place in the formation of dreams . The selection of those
elements which occur in the dream content more than once,
the formation of new unities (collective persons , composite
 THE DREAM-WORK 277

images ), and the construction of the common mean, these we

have been able to recognise as details of the condensing
process . The purpose which is served by condensation and
the means by which it is brought about will be investigated
when we come to study the psychic processes in the formation
of dreams as a whole . Let us be content for the present
with establishing dream condensation as an important relation
between the dream thoughts and the dream content .
The condensing activity of the dream becomes most tangible
when it has selected words and names as its object . In general
words are often treated as things by the dream, and thus
undergo the same combinations , displacements , and sub
stitutions , and therefore also condensations , as ideas of things .
The results of such dreams are comical and bizarre word
formations . Upon one occasion when a colleague had sent
me one of his essays , in which he had, in my judgment , over
estimated the value of a recent physiological discovery and
had expressed himself in extravagant terms , I dreamed the
following night a sentence which obviously referred to this
treatise : " That is in true norekdal style ." The solution of
this word formation at first gave me difficulties , although it
was unquestionably formed as a parody after the pattern of
the superlatives " colossal, " " pyramidal " ; but to tell where
it came from was not easy. At last the monster fell apart
into the two names Nora and Ekdal from two well-known
plays by Ibsen. I had previously read a newspaper essay on
Ibsen by the same author, whose latest work I was thus
criticising in the dream.
II.* One of my female patients dreams that a man with a
light beard and a peculiar glittering eye is pointing to a sign board
attached to a tree which reads : uclamparia-wet.
Analysis . The man was rather authoritative looking, and
his peculiar glittering eye at once recalled St. Paul's Cathedral,
near Rome, where she saw in mosaics the Popes that have so
far ruled . One of the early Popes had a golden eye (this was
really an optical illusion which the guides usually call attention
to). Further associations showed that the general physiognomy
corresponded to her own clergyman (Pope) , and the shape of
the light beard recalled her doctor (myself), while the stature of
* Given by translator as author's example could not be translated.
278 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the man in the dream recalled her father. All these persons
stand in the same relation to her ; they are all guiding and
directing her course of life . On further questioning, the
golden eye recalled gold- money-the rather expensive
psychoanalytic treatment which gives her a great deal of
concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold cure for alcoholism
-Mr. D. , whom she would have married if it had not been for
his clinging to the disgusting alcohol habit-she does not
object to a person taking an occasional drink ; she herself
sometimes drinks beer and cordials—this again brings her back
to her visit to St. Paul's without the walls and its surroundings .
She remembers that in the neighbouring monastery of the
Three Fountains she drank a liquor made of eucalyptus by
the Trappist monks who inhabit this monastery . She then
relates how the monks transformed this malarial and swampy
region into a dry and healthful neighbourhood by planting
""
there many eucalyptus trees . The word " uclamparia
then resolves itself into eucalyptus and malaria , and the word
" wet " refers to the former swampy nature of the place . Wet
also suggests dry. Dry is actually the name of the man
whom she would have married except for his over-indulgence
in alcohol . The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic origin
(drei= three) and hence alludes to the Abbey of the Three
(drei ) Fountains above mentioned . In talking about Mr. Dry's
habit she used the strong words, " He could drink a fountain ."
Mr. Dry jocosely refers to his habit by saying, " You know I
must drink because I am always dry " (referring to his name) .
The eucalyptus also refers to her neurosis, which was at first
diagnosed as malaria . She went to Italy because her attacks
of anxiety, which were accompanied by marked trembling
and shivering, were thought to be of malarial origin . She
bought some eucalyptus oil from the monks, and she maintains
that it has done her much good.
The condensation uclamparia -wet is therefore the point of
junction for the dream as well as for the neurosis . *

* The same analysis and synthesis of syllables -a veritable chemistry of

syllables-serves us for many a jest in waking life. " What is the cheapest
method of obtaining silver ? You go to a field where silver- berries are
growing and pick them ; then the berries are eliminated and the silver
remains in a free state." The first person who read and criticised this book
made the objection to me-which other readers will probably repeat " that
 THE DREAM-WORK 279

III . In a somewhat long and wild dream of my own , the

chief point of which is apparently a sea voyage, it happens
that the next landing is called Hearsing and the one farther on
Fliess. The latter is the name of my friend living in B. , who
has often been the objective point of my travels . But Hearsing
is put together from the names of places in the local environ
ment of Vienna , which so often end in ing : Hietzing, Liesing,
66
Moedling (Medelitz, " meæ delicia," my own name, my
joy ") (joy = German Freude ), and the English hearsay,
Freude),
which points to libel and establishes the relation to the in
different dream excitement of the day-a poem in the
Fliegende Blaetter about a slanderous dwarf, " Saidhe
Hashesaid ." By connecting the final syllable " ing " with the
name Fliess, " Vlissingen " is obtained , which is a real port on
the sea-voyage which my brother passes when he comes to
visit us from England . But the English for Vlissingen is
Flushing, which signifies blushing and recalls erythrophobia
(fear of blushing ), which I treat, and also reminds me of a
recent publication by Bechterew about this neurosis , which
has given occasion for angry feelings in me.
IV. Upon another occasion I had a dream which consisted
of two parts. The first was the vividly remembered word
" Autodidasker," the second was truthfully covered by a
short and harmless fancy which had been developed a few
days before, and which was to the effect that I must tell
Professor N., when I saw him next : " The patient about
whose condition I last consulted you is really suffering from
66
a neurosis , just as you suspected ." The coinage Auto
didasker " must, then, not only satisfy the requirement that it
should contain or represent a compressed meaning, but also
the dreamer often appears too witty." That is true, as long as it applies
to the dreamer ; it involves a condemnation only when its application is
extended to the interpreter of the dream. In waking reality I can make
very little claim to the predicate " witty " ; if my dreams appear witty, this
is not the fault of my individuality, but of the peculiar psychological con
ditions under which the dream is fabricated, and is intimately connected
with the theory of wit and the comical. The dream becomes witty because
the shortest and most direct way to the expression of its thoughts is barred
for it the dream is under constraint. My readers may convince themselves
that the dreams of my patients give the impression of being witty (attempt
ing to be witty), in the same degree and in a greater than my own.
Nevertheless this reproach impelled me to compare the technique of wit
with the dream activity, which I have done in a book published in 1905 ,
on Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious. (Author. )
280 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that this meaning should have a valid connection with my

purpose , which is repeated from waking life , of giving Pro
fessor N. his due credit.
Now Autodidasker is easily separated into author (German
Autor), autodidact, and Lasker, with whom is associated the
name Lasalle . The first of these words leads to the occasion
of the dream-which this time is significant . I had brought
home to my wife several volumes by a well-known author,
who is a friend of my brother's, and who, as I have learned ,
comes from the same town as I (J. J. David ) . One evening
she spoke to me about the profound impression which the
touching sadness of a story in one of David's novels , about a
talented but degenerate person , had made upon her, and our
conversation turned upon the indications of talent which we
perceive in our own children . Under the influence of what she
had just read, my wife expressed a concern relative to our
children, and I comforted her with the remark that it is just
such dangers that can be averted by education . During the
night my train of thoughts proceeded further , took up the
concern of my wife , and connected with it all sorts of other
things . An opinion which the poet had expressed to my
brother upon the subject of marriage showed my thoughts a
by-path which might lead to a representation in the dream .
This path led to Breslau , into which city a lady who was a
very good friend of ours had married . I found in Breslau
Lasker and Lasalle as examples realising our concern about
being ruined at the hands of a woman, examples which
enabled me to represent both manifestations of this influence
for the bad at once . * The " Cherchez la femme," in which
these thoughts may be summed up, when taken in another
sense, brings me to my brother, who is still unmarried and
whose name is Alexander. Now I see that Alex, as we ab
breviate the name, sounds almost like inversion of Lasker
and that this factor must have taken part in giving my
thoughts their detour by way of Breslau .
But this playing with names and syllables in which I am
here engaged contains still another meaning. The wish that

* Lasker died of progressive paralysis, that is of the consequences of an

infection caught from a woman (lues) ; Lasalle, as is well known, was killed
in a duel on account of a lady.
 THE DREAM-WORK 281

my brother may have a happy family life is represented by it

in the following manner. In the artistic romance L'Œuvre,
the writer, as is well known , has incidentally given an episodic
account of himself and of his own family happiness , and he
appears under the name of Sandoz . Probably he has taken
the following course in the name transformation . Zola when
inverted (as children like so much to do ) gives Aloz . But that
was still too undisguised for him ; therefore he replaced the
syllable Al, which stands at the beginning of the name
Alexander, by the third syllable of the same name, sand, and
thus Sandoz came about . In a similar manner my autodi
dasker originated .
My fancy, that I am telling Professor N. that the patient
whom we had both seen is suffering from a neurosis , got into
the dream in the following manner. Shortly before the close
of my working year I received a patient in whose case my
diagnosis failed me. A serious organic affliction-perhaps
some changes in the spine-was to be assumed , but could not
be proved . It would have been tempting to diagnose the
trouble as a neurosis, and this would have put an end to all
difficulties , had it not been for the fact that the sexual
anamnesis , without which I am unwilling to admit a neurosis ,
was so energetically denied by the patient. In my embarrass
ment I called to my assistance the physician whom I respect
most of all men (as others do also ) , and to whose authority I
surrender most completely. He listened to my doubts , told
me he thought them justified , and then said : " Keep on
observing the man, it is probably a neurosis ." Since I know
that he does not share my opinions about the etiology of
neuroses , I suppressed my disagreement , but I did not conceal
my scepticism . A few days after I informed the patient that
I did not know what to do with him, and advised him to go
to some one else . Thereupon , to my great astonishment , he
began to beg my pardon for having lied to me, saying that he
had felt very much ashamed ; and now he revealed to me just
that piece of sexual etiology which I had expected , and which
I found necessary for assuming the existence of a neurosis .
This was a relief to me , but at the same time a humiliation ;
for I had to admit that my consultant, who was not dis
concerted by the absence of anamnesis, had made a correct
282 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

observation . I made up my mind to tell him about it when I

saw him again, and to say to him that he had been in the
right and I in the wrong.
This is just what I do in the dream. But what sort of a
wish is supposed to be fulfilled if I acknowledge that I am in
the wrong ? This is exactly my wish ; I wish to be in the
wrong with my apprehensions -that is to say, I wish that my
wife whose fears I have appropriated in the dream thoughts
may remain in the wrong . The subject to which the matter
of being in the right or in the wrong is related in the dream is
not far distant from what is really interesting to the dream
thoughts . It is the same pair of alternatives of either organic
or functional impairment through a woman , more properly
through the sexual life-either tabetic paralysis or a neurosis
-with which the manner of Lasalle's ruin is more or less
loosely connected .
In this well-joined dream (which, however, is quite trans
parent with the help of careful analysis) Professor N. plays a
part not merely on account of this analogy and of my wish to
remain in the wrong, or on account of the associated references
to Breslau and to the family of our friend who is married
there-but also on account of the following little occurrence
which was connected with our consultation . After he had
attended to our medical task by giving the above mentioned
suggestion, his interest was directed to personal matters.
" How many children have you now ? " -" Six . " -A gesture
of respect and reflection. " Girls , boys ? "-" Three of each.
They are my pride and my treasure."-" Well, there is no
difficulty about the girls , but the boys give trouble later on
in their education . " I replied that until now they had been
very tractable ; this second diagnosis concerning the future
of my boys of course pleased me as little as the one he had
made earlier, namely, that my patient had only a neurosis .
These two impressions , then , are bound together by contiguity,
by being successively received , and if I incorporate the story
of the neurosis into the dream, I substitute it for the conversa
tion upon education which shows itself to be even more closely
connected with the dream thoughts owing to the fact that it
has such an intimate bearing upon the subsequently expressed
concerns of my wife. Thus even my fear that N. may turn out
 THE DREAM-WORK 283

to be right in his remarks on the educational difficulties in the

case of boys is admitted into the dream content, in that it is
concealed behind the representation of my wish that I may be
wrong in such apprehensions . The same fancy serves without
change to represent both conflicting alternatives .
The verbal compositions of the dream are very similar
to those which are known to occur in paranoia , but which are
also found in hysteria and in compulsive ideas . The linguistic
habits of children, who at certain periods actually treat words
as objects and invent new languages and artificial syntaxes ,
are in this case the common source for the dream as well as for
psychoneuroses .
When speeches occur in the dream, which are expressly
distinguished from thoughts as such, it is an invariable rule
that the dream speech has originated from a remembered
speech in the dream material . Either the wording has been
preserved in its integrity, or it has been slightly changed in
the course of expression ; frequently the dream speech is
pieced together from various recollections of speeches , while
the wording has remained the same and the meaning has
possibly been changed so as to have two or more significations .
Not infrequently the dream speech serves merely as an allusion
to an incident, at which the recollected speech occurred . *

(b) The Work of Displacement

Another sort of relation , which is no less significant , must

have come to our notice while we were collecting examples
of dream condensation . We have seen that those elements
which obtrude themselves in the dream content as its essential
components play a part in the dream thoughts which is by
no means the same. As a correlative to this the converse of
this thesis is also true. That which is clearly the essential
thing in the dream thoughts need not be represented in the
dream at all. The dream, as it were , is eccentric ; its contents
are grouped about other elements than the dream thoughts
* In the case of a young man who was suffering from obsessions, but
whose intellectual functions were intact and highly developed, I recently
found the only exception to this rule. The speeches which occurred in his
dreams did not originate in speeches which he had heard or had made him
self, but corresponded to the undisfigured wording of his obsessive thoughts,
which only came to his consciousness in a changed state while he was awake.
284 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

as a central point.Thus, for example , in the dream about

the botanical monograph the central point of the dream
content is apparently the element " botanical " ; in the
dream thoughts we are concerned with the complications and
conflicts which result from services rendered among colleagues
which put them under obligations to one another, subse
quently with the reproach that I am in the habit of sacrificing
too much to my hobbies, and the element " botanical " would
in no case find a place in this nucleus of the dream thoughts
if it were not loosely connected with it by an antithesis, for
botany was never among my favourite studies. In the Sappho
dream of my patient the ascending and descending, being
upstairs and down , is made the central point ; the dream,
however, is concerned with the danger of sexual relations
with persons of low degree, so that only one of the elements of
the dream thoughts seems to have been taken over into the
dream content , albeit with unseemly elaboration . Similarly
in the dream about June bugs , whose subject is the relation
of sexuality to cruelty, the factor of cruelty has indeed re
appeared but in a different connection and without the mention
of the sexual, that is to say, it has been torn from its context
and transformed into something strange. Again , in the
dream about my uncle, the blond beard , which seems to be
its central point , appears to have no rational connection with
the wishes for greatness which we have recognised as the
nucleus of the dream thoughts. It is only to be expected if
such dreams give a displaced impression . In complete con
trast to these examples , the dream of Irma's injection shows
that individual elements can claim the same place in the
formation of dreams which they occupy in the dream thoughts .
The recognition of these new and entirely variable relations
between the dream thoughts and the dream content is at
first likely to excite our astonishment. If we find in a psychic
process of normal life that an idea has been culled from among
a number of others , and has acquired particular vividness in
our consciousness, we are in the habit of regarding this result
as a proof that the victorious idea is endowed with a peculiarly
high degree of psychic value-a certain degree of interest.
We now discover that this value of the individual elements in
the dream thoughts is not preserved in the formation of the
 THE DREAM-WORK 285

dream, or does not come into consideration. For there is no

doubt as to the elements of the dream thoughts which are of
the highest value ; our judgment tells us immediately. In
the formation of dreams those elements which are emphasized
with intense interest may be treated as though they were in
ferior, and other elements are put in their place which certainly
were inferior in the dream thoughts . We are at first given
the impression that the psychic intensity * of the individual
ideas does not come into consideration at all for the selection
made by the dream, but only their greater or smaller multi
plicity of determination . Not what is important in the
dream thoughts gets into the dream, but what is contained
in them several times over, one might be inclined to think ;
but our understanding of the formation of dreams is not much
furthered by this assumption , for at the outset it will be im
possible to believe that the two factors of manifold deter
mination and of integral value do not tend in the same direc
tion in the influence they exert on the selection made by the
dream . Those ideas in the dream thoughts which are most
important are probably also those which recur most frequently ,
for the individual dream thoughts radiate from them as from
central points . And still the dream may reject those elements
which are especially emphasized and which receive manifold
support, and may take up into its content elements which
are endowed only with the latter property .
This difficulty may be solved by considering another im
pression received in the investigation of the manifold deter
mination of the dream content . Perhaps many a reader has
already passed his own judgment upon this investigation by
saying that the manifold determination of the elements of the
dream is not a significant discovery, because it is a self-evident
one. In the analysis one starts from the dream elements , and
registers all the notions which are connected with them ; it is
no wonder , then , that these elements should occur with particu
lar frequency in the thought material which is obtained in this
manner. I cannot acknowledge the validity of this objection ,
but shall say something myself which sounds like it . Among

* Psychic intensity, value, and emphasis due to the interest of an idea

are, of course, to be kept distinct from sensational intensity, and from intensity
of that which is conceived.
286 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the thoughts which analysis brings to light, many can be

found which are far removed from the central idea of the
dream , and which appear distinguished from the rest as artificial
interpolations for a definite purpose . Their purpose may
easily be discovered ; they are just the ones which establish
a connection , often a forced and far-fetched one , between the
dream content and the dream thoughts, and if these elements
were to be weeded out , not only over-determination but also
a sufficient determination by means of the dream thoughts
would often be lacking for the dream content . We are thus
led to the conclusion that manifold determination , which
decides the selection made by the dream , is perhaps not always
a primary factor in dream formation , but is often the secondary
manifestation of a psychic power which is still unknown to us.
But in spite of all this , manifold determination must never
theless control the entrance of individual elements into the
dream, for it is possible to observe that it is established with
considerable effort in cases where it does not result from the
dream material without assistance.
The assumption is not now far distant that a psychic force
is expressed in dream activity which on the one hand strips
elements of high psychic value of their intensity, and which
on the other hand creates new values, by way of over-determina
tion, from elements of small value, these new values subse
quently getting into the dream content. If this is the method
of procedure, there has taken place in the formation of the
dream a transference and displacement of the psychic in
tensities of the individual elements , of which the textual
difference between the dream and the thought content appears
as a result. The process which we assume here is nothing
less than the essential part of the dream activity ; it merits
the designation of dream displacement. Dream displacement
and dream condensation are the two craftsmen to whom we
may chiefly attribute the moulding of the dream .
I think we also have an easy task in recognising the psychic
force which makes itself felt in the circumstances of dream
displacement. The result of this displacement is that the
dream content no longer resembles the core of the dream
thoughts at all, and that the dream reproduces only a disfigured
form of the dream-wish in the unconscious . But we are
 THE DREAM-WORK 287

already acquainted with dream disfigurement ; we have

traced it back to the censorship which one psychic instance in
the psychic life exercises upon the other. Dream displace
one of the chief means for achieving this disfigurement .
Is fecit, cui profuit. We may assume that dream displacement
is brought about by the influence of this censor, of the endo
psychic repulsion . *
The manner in which the factors of displacement , condensa
tion, and over-determination play into one another in the
formation of the dream, which is the ruling factor and which
the subordinate one , all this will be reserved as the subject of
later investigations . For the present we may state, as a
second condition which the elements must satisfy in order to
get into the dream, that they must be withdrawn from the censor
of resistance. From now on we shall take account of dream

* Since I consider this reference of dream disfigurement to the censor

as the essence of my dream theory, I here insert the latter portion of a story
" Traumen wie Wachen " from Phantasien eines Realisten, by Lynkeus, Vienna,
(second edition, 1900), in which I find this chief feature of my theory
reproduced :
" Concerning a "man who possesses the remarkable quality of never dream
ing nonsense.
"Your marvellous characteristic of dreaming as you wake is based upon
your virtues, upon your goodness, your justice, and your love for truth ; it
is the moral clearness of your nature which makes everything about you
intelligible."
" But if you think the matter over carefully," replied the other, " I
almost believe that all people are created as I am, and that no human being
ever dreams nonsense ! A dream which is so distinctly remembered that it
can be reproduced , which is therefore no dream of delirium, always has a
meaning ; why, it cannot be otherwise ! For that which is in contradiction
with itself can never be grouped together as a whole. The fact that time
and space are often thoroughly shaken up detracts nothing from the real
meaning of the dream, because neither of them has had any significance
whatever for its essential contents. We often do the same thing in waking
life ; think of the fairy-tale, of many daring and profound phantastic crea
tions, about which only an ignorant person would say : ' That is nonsense !
For it is impossible.' "
" If it were only always possible to interpret dreams correctly, as you
have just done with mine ! " said the friend.
"That is certainly not an easy task, but the dreamer himself ought
always to succeed in doing it with a little concentration of attention..
You ask why it is generally impossible ? Your dreams seem to conceal
something secret, something unchaste of a peculiar and higher nature, a
certain mystery in your nature which cannot easily be revealed by thought ;
and it is for that reason that your dreaming seems so often to be without
meaning, or even to be a contradiction. But in the profoundest sense this
is by no means the case ; indeed it cannot be true at all, for it is always the
same person, whether he is asleep or awake."
288 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

displacement as an unquestionable fact in the interpretation

of dreams .

(c) Means of Representation in the Dream

Besides the two factors of dream condensation and dream
displacement which we have found to be active in the trans
formation of the latent dream material into the manifest
content, we shall come in the course of this investigation
upon two other conditions which exercise an unquestionable
influence upon the selection of the material which gets into
the dream . Even at the risk of seeming to stop our progress ,
I should like to glance at the processes by which the inter
pretation of dreams is accomplished . I do not deny that I
should succeed best in making them clear, and in showing
that they are sufficiently reliable to insure them against
attack, by taking a single dream as a paradigm and develop
ing its interpretation , as I have done in Chapter II. in the
dream of " Irma's Injection," and then putting together the
dream thoughts which I have discovered, and reconstructing
the formation of the dream from them- that is to say, by
supplementing the analysis of dreams by a synthesis of them.
I have accomplished this with several specimens for my own
instruction ; but I cannot undertake to do it here because I
am prevented by considerations, which every right-minded
person must approve of, relative to the psychic material
necessary for such a demonstration. In the analysis of dreams
these considerations present less difficulty , for an analysis
may be incomplete and still retain its value even if it leads
only a short way into the thought labyrinth of the dream.
I do not see how a synthesis could be anything short of com
plete in order to be convincing . I could give a complete
synthesis only of the dreams of such persons as are unknown
to the reading public . Since, however, only neurotic patients
furnish me with the means for doing this , this part of the
description of the dream must be postponed until I can carry
the psychological explanation of neuroses far enough—else
where to be able to show their connection with the subject
matter under consideration . *

* I have since given the complete analysis and synthesis of two dreams in
the Bruchstueck einer Hysterieanalyse, 1905.
 THE DREAM-WORK 289

From my attempts synthetically to construct dreams from

the dream thoughts, I know that the material which is ob
tained from interpretation varies in value. For a part of it
consists of the essential dream thoughts which would , therefore ,
completely replace the dream, and which would in themselves
be sufficient for this replacement if there were no censor for
the dream . The other part may be summed up under the
term " collaterals " ; taken as a whole they represent the
means by which the real wish that arises from the dream
thoughts is transformed into the dream-wish . A first part
of these " collaterals " consists of allusions to the actual
dream thoughts, which, considered schematically , correspond
to displacements from the essential to the non-essential. A
second part comprises the thoughts which connect these non
essential elements , that have become significant through
displacement with one another, and which reach from them
into the dream content. Finally a third part contains the
ideas and thought connections which (in the work of inter
pretation) conduct us from the dream content to the inter
mediary collaterals, all of which need not necessarily have
participated in the formation of the dream .
At this point we are interested exclusively in the essential
dream thoughts . These are usually found to be a complex
of thoughts and memories of the most intricate possible con
struction, and to possess all the properties of the thought
processes which are known to us from waking life . Not
infrequently they are trains of thought which proceed from
more than one centre, but which do not lack points of con
nection ; almost regularly a chain of thought stands next to its
contradictory correlative , being connected with it by contrast
associations .
The individual parts of this complicated structure naturally
stand in the most manifold logical relations to one another.
They constitute a foreground or background , digressions ,
illustrations, conditions , chains of argument, and objections.
When the whole mass of these dream thoughts is subjected
to the pressure of the dream activity, during which the parts
are turned about , broken up , and pushed together, something
like drifting ice , there arises the question , what becomes of
the logical ties which until now had given form to the struc
T
290 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

ture ? What representation do " if," " because, " " as though, "
66 29
although , " either-or," and all the other conjunctions ,
without which we cannot understand a phrase or a sentence ,
receive in the dream ?
At first we must answer that the dream has at its disposal
no means for representing these logical relations among the
dream thoughts . In most cases it disregards all these con
junctions, and undertakes the elaboration only of the ob
jective content of the dream thoughts . It is left to the
interpretation of the dream to restore the coherence which
the activity of the dream has destroyed .
If the dream lacks ability to express these relations , the
psychic material of which the dream is wrought must be
responsible. The descriptive arts are limited in the same
manner-painting and the plastic arts in comparison with
poetry, which can employ speech ; and here too the reason for
this impotence is to be found in the material in the treatment
of which the two arts strive to give expression to something.
Before the art of painting had arrived at an understanding of
the laws of expression by which it is bound , it attempted to
escape this disadvantage. In old paintings little tags were
hung from the mouths of the persons represented giving the
speech, the expression of which in the picture the artist
despaired of.
Perhaps an objection will here be raised challenging the
assertion that the dream dispenses with the representation
of logical relations . There are dreams in which the most
complicated intellectual operations take place, in which proof
and refutation are offered, puns and comparisons made , just as
in waking thoughts . But here , too , appearances are deceitful ;
if the interpretation of such dreams is pursued , it is found that
all of this is dream material, not the representation of intellectual
activity in the dream . The content of the dream thoughts is
reproduced by the apparent thinking of the dream, not the
relations of the dream thoughts to one another, in the determina
tion of which relations thinking consists . I shall give examples
of this. But the thesis which is most easily established is
that all speeches which occur in the dream, and which are
expressly designated as such, are unchanged or only slightly
modified copies of speeches which are likewise to be found in
 THE DREAM-WORK 291

the recollections of the dream material. Often the speech is

only an allusion to an event contained in the dream thoughts ;
the meaning of the dream is a quite different one.
I shall not deny, indeed , that there is also critical thought
activity which does not merely repeat material from the
dream thoughts and which takes part in the formation of the
dream . I shall have to explain the influence of this factor
at the close of this discussion . It will then become clear that
this thought activity is evoked not by the dream thoughts ,
but by the dream itself after it is already finished in a certain
sense.
We shall , therefore , consider it settled for the present that
the logical relations among the dream thoughts do not enjoy
any particular representation in the dream. For instance,
where there is a contradiction in the dream, this is either a
contradiction directed against the dream itself or a contra
diction derived from the content of one of the dream thoughts ;
a contradiction in the dream corresponds to a contradiction
among the dream thoughts only in a highly indirect manner.
But just as the art of painting finally succeeded in de
picting in the represented persons, at least their intention in
speaking their tenderness , threatening attitude , warning mien ,
and the like-by other means than the dangling tag, so also
the dream has found it possible to render account of a few of
the logical relations among its dream thoughts by means of
an appropriate modification of the peculiar method of dream
representation. It will be found by experience that different
dreams go to different lengths in taking this into consideration ;
while one dream entirely disregards the logical coherence of
its material, another attempts to indicate it as completely as
possible. In so doing the dream departs more or less widely
from the subject -matter which it is to elaborate . The dream
also takes a similarly varying attitude towards the temporal
coherence of the dream thoughts , if such coherence has been
established in the unconscious ( as for example in the dream of
Irma's injection ) .
But what are the means by which the dream activity is
enabled to indicate these relations in the dream material
which are so difficult to represent ? I shall attempt to
enumerate these separately .
292 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

In the first place, the dream renders account of the con

nection which is undeniably present between all the parts
of the dream thoughts by uniting this material in a single
composition as a situation or process . It reproduces logical
connection in the form of simultaneousness ; in this case it acts
something like the painter who groups together all the philo
sophers or poets into a picture of the school of Athens or of
Parnassus , although these were never at once present in any
hall or on any mountain top-though they do , however, form
a unity from the point of view of reflective contemplation .
The dream carries out this method of representation in
detail . Whenever it shows two elements close together, it
vouches for a particularly intimate connection between those
elements which correspond to them in the dream thoughts .
It is as in our method of writing to signifies that the two
letters are to be pronounced as one syllable, while t with o
after a free space shows that t is the last letter of one word
and o the first letter of another. According to this , dream
combinations are not made of arbitrary, completely incon
gruent elements of the dream material, but of elements that
also have a somewhat intimate relation to one another in the
dream thoughts .
For representing causal relation the dream has two methods ,
which are essentially reducible to one . The more frequent
method, in cases , for example, where the dream thoughts are
to the effect : " Because this was so and so , this and that
must happen," consists in making the premise an introductory
dream and joining the conclusion to it in the form of the main
dream . If my interpretation is correct , the sequence may also
be reversed . That part of the dream which is more completely
worked out always corresponds to the conclusion .
A female patient , whose dream I shall later give in full ,
once furnished me with a neat example of such a representa
tion of causal relationship . The dream consisted of a short
prologue and of a very elaborate but well organised dream
composition, which might be entitled : " A flower of speech."
The prologue of the dream is as follows : She goes to the two
maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare
66
a little bite of food." She also sees a great many coarse dishes
standing in the kitchen, inverted so that the water may drop off
 THE DREAM-WORK 293

them , and heaped up in a pile. The two maids go to fetch water,

and must, as it were, step into a river, which reaches up to the
house or into the yard.
Then follows the main dream, which begins as follows :
She is descending from a high place, over balustrades that are
curiously fashioned, and she is glad that her dress doesn't get
caught anywhere, &c. Now the introductory dream refers
to the house of the lady's parents. Probably she has often
heard from her mother the words which are spoken in the
kitchen. The piles of unwashed dishes are taken from an
unpretentious earthenware shop which was located in the
same house. The second part of this dream contains an
allusion to the dreamer's father, who always had a great deal
to do with servant girls , and who later contracted a fatal
disease during a flood-the house stood near the bank of a
river. The thought which is concealed behind the intro
ductory dream, then, is to this effect : " Because I was born
in this house, under such limited and unlovely circumstances."
The main dream takes up the same thought, and presents it in
a form that has been altered by the tendency to wish-fulfil
ment : " I am of exalted origin ." Properly then : " Because
I was born in such low circumstances, my career has been so
and so."
As far as I can see, the partition of a dream into two unequal
portions does not always signify a causal relation between
the thoughts of the two portions . It often appears as though
the same material were being presented in the two dreams
from different points of view ; or as though the two dreams
have proceeded from two separated centres in the dream
material and their contents overlap , so that the object which
is the centre of one dream has served in the other as an
allusion, and vice versa. But in a certain number of cases a
division into shorter fore-dreams and longer subsequent
dreams actually signifies a causal relation between the two
portions. The other method of representing causal relation
is used with less abundant material and consists in the change
of one image in the dream, whether a person or a thing , into
another. It is only in cases where we witness this change
taking place in the dream that any causal relation is asserted
to exist, not where we merely notice that one thing has taken
292 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

In the first place , the dream renders account of the con

nection which is undeniably present between all the parts
of the dream thoughts by uniting this material in a single
composition as a situation or process . It reproduces logical
connection in the form of simultaneousness ; in this case it acts
something like the painter who groups together all the philo
sophers or poets into a picture of the school of Athens or of
Parnassus, although these were never at once present in any
hall or on any mountain top-though they do , however, form
a unity from the point of view of reflective contemplation .
The dream carries out this method of representation in
detail . Whenever it shows two elements close together, it
vouches for a particularly intimate connection between those
elements which correspond to them in the dream thoughts .
It is as in our method of writing to signifies that the two
letters are to be pronounced as one syllable , while t with o
after a free space shows that t is the last letter of one word
and o the first letter of another. According to this , dream
combinations are not made of arbitrary , completely incon
gruent elements of the dream material, but of elements that
also have a somewhat intimate relation to one another in the
dream thoughts .
For representing causal relation the dream has two methods ,
which are essentially reducible to one . The more frequent
method , in cases , for example , where the dream thoughts are
66
to the effect : Because this was so and so , this and that
must happen," consists in making the premise an introductory
dream and joining the conclusion to it in the form of the main
dream . If my interpretation is correct , the sequence may also
be reversed . That part of the dream which is more completely
worked out always corresponds to the conclusion .
A female patient, whose dream I shall later give in full ,
once furnished me with a neat example of such a representa
tion of causal relationship . The dream consisted of a short
prologue and of a very elaborate but well organised dream
composition , which might be entitled : " A flower of speech."
The prologue of the dream is as follows : She goes to the two
maids in the kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare
66
a little bite of food." She also sees a great many coarse dishes
standing in the kitchen, inverted so that the water may drop off
 THE DREAM-WORK 293

them, and heaped up in a pile. The two maids go to fetch water,

and must, as it were, step into a river, which reaches up to the
house or into the yard.
Then follows the main dream , which begins as follows :
She is descending from a high place, over balustrades that are
curiously fashioned, and she is glad that her dress doesn't get
caught anywhere, &c . Now the introductory dream refers
to the house of the lady's parents . Probably she has often
heard from her mother the words which are spoken in the
kitchen. The piles of unwashed dishes are taken from an
unpretentious earthenware shop which was located in the
same house. The second part of this dream contains an
allusion to the dreamer's father, who always had a great deal
to do with servant girls, and who later contracted a fatal
disease during a flood-the house stood near the bank of a
river. The thought which is concealed behind the intro
ductory dream , then, is to this effect : " Because I was born
in this house, under such limited and unlovely circumstances ."
The main dream takes up the same thought, and presents it in
a form that has been altered by the tendency to wish -fulfil
66
ment : I am of exalted origin. " Properly then : " Because
I was born in such low circumstances, my career has been so
and so ."
As far as I can see , the partition of a dream into two unequal
portions does not always signify a causal relation between
the thoughts of the two portions . It often appears as though
the same material were being presented in the two dreams
from different points of view ; or as though the two dreams
have proceeded from two separated centres in the dream
material and their contents overlap, so that the object which
is the centre of one dream has served in the other as an
allusion , and vice versa. But in a certain number of cases a
division into shorter fore-dreams and longer subsequent
dreams actually signifies a causal relation between the two
portions . The other method of representing causal relation
is used with less abundant material and consists in the change
of one image in the dream , whether a person or a thing, into
another. It is only in cases where we witness this change.
taking place in the dream that any causal relation is asserted
to exist, not where we merely notice that one thing has taken
294 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the place of another. I said that both methods of repre

senting causal relation are reducible to the same thing ; in
both cases causation is represented by a succession, now by
the sequence of the dreams , now by the immediate transforma
tion of one image into another. In the great majority of
cases , of course, causal relation is not expressed at all , but is
obliterated by the sequence of elements which is unavoidable
in the dream process .
The dream is altogether unable to express the alternative ,
66
either-or " ; it is in the habit of taking both members of
this alternative into one context , as though they were equally
privileged . A classic example of this is contained in the
dream of Irma's injection . Its latent thoughts obviously
mean : I am innocent of the continued presence of Irma's
pains ; the fault rests either with her resistance to accepting
the solution, or with the fact that she is living under un
favourable sexual conditions , which I am unable to change, or
her pains are not of a hysteric nature at all , but organic . The
dream , however, fulfils all these possibilities , which are almost
exclusive, and is quite ready to extract from the dream-wish
an additional fourth solution of this kind . After interpreting
the dream I have therefore inserted the either-or in the
sequence of the dream thoughts.
In the case where the dreamer finds occasion in telling the
dream to use either- or : " It was either a garden or a living
room," &c . , it is not really an alternative which occurs in the
dream thoughts, but an " and , " a simple addition . When we
use either- or we are usually describing a characteristic of
indistinctness belonging to an element of the dream which is
still capable of being cleared up . The rule of interpretation
for this case is as follows : The separate members of the
alternative are to be treated as equals and connected by
" and." For instance , after waiting for a long time in vain
for the address of my friend who is living in Italy, I dream
that I receive a telegram which tells me this address . Upon
the strip of telegraph paper I see printed in blue the following ;
the first word is blurred :

perhaps via,
or villa, the second is distinctly : Sezerno or perhaps (Casa) .
 THE DREAM-WORK 295

The second word, which sounds like an Italian name and

which reminds me of our etymological discussions , also ex
presses my displeasure on account of the fact that my friend
has kept his place of residence secret from me for so long a
time ; every member of the triple suggestion for the first word
may be recognised in the course of analysis as a self- sufficient
and equally well-justified starting point in the concatenation
of ideas .
During the night before the funeral of my father I dreamed
of a printed placard , a card or poster-perhaps something
like signs in railway waiting-rooms which announce the pro
hibition of smoking-which reads either :

It is requested to shut the eyes

or
It is requested to shut an eye
which I am in the habit of representing in the following form :
the
It is requested to shut eye (s).
an
Each of the two variations has its own particular meaning,
and leads us along particular paths in the interpretation of the
dream . I had made the simplest kind of funeral arrangements ,
for I knew how the deceased thought about such matters .
Other members of the family, however, did not approve of
such puritanic simplicity ; they thought we would have to
be ashamed before the mourners . Hence one of the wordings
of the dream requests the " shutting of one eye," that is to
say, that people should show consideration . The significance
of the blurring, which we describe with an either-or, may here
be seen with particular ease . The dream activity has not
succeeded in constructing a unified but at the same time
ambiguous wording for the dream thoughts . Thus the two
main trains of thought are already distinguished even in the
dream content.
In a few cases the division of the dream into two equal
parts expresses the alternative which the dream finds it so
difficult to represent.
The attitude of the dream towards the category of anti
thesis and contradiction is most striking. This category is
296 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

unceremoniously neglected ; the word " No " does not seem

to exist for the dream . Antitheses are with peculiar preference
reduced to unity or represented as one. The dream also
takes the liberty of representing any element whatever by its
desired opposite , so that it is at first impossible to tell about
any element capable of having an opposite, whether it is to be
taken negatively or positively, in the dream thoughts . * In
one of the last -mentioned dreams , whose introductory portion
we have already interpreted (" because my parentage is such " ) ,
the dreamer descends over a balustrade and holds a blossom
ing twig in her hands. Since this picture suggests to her
the angel in paintings of the Annunciation (her own name is
Mary) carrying a lily stem in his hand, and the white-robed
girls marching in the procession on Corpus Christi Day when
the streets are decorated with green bows , the blossoming
twig in the dream is very certainly an allusion to sexual
innocence. But the twig is thickly studded with red blossoms ,
each one of which resembles a camelia. At the end of her
walk, so the dream continues , the blossoms have already
fallen considerably apart ; then unmistakable allusions to
menstruation follow. But this very twig which is carried
like a lily and as though by an innocent girl, is also an allusion
to Camille, who , as is known, always wore a white camelia,
but a red one at the time of her menstruation . The same
blossoming twig (" the flower of maidenhood " in the songs
about the miller's daughter by Goethe ) represents at once
sexual innocence and its opposite . The same dream , also ,
which expresses the dreamer's joy at having succeeded in
passing through life unsullied, hints in several places (as at
the falling-off of the blossom) , at the opposite train of thought
—namely, that she had been guilty of various sins against
sexual purity (that is in her childhood ) . In the analysis of
* From a work of K. Abel, Der Gegensinn der Urworte, 1884 (see my
review of it in the Bleuler- Freud Jahrbuch, II., 1910), I learned with surprise
a fact which is confirmed by other philologists, that the oldest languages
behaved in this regard quite like the dream. They originally had only one
word for both extremes in a series of qualities or activities (strong-weak,
old-young, far-near, to tie-to separate), and formed separate designa
tions for the two extremes only secondarily through slight modifications of
the common primitive word . Abel demonstrated these relationships with
rare exceptions in the old Egyptian, and he was able to show distinct
remnants of the same development in the Semitic and Indo-Germanic
languages.
 THE DREAM-WORK 297

the dream we may clearly distinguish the two trains of thought,

of which the comforting one seems to be superficial , the re
proachful one more profound . The two are diametrically
opposed to each other, and their like but contrasting elements
have been represented by the identical dream elements .
The mechanism of dream formation is favourable in the
highest degree to only one of the logical relations . This
relation is that of similarity , correspondence, contiguity, " as
though," which is capable of being represented in the dream
as no other can be, by the most varied expedients . The corre
spondences occurring in the dream, or cases of " as though,"
are the chief points of support for the formation of dreams ,
and no inconsiderable part of the dream activity consists in
creating new correspondences of this sort in cases where those
which are already at hand are prevented by the censor of
resistance from getting into the dream. The effort towards
condensation shown by the dream activity assists in the
representation of the relation of similarity .
Similarity, agreement, community, are quite generally ex
pressed in the dream by concentration into a unity, which is
either already found in the dream material or is newly created .
The first case may be referred to as identification, the second
as composition . Identification is used where the dream is
concerned with persons , composition where things are the
objects of unification ; but compositions are also made from
persons . Localities are often treated as persons .
Identification consists in giving representation in the
dream content to only one of a number of persons who are
connected by some common feature, while the second or the
other persons seem to be suppressed as far as the dream is
concerned . This one representative person in the dream
enters into all the relations and situations which belong to
itself or to the persons who are covered by it. In cases of
composition, however, when this has to do with persons ,
there are already present in the dream image features which
are characteristic of, but not common to , the persons in
question , so that a new unity, a composite person, appears as
the result of the union of these features . The composition
itself may be brought about in various ways . Either the
dream person bears the name of one of the persons to whom
298 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

it refers-and then we know, in a manner which is quite

analogous to knowledge in waking life, that this or that person
is the one who is meant- while the visual features belong to
another person ; or the dream image itself is composed of
visual features which in reality are shared by both . Instead
of visual features , also , the part played by the second person
may be represented by the mannerisms which are usually
ascribed to him, the words which he usually speaks , or the
situations in which he is usually imagined . In the latter
method of characterisation the sharp distinction between
identification and composition of persons begins to disappear.
But it may also happen that the formation of such a mixed
personality is unsuccessful . The situation of the dream is
then attributed to one person, and the other as a rule the
more important one-is introduced as an inactive and uncon
cerned spectator. The dreamer relates something like " My
mother was also there " (Stekel) .
The common feature which justifies the union of the two
persons-that is to say, which is the occasion for it- may
either be represented in the dream or be absent . As a rule,
identification or composition of persons simply serves the
purpose of dispensing with the representation of this common
feature . Instead of repeating : " A is ill disposed towards
me, and B is also , " I make a composite person of A and B in
the dream , or I conceive A as doing an unaccustomed action
which usually characterises B. The dream person obtained
in this way appears in the dream in some new connection , and
the fact that it signifies both A and B justifies me in inserting
that which is common to both- their hostility towards me—
at the proper place in the interpretation of the dream. In
this manner I often achieve a very extraordinary degree of
condensation of the dream content ; I can save myself the
direct representation of very complicated relations belonging
to a person , if I can find a second person who has an equal
claim to a part of these relations . It is also obvious to what
extent this representation by means of identification can
circumvent the resisting censor, which makes the dream
activity conform to such harsh conditions . That which
offends the censor may lie in those very ideas which are con
nected in the dream material with the one person ; I now find
 THE DREAM-WORK 299

a second person, who likewise has relation to the objectionable

material, but only to a part of it . The contact in that one
point which offends the censor now justified me in forming
a composite person , which is characterised on either hand by
indifferent features . This person resulting from composition
or identification, who is unobjectionable to the censor, is now
suited for incorporation in the dream content , and by the
application of dream condensation I have satisfied the demands
of the dream censor.
In dreams where a common feature of two persons is repre
sented, this is usually a hint to look for another concealed
common feature, the representation of which is made im
possible by the censor. A displacement of the common
feature has here taken place partly in order to facilitate repre
sentation . From the circumstance that the composite person
appears to me with an indifferent common feature, I must
infer that another common feature which is by no means
indifferent exists in the dream thoughts .
According to what has been said, identification or com
position of persons serves various purposes in the dream ; in
the first place, to represent a feature common to the two
persons ; secondly, to represent a displaced common feature ;
and thirdly, even to give expression to a community of features
that is merely wished for. As the wish for a community
between two persons frequently coincides with the exchanging
of these persons, this relation in the dream is also expressed
through identification . In the dream of Irma's injection I
wish to exchange this patient for another-that is to say, I
wish the latter to be my patient as the former has been ; the
dream takes account of this wish by showing me a person who
is called Irma, but who is examined in a position such as I
have had the opportunity of seeing only when occupied with
the other person in question . In the dream about my uncle
this substitution is made the centre of the dream ; I identify
myself with the minister by judging and treating my colleague
as shabbily as he does.
It has been my experience—and to this I have found no
exception-that every dream treats of one's own person .
Dreams are absolutely egotistic . In cases where not my ego ,
but only a strange person occurs in the dream content, I may
300 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

safely assume that my ego is concealed behind that person by

1
means of identification . I am permitted to supplement my
ego . On other occasions when my ego appears in the dream,
I am given to understand by the situation in which it is placed
that another person is concealing himself behind the ego .
In this case the dream is intended to give me notice that in the
interpretation I must transfer something which is connected
with this person-the hidden common feature-to myself .
There are also dreams in which my ego occurs along with other
persons which the resolution of the identification again shows
to be my ego. By means of this identification I am instructed
to unite in my ego certain ideas to whose acceptance the censor
has objected. I may also give my ego manifold representation
in the dream, now directly, now by means of identification
with strangers . An extraordinary amount of thought material
may be condensed by means of a few such identifications . *
The resolution of the identification of localities designated
under their own names is even less difficult than that of
persons , because here the disturbing influence of the ego,
which is all-powerful in the dream , is lacking . In one of my
dreams about Rome (p . 164 ) the name of the place in which
I find myself is Rome ; I am surprised, however, at the great
number of German placards at a street corner. The latter
is a wish-fulfilment, which immediately suggests Prague ; the
wish itself probably originated at a period in my youth when I
was imbued with a German nationalistic spirit which is sup
pressed to -day. At the time of my dream I was looking
forward to meeting a friend in Prague ; the identification of
Rome and Prague is thus to be explained by means of a desired
common feature ; I would rather meet my friend in Rome
than in Prague , I should like to exchange Prague for Rome for
the purpose of this meeting .
The possibility of creating compositions is one of the chief
causes of the phantastic character so common in dreams , in
that it introduces into the dream elements which could never
have been the objects of perception . The psychic process
which occurs in the formation of compositions is obviously
If I do not know behind which of the persons which occur in the
dream I am to look for my ego, I observe the following rule : That person in
the dream who is subject to an emotion which I experience while asleep ,
is the one that conceals my ego.
 THE DREAM-WORK 301

the same which we employ in conceiving or fashioning a centaur

or a dragon in waking life . The only difference is that in the
phantastic creations occurring in waking life the intended
impression to be made by the new creation is itself the
deciding factor, while the composition of the dream is deter
mined by an influence-the common feature in the dream
thoughts - which is independent of the form of the image.
The composition of the dream may be accomplished in a great
many different ways. In the most artless method of execu
tion the properties of the one thing are represented, and this
representation is accompanied by the knowledge that they
also belong to another object . A more careful technique
unites the features of one object with those of the other in
a new image, while it makes skilful use of resemblance
between the two objects which exist in reality . The new
creation may turn out altogether absurd or only phantasti
cally ingenious , according to the subject-matter and the wit
operative in the work of composition . If the objects to be
condensed into a unity are too incongruous, the dream activity
is content with creating a composition with a comparatively
distinct nucleus , to which are attached less distinct modifica
tions. The unification into one image has here been unsuccess
ful, as it were ; the two representations overlap and give rise to
something like a contest between visual images. If attempt
were made to construct an idea out of individual images of
perception, similar representations might be obtained in a
drawing.
Dreams naturally abound in such compositions ; several
examples of these I have given in the dreams already analysed ;
I shall add more . In the dream on p. 296, which describes
the career of my patient " in flowery language,” the dream
ego carries a blossoming twig in her hand, which, as we have
seen, signifies at once innocence and sexual transgression .
Moreover, the twig recalls cherry-blossoms on account of
the manner in which the blossoms are clustered ; the blossoms
themselves , separately considered , are camelias , and finally the
whole thing also gives the impression of an exotic plant. The
common feature in the elements of this composition is shown
by the dream thoughts. The blossoming twig is made up of
allusions to presents by which she was induced or should have
302 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

been induced to show herself agreeable . So it was with the

cherries in her childhood and with the stem of camelias in
her later years ; the exotic feature is an illusion to a much
travelled naturalist , who sought to win her favour by means
of a drawing of a flower. Another female patient creates a
middle element out of bath-houses at a bathing resort, rural
outside water-closets , and the garrets of our city dwellings .
The reference to human nakedness and exposure is common
to the two first elements ; and we may infer from their con
nection with the third element that (in her childhood ) the
garret was likewise the scene of exposure. A dreamer of the
male sex makes a composite locality out of two places in
which " treatment " is given- my office and the public hall
in which he first became acquainted with his wife . Another
female patient , after her elder brother has promised to regale
her with caviare, dreams that his legs are covered thick with
66
black caviare pearls. The two elements , contagion " in
a moral sense and the recollection of a cutaneous eruption
in childhood which made her legs look as though studded
over with red dots instead of black ones , have here been united
with the caviare pearls to form a new idea-the idea of " what
she has inherited from her brother." In this dream parts of
the human body are treated as objects, as is usually the case
87
in dreams . In one of the dreams reported by Ferenczi
there occurred a composition made up of the person of a
physician and a horse, over which was spread a nightshirt.
The common feature in these three components was shown
in the analysis after the nightshirt had been recognised as an
allusion to the father of the dreamer in an infantile scene.
In each of the three cases there was some object of her sexual
inquisitiveness. As a child she had often been taken by her
nurse to the military breeding station , where she had the
amplest opportunity to satisfy her curiosity, which was at that
time uninhibited .
I have already asserted that the dream has no means for
expressing the relation of contradiction , of contrast, of nega
tion. I am about to contradict this assertion for the first
time. A part of the cases, which may be summed up under the
word " contrast," finds representation, as we have seen, simply
by means of identification —that is , when an interchange or
 THE DREAM-WORK 303

replacement can be connected with the contrast. We have

given repeated examples of this . Another part of the con
trasts in the dream thoughts, which perhaps falls into the
category " turned into the opposite," is represented in the dream
in the following remarkable manner, which may almost be
designated as witty. The " inversion " does not itself get
into the dream content, but manifests its presence there by
means of the fact that a part of the already formed dream
content which lies at hand for other reasons, is-as it were
subsequently -inverted . It is easier to illustrate this process
than to describe it. In the beautiful " Up and Down "
dream (p . 267 ) the representation of ascending is an inversion
of a prototype in the dream thoughts, that is to say, of the
introductory scene of Daudet's Sappho ; in the dream climb
ing is difficult at first, and easy later on, while in the actual
scene it is easy at first, and later becomes more and more
difficult . Likewise " above " and " below " in relation to
the dreamer's brother are inverted in the dream. This points
to a relation of contraries or contrasts as obtaining between
two parts of the subject-matter of the dream thoughts and
the relation we have found in the fact that in the childish
fancy of the dreamer he is carried by his nurse, while in the
novel, on the contrary, the hero carries his beloved . My
dream about Goethe's attack upon Mr. M. (p . 345 ) also contains
an " inversion " of this sort, which must first be set right
before the interpretation of the dream can be accomplished .
In the dream Goethe attacks a young man, Mr. M.; in reality,
according to the dream thoughts, an eminent man, my friend ,
has been attacked by an unknown young author. In the
dream I reckon time from the date of Goethe's death ; in
reality the reckoning was made from the year in which the
paralytic was born . The thought determining the dream
material is shown to be an objection to the treatment of Goethe
as a lunatic . “ The other way around, " says the dream ; " if
you cannot understand the book, it is you who are dull-witted ,
not the author. " Furthermore , all these dreams of inversion
seem to contain a reference to the contemptuous phrase,
66 66
' to turn one's back upon a person " (German : einen die
Kehrseite zeigen " ; cf. the inversion in respect to the dreamer's
brother in the Sappho dream ). It is also remarkable how
304 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

frequently inversion becomes necessary in dreams which are

inspired by repressed homosexual feelings.
Moreover, inversion or transformation into an opposite
is one of the favourite methods of representation, and one of
the methods most capable of varied application which the
dream activity possesses. Its first function is to create the
fulfilment of a wish with reference to a definite element of
the dream-thoughts . " If it were only just the other way ! "
is often the best expression of the relation of the ego to a dis
agreeable recollection. But inversion becomes extraordinarily
useful for the purposes of the censor, for it brings about
in the material represented a degree of disfiguration which all
but paralyses our understanding of the dream . For this
reason it is always permissible, in cases where the dream
stubbornly refuses to yield its meaning, to try the inversion
of definite portions of its manifest content, whereupon not
infrequently everything becomes clear.
Besides this inversion , the subject-matter inversion in
temporal relation is not to be overlooked . A frequent device
of dream disfigurement consists in presenting the final issue
of an occurrence or the conclusion of an argument at the
beginning of the dream, or in supplying the premises of a
conclusion or the causes of an effect at the end of it . Any
one who has not considered this technical method of dream
disfigurement stands helpless before the problem of dream
interpretation . *
Indeed in some cases we can obtain the sense of the dream
only by subjecting the dream content to manifold inversion
in different directions . For example, in the dream of a young
patient suffering from a compulsion neurosis , the memory of an
infantile death-wish against a dreaded father was hidden behind
* The hysterical attack sometimes uses the same device- the inversion of
time-relations for the purpose of concealing its meaning from the spectator.
The attack of a hysterical girl, for example, consists in enacting a little
romance, which she has unconsciously fancied in connection with an en
counter in the street car. A man, attracted by the beauty of her foot, addresses
her while she is reading, whereupon she goes with him and experiences a
stormy love scene. Her attack begins with the representation of this scene
in writhing movements of the body (accompanied by motions of the lips to
signify kissing, entwining of the arms for embraces), whereupon she hurries
into another room, sits down in a chair, lifts her skirt in order to show her
foot, acts as though she were about to read a book, and speaks to me
(answers me).
 THE DREAM-WORK 305

the following words : His father upbraids him because he arrives

so late. But the context in the psychoanalytic treatment
and the thoughts of the dreamer alike go to show that the
sentence must read as follows : He is angry at his father,
and, further, that his father is always coming home too early
(i.e. too soon). He would have preferred that his father should
not come home at all, which is identical with the wish (see page
219) that his father should die. As a little boy the dreamer
was guilty of sexual aggression against another person while
his father was away, and he was threatened with punishment
in the words : " Just wait until father comes home."

If we attempt to trace the relations between dream content

and dream thoughts further, we shall do this best by making
the dream itself our starting-point and by asking ourselves
the question : What do certain formal characteristics of dream
representation signify with reference to the dream thoughts ?
The formal characteristics which must attract our attention
in the dream primarily include variations in the distinctness
of individual parts of the dream or of whole dreams in relation
to one another. The variations in the intensity of individual
dream images include a whole scale of degrees ranging from
a distinctness of depiction which one is inclined to rate as
higher-without warrant, to be sure-than that of reality, to
a provoking indistinctness which is declared to be character
istic of the dream, because it cannot altogether be compared
to any degree of indistinctness which we ever see in real objects .
Moreover, we usually designate the impression ""which we
get from an indistinct object in the dream as fleeting ,"
while we think of the more distinct dream images as remain
ing intact for a longer period of perception. We must now
ask ourselves by what conditions in the dream material these
differences in the vividness of the different parts of the dream
content are brought about.
There are certain expectations which will inevitably arise
at this point and which must be met. Owing to the fact that
real sensations during sleep may form part of the material
of the dream , it will probably be assumed that these sensations
or the dream elements resulting from them are emphasized
by peculiar intensity, or conversely, that what turns out to be
U
306 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

particularly vivid in the dream is probably traceable to such

real sensations during sleep . My experience has never con
firmed this. It is incorrect to say that those elements of the
dream which are the derivatives of impressions occurring in
sleep (nervous excitements ) are distinguished by their vivid
ness from others which are based on recollections. The factor
of reality is of no account in determining the intensity of
dream images .
Furthermore, the expectation will be cherished that the
sensory intensity (vividness ) of individual dream images has
a relation to the psychic intensity of the elements correspond
ing to them in the dream-thoughts . In the latter intensity
is identical with psychic value ; the most intense elements
are in fact the most significant, and these are the central
point of the dream. We know, however, that it is just these
elements which are usually not accepted in the dream content
owing to the censor. But still it might be possible that the
elements immediately following these and representing them
might show a higher degree of intensity, without, however,
for that reason constituting the centre of the dream represen
tation . This expectation is also destroyed by a comparison
of the dream and the dream material. The intensity of the
elements in the one has nothing to do with the intensity of
the elements in the other ; a complete " transvaluation of
all psychic values " takes place between the dream-material
and the dream. The very element which is transient and hazy
and which is pushed into the background by more vigorous
images is often the single and only element in which may be
traced any direct derivative from the subject which entirely
dominated the dream-thoughts .
The intensity of the elements of the dream shows itself
to be determined in a different manner-that is, by two factors
which are independent of each other. It is easy to see at
the outset that those elements by means of which the wish
fulfilment is expressed are most distinctly represented . But
then analysis also teaches us that from the most vivid elements
of the dream, the greatest number of trains of thought start,
and that the most vivid are at the same time those which are
best determined . No change of sense is involved if we express
the latter empirical thesis in the following form : the greatest
 THE DREAM-WORK 307

intensity is shown by those elements of the dream for which

the most abundant condensation activity was required . We
may therefore expect that this condition and the others im
posed by the wish-fulfilment can be expressed in a single
formula .
The problem which I have just been considering the
causes of greater or less intensity or distinctness of individual
elements of the dream- is one which I should like to guard
against being confused with another problem, which has to
do with the varying distinctness of whole dreams or sections
of dreams . In the first case, the opposite of distinctness is
blurredness ; in the second, confusion . It is of course unmis
takable that the intensities rise and fall in the two scales in
unison. A portion of the dream which seems clear to us
usually contains vivid elements ; an obscure dream is com
posed of less intense elements . But the problem with which
we are confronted by the scale, ranging from the apparently
clear to the indistinct or confused, is far more complicated
than that formed by variations in the vividness of the dream
elements ; indeed the former will be dropped from the dis
cussion for reasons which will be given later. In isolated
cases we are astonished to find that the impression of clear
ness or indistinctness produced by the dream is altogether
without significance for its structure, and that it originates
in the dream material as one of its constituents . Thus I
remember a dream which seemed particularly well constructed ,
flawless, and clear, so that I made up my mind , while I was
still in the somnolent state, to recognise a new class of dreams
-those which had not been subject to the mechanism of con
densation and displacement, and which might thus be desig
nated " Fancies while asleep." A closer examination proved
that this rare dream had the same breaches and flaws in its
construction as every other ; for this reason I abandoned the
category of dream fancies . The content of the dream, re
duced to its lowest terms , was that I was reciting to a friend a
difficult and long-sought theory of bisexuality, and the wish
fulfilling power of the dream was responsible for the fact
that this theory (which, by the way, was not stated in the
dream) appeared so clear and flawless . What I considered
a judgment upon the finished dream was thus a part of the
308 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

dream content, and the essential one at that . The dream

activity had extended its operations, as it were, into waking
thought, and had presented to me in the form of a judgment
that part of the dream material which it had not succeeded
in reproducing with exactness . The exact opposite of this
once came to my attention in the case of a female patient
who was at first altogether unwilling to tell a dream which was
necessary for the analysis , " because it was so obscure and
confused," and who declared, after repeatedly denying the
accuracy of her description , that several persons, herself,
her husband, and her father, had occurred in the dream , and
that it seemed as though she did not know whether her
husband was her father, or who her father was anyway, or
something of that sort. Upon considering this dream in
connection with the ideas that occurred to the dreamer in the
course of the sitting , it was found unquestionably to be concerned
with the story of a servant girl who had to confess that she was
expecting a child, and who was now confronted with doubts
as to " who was really the father. " * The obscurity mani
fested by the dream, therefore, is again in this case a portion
of the material which excited it . A part of this material
was represented in the form of the dream. The form of the
dream or of dreaming is used with astonishing frequency to
represent the concealed content.
Comments on the dream and seemingly harmless observa
tions about it often serve in the most subtle manner to conceal
--although they usually betray-a part of what is dreamed.
Thus, for example, when the dreamer says : Here the dream
is vague, and the analysis gives an infantile reminiscence of
listening to a person cleaning himself after defecation . An
other example deserves to be recorded in detail . A young
man has a very distinct dream which recalls to him phan
tasies from his infancy which have remained conscious to
him he was in a summer hotel one evening, he mistook the
number of his room, and entered a room in which an elderly
lady and her two daughters were undressing to go to bed.
He continues : " Then there are some gaps in the dream ; then
something is missing ; and at the end there was a man in the

Accompanying hysterical symptoms : Failure to menstruate and pro

found depression, which was the chief ailment of the patient.
 THE DREAM-WORK 309

room who wished to throw me out with whom I had to wrestle ."
He endeavoured in vain to recall the content and purpose
of the boyish fancy to which the dream apparently alludes .
But we finally become aware that the required content had
already been given in his utterances concerning the indistinct
""
part of the dream . The " gaps were the openings in the
genitals of the women who were retiring : " Here something
is missing " described the chief character of the female genitals .
In those early years he burned with curiosity to see a female
genital, and was still inclined to adhere to the infantile sexual
theory which attributes a male genital to the woman .
All the dreams which have been dreamed in the same
night belong to the same whole when considered with respect
to their content ; their separation into several portions, their
grouping and number, all these details are full of meaning .
and may be considered as information coming from the latent
dream content . In the interpretation of dreams consisting
of many principal sections, or of dreams belonging to the
same night, one must not fail to think of the possibility that
these different and succeeding dreams bring to expression the
same feelings in different material. The one that comes
first in time of these homologous dreams is usually the most
disfigured and most bashful, while the succeeding is bolder
and more distinct.
Even Pharaoh's dream in the Bible of the ears and the
kine, which Joseph interpreted , was of this kind. It is reported
by Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, bk. ii . chap . iii . ) in greater
detail than in the Bible. After relating the first dream , the
King said : " When I had seen this vision I awaked out of my
sleep, and being in disorder, and considering with myself
what this appearance should be, I fell asleep again, and saw
another dream much more wonderful than the first, which
did still more affright and disturb me." After listening to
the report of the dream, Joseph said, " This dream, O King,
although seen under two forms, signifies one and the same
issue of things."
Jung ," who, in his Beitrag zur Psychologie des Gerüchtes
relates how the veiled erotic dream of a school-girl was under
stood by her friends without interpretation and continued
by them with variations, remarks in connection with reports
310 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of this dream , " that the last of a long series of dream pictures
contained precisely the same thought whose representation
had been attempted in the first picture of the series. The
censor pushed the complex out of the way as long as possible,
through constantly renewed symbolic concealments , dis
placements , deviations into the harmless, & c . " (l.c. p . 87 ) .
Scherner 58 was well acquainted with the peculiarities of dream
disfigurement and describes them at the end of his theory
of organic stimulation as a special law, p . 166 : " But , finally,
the phantasy observes the general law in all nerve stimuli
emanating from symbolic dream formations, by representing
at the beginning of the dream only the remotest and freest
allusions to the stimulating object ; but towards the end,
when the power of representation becomes exhausted , it pre
sents the stimulus or its concerned organ or its function in
unconcealed form , and in the way this dream designates its
organic motive and reaches its end ."
A new confirmation of Scherner's law has been furnished
by Otto Rank 106 in his work, A Self Interpretation Dream.
This dream of a girl reported by him consisted of two dreams,
separated in time of the same night, the second of which ended
with pollution . This pollution dream could be interpreted
in all its details by disregarding a great many of the ideas
contributed by the dreamer, and the profuse relations be
tween the two dream contents indicated that the first dream
expressed in bashful language the same thing as the second,
so that the latter the pollution dream-helped to a full
explanation of the former. From this example, Rank, with
perfect justice, draws conclusions concerning the significance
of pollution dreams in general.
But in my experience it is only in rare cases that one is
in a position to interpret clearness or confusion in the dream
as certainty or doubt in the dream material. Later I shall
try to discover the factor in the formation of dreams upon
whose influence this scale of qualities essentially depends .
In some dreams, which adhere for a time to a certain
situation and scenery, there occur interruptions dsecribed
in the following words : " But then it seemed as though it
were at the same time another place, and there such and such
a thing happened ." What thus interrupts the main trend
 THE DREAM-WORK 311

of the dream, which after a while may be continued again,

turns out to be a subordinate idea, an interpolated thought
in the dream material. A conditional relation in the dream
thoughts is represented by simultaneousness in the dream
(wenn- wann ; if-when) .
What is signified by the sensation of impeded movement,
which so often occurs in the dream, and which is so closely
allied to anxiety ? One wants to move, and is unable to stir
from the spot ; or one wants to accomplish something , and meets
one obstacle after another. The train is about to start, and
one cannot reach it ; one's hand is raised to avenge an insult,
and its strength fails, & c . We have already encountered
this sensation in exhibition dreams, but have as yet made no
serious attempt to interpret it. It is convenient, but inade
quate, to answer that there is motor paralysis in sleep , which
manifests itself by means of the sensation alluded to . We
may ask : " Why is it, then, that we do not dream continually
of these impeded motions ? " And we are justified in suppos
ing that this sensation, constantly appearing in sleep, serves
some purpose or other in representation , and is brought about
by a need occurring in the dream material for this sort of
representation.
Failure to accomplish does not always appear in the dream
as a sensation, but also simply as a part of the dream content.
I believe that a case of this sort is particularly well suited to
enlighten us about the significance of this characteristic of
the dream. I shall give an abridged report of a dream in
which I seem to be accused of dishonesty . The scene is a
mixture, consisting of a private sanatorium and several other
buildings. A lackey appears to call me to an examination. I
know in the dream that something has been missed, and that the
examination is taking place because I am suspected of having
appropriated the lost article . Analysis shows that examination
is to be taken in two senses , and also means medical examination .
Being conscious of my innocence, and of the fact that I have been
called in for consultation, I calmly follow the lackey. We are
received at the door by another lackey, who says, pointing to me,
" Is that the person whom you have brought ? Why, he is a
respectable man." Thereupon, without any lackey, I enter a
great hall in which machines are standing, and which reminds me
312 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of an Inferno with its hellish modes of punishment. I see a

colleague strapped on to one apparatus who has every reason to
be concerned about me ; but he takes no notice of me. Then I
am given to understand that I may now go. Then I cannot find
my hat, and cannot go after all.
The wish which the dream fulfils is obviously that I may
be acknowledged to be an honest man, and may go ; all kinds
of subject-matter containing a contradiction of this idea must
therefore be present in the dream -thoughts. The fact that I
may go is the sign of my absolution ; if, then, the dream
furnishes at its close an event which prevents me from going,
we may readily conclude that the suppressed subject-matter
of the contradiction asserts itself in this feature. The cir
cumstance that I cannot find my hat therefore means : " You
are not an honest man after all." Failure to accomplish in
the dream is the expression of a contradiction, a " No " ;
and therefore the earlier assertion , to the effect that the
dream is not capable of expressing a negation, must be revised
accordingly. *
In other dreams which involve failure to accomplish a
thing not only as a situation but also as a sensation , the same
contradiction is more emphatically expressed in the form of
a volition, to which a counter volition opposes itself. Thus
the sensation of impeded motion represents a conflict of will.
We shall hear later that this very motor paralysis belongs
to the fundamental conditions of the psychic process in dream
ing. Now the impulse which is transferred to motor channels
is nothing else than the will, and the fact that we are sure to
find this impulse impeded in the dream makes the whole process
""
extraordinarily well suited to represent volition and the " No
which opposes itself thereto . From my explanation of anxiety,
* A reference to a childhood experience is after complete analysis shown
to exist by the following intermediaries : " The Moor has done his duty,
the Moor may go." And then follows the waggish question : " How old is
the Moor when he has done his duty ? One year. Then he may go." (It
is said that I came into the world with so much black curly hair that my
young mother declared me to be a Moor. ) The circumstance that I do not
find my hat is an experience of the day which has been turned to account
with various significations. Our servant, who is a genius at stowing away
things, had hidden the hat. A suppression of sad thoughts about death is
also concealed behind the conclusion of the dream : " I have not nearly done
my duty yet ; I may not go yet." Birth and death, as in the dream that
occurred shortly before about Goethe and the paralytic (p. 345).
 THE DREAM-WORK 313

it is easy to understand why the sensation of thwarted will

is so closely allied to anxiety , and why it is so often connected
with it in the dream. Anxiety is a libidinous impulse which
emanates from the unconscious, and is inhibited by the fore
conscious . Therefore, when a sensation of inhibition in the
dream is accompanied by anxiety, there must also be present
a volition which has at one time been capable of arousing
a libido ; there must be a sexual impulse.
What significance and what psychic force is to be ascribed
to such manifestations of judgment as " For that is only a
dream ," which frequently comes to the surface in dreams , I
shall discuss in another place (vide infra, p . 390 ) . For the
present I shall merely say that they serve to depreciate the
value of the thing dreamed . An interesting problem allied to
this, namely, the meaning of the fact that sometimes a cer
tain content is designated in the dream itself as " dreamed "
-the riddle of the " dream within the dream "-has been
solved in a similar sense by W. Stekel 114 through the analysis
of some convincing examples. The part of the dream
" dreamed " is again to be depreciated in value and robbed
of its reality ; that which the dreamer continues to dream
after awakening from the dream within the dream, is what
the dream-wish desires to put in place of the extinguished
reality. It may therefore be assumed that the part
" dreamed " contains the representation of the reality and
the real reminiscence, while, on the other hand, the continued
dream contains the representation of what the dreamer
wished. The inclusion of a certain content in a " dream
within the dream " is therefore equivalent to the wish that
what has just been designated as a dream should not have
occurred. The dream-work utilises the dream itself as a form
of deflection.

(d) Regard for Presentability

So far we have been attempting to ascertain how the dream

represents the relations among the dream-thoughts, but we
have several times extended our consideration to the further
question of what alterations the dream material undergoes
for the purposes of dream formation. We now know that
the dream material, after being stripped of the greater parts
314 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of its relations, is subjected to compression , while at the same

time displacements of intensity among its elements force a
psychic revaluation of this material. The displacements
which we have considered were shown to be substitutions of
one idea for another, the substitute being in some way con
nected with the original by associations, and the displacements
were put to the service of condensation by virtue of the fact
that in this manner a common mean between two elements
took the place of these two elements in the formation of the
dream. We have not yet mentioned any other kind of dis
placement . But we learn from the analyses that another
exists , and that it manifests itself in a change of the verbal
expression employed for the thought in question. In both
cases we have displacement following a chain of associations,
but the same process takes place in different psychic spheres ,
and the result of this displacement in the one case is that one
element is substituted for another, while in the other case
an element exchanges its verbal expression for another.
This second kind of displacement occurring in dream
formation not only possesses great theoretical interest , but is
also peculiarly well fitted to explain the semblance of phan
tastic absurdity in which the dream disguises itself. Dis
placement usually occurs in such a way that a colourless
and abstract expression in the dream-thought is exchanged
for one that is visual and concrete. The advantage, and
consequently the purpose , of this substitution is obvious .
Whatever is visual is capable of representation in the dream,
and can be wrought into situations where the abstract ex
pression would confront dream representation with diffi
culties similar to those which would arise if a political editorial
were to be represented in an illustrated journal . But not
only the possibility of representation , but also the interests
of condensation and of the censor, can be furthered by this
change. If the abstractly expressed and unwieldy dream
thought is recast into figurative language, this new expression
and the rest of the dream material are more easily furnished
with those identities and cross references, which are essential
to the dream activity and which it creates whenever they are
not at hand, for the reason that in every language concrete
terms, owing to their evolution , are more abundant in associa
 THE DREAM-WORK 315

tions than conceptual ones . It may be imagined that in dream

formation a good part of the intermediary activity, which tries
to reduce the separate dream-thoughts to the tersest and
simplest possible expression in the dream, takes place in the
manner above described that is to say, in providing suitable
paraphrase for the individual thoughts . One thought whose
expression has already been determined on other grounds
will thus exert a separating and selective influence upon the
means available for expressing the other, and perhaps it will
do this constantly throughout, somewhat after the manner of
the poet . If a poem in rhyme is to be composed , the second
rhyming line is bound by two conditions ; it must express
the proper meaning, and it must express it in such a way as
to secure the rhyme. The best poems are probably those
in which the poet's effort to find a rhyme is unconscious, and
in which both thoughts have from the beginning exercised a
mutual influence in the selection of their verbal expressions,
which can then be made to rhyme by a means of slight
remodification.
In some cases change of expression serves the purposes
of dream condensation more directly, in making possible the
invention of a verbal construction which is ambiguous and
therefore suited to the expression of more than one dream
thought. The whole range of word-play is thus put at the
service of the dream activity. The part played by words
in the formation of dreams ought not to surprise us . A
word being a point of junction for a number of conceptions ,
it possesses , so to speak, a predestined ambiguity, and neuroses
(obsessions, phobias) take advantage of the conveniences
which words offer for the purposes of condensation and dis
guise quite as readily as the dream . * That dream conception
also profits by this displacement of expression is easily de
monstrated . It is naturally confusing if an ambiguous word
is put in the place of two ambiguous ones ; and the employ
ment of a figurative expression instead of the sober everyday
one thwarts our understanding , especially since the dream never
tells us whether the elements which it shows are to be inter
preted literally or figuratively, or whether they refer to the

* Cf. Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 2nd edit. 1912, and
"word-bridges," in the solutions of neurotic symptoms.
316 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

dream material directly or only through the agency of inter

polated forms of speech. * Several examples of representations
in the dream which are held together only by ambiguity have
already been cited (" her mouth opens without difficulty,"
in the dream of Irma's injection ; " I cannot go yet, " in the
last dream reported , p . 312 ) , &c . I shall now cite a dream
in the analysis of which the figurative expression of abstract
thought plays a greater part. The difference between such
dream interpretation and interpretation by symbolism may
again be sharply distinguished ; in the symbolic interpreta
tion of dreams the key to the symbolism is arbitrarily chosen
by the interpreter, while in our own cases of verbal disguise all
these keys are universally known and are taken from estab
lished customs of speech. If the correct notion occurs at the
right opportunity, it is possible to solve dreams of this sort
completely or in part, independently of any statements made
by the dreamer.
A lady, a friend of mine, dreams : She is in the opera
house. It is a Wagnerian performance which has lasted till
7.45 in the morning. In the parquette and parterre there are
tables, around which people dine and drink. Her cousin and his
young wife, who have just returned from their honeymoon, sit
next to her at one of these tables, and next to them sits one of the
aristocracy. Concerning the latter the idea is that the young wife
has brought him back with her from the wedding journey. It
is quite above board, just as if she were bringing back a hat from
her trip. In the midst of the parquette there is a high tower, on
the top of which is a platform surrounded by an iron grating.
There, high up, stands the conductor with the features of Hans
Richter ; he is continually running around behind the grating,
perspiring awfully, and from this position conducting the orchestra ,

In general it is doubtful in the interpretation of every element of the

dream whether it
(a) is to be regarded as having a negative or a positive sense (relation of
opposition) ;
(b) is to be interpreted historically (as a reminiscence) ;
(c) is symbolic ; or whether
(d) its valuation is to be based upon the sound of its verbal expression.
In spite of this manifold signification, it may be said that the representation
of the dream activity does not impose upon the translator any greater
difficulties than the ancient writers of hieroglyphics imposed upon their
readers.
 THE DREAM-WORK 317

which is arranged around the base of the tower. She herself sits
in a box with a lady friend (known to me). Her youngest sister
tries to hand her from the parquette a big piece of coal with the
idea that she did not know that it would last so long and that she
must by this time be terribly cold. (It was a little as if the boxes
had to be heated during the long performance.)
The dream is senseless enough, though the situation is well
developed too the tower in the midst of the parquette from
which the conductor leads the orchestra ; but, above all,
the coal which her sister hands her ! I purposely asked for
no analysis of this dream. With the knowledge I have of the
personal relations of the dreamer, I was able to interpret parts
of it independently. I knew that she had entertained warm
feelings for a musician whose career had been prematurely
blasted by insanity. I therefore decided to take the tower
in the parquette verbally. It was apparent, then , that the
man whom she wished to see in the place of Hans Richter
towered above all the other members of the orchestra. This
tower must, therefore, be designated as a composite picture
formed by an apposition ; with its pedestal it represents the
greatness of the man, but with its gratings on top, behind which
he runs around like a prisoner or an animal in a cage (an
allusion to the name of the unfortunate man) , it represents
his later fate . " Lunatic-tower " is perhaps the word in
which both thoughts might have met.
Now that we have discovered the dream's method of re
presentation, we may try with the same key to open the second
apparent absurdity, -that of the coal which her sister hands
66
her. " Coal " must mean secret love."

" No coal, no fire so hotly glows

As the secret love which no one knows."

She and her friend remain seated while her younger sister,
who still has opportunities to marry, hands her up the coal
" because she did not know it would last so long." What
would last so long is not told in the dream . In relating it we
would supply "the performance " ; but in the dream we
must take the sentence as it is, declare it ambiguous, and add
" until she marries." The interpretation " secret love " is
then confirmed by the mention of the cousin who sits with
 318 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

his wife in the parquette, and by the open love-affair attri

buted to the latter. The contrasts between secret and open
love, between her fire and the coldness of the young wife,
dominate the dream. Moreover, here again there is a person 1
" in high position " as a middle term between the aristocrat
and the musician entitled to high hopes.
By means of the above discussion we have at last brought
to light a third factor, whose part in the transformation of
the dream thoughts into the dream content is not to be con
sidered trivial ; it is the regard for presentability (German :
Darstellbarkeit) in the peculiar psychic material which the dream
makes use of,-that is fitness for representation, for the most
part by means of visual images . Among the various subor
dinate ideas associated with the essential dream thoughts ,
that one will be preferred which permits of a visual repre
sentation, and the dream-activity does not hesitate promptly
to recast the inflexible thought into another verbal form ,
even if it is the more unusual one, as long as this form makes
dramatisation possible, and thus puts an end to the psycho
logical distress caused by cramped thinking . This pouring
of the thought content into another mould may at the same
time be put at the service of the condensation work, and may
establish relations with another thought which would other
wise not be present. This other thought itself may perhaps
have previously changed its original expression for the purpose
of meeting these relations half-way.
In view of the part played by puns, quotations , songs ,
and proverbs in the intellectual life of educated persons, it
would be entirely in accordance with our expectation to find
disguises of this sort used with extraordinary frequency.
For a few kinds of material a universally applicable dream
symbolism has been established on a basis of generally known
allusions and equivalents . A good part of this symbolism,
moreover, is possessed by the dream in common with the
psychoneuroses , and with legends and popular customs .
Indeed , if we look more closely, we must recognise that
in employing this method of substitution the dream is gene
rally doing nothing original. For the attainment of its purpose.
} which in this case is the possibility of dramatisation without
interference from the censor, it simply follows the paths
 THE DREAM-WORK 319

which it finds already marked out in unconscious thought,

and gives preference to those transformations of the suppressed
material which may become conscious also in the form of wit
and allusion, and with which all the fancies of neurotics are
filled. Here all at once we come to understand Scherner's
method of dream interpretation , the essential truth of which
I have defended elsewhere . The occupation of one's fancy
with one's own body is by no means peculiar to , or character
istic of the dream alone. My analyses have shown me that this
is a regular occurrence in the unconscious thought of neurotics ,
and goes back to sexual curiosity, the object of which for
the adolescent youth or maiden is found in the genitals of the
opposite sex, or even of the same sex . But, as Scherner and
Volkelt very appropriately declare, the house is not the only
group of ideas which is used for the symbolisation of the
body-either in the dream or in the unconscious fancies of
the neurosis. I know some patients , to be sure, who have
steadily adhered to an architectural symbolism for the body
and the genitals (sexual interest certainly extends far beyond
the region of the external genital organs), to whom posts and
pillars signify legs (as in the " Song of Songs "), to whom
every gate suggests a bodily opening (" hole " ) , and every
water-main a urinary apparatus , and the like. But the group
of associations belonging to plant life and to the kitchen is just
as eagerly chosen to conceal sexual images ; in the first case
the usage of speech, the result of phantastic comparisons
dating from the most ancient times, has made abundant pre
paration (the " vineyard " of the Lord, the " seeds," the
66
garden " of the girl in the " Song of Songs ") . The ugliest
as well as the most intimate details of sexual life may be
dreamed about in apparently harmless allusions to culinary
operations, and the symptoms of hysteria become practically
unintelligible if we forget that sexual symbolism can conceal
itself behind the most commonplace and most inconspicuous
matters, as its best hiding-place . The fact that some neurotic
children cannot look at blood and raw meat, that they vomit
at the sight of eggs and noodles, and that the dread of snakes ,
which is natural to mankind, is monstrously exaggerated
in neurotics , all of this has a definite sexual meaning. Wher
ever the neurosis employs a disguise of this sort, it treads the
320 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

paths once trodden by the whole of humanity in the early

ages of civilisation - paths of whose existence customs of
speech, superstitions, and morals still give testimony to
this day .
I here insert the promised flower dream of a lady patient,
in which I have italicised everything which is to be sexually
interpreted . This beautiful dream seemed to lose its entire
charm for the dreamer after it had been interpreted .
(a) Preliminary dream : She goes to the two maids in the
kitchen and scolds them for taking so long to prepare " a little
bite of food." She also sees a great many coarse dishes stand
ing in the kitchen inverted so that the water may drip off them,
and heaped up in a pile. Later addition : The two maids go
to fetch water, and must, as it were, step into a river which reaches
up into the house or into the yard. *
(b) Main dream † : She is descending from a high place ‡
over balustrades that are curiously fashioned or fences which are
united into big squares and consist of a conglomeration of little
squares. § It is really not intended for climbing upon ; she is
worried about finding a place for her foot, and she is glad her
dress doesn't get caught anywhere, and that she remains so re
spectable while she is going . She is also carrying a large bough
in her hand, ¶really a bough of a tree, which is thickly studded
with red blossoms ; it has many branches, and spreads out.**
With this is connected the idea of cherry blossoms, but they look
like full-bloom camelias, which of course do not grow on trees.
While she is descending, she first has one, then suddenly two,
and later again only one.tt When she arrives at the bottom of

For the interpretation of this preliminary dream, which is to be re

garded as " casual," see p. 292.
+ Her career.
High birth, the wish contrast to the preliminary dream .
SA composite image, which unites two localities, the so-called garret
(German Boden- floor, garret) of her father's house, in which she played
with her brother, the object of her later fancies, and the garden of a malicious
uncle, who used to tease her.
|| Wish contrast to an actual memory of her uncle's garden, to the effect
that she used to expose herself while she was asleep.
Just as the angel bears a lily stem in the Annunciation.
** For the explanation of this composite image, see p. 296 ; innocence,
menstruation, Camille.
++ Referring to the plurality of the persons who serve the purpose of her
fancy.
 THE DREAM-WORK 321

the lower blossoms they have already fallen off to a considerable

extent. Now that she is at the bottom, she sees a porter who is
combing-as she would like to express it—just such a tree-that is,
who is plucking thick bunches of hair from it, which hang from
it like moss . Other workmen have chopped off such boughs in
a garden, and have thrown them upon the street, where they lie
about, so that many people take some of them. But she asks
whether that is right, whether anybody may take one.* In the
garden there stands a young man (having a personality with
which she is acquainted , not a member of her family) up to
whom she goes in order to ask him how it is possible to transplant
such boughs into her own garden .† He embraces her, whereat
she resists and asks him what he means, whether it is permissible
to embrace her in such a manner. He says that there is no
wrong in it, that it is permitted . He then declares himself
willing to go with her into the other garden, in order to show her
the transplanting, and he says something to her which she does
not correctly understand : " Besides this three metres (later on
she says square metres ) or three fathoms of ground are lacking."
It seems as though the man were trying to ask her something in
return for his affability, as though he had the intention of indemni
fying himself in her garden, as though he wanted to evade some
law or other, to derive some advantage from it without causing
her an injury. She does not know whether or not he really
shows her anything . §
I must mention still another series of associations which
often serves the purpose of concealing sexual meaning both in
dreams and in the neurosis , -I refer to the change of residence
series . To change one's residence is readily replaced by " to
remove, " an ambiguous expression which may have reference to
clothing. If the dream also contains a " lift " (elevator), one
may think of the verb " to lift, " hence of lifting up the clothing .

* Whether it is permitted to " pull one off," i.e. to masturbate.

The bough has long since been used to represent the male genital,
and besides that it contains a very distinct allusion to the family name of
the dreamer.
Refers to matrimonial precautions, as does that which follows.
§ An analogous " biographical " dream was reported on p. 252, as the
third of the examples of dream symbolism ; a second example is the one
fully reported by Rank 106 under the title " Traum der sich selbst deutet "
for another one which must be read in the " opposite direction," see Stekel 114,
p. 486.
X
322 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I have naturally an abundance of such material, but a

report of it would carry us too far into the discussion of
neurotic conditions . Everything leads to the same conclu
sion, that no special symbolising activity of the mind in the
formation of dreams need be assumed ; that, on the contrary,
the dream makes use of such symbolisations as are to be
found ready-made in unconscious thought, because these better
satisfy the requirements of dream formation, on account of
their dramatic fitness, and particularly on account of their
exemption from the censor.

(e) Examples- Arithmetic Speeches in the Dream

Before I proceed to assign to its proper place the fourth

of the factors which control the formation of the dream , I
shall cite several examples from my collection of dreams for
the purpose partly of illustrating the co-operation of the three
factors with which we are acquainted, and partly of supply
ing proof for assertions which have been made without de
monstration or of drawing irrefutable inferences from them.
For it has been very difficult for me in the foregoing account
of the dream activity to demonstrate my conclusions by means
of examples . Examples for the individual thesis are con
vincing only when considered in connection with a dream
interpretation ; when they are torn from their context they
lose their significance, and , furthermore, a dream interpreta
tion, though not at all profound , soon becomes so extensive
that it obscures the thread of the discussion which it is intended
to illustrate . This technical motive may excuse me for now
mixing together all sorts of things which have nothing in
common but their relation to the text of the foregoing chapter.
We shall first consider a few examples of very peculiar
or unusual methods of representation in the dream . The dream
of a lady is as follows : A servant girl is standing on a ladder
as though to clean the windows, and has with her a chimpanzee
and a gorilla cat (later corrected - angora cat) . She throws
the animals at the dreamer ; the chimpanzee cuddles up to her,
and this is disgusting to her. This dream has accomplished
its purpose by the simplest possible means , namely by taking
 THE DREAM-WORK 323

a mere mode of speech literally and representing it according

66
to the meaning of its words. Ape, " like the names of ani
mals in general, is an epithet of opprobrium, and the situation
of the dream means nothing but " to hurl invectives. " This
same collection will soon furnish us with further examples
of the use of this simple artifice.
Another dream proceeds in a very similar manner : A
woman with a child that has a conspicuously deformed cranium ;
the dreamer has heard that the child got into this condition owing
to its position in its mother's womb. The doctor says that the
cranium might be given a better shape by means of compression,
but that would harm the brain . She thinks that because it is a
boy it won't suffer so much from deformity. This dream contains
a plastic representation of the concept : " Childish impres
sions," which the dreamer has heard of in the course of
explanations concerning the treatment.
In the following example , the dream activity enters upon
a different path. The dream contains a recollection of an
excursion to the Hilmteich, near Graz : There is a terrible
storm outside ; a miserable hotel the water is dripping from the
walls, and the beds are damp. (The latter part of the content
is less directly expressed than I give it . ) The dream signifies
66
superfluous." The abstract idea occurring in the dream
thoughts is first made equivocal by a certain straining of
language ; it has , perhaps, been replaced by " overflowing "
or by " fluid " and " super-fluid (-fluous) " and has then been
given representation by an accumulation of like impressions.
Water within, water without, water in the beds in the form
of dampness -everything fluid and " super " fluid . That ,
for the purposes of the dream representation, the spelling is
much less regarded than the sound of words ought not sur
prise us when we remember that rhyme exercises similar
privileges .
The fact that language has at its disposal a great number
of words which were originally intended in a picturesque and
concrete sense but are at present used in a faded abstract
sense has in other cases made it very easy for the dream to
represent its thoughts . The dream need only restore to these
words their full significance, or follow the evolution of their
meaning a little way back. For example, a man dreams that
324 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

his friend, who is struggling to get out of a very tight place,

calls upon him to help him. The analysis shows that the tight
place is a hole, and that the dream uses symbolically his very
words to his friend , " Be careful, or you'll get yourself into a
hole ." * Another dreamer climbs upon a mountain from which
he sees a very extraordinary broad view. He identifies himself
with his brother who is editing a " review " which deals with
relations to the Farthest East . i

It would be a separate undertaking to collect such methods

of representation and to arrange them according to the prin
ciples upon which they are based . Some of the representa
tions are quite witty. They give the impression that they
would have never been divined if the dreamer himself had
not reported them.
1. A man dreams that he is asked for a name, which,
however, he cannot recall. He himself explains that this
means It does not occur to me in the dream .
2. A female patient relates a dream in which all the persons
concerned were especially big. " That means," she adds,
" that it must deal with an episode of my early childhood.
for at that time all grown up people naturally seemed to me
immensely big."
The transference into childhood is also expressed differ
ently in other dreams by translating time into space. One
sees the persons and scenes in question as if at a great distance,
at the end of a long road, or as if looked at through the wrong
end of the opera-glass .
3. A man, who in waking life shows an inclination to ab
stract and indefinite expressions . but who is otherwise endowed
with wit enough, dreams in a certain connection that he is
at a railroad station while a train is coming in . But then the
station platform approaches the train, which stands still ;
hence an absurd inversion of the real state of affairs . This
detail is again nothing but an index to remind one that some
thing else in the dream should be turned about . The analysis
of the same dream brings back the recollection of a picture
book in which men are represented standing on their heads
and walking on their hands .
4. The same dreamer on another occasion relates a short
* Given by translator as author's example could not be translated.
 THE DREAM-WORK 325

dream which almost recalls the technique of a rebus . His

uncle gives him a kiss in an automobile. He immediately
adds the interpretation, which I should never have found :
it means Autoerotism . This might have been made as a joke
in the waking state.
The dream work often succeeds in representing very
awkward material, such as proper names, by means of the
forced utilisation of very far-fetched references . In one of
my dreams the elder Bruecke has given me a task. I com
pound a preparation, and skim something from it which looks
like crumpled tinfoil. (More of this later on . ) The notion cor
responding to this , which was not easy to find , is " stanniol,"
and now I know that I have in mind the name of the author
Stannius, which was borne by a treatise on the nervous system
of fishes, which I regarded with awe in my youthful years .
The first scientific task which my teacher gave me was actually
concerned with the nervous system of a fish-the Ammocœtes.
Obviously the latter name could never have been used in a
picture puzzle.
I shall not omit here to insert a dream having a curious
content, which is also remarkable as a child's dream , and which
is very easily explained by the analysis . A lady relates : " I
can remember that when I was a child I repeatedly dreamed ,
that the dear Lord had a pointed paper hat on his head. They
used to make me wear such a hat at table very often, so that
I might not be able to look at the plates of the other children
and see how much they had received of a particular dish .
Since I have learned that God is omniscient , the dream signifies
that I know everything in spite of the hat which I am made
to wear."
Wherein the dream work consists, and how it manages its
material, the dream thoughts , can be shown in a very instruc
tive manner from the numbers and calculations which occur
in dreams . Moreover, numbers in dreams are regarded as of
especial significance by superstition . I shall therefore give
a few more examples of this kind from my own collection .
1. The following is taken from the dream of a lady shortly
before the close of her treatment :
She wants to pay for something or other ; her daughter
takes 3 florins and 65 kreuzer from her pocket- book ; but
326 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the mother says : " What are you doing ? It only costs
21 kreuzer ." This bit of dream was immediately intelligible
to me without further explanation from my knowledge of the
dreamer's circumstances . The lady was a foreigner who
had provided for her daughter in an educational institution
in Vienna, and who could continue my treatment as long as
her daughter stayed in the city . In three weeks the daughter's
school year was to end, and with that the treatment also
stopped . On the day before the dream the principal of the
institute had urged her to make up her mind to allow her child
to remain with her for another year. She had then obviously
worked out this suggestion to the conclusion that in this case
she would be able to continue the treatment for one year
more . Now, this is what the dream refers to , for a year is
equal to 365 days ; the three weeks that remain before the close
of the school year and of the treatment are equivalent to 21
days (though the hours of treatment are not as many as that) .
The numerals , which in the dream thoughts referred to time,
are given money values in the dream, not without also giving
expression to a deeper meaning for " time is money." 365
kreuzer, to be sure, are 3 florins and 65 kreuzer . The small
ness of the sums which appear in the dream is a self-evident
wish-fulfilment ; the wish has reduced the cost of both the
treatment and the year's instruction at the institution .
II . The numerals in another dream involve more compli
cated relations . A young lady, who, however, has already
been married a number of years, learns that an acquaintance
of hers of about her own age, Elsie L., has just become en
gaged. Thereupon she dreams : She is sitting in the theatre
with her husband, and one side of the orchestra is quite unoccupied.
Her husband tells her that Elsie L. and her husband had also
wanted to go, but that they had been able to get nothing but poor
seats, three for 1 florin and 50 kreuzer, and of course they could
not take those. She thinks that they didn't lose much either.
Where do the 1 florin and 50 kreuzer come from ? From
an occurrence of the previous day which is really indifferent .
The dreamer's sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a
present from her husband , and had quickly got rid of them
by buying some jewelry. Let us note that 150 florins is 100
times more than 1 florin and 50 kreuzer. Whence the 3 which
 THE DREAM-WORK 327

stands before the theatre seats ? There is only one associa

tion for this , namely, that the bride is that many months—
three-younger than herself. Information concerning the
significance of the feature that one side of the orchestra re
mains empty leads to the solution of the dream. This feature
is an undisguised allusion to a little occurrence which has
given her husband good cause for teasing her. She had de
cided to go to the theatre during the week, and had been careful
to get tickets a few days before, for which she had to pay the
pre-emption charge . When they got to the theatre they found
that one side of the house was almost empty ; she certainly
did not need to be in such a hurry.
I shall now substitute the dream thoughts for the dream :
66
" It surely was nonsense to marry so early ; there was no need
for my being in such a hurry. From the case of Elsie L., I see
that I should have got a husband just the same-and one who
is a hundred times better (husband, sweetheart, treasure)
if I had only waited (antithesis to the haste of her sister- in
law). I could have bought three such men for the money
(the dowry ! ). Our attention is drawn to the fact that the
numerals in this dream have changed their meanings and
relations to a much greater extent than in the one previously
considered. The transforming and disfiguring activity of
the dream has in this case been greater, a fact which we in
terpret as meaning that these dream thoughts had to over
come a particularly great amount of inner psychic resistance
up to the point of their representation . We must also not
overlook the circumstance that the dream contains an absurd
element, namely, that two persons take three seats . We digress
to the interpretation of the absurdity of dreams when we
remark that this absurd detail of the dream content is intended
to represent the most strongly emphasized detail of the dream
thoughts : " It was nonsense to marry so early." The figure
3 belonging to a quite subordinate relation of the two
compared persons (three months ' difference in age) has thus
been skilfully used to produce the nonsense demanded by the
dream . The reduction of the actual 150 florins to 1 florin and
50 kreuzer corresponds to her disdain of her husband in the
suppressed thoughts of the dreamer.
III. Another example displays the arithmetical powers of
328 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the dream, which have brought it into such disrepute. A

man dreams : He is sitting at B's (a family of his earlier
acquaintance) and says, " It was nonsense for you not to give
me Amy in marriage." Thereupon he asks the girl, " How
99
old are you ? Answer : " I was born in 1882." " Ah, then
you are 28 years old."
Since the dream occurs in the year 1898, this is obviously
poor arithmetic, and the inability of the dreamer to calculate
may be compared to that of the paralytic, if there is no other
way of explaining it . My patient was one of those persons
who are always thinking about every woman they see. The
person who followed him in my office, regularly for several
months, was a young lady, whom he used to meet, about whom
he used to ask frequently, and to whom he was very anxious
to be polite . This was the lady whose age he estimated at
28 years. So much for explaining the result of the apparent
calculation . But 1882 was the year in which he had married .
He had been unable to refrain from engaging in conversation
with the two females whom he met at my house-two girls ,
by no means youthful , who alternately opened the door for
him , and as he did not find them very responsive, he had given
himself the explanation that they probably considered him
an elderly " settled " gentleman .
IV. For another number dream with its interpretation,
a dream distinguished by its obvious determination , or rather
over-determination, I am indebted to B. Dattner :
My host, a policeman in the municipal service , dreamed
that he was standing at his post in the street, which was a
wish-realisation. The inspector then came over to him,
having on his gorget the numbers 22 and 62 or 26 - at all events
there were many two's on it . Division of the number 2262
in the reproduction of the dream at once points to the fact
that the components have separate meanings . It occurs to
him that the day before, while on duty, they were discussing
the duration of their time of service . The occasion for this
was furnished by an inspector who had been pensioned at
62 years . The dreamer had only completed 22 years of
service, and still needed 2 years and 2 months to make him
eligible for a 90 per cent. pension. The dream first shows
him the fulfilment of a long wished for wish, the rank of
 THE DREAM-WORK 329

inspector. The superior with 2262 on his collar is himself ;

he takes care to do his duty on the street, which is another
preferred wish ; he has served his 2 years and 2 months, and
can now be retired from the service with full pension, like the
62-year-old inspector.
If we keep in mind these examples and similar ones (to
follow), we may say : Dream activity does not calculate at
all , whether correctly or incorrectly ; it joins together in the
form of a calculation numerals which occur in the dream
thoughts, and which may serve as allusions to material which
is incapable of being represented . It thus utilises numerals
as material for the expression of its purposes in the same manner
as it does names and speeches known as word presenta
tions .
For the dream activity cannot compose a new speech.
No matter how many speeches and answers may occur in
dreams, which may be sensible or absurd in themselves,
analysis always shows in such cases that the dream has only
taken from the dream thoughts fragments of speeches which
have been delivered or heard , and dealt with them in a most
arbitrary manner. It has not only torn them from their
context and mutilated them, taken up one piece and rejected
another, but it has also joined them together in a new way,
so that the speech which seems coherent in the dream falls
into three or four sections in the course of analysis. In this
new utilisation of the words, the dream has often put aside
the meaning which they had in the dream thoughts, and has
derived an entirely new meaning from them . * Upon closer
inspection the more distinct and compact constituents of
the dream speech may be distinguished from others which
serve as connectives and have probably been supplied, just
as we supply omitted letters and syllables in reading . The
dream speech thus has the structure of breccia stones, in which
The neurosis also proceeds in the same manner. I know a patient who
involuntarily-contrary to her own wishes-hears (hallucinatory) songs or
fragments of songs without being able to understand their meaning to her
psychic life. She is surely not a paranoiac. Analysis showed that she
wrongly utilised the text of these songs by means of a certain license. " Oh
thou blissful one, Oh thou happy one," is the beginning of a Christmas song.
By not continuing it to the word " Christmas time " she makes a bridal song
out of it, &c. The same mechanism of disfigurement may take place also
without hallucinations as a mere mental occurrence.
330 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

larger pieces of different material are held together by a

solidified cohesive mass.
In a very strict sense this description is correct, to be sure,
only for those speeches in the dream which have something
of the sensational character of a speech, and which are de
scribed as " speeches. " The others which have not, as it were,
been felt as though heard or spoken (which have no accom
panying acoustic or motor emphasis in the dream ) are simply
thoughts such as occur in our waking thought activity, and
are transferred without change into many dreams . Our
reading, also, seems to furnish an abundant and not easily
traceable source of material for speeches, this material being
of an indifferent nature . Everything , however, which appears
conspicuously in the dream as a speech can be referred to real
speeches which have been made or heard by the dreamer himself.
We have already found examples for the explanation of
such dream speeches in the analysis of dreams cited for other
purposes . Here is one example in place of many, all of which
lead to the same conclusion .
A large courtyard in which corpses are cremated . The dreamer
says : " I'm going away from here, I can't look at this." (Not
a distinct speech. ) Then he meets two butcher boys and asks :
" Well, did it taste good ? " One of them answers : " No, it
wasn't good." As though it had been human flesh.
The harmless occasion for this dream is as follows : After
taking supper with his wife, the dreamer pays a visit to his
worthy but by no means appetising neighbour. The hospit
able old lady is just at her evening meal, and urges him (instead
of this word a composite sexually-significant word is jocosely
used among men) to taste of it. He declines, saying that he
66
has no appetite . Go on, you can stand some more," or
something of the kind . The dreamer is thus forced to taste
and praise what is offered . " But that's good ! " After he
is alone again with his wife, he scolds about the neighbour's
importunity and about the quality of the food he has tasted.
" I can't stand the sight of it, " a phrase not appearing even
in the dream as an actual speech, is a thought which has refer
ence to the physical charms of the lady who invites him, and
which would be translated as meaning that he does not want
to look at her.
 THE DREAM-WORK 331

The analysis of another dream which I cite at this point

for the sake of the very distinct speech that forms its nucleus ,
but which I shall explain only when we come to consider
emotions in the dream-will be more instructive . I dream
very distinctly I have gone to Bruecke's laboratory at night,
and upon hearing a soft knocking at the door, I open it to
(the deceased) Professor Fleischl, who enters in the company of
several strangers, and after saying a few words sits down at his
table. Then follows a second dream : My friend Fl. has come
to Vienna in July without attracting much attention ; I meet
him on the street while he is in conversation with my (deceased)
friend P., and I go somewhere or other with these two, and they sit
down opposite each other as though at a little table, while I sit at
the narrow end of the table facing them . Fl. tells about his sister
and says : " In three-quarters of an hour she was dead," and then
threshold ." As P. does not under
something like: " That is the threshold."
stand him, Fl. turns to me, and asks me how much I have told
of his affairs. Whereupon, seized by strange emotions, I want
to tell Fl. that P. (can't possibly know anything because he)
is not alive. But, noticing the mistake myself, I say : " Non
vixit." Then I look at P. searchingly, and under my gaze he
becomes pale and blurred, his eyes a morbid blue-and at last he
dissolves. I rejoice greatly at this ; I now understand that Ernest
Fleischel, too, was only an apparition, a revenant, and I find
that it is quite possible for such a person to exist only as long as
one wants him to, and that he can be made to disappear by the
wish of another person.
This beautiful dream unites so many of the character
istics of the dream content which are problematic-the
criticism made in the dream itself in that I myself notice my
mistake in having said " Non vixit " instead of " Non vivit " ;
the unconstrained intercourse with dead persons, whom the
dream itself declares to be dead ; the absurdity of the infer
ence and the intense satisfaction which the inference gives
me that " by my life " I should like to give a complete
solution of these problems . But in reality I am incapable
of doing this—namely, the thing I do in the dream- of
sacrificing such dear persons to my ambition . With every
revelation of the true meaning of the dream, with which I
am well acquainted , I should have been put to shame. Hence
332 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I am content with selecting a few of the elements of the dream,

for interpretation, some here, and others later on another
page.
The scene in which I annihilate P. by a glance forms the
centre of the dream. His eyes become strange and weirdly
blue, and then he dissolves . This scene is an unmistakable
copy of one really experienced . I was a demonstrator at
the physiological institute, and began my service in the early
hours, and Bruecke learned that I had been late several times
in getting to the school laboratory . So one morning he came
promptly for the opening of the class and waited for me. What
he said to me was brief and to the point ; but the words did
not matter at all . What overwhelmed me was the terrible
blue eyes through which he looked at me and before which I
melted away- as P. does in the dream, for P. has changed
rôles with him much to my relief. Anyone who remembers the
eyes of the great master, which were wonderfully beautiful until
old age, and who has ever seen him in anger, can easily imagine
the emotions of the young transgressor on that occasion.
But for a long time I was unable to account for the " Non
Vixit," with which I execute sentence in the dream, until I
remembered that these two words possessed such great dis
tinctness in the dream, not because they were heard or spoken ,
but because they were seen. Then I knew at once where
they came from . On the pedestal of the statue of Emperor
Joseph in the Hofburg at Vienna, may be read the following
beautiful words :

Saluti patriae vixit

non diu sed totus.

I had culled from this inscription something which suited

the one inimical train of thought in the dream thoughts
and which now intended to mean : " That fellow has nothing
to say, he is not living at all. " And I now recalled that the
dream was dreamed a few days after the unveiling of the
memorial to Fleischl in the arcades of the university, upon
which occasion I had again seen Bruecke's statue and must
have thought with regret (in the unconscious) how my highly
gifted friend P. with his great devotion to science had forfeited
his just claim to a statue in these halls by his premature
 THE DREAM-WORK 333

death. So I set up this memorial to him in the dream ; the

first name of my friend P. is Joseph. *
According to the rules of dream interpretation , I should
still not be justified in replacing non vivit, which I need, by
non vixit, which is placed at my disposal by the recollection
of the Joseph monument . Something now calls my attention
to the fact that in the dream scene, two trains of thought
concerning my friend P. meet , one hostile, the other friendly
of which the former is superficial, the latter veiled, and both
are given representation in the same words : non vixit. Be
cause my friend P. has deserved well of science, I erect a statue
to him ; but because he has been guilty of an evil wish (which
is expressed at the end of the dream) I destroy him. I have
here constructed a sentence of peculiar resonance, and I must
have been influenced by some model. But where can I find
similar antithesis, such a parallel between two opposite atti
tudes towards the same person, both claiming to be entirely
valid, and yet both trying not to encroach upon each other ?
Such a parallel is to be found in a single place, where, however,
a deep impression is made upon the reader-in Brutus ' speech
of justification in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar : " As Cæsar
loved me, I weep for him ; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at
it ; as he was valiant, I honour him ; but, as he was ambitious
I slew him." Is not this which I have discovered, the same
sentence structure and thought contrast as in the dream
thought ? I thus play Brutus in the dream. If I could only
find in the dream thoughts, one further trace of confirma
tion for this astonishing collateral connection ! I think the
following might be such : My friend comes to Vienna in
July. This detail finds no support whatever in reality. To
my knowledge my friend has never been in Vienna during the
month of July. But the month of July is named after Julius
Cæsar, and might therefore very well furnish the required
allusion to the intermediary thought that I am playing the
part of Brutus .†
Strangely enough I once actually played the part of Brutus .

* As a contribution to the over-determination : My excuse for coming

late was that after working late at night I had in the morning to make the
long journey from Kaiser Josef Street to Waehringer Street.
In addition Cæsar- Kaiser. -
334 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I presented the scene between Brutus and Cæsar from Schiller's

poems to an audience of children when I was a boy of fourteen
years. I did this with my nephew, who was a year older than
I, and who had come to us from England—also a revenant
for in him I recognised the playmate of my first childish years.
Until the end of my third year we had been inseparable, had
loved each other and scuffled with each other, and, as I have
already intimated , this childish relation has constantly de
termined my later feelings in my intercourse with persons of
my own age. My nephew John has since found many incar
nations, which have revivified first one aspect, then another, of
this character which is so ineradicably fixed in my unconscious
memory. Occasionally he must have treated me very badly.
and I must have shown courage before my tyrant, for in later
years I have often been told of the short speech with which
I vindicated myself when my father-his grandfather
called me to account : " I hit him because he hit me." This
childish scene must be the one which causes non vivit to
branch off into non vixit, for in the language of later childhood
striking is called wichsen (German, wichsen-to smear with
shoe-polish, to tan, i.e. , to flog ) ; the dream activity does not
hesitate to take advantage of such connections . My hostility
towards my friend P. , which has so little foundation in reality
-he was far superior to me, and might therefore have been
a new edition of the playmate of my childhood-can certainly
be traced to my complicated relations with John during our
infancy. I shall, however, return to this dream later.

(f) Absurd Dreams - Intellectual Performances in the Dream

In our interpretation of dreams thus far we have come

upon the element of absurdity in the dream-content so often
that we must no longer postpone an investigation of its cause
and significance. We remember, of course, that the absurdity
of dreams has furnished the opponents of dream investigation
with their chief argument for considering the dream nothing
but the meaningless product of a reduced and fragmentary
activity of the mind.
I begin with specimens in which the absurdity of the
dream-content is only apparent and immediately disappears
 THE DREAM-WORK 335

when the dream is more thoroughly examined . There are a

few dreams which-accidentally one is at first inclined
to think-are concerned with the dead father of the
dreamer.
I. Here is the dream of a patient who had lost his father
six years before :
A terrible accident has occurred to his father. He was riding
in the night train when a derailment took place, the seats came
together, and his head was crushed from side to side. The
dreamer sees him lying on the bed with a wound over his left
eyebrow, which runs off vertically. The dreamer is surprised
that his father has had a misfortune (since he is dead already,
as the dreamer adds in telling his dream) . His father's eyes are
so clear.
According to the standards prevailing in dream criticism ,
this dream-content would have to be explained in the follow
ing manner : At first, when the dreamer is picturing his father's
misfortune, he has forgotten that his father has already been
in his grave for years ; in the further course of the dream
this memory comes to life, and causes him to be surprised
at his own dream even while he is still dreaming . Analysis ,
however, teaches us that it is entirely useless to attempt
such explanations . The dreamer had given an artist an order
for a bust of his father, which he had inspected two days
before the dream. This is the thing which seems to him to
have met with an accident. The sculptor has never seen the
father, and is working from photographs which have been
given him. On the very day before the dream the pious son
had sent an old servant of the family to the studio in order
to see whether he would pass the same judgment upon the
marble head, namely, that it had turned out too narrow from
side to side, from temple to temple. Now follows the mass
of recollections which has contributed to the formation of
this dream. The dreamer's father had a habit, whenever
he was harassed by business cares or family difficulties , of
pressing his temples with both hands, as though he were
trying to compress his head, which seemed to grow too large
for him. When our dreamer was four years old he was
present when the accidental discharge of a pistol blackened
his father's eyes (his eyes are so clear) . While alive his father
336 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

had had a deep wrinkle at the place where the dream shows
the injury, whenever he was thoughtful or sad. The fact that
in the dream this wrinkle is replaced by a wound points to
the second occasion of the dream. The dreamer had taken a
photograph of his little daughter ; the plate had fallen from
his hand, and when picked up showed a crack that ran like a
vertical furrow across the forehead and reached as far as the
orbital curve . He could not then get the better of his super
stitious forebodings , for, on the day before his mother's death,
a photographic plate with her likeness had cracked as he was
handling it.
Thus the absurdity of the dream is only the result of an
inaccuracy of verbal expression, which does not take the
trouble to distinguish the bust and the photograph from the
original. We are all accustomed to say of a picture, " Don't
you think father is good ? " Of course the appearance of
absurdity in this dream might easily have been avoided . If
it were permissible to pass judgment after a single experience,
one might be tempted to say that this semblance of absurdity
is admitted or desired.
II. Here is another very similar example from my own
dreams (I lost my father in the year 1896 ) :
After his death my father has been politically active among
the Magyars, and has united them into a political body ; to
accompany which I see a little indistinct picture : a crowd of
people as in the Reichstag ; a person who is standing on one or
two benches, others round about him. I remember that he looked
very like Garibaldi on his death-bed, and I am glad that this
promise has really come true.
This is certainly absurd enough. It was dreamed at the
time that the Hungarians got into a lawless condition, through
Parliamentary obstruction , and passed through the crisis
from which Koloman Szell delivered them. The trivial cir
cumstance that the scene beheld in the dream consists of such
little pictures is not without significance for the explanation
of this element. The usual visual representation of our
thoughts results in pictures which impress us as being life
size ; my dream picture, however, is the reproduction of a
wood-cut inserted in the text of an illustrated history of
Austria, representing Maria Theresa in the Reichstag of
 THE DREAM- WORK 337

Pressburg-the famous scene of " Moriamur pro rege nostro." *

Like Maria Theresa, my father, in the dream, stands sur
rounded by the multitude ; but he is standing on one or two
benches , and thus like a judge on the bench. (He has united
them-here the intermediary is the phrase, " We shall need
no judge.") Those of us who stood around the death-bed
of my father actually noticed that he looked much like Gari
baldi . He had a post-mortem rise of temperature, his cheeks
shone redder and redder . involuntarily we continue :
“ And behind him lay in phantom radiance that which subdues
us all-the common thing."
This elevation of our thoughts prepares us for having to
<6
deal with this very common thing." The post-mortem
feature of the rise in temperature corresponds to the words ,
" after his death " in the dream content. The most agonis
ing of his sufferings had been a complete paralysis of the
intestines (obstruction) , which set in during the last weeks .
All sorts of disrespectful thoughts are connected with this .
A man of my own age who had lost his father while he was
still at the Gymnasium, upon which occasion I was profoundly
moved and tendered him my friendship, once told me, with
derision, about the distress of a lady relative whose father had
died on the street and had been brought home, where it turned
out upon undressing the corpse, that at the moment of death,
or post-mortem, an evacuation of the bowels had taken place.
The daughter of the dead man was profoundly unhappy at
having this ugly detail stain her memory of her father. We
have now penetrated to the wish that is embodied in this dream .
To stand before one's children pure and great after one's death,
who would not wish that ? What has become of the absur
dity of the dream ? The appearance of it has been caused
only by the fact that a perfectly permissible mode of speech
-in the case of which we are accustomed to ignore the ab
surdity that happens to exist between its parts-has been
faithfully represented in the dream. Here, too , we are unable

* I have forgotten in what author I found a dream mentioned that was

overrun with unusually small figures, the source of which turned out to be
one of the engravings of Jacques Callot, which the dreamer had looked at
during the day. These engravings contained an enormous number of
very small figures ; a series of them treats of the horrors of the Thirty
Years' War.
Y
338 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

to deny that the semblance of absurdity is one which is desired

and has been purposely brought about. *
III. In the example which I now cite I can detect the
dream activity in the act of purposely manufacturing an
absurdity for which there is no occasion at all in the subject
matter. It is taken from the dream that I had as a result of
meeting Count Thun before my vacation trip . “ I am riding
in a one-horse carriage, and give orders to drive to a railway
station. Of course I cannot ride with you on the railway line
itself,' I say, after the driver made an objection as though I had
tired him out ; at the same time it seems as though I had already
driven with him for a distance which one usually rides on the
train." For this confused and senseless story the analysis
gives the following explanation : During the day I had hired
The frequency with which in the dream dead persons appear as living,
act, and deal with us, has called forth undue astonishment and given rise to
strange explanations, from which our ignorance of the dream becomes strik
ingly evident. And yet the explanation for these dreams lies very close at
hand. How often we have occasion to think : " If father were still alive,
what would he say to it ?" The dream can express this if in no other way
than by present time in a definite situation. Thus, for instance, a young
man, whose grandfather has left him a great inheritance, dreams that his
grandfather is alive and demands an accounting of him, upon an occasion
when the young man had been reproached for making too great an expendi
ture of money. What we consider a resistance to the dream-the objection
made by our better knowledge, that after all the man is already dead-is in
reality a consolation , because the dead person did not have this or that ex
perience, or satisfaction at the knowledge that he has nothing more to say.
Another form of absurdity found in dreams of deceased relatives does
not express folly and absurdity, but serves to represent the most extreme
rejection ; as the representation of a repressed thought which one would
gladly have appear as something least thought of. Dreams of this kind are
only solvable if one recalls that the dream makes no distinction between
things desired and realities. Thus, for example, a man who nursed his father
during his sickness, and who felt his death very keenly, sometime afterward
dreamed the following senseless dream : The father was again living, and
conversed with him as usual, but (the remarkable thing about it) he had never
theless died, though he did not know it. This dream can be understood if after
"he had nevertheless died," one inserts in consequence of the dreamer's wish,
and if after " but he did not know it " one adds that the dreamer has enter
tained this wish. While nursing his father, the son often wishes his father's
death ; i.e. he entertained the really compassionate desire that death finally
put an end to his suffering. While mourning after his death, this very wish
of compassion became an unconscious reproach, as if it had really contri
buted to shorten the life of the sick man. Through the awakening of early
infantile feelings against the father, it became possible to express this re
proach as a dream ; and it was just because of the world-wide contrast
between the dream inciter and day thought that this dream had to come out
so absurdly (cf. with this, " Formulierungen über die zwei Prizipien des
seelischen Geschehens, Jahrbuch, Bleuler-Freud, III, 1 , 1911).
 THE DREAM- WORK 339

a one-horse carriage which was to take me to a remote street

in Durnbach. The driver, however, did not know the way,
and kept on driving in the manner of those good people until
I noticed the fact and showed him the way, not sparing him
a few mocking remarks withal . From this driver a train of
thought led to the aristocratic personage whom I was des
tined to meet later. For the present I shall only remark
that what strikes us middle-class plebeians about the aristo
cracy is that they like to put themselves in the driver's seat.
Does not Count Thun guide the Austrian car of state ? The
next sentence in the dream, however, refers to my brother,
whom I identify with the driver of the one-horse carriage.
I had this year refused to take the trip through Italy with
him (" of course I cannot ride with you on the railway line
itself "), and this refusal was a sort of punishment for his
wonted complaint that I usually tired him out on this trip
(which gets into the dream unchanged) by making him take
hurried trips and see too many nice things in one day. That
evening my brother had accompanied me to the railroad
station, but shortly before getting there had jumped out,
at the state railway division of the Western Station, in order
to take a train to Purkersdorf. I remarked to him that he
could stay with me a little longer, inasmuch as he did not go
to Purkersdorf by the state railway but by the Western Rail
way. This is how it happens that in the dream I rode in the
wagon a distance which one usually rides on the train. In
reality, however, it was just the opposite ; I told my brother :
The distance which you ride on the state railway you could
ride in my company on the Western Railway. The whole
confusion of the dream is therefore produced by my inserting
""
in the dream the word " wagon " instead of " state railway,'
which, to be sure, does good service in bringing together the
driver and my brother. I then find in the dream some
nonsense which seems hardly straightened out by my ex
planation, and which almost forms a contradiction to my
earlier speech (" Of course I cannot ride with you on the rail
way line itself ") . But as I have no occasion whatever for
confounding the state railway with the one-horse carriage, I
must have intentionally formed the whole puzzling story in
the dream in this way.
340 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

But with what intention ? We shall now learn what the

absurdity in the dream signifies , and the motives which ad
mitted it or created it . The solution of the mystery in the
case in question is as follows : In the dream I needed something
absurd and incomprehensible in connection with " riding
(Fahren) because in the dream thoughts I had a certain judg
ment which required representation . On an evening at the
house of the hospitable and clever lady who appears in another
scene of the same dream as the " hostess," I heard two riddles
which I could not solve. As they were known to the other
members of the party, I presented a somewhat ludicrous
figure in my unsuccessful attempts to find a solution . They
were two equivoques turning on the words " Nachkommen
(to come after- offspring ) and " vorfahren " (to ride in
advance--forefathers , ancestry) . They read as follows :
The coachman does it
At the master's behest ;
Everyone has it,
In the grave does it rest.
(Ancestry. )
It was confusing to find half of the second riddle identical
with the first.

The coachman does it

At the master's behest ;
Not everyone has it,
In the cradle does it rest.
(Offspring .)
As I had seen Count Thun ride in advance (vorfahren), so
high and mighty , and had merged into the Figaro-mood which
finds the merit of aristocratic gentlemen in the fact that they
have taken the trouble to be born (Nachkommen-to become
offspring), the two riddles became intermediary thoughts
for the dream-work. As aristocrats can be readily confounded
with coachmen, and as coachmen were in our country formerly
called brothers-in-law, the work of condensation could employ
my brother in the same representation . But the dream
thought at work in the background was as follows : It is
nonsense to be proud of one's ancestry. (Vorfahren. ) I would
rather be myself an ancestor. (Vorfahr. ) For the sake of this
judgment, " it is nonsense," we have the nonsense in the
 THE DREAM-WORK 341

dream . We can now also solve the last riddle in this obscure
passage of the dream, namely, that I have already driven
before (vorher gefahren, vorgefahren ) with the coachman .
Thus the dream is made absurd if there occurs as one of
the elements in the dream thoughts the judgment " That
is nonsense," and in general if disdain and criticism are the
motives for one of the trains of unconscious thought. Hence
absurdity becomes one of the means by which the dream
activity expresses contradiction, as it does by reversing a
relation in the material between the dream thoughts and
dream content, and by utilising sensations of motor impedi
ment. But absurdity in the dream is not simply to be
translated by " no "; it is rather intended to reproduce the
disposition of the dream thoughts , this being to show mockery
and ridicule along with the contradiction . It is only for this
purpose that the dream activity produces anything ridicu
lous. Here again it transforms a part of the latent content into
a manifest form. *
As a matter of fact we have already met with a con
vincing example of the significance of an absurd dream. The
dream , interpreted without analysis, of the Wagnerian per
formance lasting until 7.45 in the morning , in which the
orchestra is conducted from a tower, &c. (see p . 316) is appa
rently trying to say : It is a crazy world and an insane society.
He who deserves a thing doesn't get it, and he who doesn't
care for anything has it- and in this she means to compare
her fate with that of her cousin . The fact that dreams con
cerning a dead father were the first to furnish us with examples
of absurdity in dreams is by no means an accident. The
conditions necessary for the creations of absurd dreams are
here grouped together in a typical manner. The authority
belonging to the father has at an early age aroused the criti
cism of the child, and the strict demands he has made have

* Here the dream activity parodies the thought which it designates as

ridiculous, in that it creates something ridiculous in relation to it. Heine
does something similar when he tries to mock the bad rhymes of the King
of Bavaria. He does it in still worse rhymes :
" Herr Ludwig ist ein grosser Poet
Und singt er, so stuerzt Apollo
Vor ihm auf die Knie und bittet und flelit,
'Halt ein, ich werde sonst toll oh ! '"
342 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS i

caused the child to pay particularly close attention to every

weakness of the father for its own extenuation ; but the piety
with which the father's personality is surrounded in our
thoughts , especially after his death , increases the censorship
which prevents the expressions of this criticism from becoming
conscious .
IV. The following is another absurd dream about a dead
father :
I receive a notice from the common council of my native city
concerning the costs of a confinement in the hospital in the year
1851 , which was necessitated by an attack from which I suffered.
I make sport of the matter, for, in the first place , I was not yet alive
in the year 1851 , and, in the second place, my father, to whom
the notice might refer, is already dead. I go to him in the ad
joining room, where he is lying on a bed, and tell him about it.
To my astonishment he recalls that in that year- 1851 - he was
once drunk and had to be locked up or confined. It was when he
was working for the house of T- " Then you drank, too ? ”
I ask. " You married soon after ? " I figure that I was born
in 1856, which appears to me as though immediately following.
In view of the preceding discussion , we shall translate the
insistence with which this dream exhibits its absurdities as
the sure sign of a particularly embittered and passionate con
troversy in the dream thoughts . With all the more astonish
ment, however, we note that in this dream the controversy
is waged openly, and the father designated as the person
against whom the satire is directed . This openness seems to
contradict our assumption of a censor as operative in the
dream activity. We may say in explanation , however, that
here the father is only an interposed person, while the conflict
is carried on with another one , who makes his appearance in
the dream by means of a single allusion . While the dream
usually treats of revolt against other persons, behind which
the father is concealed , the reverse is true here ; the father
serves as the man of straw to represent others, and hence
the dream dares thus openly to concern itself with a person
who is usually hallowed , because there is present the certain
knowledge that he is not in reality intended . We learn of
this condition of affairs by considering the occasion of the
dream . Now, it occurred after I had heard that an older
 THE DREAM-WORK 343

colleague, whose judgment is considered infallible, had ex

pressed disapproval and astonishment at the fact that one
of my patients was then continuing psychoanalytical work
with me for the fifth year. The introductory sentences of
the dream point with transparent disguise to the fact that
this colleague had for a time taken over the duties which my
father could no longer perform (expenses, fees at the hospital) ;
and when our friendly relations came to be broken I was
thrown into the same conflict of feelings which arises in the
case of misunderstanding between father and son in view of
the part played by the father and his earlier functions . The
dream thoughts now bitterly resent the reproach that I am
not making better progress, which extends itself from the treat
ment of this patient to other things . Does this colleague
know anyone who can get on faster ? Does he not know that
conditions of this sort are usually incurable and last for life ?
What are four or five years in comparison to a whole life,
especially when life has been made so much easier for the
patient during the treatment ?
The impression of absurdity in this dream is brought
about largely by the fact that sentences from different divisions
of the dream thoughts are strung together without any re
conciling transition . Thus the sentence , I go to him in the
adjoining room, &c., leaves the subject dealt with in the
preceding sentences , and faithfully reproduces the circum
stances under which I told my father about my marriage
engagement. Thus the dream is trying to remind me of
the noble disinterestedness which the old man showed at that
time, and to put it in contrast with the conduct of another,
a new person. I now perceive that the dream is allowed to
make sport of my father for the reason that in the dream
thought he is held up as an example to another man, in full
recognition of his merit. It is in the nature of every censor
ship that it permits the telling of untruth about forbidden
things rather than truth . The next sentence, in which my
father remembers having once been drunk, and having been
locked up for it, also contains nothing which is actually true
of my father. The person whom he covers is here a no less
important one than the great Meynert, in whose footsteps I
followed with such great veneration , and whose attitude
344 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

towards me was changed into undisguised hostility after a

short period of indulgence . The dream recalls to me his own
statement that in his youth he was addicted to the chloroform
habit, and that for this he had to enter a sanatorium .
recalls also a second experience with him shortly before his
death . I carried on an embittered literary controversy with
him concerning hysteria in the male, the existence of which
he denied, and when I visited him in his last illness and asked
him how he felt , he dwelt upon the details of his condition
and concluded with the words : " You know, I have always
been one of the prettiest cases of masculine hysteria." Thus ,
to my satisfaction , and to my astonishment, he admitted what
he had so long and so stubbornly opposed . But the fact that
in this scene I can use my father to cover Meynert is based
not upon the analogy which has been found to exist between
the two persons, but upon the slight, but quite adequate, re
presentation of a conditional sentence occurring in the dream
thoughts , which in full would read as follows : " Of course
if I were of the second generation , the son of a professor or
of a court-councillor , I should have progressed more rapidly."
In the dream I now make a court-councillor and a professor
of my father. The most obvious and most annoying absurdity
of the dream lies in the treatment of the date 1851 , which seems
to me to be hardly distinguishable from 1856, as though a
difference of five years would signify nothing whatever. But
it is just this idea of the dream thoughts which requires
expression . Four or five years-that is the length of time
which I enjoyed the support of the colleague mentioned at
the outset ; but it is also the time during which I kept my
bride waiting before I married her ; and, through a coincidence
that is eagerly taken advantage of by the dream thoughts ,
it is also the time during which I am now keeping one of my
best patients waiting for the completion of his cure. " What
are five years ? " ask the dream thoughts. " That is no time
at all for me- that doesn't come into consideration . I have time
enough ahead of me, and just as what you didn't want to
believe came true at last, so I shall accomplish this also . "
Besides the number 51 , when separated from the number of
the century, is determined in still another manner and in an
opposite sense ; for which reason it occurs in the dream
 THE DREAM-WORK 345

again . Fifty-one is an age at which a man seems particularly

exposed to danger, at which I have seen many of my colleagues
suddenly die , and among them one who had been appointed
to a professorship a few days before , after he had been waiting
a long time.
V. Another absurd dream which plays with figures , runs
as follows :
One of my acquaintances, Mr. M. , has been attacked in an
essay by no less a person than Goethe, with justifiable vehemence,
we all think. Mr. M. has, of course, been crushed by this attack.
He complains of it bitterly at a dinner party ; but he says that
his veneration for Goethe has not suffered from this personal
experience. I try to find some explanation of the chronological
relations, which seem improbable to me. Goethe died in 1832 ;
since his attack upon M. must of course have taken place earlier,
Mr. M. was at the time a very young man. It seems plausible
to me that he was 18 years old. But I do not know exactly what
year it is at present, and so the whole calculation lapses into
obscurity. The attack, moreover, is contained in Goethe's well
known essay entitled " Nature ."
We shall soon find means to justify the nonsense of this
dream. Mr. M. , with whom I became acquainted at a dinner
party, had recently requested me to examine his brother, who
showed signs of paralytic insanity. The conjecture was right ;
the painful thing about this visit was that the patient exposed
his brother by alluding to his youthful pranks when there was
no occasion in the conversation for his doing so. I had asked
the patient to tell me the year of his birth, and had got him
to make several small calculations in order to bring out the
weakness of his memory-all of which tests he passed fairly
well. I see now that I am acting like a paralytic in the dream
(I do not know exactly what year it is at present) . Other subject
matter in the dream is drawn from another recent source.
The editor of a medical journal, a friend of mine, had accepted
66
for his paper a very unfavourable, a crushing," criticism of
the last book of my friend Fl . of Berlin, the author of which
was a very youthful reviewer, who was not very competent to
pass judgment. I thought I had a right to interfere, and
called the editor to account ; he keenly regretted the accept
ance of the criticism , but would not promise redress. There
346 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

upon I broke off relations with the journal, and in my letter

of resignation expressed the hope that our personal relations
would not suffer from the incident. The third source of this
dream is an account given by a female patient-it was fresh
in my memory at the time of the mental disease of her brother
who had fallen into a frenzy, crying " Nature, Nature." The
physicians in attendance thought that the cry was derived
from a reading of Goethe's beautiful essay, and that it pointed
to overwork in the patient in the study of natural philosophy.
I thought rather of the sexual sense in which even less cul
tured people with us use the word " Nature," and the fact
that the unfortunate man later mutilated his genitals seemed
to show that I was not far wrong. Eighteen years was the
age of this patient at the time when the attack of frenzy
occurred .
If I add further that the book of my friend so severely
criticised (" It is a question whether the author is crazy or we
are " had been the opinion of another critic ) treats of the
temporal relations of life and refers the duration of Goethe's
life to the multiple of a number significant from the point of
view of biology, it will readily be admitted that I am putting
myself in the place of my friend in the dream . (I try to find
some explanation of the chronological relations. ) But I behave
like a paralytic, and the dream revels in absurdity . This
means , then, as the dream thoughts say ironically . " Of course
he is the fool , the lunatic, and you are the man of genius
who knows better. Perhaps , however, it is the other way
around ? " Now, this other way around is explicitly repre
sented in the dream, in that Goethe has attacked the young
man, which is absurd , while it is perfectly possible even to -day
for a young fellow to attack the immortal Goethe, and in that
I figure from the year of Goethe's death, while I caused the
paralytic to calculate from the year of his birth.
But I have already promised to show that every dream
is the result of egotistical motives . Accordingly, I must
account for the fact that in this dream I make my friend's
cause my own and put myself in his place . My rational
conviction in waking thought is not adequate to do this .
Now, the story of the eighteen-year-old patient and of the
various interpretations of his cry. re," alludes to my
 THE DREAM-WORK 347

having brought myself into opposition to most physicians

by claiming sexual etiology for the psychoneuroses . I may
say to myself : " The same kind of criticism your friend met
with you will meet with too , and have already met with to
some extent," and now I may replace the " he " in the dream
thoughts by " we." " Yes, you are right ; we two are the fools . "
That mea res agitur, is clearly shown by the mention of
the short, incomparably beautiful essay of Goethe, for it was
a public reading of this essay which induced me to study the
natural science while I was still undecided in the graduating
class of the Gymnasium.
VI. I am also bound to show of another dream in which
my ego does not occur that it is egotistic . On page 228 I
mentioned a short dream in which Professor M. says : " My
son, the myopic .. " ; and I stated that this was only a
preliminary dream to another one, in which I play a part.
Here is the main dream, omitted above, which challenges us
to explain its absurd and unintelligible word-formation.
On account of some happenings or other in the city of Rome
it is necessary for the children to flee, and this they do. The scene
is then laid before a gate, a two-winged gate in antique style (the
Porta Romana in Siena, as I know while I am still dreaming) .
I am sitting on the edge ofa well, and am very sad ; I almost weep.
A feminine person- nurse, nun- brings out the two boys and
hands them over to their father, who is not myself. The elder
of the two is distinctly my eldest son, and I do not see the face of
the other ; the woman who brings the boy asks him for a parting
kiss. She is distinguished by a red nose. The boy denies her
the kiss, but says to her, extending his hand to her in parting,
" Auf Geseres," and to both of us (or to one of us) " Auf
Ungeseres." I have the idea that the latter indicates an advantage.
This dream is built upon a tangle of thoughts induced by
a play I saw at the theatre, called Das neue Ghetto (" The
New Ghetto .") The Jewish question , anxiety about the future
of my children who cannot be given a native country of their
own, anxiety about bringing them up so that they may have
the right of native citizens-all these features may easily be
recognised in the accompanying dream thoughts.
66
We sat by the waters of Babylon and wept ." Siena,
like Rome, is famous for its beautiful fountains . In the dream
348 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I must find a substitute of some kind for Rome (cf. p. 163)

in localities which are known to me. Near the Porta Romana
of Siena we saw a large, brightly illuminated building , which
we found to be the Manicomio, the insane asylum . Shortly
before the dream I had heard that a co-religionist had been
forced to resign a position at a state asylum which he had
secured with great effort.
Our interest is aroused by the speech : " Auf Geseres ❞—
where we might expect, from the situation maintained through
out the dream, " Auf Wiedersehen " (Au revoir)—and by its
quite meaningless opposite , " Auf Ungeseres.”
According to information I have received from Hebrew
scholars , Geseres is a genuine Hebrew word derived from the
verb goiser, and may best be rendered by " ordained suffer
ings, fated disaster." From its use in the Jewish jargon one
might think it signified " wailing and lamentation . " Un
geseres is a coinage of my own and first attracts my attention ;
but for the present it baffles me. The little observation at
the end of the dream, that Ungeseres indicates an advan
tage over Geseres opens the way to the associations
and to an explanation . The same relation holds good with
caviare ; the unsalted kind * is more highly prized than the
salted . Caviare to the general, " noble passions " ; herein
lies concealed a joking allusion to a member of my household ,
of whom I hope-for she is younger than I-that she will
watch over the future of my children ; this, too , agrees with
the fact that another member of my household, our worthy
nurse, is clearly indicated in the nurse (or nun ) of the dream .
But a connecting link is wanting between the pair, salted and
unsalted, and Geseres- ungeseres. This is to be found in
soured and unsoured. In their flight or exodus out of Egypt ,
the children of Israel did not have time to allow their bread
to be leavened, and in memory of the event to this day they
eat unsoured bread at Easter time. Here I can also find room
for the sudden notion which came to me in this part of the
analysis . I remembered how we promenaded about the city of
Breslau , which was strange to us, at the end of the Easter

* Note the resemblance of Geseres and Ungeseres to the German words

for salted and unsalted -gesalzen and ungesalzen ; also to the German words
for soured and unsoured -gesauert and ungesauert. (Translator.)
 THE DREAM-WORK 349

holidays, my friend from Berlin and I. A little girl asked me

to tell her the way to a certain street ; I had to tell her I did
not know it, whereupon I remarked to my friend, " I hope
that later on in life the little one will show more perspicacity
in selecting the persons by whom she allows herself to be
guided." Shortly afterwards a sign caught my eye : " Dr,
Herod, office hours . · . ." I said to myself : " I hope
this colleague does not happen to be a children's specialist .'
Meanwhile my friend had been developing his views on
the biological significance of bilateral symmetry , and had
begun a sentence as follows : " If we had but one eye
""
in the middle of our foreheads like Cyclops. This
leads us to the speech of the professor in the preliminary dream :
" My son, the myopic." And now I have been led to the
chief source for Geseres. Many years ago , when this son of
Professor M., who is to -day an independent thinker, was
still sitting on his school-bench, he contracted a disease of
the eye, which the doctor declared gave cause for anxiety.
He was of the opinion that as long as it remained in one eye
it would not matter ; if, however, it should extend to the
other eye, it would be serious . The disease healed in the
one eye without leaving any bad effects ; shortly afterwards ,
however, its symptoms actually appeared in the other eye.
The terrified mother of the boy immediately summoned the
physician to the seclusion of her country resort. But he
took another view of the matter. " What sort of 6 Geseres ' is
this you are making ? " he said to his mother with impatience.
" If one side got well, the other side will get well too ." And
so it turned out.
And now as to the connection between this and myself
and those dear to me. The school -bench upon which the son
of Professor M. learned his first lessons has become the property
of my eldest son- it was given to his mother- into whose
lips I put the words of parting in the dream. One of the
wishes that can be attached to this transference may now
easily be guessed . This school-bench is intended by its con
struction to guard the child from becoming shortsighted and
one-sided . Hence, myopia (and behind the Cyclops ) and the
discussion about bilateralism . The concern about one
sidedness is of two-fold signification ; along with the bodily
350 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

one-sidedness , that of intellectual development may be re

ferred to . Does it not seem as though the scene in the
dream , with all its madness , were putting its negative on just
this anxiety ? After the child has said his word of parting
on the one side, he calls out its opposite on the other side, as
though in order to establish an equilibrium . He is acting, as
it were, in obedience to bilateral symmetry !
Thus the dream frequently has the profoundest meaning
in places where it seems most absurd. In all ages those who
had something to say and were unable to say it without danger
to themselves gladly put on the cap and bells . The listener
for whom the forbidden saying was intended was more likely
to tolerate it if he was able to laugh at it , and to flatter him
self with the comment that what he disliked was obviously
something absurd . The dream proceeds in reality just as
the prince does in the play who must counterfeit the fool,
and hence the same thing may be said of the dream which
Hamlet says of himself, substituting an unintelligible witti
cism for the real conditions : " I am but mad north-north-west ;
when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw."
Thus my solution of the problem of the absurdity of dreams
is that the dream thoughts are never absurd at least not
those belonging to the dreams of sane persons —and that the
dream activity produces absurd dreams and dreams with
individual absurd elements if criticism, ridicule, and derision
in the dream thoughts are to be represented by it in its
manner of expression . My next concern is to show that the
dream activity is primarily brought about by the co -operation
of the three factors which have been mentioned and of a
fourth one which remains to be cited- that it accomplishes
nothing short of a transposition of the dream thoughts, ob
serving the three conditions which are prescribed for it, and
that the question whether the mind operates in the dream
with all its faculties , or only with a portion of them, is deprived

* This dream also furnishes a good example for the general thesis that
dreams of the same night, even though they be separated in memory, spring
from the same thought material . The dream situation in which I am
rescuing my children from the city of Rome, moreover, is disfigured by a
reference to an episode belonging to my childhood. The meaning is that I
envy certain relatives who years ago had occasion to transplant their
children to another soil.
 THE DREAM-WORK 351

of its cogency and is inapplicable to the actual circumstances .

But since there are plenty of dreams in which judgments
are passed, criticisms made, and facts recognised, in which
astonishment at some single element of the dream appears , and
arguments and explanations are attempted , I must meet the
objections which may be inferred from these occurrences by
the citation of selected examples .
My answer is as follows : Everything in the dream which
occurs as an apparent exercise of the critical faculty is to be
regarded, not as an intellectual accomplishment of the dream
activity, but as belonging to the material of the dream thoughts,
and it has found its way from them as a finished structure to
the manifest dream content. I may go even further than this .
Even the judgments which are passed upon the dream as
it is remembered after awakening and the feelings which
are aroused by the reproduction of the dream, belong in good
part to the latent dream content, and must be fitted into their
place in the interpretation of the dream.
I. A striking example of this I have already given. A
female patient does not wish to relate her dream because it
is too vague . She has seen a person in the dream, and does
not know whether it is her husband or her father. Then
follows a second dream fragment in which there occurs a
66
manure-can, " which gives rise to the following reminiscence.
As a young housewife, she once jokingly declared in the
presence of a young relative who frequented the house that her
next care would be to procure a new manure-can . The next
morning one was sent to her, but it was filled with lilies of the
valley. This part of the dream served to represent the saying ,
"C
Not grown on your own manure .'" * When we complete
the analysis we find that in the dream thoughts it is a matter
of the after-effects of a story heard in youth, to the effect
that a girl had given birth to a child concerning whom it was
not clear who was the real father. The dream representation
here goes over into the waking thought, and allows one element
of the dream thoughts to be represented by a judgment
expressed in the waking state upon the whole dream.

This German expression is equivalent to our saying " You are not
responsible for that," or " That has not been acquired through your own
efforts." (Translator.)
352 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

II. A similar case : One of my patients has a dream

which seems interesting to him, for he says to himself immedi
ately after awakening : " I must tell that to the doctor." The
dream is analysed , and shows the most distinct allusion to
an affair in which he had become involved during the treat
ment, and of which he had decided to tell me nothing. " *
III . Here is a third example from my own experience :
I go to the hospital with P. through a region in which houses
and gardens occur. With this comes the idea that I have already
seen this region in dreams several times . I do not know my
way very well ; P. shows me a way which leads through a corner
to a restaurant (a room, not a garden) ; here I ask for Mrs.
Doni, and I hear that she is living in the background in a little
room with three children . I go there, and while on the way 1
meet an indistinct person with my two little girls, whom I take
with me after I have stood with them for a while. A kind of
reproach against my wife for having left them there.
Upon awakening I feel great satisfaction, the cause for
this being the fact that I am now going to learn from the
analysis what is meant by the idea "I have already dreamed
of that." But the analysis of the dream teaches me nothing
on the subject ; it only shows me that the satisfaction belongs
to the latent dream content, and not to my judgment upon
the dream . It is satisfaction over the fact that I have had
children by my marriage. P. is a person in whose company
I walked the path of life for a certain space, but who has since
far outdistanced me socially and materially-whose marriage,
however, has remained childless . The two occasions for the
dream furnishing the proof of this may be found by means of
complete analysis . On the previous day I had read in the
paper the obituary notice of a certain Mrs. Dona Ay (out
of which I make Doni) , who had died in childbirth ; I was
told by my wife that the dead woman had been nursed by the
same midwife she herself had had at the birth of our two

The injunction or purpose contained in the dream, " I must tell

that to the doctor," which occurs in dreams that are dreamed in the
course of psycho-analytical treatment, regularly corresponds to a great
resistance to the confession involved in the dream, and is not infrequently
followed by forgetting of the dream .
A subject about which an extensive discussion has taken place in
the volumes of the Revue Philosophique- (Paramnesia in the Dream ).
 THE DREAM-WORK 353

youngest boys. The name Dona had caught my attention,

for I had recently found it for the first time in an English
novel . The other occasion for the dream may be found in
the date on which it was dreamed ; it was on the night before
the birthday of my eldest boy, who , it seems, is poetically
gifted.
IV. The same satisfaction remained with me after awaken
ing from the absurd dream that my father, after his death, had
played a political part among the Magyars, and it is motivated
by a continuance of the feeling which accompanied the last
sentence of the dream : " I remember that on his deathbed he
looked so much like Garibaldi, and I am glad that it has really
come true. (Here belongs a forgotten continuation . ) I can now
supply from the analysis what belongs in this gap of the dream.
It is the mention of my second boy , to whom I have given the
first name of a great historical personage, who attracted me
powerfully during my boyhood , especially during my stay in
England . I had to wait for a year after making up my mind
to use this name in case the expected child should be a son,
and I greeted him with it in high satisfaction as soon as he was
born . It is easy to see how the father's lust for greatness is
transferred in his thoughts to his children ; it will readily be
believed that this is one of the ways in which the suppression
of this lust which becomes necessary in life is brought about .
The little fellow won a place in the text of this dream by virtue
of the fact that the same accident- quite pardonable in a
child or a dying person-of soiling his clothes had happened
to him. With this may be compared the allusion " Stuhl
richter " (judge on the stool-bench, i.e. presiding judge ) and
the wish of the dream : To stand before one's children great
and pure.
V. I am now called upon to find expressions of judgment
which remain in the dream itself, and are not retained in or
transferred to our waking thoughts , and I shall consider it a
great relief if I may find examples in dreams , which have
already been cited for other purposes . The dream about
Goethe's attacking Mr. M. seems to contain a considerable
number of acts of judgment . I try to find some explanation of
the chronological relations, which seem improbable to me. Does
not this look like a critical impulse directed against the non
Ꮓ
354 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

sensical idea that Goethe should have made a literary attack

upon a young man of my acquaintance ? "It seems plausible
to me that he was 18 years old ." That sounds quite like
the result of a dull-witted calculation ; and " I do not know
exactly what year it is " would be an example of uncertainty
or doubt in the dream .
But I know from analysis that these acts of judgment,
which seem to have been performed in the dream for the first
time, admit of a different construction in the light of which
they become indispensable for interpreting the dream , and at
the same time every absurdity is avoided . With the sentence ,
" I try to find some explanation of the chronological relations ,"
I put myself in the place of my friend who is actually trying
to explain the chronological relations of life . The sentence
then loses its significance as a judgment that objects to the
nonsense of the previous sentences . The interposition , “ which
seems improbable to me, " belongs to the subsequent " it seems
plausible to me." In about the same words I had answered
the lady who told me the story of her brother's illness : " It
seems improbable to me that the cry of Nature, Nature, ' had
anything to do with Goethe ; it appears much more plausible
that it had the sexual significance which is known to you."
To be sure, a judgment has been passed here, not, however,
in the dream but in reality , on an occasion which is remembered
and utilised by the dream thoughts . The dream content
appropriates this judgment like any other fragment of the
dream thoughts .
The numeral 18 , with which the judgment in the dream is
meaninglessly connected , still preserves a trace of the context
from which the real judgment was torn . Finally, " I am not
certain what year it is " is intended for nothing else than
to carry out my identification with the paralytic, in the
examination of whom this point of confirmation had actually
been established .
In the solution of these apparent acts of judgment , in the
dream, it may be well to call attention to the rule of interpre
tation which says that the coherence which is fabricated in
the dream between its constituent parts is to be disregarded
as specious and unessential , and that every dream element must
be taken by itself and traced to its source. The dream is
 THE DREAM-WORK 355

C a conglomeration , which is to be broken up into its elements

for the purposes of investigation. But other circumstances
call our attention to the fact that a psychic force is expressed
in dreams which establishes this apparent coherence that
is to say, which subjects the material that is obtained by the
dream activity to a secondary elaboration . We are here con
fronted with manifestations of this force, upon which we shall
later fix our attention as being the fourth of the factors which
take part in the formation of the dream .
VI. I select other examples of critical activity in the dreams
which have already been cited . In the absurd dream about
the communication from the common council I ask the ques
tion : " You married shortly after ? I figure that I was born in
1856, which appears to me as though following immediately.
This quite takes the form of an inference . My father married
shortly after his attack in the year 1851 ; I am the oldest son ,
born in 1856 ; this agrees perfectly. We know that this in
ference has been interpolated by the wish-fulfilment, and that
the sentence which dominates the dream thoughts is to the
following effect : 4 or 5 years , that is no time at all, that need not
enter the calculation . But every part of this chain of inferences
is to be determined from the dream thoughts in a different
manner, both as to its content and as to its form . It is the
patient-about whose endurance my colleague complains
who intends to marry immediately after the close of the
treatment . The manner in which I deal with my father in
the dream recalls an inquest or examination , and with that the
person of a university instructor who was in the habit of taking
a complete list of credentials at the enrolment of his class :
" You were born when ? " In 1856. " Patre ? " Then the
applicant gave the first name of his father with a Latin ending,
and we students assumed that the Aulic Councillor drew
inferences from the first name of the father which the name
of the enrolled student would not always have supplied . Ac
cording to this, the drawing of inferences in the dream would
be merely a repetition of the drawing of inferences which
appears as part of the subject-matter in the dream thoughts.
From this we learn something new. If an inference occurs
in the dream content, it invariably comes from the dream
thoughts ; it may be contained in these as a bit of remembered
356 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

material, or it may serve as a logical connective in a series

of dream thoughts . In any case an inference in the dream
represents an inference in the dream thoughts . *
The analysis of this dream should be continued here.
With the inquest of the Professor there is connected the re
collection of an index (published in Latin during my time)
of the university students ; also of my course of studies .
The five years provided for the study of medicine were as usual
not enough for me. I worked along unconcernedly in the
succeeding years ; in the circle of my acquaintances I was
considered a loafer, and there was doubt as to whether I
would " get through. " Then all at once I decided to take
my examinations ; and I got " through," in spite of the post
ponement. This is a new confirmation of the dream thoughts ,
which I defiantly hold up to my critics : " Even though you
are unwilling to believe it , because I take my time, I shall
reach a conclusion (German Schluss , meaning either end or
conclusion, inference) . It has often happened that way.”
In its introductory portion this dream contains several
sentences which cannot well be denied the character of an
argumentation . And this argumentation is not at all absurd ;
it might just as well belong to waking thought . In the dream
I make sport of the communication of the Common Council, for
in the first place I was not yet in the world in 1851 , and in the
second place, my father, to whom it might refer, is already dead.
Both are not only correct in themselves , but coincide com
pletely with the arguments that I should use in case I should
receive a communication of the sort mentioned . We know
from our previous analysis that this dream has sprung from
deeply embittered and scornful dream thoughts ; if we may
assume further that the motive for censorship is a very strong
one, we shall understand that the dream activity has every
reason to create a flawless refutation of a baseless insinuation
according to the model contained in the dream thoughts .
But analysis shows that in this case the dream activity has not
had the task of making a free copy, but it has been required

* These results correct in several respects my earlier statements

concerning the representation of logical relations (p. 290). The latter
described the general conditions of dream activity, but they did not take
into consideration its finest and most careful performances.
 THE DREAM-WORK 357

to use subject-matter from the dream thoughts for its purpose.

It is as if in an algebraic equation there occurred plus and minus
signs , signs of powers and of roots , besides the figures , and
as if someone, in copying this equation without understanding
it , should take over into his copy the signs of operation as
well as the figures , and fail to distinguish between the two
kinds . The two arguments may be traced to the following
material. It is painful for me to think that many of the
assumptions upon which I base my solution of psychoneuroses ,
as soon as they have become known , will arouse scepticism
and ridicule. Thus I must maintain that impressions from
the second year of life , or even from the first , leave a lasting
trace upon the temperament of persons who later become
diseased, and that these impressions-greatly distorted it is
true, and exaggerated by memory-are capable of furnishing
the original and fundamental basis of hysterical symptoms.
Patients to whom I explain this in its proper place are in the
habit of making a parody upon the explanation by declaring
themselves willing to look for reminiscences of the period
when they were not yet alive. It would quite accord with
my expectation , if enlightenment on the subject of the un
suspected part played by the father in the earliest sexual
impulses of feminine patients should get a similar reception .
(Cf. the discussion on p . 218. ) And , nevertheless , both
positions are correct according to my well-founded conviction .
In confirmation I recall certain examples in which the death
of the father happened when the child was very young, and
later events, otherwise inexplicable, proved that the child
had unconsciously preserved recollections of the persons who
had so early gone out of its life . I know that both of my
assertions are based upon inferences the validity of which will
be attacked . If the subject-matter of these very inferences
which I fear will be contested is used by the dream activity
for setting up incontestable inferences , this is a performance of
the wish-fulfilment .
VII . In a dream which I have hitherto only touched
upon, astonishment at the subject to be broached is distinctly
expressed at the outset.
CC
The elder Bruecke must have given me some task or other ;
strangely enough it relates to the preparation of my own lower
358 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

body, pelvis and legs, which I see before me as though in the dis
secting room, but without feeling my lack of body and without a
trace of horror. Louise N. is standing near, and doing her work
next to me. The pelvis is eviscerated ; now the upper, now the
lower view ofthe same is seen , and the two views mingle. Thick
fleshy red lumps (which even in the dream make me think of
hæmorrhoids) are to be seen . Also something had to be carefully
picked out, which lay over these and which looked like crumpled
tin-foil.* Then I was again in possession of my legs and made
a journey through the city, but took a wagon (owing to my fatigue).
To my astonishment the wagon drove into a house door, which
opened and allowed it to pass into a passage that was snapped
off at the end, and finally led further on into the open.† At last
I wandered through changing landscapes with an Alpine guide,
who carried my things. He carried me for some way, out of con
sideration for my tired legs. The ground was muddy, and we
went along the edge ; people sat on the ground, a girl among them ,
like Indians or Gypsies. Previously I had moved myself along
on the slippery ground, with constant astonishment that I was
so well able to do it after the preparation. At last we came to a
small wooden house which ended in an open window. Here the
guide set me down, and laid two wooden boards which stood in
readiness on the window sill , in order that in this way the chasm
might be bridged which had to be crossed in order to get to the
window. Now, I grew really frightened about my legs. In
stead of the expected crossing, I saw two grown-up men lying
upon wooden benches which were on the walls ofthe hut, and some
thing like two sleeping children next to them. It seems as though
not the boards but the children were intended to make possible the
crossing. I awakened with frightened thoughts.
Anyone who has formed a proper idea of the abundance of
dream condensation will easily be able to imagine how great
a number of pages the detailed analysis of this dream must
fill. Luckily for the context, I shall take from it merely the
one example of astonishment, in the dream , which makes its
66
appearance in the parenthetical remark, strangely enough."

* Stanniol, allusion to Stannius, the nervous system of fishes ; cf. p. 325.

The place in the corridor of my apartment house where the baby
carriages of the other tenants stand ; it is also otherwise several times
over- determined.
 THE DREAM-WORK 359

Let us take up the occasion of the dream. It is a visit of this

lady, Louise N. , who assists at the work in the dream. She
says : " Lend me something to read ." I offer her She, by
99
Rider Haggard . " A strange book, but full of hidden sense,'
66
I try to explain to her ; the eternal feminine, the immor
99
tality of our emotions- Here she interrupts me : " I
know that book already. Haven't you something of your
own ? " " No , my own immortal works are still unwritten ."
" Well , when are you going to publish your so- called latest
revelations which you promised us would be good reading ? "
she asks somewhat sarcastically. I now perceive that she is
a mouthpiece for someone else , and I become silent . I think
of the effort it costs me to publish even my work on the Dream ,
in which I have to surrender so much of my own intimate
character. " The best that you know you can't tell to the
children." The preparation of my own body, which I am ordered
to make in the dream, is thus the self-analysis necessitated in
the communication of my dreams . The elder Bruecke very
properly finds a place here ; in these first years of my scientific
work it happened that I neglected a discovery, until his ener
getic commands forced me to publish it . But the other trains
of thought which start from my conversation with Louise N.
go too deep to become conscious ; they are side-tracked by
way of the related material which has been awakened in me
by the mention of Rider Haggard's She. The comment
66
strangely enough " goes with this book, and with another by
the same author, The Heart of the World, and numerous
elements of the dream are taken from these two fantastic
novels . The muddy ground over which the dreamer is carried ,
the chasm which must be crossed by means of the boards
that have been brought along, come from She ; the Indians ,
the girl, and the wooden house, from the Heart of the World.
In both novels a woman is the leader, both treat of dangerous
wanderings ; She has to do with an adventurous journey to
the undiscovered country, a place almost untrodden by foot
of man. According to a note which I find in my record of the
dream , the fatigue in my legs was a real sensation of those
days . Doubtless in correspondence with this came a tired
frame of mind and the doubting question : " How much
further will my legs carry me ? " The adventure in She
360 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

ends with the woman leader's meeting her death in the

mysterious fire at the centre of the earth , instead of attaining
immortality for herself and others . A fear of this sort has
unmistakably arisen in the dream thoughts . The The " wooden
house," also, is surely the coffin-that is, the grave . But
the dream activity has performed its masterpiece in repre
senting this most unwished-for of all thoughts by means of
a wish-fulfilment . I have already once been in a grave, but
it was an empty Etruscan grave near Orvieto a narrow
chamber with two stone benches on the walls, upon which the
skeletons of two grown-up persons had been laid . The interior
of the wooden house in the dream looks exactly like this ,
except that wood has been substituted for stone. The dream
seems to say : " If you must so soon lie in your grave, let it
be this Etruscan grave," and by means of this interpolation it
transforms the saddest expectation into one that is really to be
desired . As we shall learn , it is , unfortunately, only the idea
accompanying an emotion which the dream can change into
its opposite, not usually the emotion itself. Thus I awake
with " frightened thoughts ," even after the dream has been
forced to represent my idea-that perhaps the children will
attain what has been denied to the father-a fresh allusion to
the strange novel in which the identity of a person is preserved
through a series of generations covering two thousand years .
VIII . In the context of another dream there is a similar
expression of astonishment at what is experienced in the
dream . This , however, is connected with a striking and skil
fully contrived attempt at explanation which might well be
called a stroke of genius -so that I should have to analyse the
whole dream merely for the sake of it , even if the dream did
not possess two other features of interest . I am travelling
during the night between the eighteenth and the nineteenth of
July on the Southern Railway, and in my sleep I hear some
one call out : " Hollthurn, 10 minutes."
minutes ." I immediately think
of Holothurian-of a museum of natural history—that here is a
place where brave men have vainly resisted the domination of
their overlord. Yes, the counter reformation in Austria ! As
though it were a place in Styria or the Tyrol. Now I distinctly
see a little museum in which the remains or the possessions of
these men are preserved . I wish to get off, but I hesitate to do so.
 THE DREAM-WORK 361

Women with fruit are standing on the platform ; they crouch on

the floor, and in that position hold out their baskets in an inviting
manner. I hesitate, in doubt whether we still have time, but we
are still standing . I am suddenly in another compartment in
which the leather and the seats are so narrow that one's back
directly touches the back rest. * I am surprised at this, but I
may have changed cars while asleep. Several people, among
them an English brother and sister ; a row of books distinctly
on a shelf on the wall. I see The Wealth of Nations , then
Matter and Motion (by Maxwell)-the books are thick and bound
in brown linen. The man asks his sister for a book by Schiller,
and whether she has forgotten it. These are books which first
seem mine, then seem to belong to the brother and sister. At this
point I wish to join in the conversation in order to confirm and
support what is being said- · I awaken sweating all over my
body, because all the windows are shut . The train stops at
Marburg .
While writing down the dream , a part of it occurs to me
which my memory wished to omit . I say to the brother and
66
sister about a certain work : It is from • ." but I correct
""
myself: " It is by . The man remarks to his sister :
" He said it correctly ."
The dream begins with the name of a station, which prob
ably must have partially awakened me. For this name,
which was Marburg, I substituted Hollthurn . The fact that
I heard Marburg when it was first called , or perhaps when it
was called a second time, is proved by the mention in the
dream of Schiller, who was born in Marburg, though not in
the one in Styria . † Now this time , although I was travelling
first-class, it was under very disagreeable circumstances. The
train was overcrowded ; I had met a gentleman and lady in
my compartment who seemed persons of quality, but who
did not have the good breeding or who did not think it worth
* This description is not intelligible even to myself, but I follow the
principle of reproducing the dream in those words which occur to me
while I am writing it down. The wording itself is a part of the dream
representation.
† Schiller was not born in one of the Marburgs, but in Marbach, as
every graduate of a Gymnasium knows, and as I also knew. This again is
one of those errors (cf. p. 165) which are included as substitutes for an
intended deception at another place an explanation of which I have
attempted in the Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens).
362 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

while to conceal their displeasure at my intrusion . My polite

salutation was not answered, and although the man and the
woman sat next each other (with their backs in the direction
in which we were riding) , the woman made haste to pre- empt
the place opposite her and next the window with her umbrella ;
the door was immediately closed and demonstrative remarks
about the opening of windows were exchanged. Probably I
was quickly recognised as a person hungry for fresh air . It
was a hot night, and the air in the compartment, thus shut
on all sides , was almost suffocating . My experience as a
traveller leads me to believe that such inconsiderate, obtrusive
conduct marks people who have only partly paid for their
tickets , or not at all. When the conductor came, and I pre
sented my dearly bought ticket , the lady called out ungra
ciously, and as though threateningly : " My husband has a
pass ." She was a stately figure with sour features, in age
not far from the time set for the decay of feminine beauty ;
the man did not get a chance to say anything at all, and sat
there motionless . I tried to sleep . In the dream I take
terrible revenge on my disagreeable travelling companions ;
no one would suspect what insults and humiliations are con
cealed behind the disjointed fragments of the first half of the
dream . After this desire has been satisfied, the second wish,
to exchange my compartment for another, makes itself evident .
The dream makes changes of scene so often, and without rais
ing the least objection to such changes , that it would not have
been in the least remarkable if I had immediately replaced
my travelling companions by more pleasant ones for my re
collection . But this was one of the cases where something
or other objected to the change of scene and considered ex
planation of the change necessary. How did I suddenly get
into another compartment ? I surely could not remember
having changed cars . So there was only one explanation :
I must have left the carriage while asleep, a rare occurrence,
examples for which, however, are furnished by the experience
of the neuropathologist. We know of persons who under
take railroad journeys in a crepuscular state without betraying
their abnormal condition by any sign, until some station on
the journey they completely recover consciousness , and are
then surprised at the gap in their memory. Thus, while I
 THE DREAM-WORK 363

am still dreaming , I declare my own case to be such a one of

" Automatisme ambulatoire."
Analysis permits another solution . The attempt at ex
planation, which so astounds me if I am to attribute it to the
dream activity, is not original, but is copied from the neurosis
of one of my patients . I have already spoken on another
page of a highly cultured and , in conduct, kind-hearted man ,
who began, shortly after the death of his parents , to accuse
himself of murderous inclinations, and who suffered because
of the precautionary measures he had to take to insure himself
against these inclinations . At first walking along the street
was made painful for him by the compulsion impelling him to
demand an accounting of all the persons he met as to whither
they had vanished ; if one of them suddenly withdrew from
his pursuing glance, there remained a painful feeling and a
thought of the possibility that he might have put the man out
of the way. This compulsive idea concealed , among other
things , a Cain-fancy , for " all men are brothers." Owing to
the impossibility of accomplishing his task, he gave up taking
walks and spent his life imprisoned within his four walls . But
news of murderous acts which have been committed outside
constantly reached his room through the papers, and his con
science in the form of a doubt kept accusing him of being the
murderer. The certainty of not having left his dwelling for
weeks protected him against these accusations for a time,
until one day there dawned upon him the possibility that he
might have left his house while in an unconscious condition, and
might thus have committed the murder without knowing any
thing about it . From that time on he locked his house door,
and handed the key over to his old housekeeper, and strictly
forbade her to give it into his hands even if he demanded it .
This , then , is the origin of the attempted explanation ,
that I may have changed carriages while in an unconscious
condition- it has been transferred from the material of the
dream thoughts to the dream in a finished state, and is obvi
ously intended to identify me with the person of that patient .
My memory of him was awakened by an easy association . I
had made my last night journey with this man a few weeks
before. He was cured , and was escorting me into the country,
to his relatives who were summoning me ; as we had a compart
364 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

ment to ourselves, we left all the windows open through the

night , and, as long as I had remained awake, we had a delight
ful conversation . I knew that hostile impulses towards his
father from the time of his childhood, in connection with
sexual material, had been at the root of his illness . By
identifying myself with him, I wanted to make an analogous
confession to myself. The second scene of the dream really
resolves itself into a wanton fancy to the effect that my two
elderly travelling companions had acted so uncivilly towards
me for the reason that my arrival prevented them from ex
changing love-tokens during the night as they had intended .
This fancy, however, goes back to an early childhood scene
in which, probably impelled by sexual inquisitiveness , I
intruded upon the bedroom of my parents , and was driven
from it by my father's emphatic command .
I consider it superfluous to multiply further examples .
All of them would confirm what we have learned from those
which have been already cited , namely, that an act of judg
ment in the dream is nothing but the repetition of a prototype
which it has in the dream thoughts. In most cases it is an
inappropriate repetition introduced in an unfitting connection ;
occasionally, however, as in our last example, it is so artfully
disposed that it may give the impression of being an inde
pendent thought activity in the dream. At this point we
might turn our attention to that psychic activity which
indeed does not seem to co -operate regularly in the formation of
dreams , but whose effort it is , wherever it does co-operate ,
to fuse together those dream elements that are incongruent
on account of their origins in an uncontradictory and intel
ligible manner. We consider it best , however, first to take up
the expressions of emotion which appear in the dream , and to
compare them with the emotions which analysis reveals to
us in the dream thoughts .

(g) The Affects in the Dream.

A profound remark of Stricker's 77 has called our attention

to the fact that the expressions of emotion in the dream do
not permit of being disposed of in the slighting manner in
which we are accustomed to shake off the dream itself, after
 THE DREAM-WORK 365

we have awakened . " If I am afraid of robbers in the dream ,

the robbers, to be sure, are imaginary, but the fear of them is
real ," and the same is true if I am glad in the dream. Accord
ing to the testimony of our feelings , the emotion experienced
in the dream is in no way less valid than one of like intensity
experienced in waking life , and the dream makes its claim to be
taken up as a part of our real mental experiences , more ener
getically on account of its emotional content than on account
of its ideal content . We do not succeed in accomplishing this
separation in waking life, because we do not know how to
estimate an emotion psychically except in connection with a
presentation content . If in kind or in intensity an affect and an
idea are incongruous, our waking judgment becomes confused .
The fact that in dreams the presentation content does not
entail the affective influence which we should expect as neces
sary in waking thought has always caused astonishment.
Strümpell was of the opinion that ideas in the dream are
stripped of their psychic values . But neither does the dream
lack opposite instances , where the expression of intense affect
appears in a content, which seems to offer no occasion for its
development. I am in a horrible, dangerous , or disgusting
situation in the dream, but I feel nothing of fear or aversion ;
on the other hand , I am sometimes terrified at harmless things
and glad at childish ones.
This enigma of the dream disappears more suddenly and
more completely than perhaps any other of the dream pro
blems , if we pass from the manifest to the latent content.
We shall then no longer be concerned to explain it , for it will
no longer exist . Analysis teaches us that presentation contents
have undergone displacements and substitutions, while affects
have remained unchanged. No wonder, then, that the pre
sentation content which has been altered by dream disfigure
ment no longer fits the affect that has remained intact ; but
there is no cause for wonder either after analysis has put the
correct content in its former place .
In a psychic complex which has been subjected to the in
fluence of the resisting censor the affects are the unyielding
constituent, which alone is capable of guiding us to a correct
supplementation . This state of affairs is revealed in psycho
neuroses even more distinctly than in the dream . Here the
366 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

affect is always in the right, at least as far as its quality goes ;

its intensity may even be increased by means of a displace
ment of neurotic attention . If a hysteric is surprised that
he is so very afraid of a trifle, or if the patient with compulsive
ideas is astonished that he develops such painful self-reproach
out of a nonentity , both of them err in that they regard the
presentation content-the trifle or the nonentity-as the essen
tial thing, and they defend themselves in vain because they
make this presentation content the starting point in their
thought. Psychoanalysis, however, shows them the right way
by recognising that, on the contrary, the affect is justified ,
and by searching for the presentation which belongs to it
and which has been suppressed by means of replacement .
The assumption is here made that the development of affect
and the presentation content do not constitute such an in
dissoluble organic union as we are accustomed to think, but
that the two parts may be, so to speak, soldered together in
such a way that they may be detached from one another by
means of analysis . Dream interpretation shows that this
is actually the case.
I give first an example in which analysis explains the ap
parent absence of affect in a presentation content which ought
to force a development of emotion .
I. The dreamer sees three lions in a desert, one of which is
laughing, but she is not afraid of them . Then , however, she must
have fled from them, for she is trying to climb a tree, but she finds
that her cousin, who is a teacher of French, is already up in the
tree, &c .
The analysis gives us the following material for this dream :
A sentence in the dreamer's English lesson had become the
indifferent occasion for it : " The lion's greatest beauty is his
mane. " Her father wore a beard which surrounded his face
like a mane. The name of her English teacher was Miss
Lyons. An acquaintance of hers had sent her the ballads of
Loewe (German, Loewe-lion ) . These, then , are the three
lions ; why should she have been afraid of them ? She has
read a story in which a negro who has incited his fellows to
revolt is hunted with bloodhounds and climbs a tree to save
himself. Then follow fragments in wanton mood , like the
following. Directions for catching lions from Die Fliegende
 THE DREAM-WORK 367

Blaetter : " Take a desert and strain it ; the lions will re

main." Also a very amusing, but not very proper anecdote
about an official who is asked why he does not take greater
pains to win the favour of his superior officer, and who answers
that he has been trying to insinuate himself, but that the man
ahead of him is already up. The whole matter becomes in
telligible as soon as one learns that on the day of the dream
the lady had received a visit from her husband's superior. He
was very polite to her, kissed her hand , and she was not afraid
of him at all, although he is a " big bug " (German- Grosses
Tier = " big animal ") and plays the part of a " social lion "
in the capital of her country. This lion is , therefore , like the
lion in the Midsummer Night's Dream, who unmasks as Snug,
the joiner, and of such stuff are all dream lions made when one
is not afraid.
II. As my second example , I cite the dream of the girl who
saw her sister's little son lying dead in a coffin, but who , I may
now add, felt no pain or sorrow thereat . We know from
analysis why not . The dream only concealed her wish to
see the man she loved again ; the affect must be attuned to
the wish, and not to its concealment. There was no occasion
for sorrow at all.
In a number of dreams the emotion at least remains con
nected with that presentation content which has replaced the
one really belonging to it. In others the breaking up of the
complex is carried further. The affect seems to be entirely
separated from the idea belonging to it, and finds a place
somewhere else in the dream where it fits into the new ar
rangement of the dream elements . This is similar to what
we have learned of acts of judgment of the dream. If there
is a significant inference in the dream thoughts, the dream
also contains one ; but in the dream the inference may be
shifted to entirely different material. Not infrequently this
shifting takes place according to the principle of antithesis .
I illustrate the latter possibility by the following dream,
which I have subjected to the most exhaustive analysis .
III. A castle by the sea ; afterwards it lies not directly on the
sea, but on a narrow canal that leads to the sea. A certain Mr.
P. is the governor of it. I stand with him in a large salon with
three windows, in front of which rise the projections of a wall,
368 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

like battlements of a fort. I belong to the garrison, perhaps as

a volunteer marine officer. We fear the arrival of hostile war
ships, for we are in a state of war. Mr. P. has the intention of
leaving ; he gives me instructions as to what must be done in case
the dreaded event happens . His sick wife is in the threatened
castle with her children. As soon as the bombardment begins the
large hall should be cleared . He breathes heavily, and tries to get
away ; I hold him back, and ask him in what way I should send
him news in case of need . He says something else, and then all
at once falls over dead. I have probably taxed him unnecessarily
with my questions . After his death, which makes no further im
pression upon me, I think whether the widow is to remain in the
castle, whether I should give notice ofthe death to the commander
in-chief, and whether I should take over the direction of the castle
as the next in command. I now stand at the window , and muster
the ships as they pass by ; they are merchantmen that dart past
upon the dark water, several of them with more than one smoke
stack, others with bulging decks (that are quite similar to the
railway stations in the preliminary dream which has not been
told) . Then my brother stands next to me, and both of us look
out of the window on to the canal . At the sight of a ship we are
frightened, and call out : " Here comes the warship ! " It turns
out, however, that it is only the same ships which I have already
known that are returning. Now comes a little ship, strangely cut
off, so that it ends in the middle of its breadth ; curious things like
cups or salt-cellars are seen on the deck. We call as though with
one voice : " That is the breakfast-ship."
The rapid motion of the ships , the deep blue of the water,
the brown smoke of the funnels , all this together makes a
highly tense, sombre impression .
The localities in this dream are put together from several
journeys to the Adriatic Sea (Miramare, Duino , Venice ,
Aquileja). A short but enjoyable Easter trip to Aquileja
with my brother, a few weeks before the dream, was still fresh
in my memory. Besides , the naval war between America
and Spain , and the worry connected with it about my relatives
living in America, play a part . Manifestations of emotion
appear at two places in this dream . In one place an emotion
that would be expected is lacking-it is expressly emphasized
that the death of the governor makes no impression upon me ;
 THE DREAM-WORK 369

at another point , where I see the warships I am frightened,

and experience all the sensations of fright while I sleep . The
distribution of affects in this well- constructed dream has been
made in such a way that every obvious contradiction is
avoided. For there is no reason why I should be frightened
at the governor's death , and it is fitting that as the commander
of the castle I should be alarmed by the sight of the warship .
Now analysis shows that Mr. P. is nothing but a substitute for
my own Ego (in the dream I am his substitute) . I am the
governor who suddenly dies . The dream thoughts deal with
the future of those dear to me after my premature death .
No other disagreeable thought is to be found among the
dream thoughts . The fright which is attached to the sight
of the warship must be transferred from it to this disagree
able thought. Inversely, the analysis shows that the region
of the dream thoughts from which the warship comes is filled
with most joyous reminiscences . It was at Venice a year
before, one charmingly beautiful day, that we stood at the
windows of our room on the Riva Schiavoni and looked upon
the blue lagoon , in which more activity could be seen that day
than usually . English ships were being expected , they were
to be festively received ; and suddenly my wife called out,
happy as a child : " There come the English warships ! " In
the dream I am frightened at the very same words ; we see
again that speeches in the dream originate from speeches in
life . I shall soon show that even the element " English " in
this speech has not been lost for the dream activity. I thus
convert joy into fright on the way from the dream thoughts
to the dream content, and I need only intimate that by means
of this very transformation I give expression to a part of the
latent dream content . The example shows , however, that the
dream activity is at liberty to detach the occasion for an affect
from its context in the dream thoughts, and to insert it at
any other place it chooses in the dream content.
I seize the opportunity which is incidentally offered , of
subjecting to closer analysis the " breakfast ship," whose
appearance in the dream so nonsensically concludes a situation
that has been rationally adhered to . If I take a closer view
of this object in the dream, I am now struck by the fact that it
was black, and that on account of its being cut off at its greatest
2 A
370 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

breadth it closely resembled , at the end where it was cut off,

an object which had aroused our interest in the museums of
the Etruscan cities . This object was a rectangular cup of
black clay with two handles , upon which stood things like coffee
cups , or tea cups , very similar to our modern breakfast table
service . Upon inquiring, we learned that this was the toilet
set of an Etruscan lady , with little boxes for rouge and powder ;
and we said jokingly to each other that it would not be a bad
idea to take a thing like that home to the lady of the house.
The dream object , therefore, signifies " black toilet " (German,
toilette -dress )-mourning-and has direct reference to a
death . The other end of the dream object reminds us of the
" boat " (German , Nachen) , from the root véxus , as a philo
logical friend has told me, upon which corpses were laid in
prehistoric times and were left to be buried by the sea . With
this circumstance is connected the reason for the return of
the ships in the dream .
" Quietly the old man on his rescued boat drifts into the
harbour."
It is the return voyage after the shipwreck (German, schiff
bruch ; ship-breaking, i.e. shipwreck) , the breakfast-ship looks
as though it were broken off in the middle . But whence comes
37
the name " breakfast "-ship ? Here is where the " English
comes in, which we have left over from the warships . Break
fast-a breaking of the fast. Breaking again belongs to
ship-wreck (Schiffbruch ) , and fasting is connected with the
mourning dress .
The only thing about this breakfast-ship , which has been
newly created by the dream, is its name. The thing has
existed in reality, and recalls to me the merriest hours of my
last journey. As we distrusted the fare in Aquileja, we took
some food with us from Goerz, and bought a bottle of excellent
Istrian wine in Aquileja , and while the little mail- steamer slowly
travelled through the Canal delle Mee and into the lonely stretch
of lagoon towards Grado, we took our breakfast on deck-we
were the only passengers-and it tasted to us as few break
fasts have ever tasted . This , then, was the " breakfast- ship,"
and it is behind this very recollection of great enjoyment that
the dream hides the saddest thoughts about an unknown and
ominous future .
 THE DREAM-WORK 371

The detachment of emotions from the groups of ideas

which have been responsible for their development is the most
striking thing that happens to them in the course of dream
formation, but it is neither the only nor even the most essential
change which they undergo on the way from the dream
thoughts to the manifest dream . If the affects in the dream
thoughts are compared with those in the dream, it at once
becomes clear that wherever there is an emotion in the dream ,
this is also to be found in the dream thoughts ; the converse,
however, is not true . In general, the dream is less rich in
affects than the psychic material from which it is elaborated .
As soon as I have reconstructed the dream thoughts I see that
the most intense psychic impulses are regularly striving in
them for self-assertion , usually in conflict with others that
are sharply opposed to them. If I turn back to the dream ,
I often find it colourless and without any of the more intense
strains of feeling. Not only the content , but also the affec
tive tone of my thoughts has been brought by the dream
activity to the level of the indifferent. I might say that a
suppression ofthe affects has taken place . Take, for example,
the dream of the botanical monograph. It answers to a pas
sionate plea for my freedom to act as I am acting and to arrange
my life as seems right to me and to me alone . The dream
which results from it sounds indifferent ; I have written a
monograph ; it is lying before me ; it is fitted with coloured
plates , and dried plants are to be found with each copy. It
is like the peacefulness of a battlefield ; there is no trace left
of the tumult of battle .
It may also turn out differently-vivid affective expressions
may make their appearance in the dream ; but we shall first
dwell upon the unquestionable fact that many dreams appear
indifferent, while it is never possible to go deeply into the dream
thoughts without deep emotion.
A complete theoretical explanation of this suppression of
emotions in the course of the dream activity cannot be given
here ; it would require a most careful investigation of the
theory of the emotions and of the mechanism of suppression .
I shall find a place here for two thoughts only. I am forced
-on other grounds-to conceive the development of affects
as a centrifugal process directed towards the interior of the
372 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

body, analogous to the processes of motor and secretory

innervation. Just as in the sleeping condition the omission
of motor impulses towards the outside world seems to be
suspended , so a centrifugal excitement of emotions through
unconscious thought may be made more difficult during sleep.
Thus the affective impulses aroused during the discharge of
the dream thoughts would themselves be weak excitements,
and therefore those getting into the dream would not be
stronger. According to this line of argument the " suppres
sion of the affects " would not be a result of the dream activity
at all , but a result of the sleeping condition . This may be so,
but this cannot possibly be all . We must also remember that
all the more complex dreams have shown themselves to be a
compromised result from the conflict of psychic forces . On
the one hand, the thoughts that constitute the wish must
fight the opposition of a censorship ; on the other hand, we
have often seen how, even in unconscious thinking, each train
of thought is harnessed to its contradictory opposite . Since
all of these trains of thought are capable of emotion , we shall
hardly make a mistake, broadly speaking , if we regard the
suppression of emotion as the result of the restraint which the
contrasts impose upon one another and which the censor
imposes upon the tendencies which it has suppressed . The
restraint of affects would accordingly be the second result of the
dream censor as the disfigurement ofthe dream was the first.
I shall insert an example of a dream in which the indif
ferent affective tone of the dream content may be explained by
a contrast in the dream thoughts . I have the following short
dream to relate, which every reader will read with disgust :
IV. A bit of rising ground, and on it something like a toilet
in the open ; a very long bench, at the end of which is a large
toilet aperture. All of the back edge is thickly covered with little
heaps of excrement of all sizes and degrees offreshness . A shrub
behind the bench. I urinate upon the bench ; a long stream of
urine rinses everything clean , the patches of excrement easily come
off and fall into the opening . It seems as though something
remained at the end nevertheless.
Why did I experience no disgust in this dream ?
Because, as the analysis shows , the most pleasant and satis
fying thoughts have co-operated in the formation of this dream .
 THE DREAM-WORK 373

Upon analysing it I immediately think of the Augean stables

cleansed by Hercules . I am this Hercules . The rising ground
and the shrub belong to Aussee, where my children are now
staying. I have discovered the infantile etiology of the neu
roses and have thus guarded my own children from becoming
ill . The bench (omitting the aperture, of course) is the faith
ful copy of a piece of furniture which an affectionate female
patient has made me a present of. This recalls how my patients
honour me. Even the museum of human excrement is sus
ceptible of less disagreeable interpretation . However much I
am disgusted with it, it is a souvenir of the beautiful land of
Italy, where in little cities , as everyone knows, water- closets
are not equipped in any other way. The stream of urine that
washes everything clean is an unmistakable allusion to great
ness. It is in this manner that Gulliver extinguishes the
great fire in Lilliput ; to be sure, he thereby incurs the dis
pleasure of the tiniest of queens . In this way, too , Gargantua ,
the superman in Master Rabelais , takes vengeance upon the
Parisians, straddling Notre Dame and training his stream
of urine upon the city. Only yesterday I was turning over
the leaves of Garnier's illustrations of Rabelais before I went
to bed. And, strangely enough, this is another proof that I
am the superman ! The platform of Notre Dame was my
favourite nook in Paris ; every free afternoon I was accus
tomed to go up into the towers of the church and climb about
among the monsters and devil-masks there. The circum
stances that all the excrement vanishes so rapidly before
the stream correspond to the motto : Afflavit et dissipati sunt,
which I shall some day make the title of a chapter on the
therapeutics of hysteria.
And now as to the occasion giving rise to the dream . It
had been a hot afternoon in summer ; in the evening I had
given a lecture on the relation between hysteria and the per
versions , and everything which I had to say displeased me
thoroughly, appeared to me stripped of all value . I was
tired , found no trace of pleasure in my difficult task, and
longed to get away from this rummaging in human filth, to
see my children and then the beauties of Italy . In this mood
I went from the auditorium to a café, to find some modest
refreshment in the open air, for my appetite had left me.
374 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

But one of my audience went with me ; he begged for per

mission to sit with me while I drank my coffee and gulped
down my roll , and began to say flattering things to me . He
told me how much he had learned from me, and that he
now looked at everything through different eyes , that I had
cleansed the Augean stables, i.e. the theory of the neuroses ,
of its errors and prejudices- in short, that I was a very great
man. My mood was ill-suited to his song of praise ; I struggled
with disgust, and went home earlier in order to extricate myself .
Before I went to sleep I turned over the leaves of Rabelais ,
and read a short story by C. F. Meyer entitled Die Leiden
eines Knaben (The Hardships of a Boy) .
The dream had been drawn from these materials , and the
novel by Meyer added the recollection of childish scenes
(cf. the dream about Count Thun , last scene) . The mood of the
day, characterised by disgust and annoyance, is continued in
the dream in the sense that it is permitted to furnish nearly
the entire material for the dream content. But during the
night the opposite mood of vigorous and even exaggerated
self-assertion was awakened , and dissipated the earlier mood .
The dream had to take such a form as to accommodate the
expression of self-depreciation and exaggerated self-assertion
in the same material . This compromise formation resulted
in an ambiguous dream content, but likewise in an indifferent
strain of feeling owing to the restraint of the contrasts upon
each other.
According to the theory of wish-fulfilment this dream
could not have happened had not the suppressed , but at the
same time pleasurable, train of thought concerning personal
aggrandisement been coupled with the opposing thoughts of
disgust. For disagreeable things are not intended to be re
presented by the dream ; painful thoughts that have occurred
during the day can force their way into the dream only if they
lend a cloak to the wish-fulfilment . The dream activity can
dispose of the affects in the dream thoughts in still another
way, besides admitting them or reducing them to zero . It
can change them into theiropposite . We have already be
come acquainted with the rule of interpretation that every
element of the dream may be interpreted by its opposite , as
well as by itself . One can never tell at the outset whether to
 THE DREAM- WORK 375

set down the one or the other ; only the connection can decide
this point . A suspicion of this state of affairs has evidently
got into popular consciousness ; dream books very often pro
ceed according to the principle of contraries in their interpre
tation. Such transformation into opposites is made possible
by the intimate concatenation of associations , which in our
thoughts finds the idea of a thing in that of its opposite . Like
every other displacement this serves the purposes of the censor,
but it is also often the work of the wish-fulfilment , for wish
fulfilment consists precisely in this substitution of an un
welcome thing by its opposite . The emotions of the dream
thoughts may appear in the dream transformed into their
opposites just as well as the ideas, and it is probable that this
inversion of emotions is usually brought about by the dream
censor. The suppression and inversion of affects are useful
in social life, as the current analogy for the dream censor has
shown us-above all, for purposes of dissimulation . If I
converse with a person to whom I must show consideration
while I am saying unpleasant things to him, it is almost more
important that I should conceal the expression of my emotion
from him, than that I modify the wording of my thoughts .
If I speak to him in polite words, but accompany them by
looks or gestures of hatred and disdain , the effect which I
produce upon this person is not very different from what it
would have been if I had recklessly thrown my contempt into
his face. Above all, then, the censor bids me suppress my
emotions, and if I am master of the art of dissimulation , I
can hypocritically show the opposite emotion -smiling where
I should like to be angry, and pretending affection where I
should like to destroy .
We already know of an excellent example of such an in
version of emotion for the purposes of the dream censor. In
the dream about my uncle's beard I feel great affection for my
friend R. , at the same time that, and because, the dream
thoughts berate him as a simpleton . We have drawn our
first proof for the existence of the censor from this example
of the inversion of emotions . Nor is it necessary here to
assume that the dream activity creates a counter emotion of
this kind out of nothing ; it usually finds it lying ready in the
material of the dream thoughts , and intensifies it solely with
376 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the psychic force of the resisting impulse until a point is

reached where the emotion can be won over for the formation
of the dream . In the dream of my uncle, just mentioned , the
affectionate counter emotion has probably originated from
an infantile source (as the continuation of the dream would
suggest), for the relation between uncle and nephew has
become the source of all my friendships and hatreds, owing to
the peculiar nature of my childish experiences (cf. analysis
on p . 334).
66
There is a class of dreams deserving the designation “ hypo
critical," which puts the theory of wish-fulfilment to a severe
test . My attention was called to them when Mrs. Dr. M.
Hilferding brought up for discussion in the Vienna Psycho
analytic Society the dream reported by Rosegger, which is
reprinted below.
In Waldheimat, vol. xi . , Rosegger writes as follows in his
story, Fremd gemacht, p . 303 :

" I have usually enjoyed healthful sleep , but I have lost the
rest of many a night. With my modest existence as a student
and literary man , I have for long years dragged along with me
the shadow of a veritable tailor's life , like a ghost from which
I could not become separated . I cannot say that I have
occupied myself so often and so vividly with thoughts of my
past during the day. An assailer of heaven and earth arising
from the skin of the Philistine has other things to think about .
Nor did I, as a dashing young fellow, think about my noc
turnal dreams ; only later, when I got into the habit of think
ing about everything or when the Philistine within me again
asserted itself, it struck me that whenever I dreamed I was
always the journeyman tailor , and was always working in
my master's shop for long hours without any remuneration .
As I sat there and sewed and pressed I was quite aware that I
no longer belonged there, and that as a burgess of a town I
had other things to attend to ; but I was for ever having vaca
tions , and going out into the country, and it was then that I
sat near my boss and assisted him. I often felt badly, and
regretted the loss of time which I might spend for better and
more useful purposes . If something did not come up to the
measure and cut exactly, I had to submit to a reproach from
 THE DREAM-WORK 377

the boss. Often, as I sat with my back bent in the dingy

shop, I decided to give notice that I was going to quit .
On one occasion I actually did so , but the boss took no
notice of it, and the next time I was again sitting near him
and sewing .
" How happy I was when I woke up after such weary hours !
And I then resolved that , if this dream came intruding again ,
I would throw it off with energy and would cry aloud : ' It
is only a delusion , I am in bed, and I want to sleep .'
And the next night I would be sitting in the tailor shop
again.
" Thus years passed with dismal regularity. While the
boss and I were working at Alpelhofer's , at the house of the
peasant where I began my apprenticeship , it happened that
he was particularly dissatisfied with my work. ' I should
like to know where in the world your thoughts are ? ' cried he,
and looked at me gloomily, I thought the most sensible thing
for me to do would be to get up and explain to the boss that I
was with him only as a favour , and then leave . But I did not
do this . I submitted , however, when the boss engaged an
apprentice, and ordered me to make room for him on the bench .
I moved into the corner, and kept on sewing . On the same
day another tailor was engaged ; he was bigoted , as he was a
Czech who had worked for us nineteen years before, and then
had fallen into the lake on his way home from the public
house. When he tried to sit down there was no room for him.
I looked at the boss inquiringly, and he said to me , ' You
have no talent for the tailoring business ; you may go ; you
are free.' My fright on that occasion was so overpowering
that I awoke.
"The morning gray glimmered through the clear window
of my beloved home . Objects of art surrounded me ; in
the tasteful bookcase stood the eternal Homer, the gigantic
Dante, the incomparable Shakespeare, the glorious Goethe --all
shining and immortal. From the adjoining room resounded
the clear little voices of the children , who were waking and
prattling with their mother. I felt as if I had found again
that idyllically sweet , that peaceful , poetical , and spiritual life
which I have so often and so deeply conceived as the contem
plative fortune of mankind. And still I was vexed that I
378 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

had not given my boss notice first, instead of allowing him to

discharge me.
" And how remarkable it is ; after the night when the
boss ' discharged me ' I enjoyed rest ; I no longer dreamed
of my tailoring -of this experience which lay in the remote
past , which in its simplicity was really happy, and which,
nevertheless , threw a long shadow over the later years of
my life."

I. In this dream , the series of the poet who , in his younger

years , has been a journeyman tailor, it is hard to recognise
the domination of the wish-fulfilment. All the delightful
things occurred during the waking state, while the dream
seemed to drag along the ghostlike shadow of an unhappy
existence which had been long forgotten . My own dreams of
a similar nature have put me in a position to give some ex
planation for such dreams . As a young doctor I for a long
time worked in the chemical institute without being able to
accomplish anything in that exacting science, and I therefore
never think in my waking state about this unfruitful episode
in my life, of which I am really ashamed . On the other hand ,
it has become a recurring dream with me that I am working in
the laboratory, making analyses , and having experiences there ,
&c.; like the examination dreams , these dreams are disagree
able, and they are never very distinct . During the analysis
of one of these dreams my attention was directed to the word
66
analysis ," which gave me the key to an understanding of
these dreams . For I had since become an " analyst ." I
make analyses which are highly praised-to be sure, psycho
analyses . I then understood that when I grew proud of these
analyses of the waking state, and wanted to boast how much
I had accomplished thereby, the dream would hold up to me
at night those other unsuccessful analyses of which I had
no reason to be proud ; they are the punitive dreams of the
upstart, like those of the tailor who became a celebrated poet .
But how is it possible for the dream to place itself at the service
of self-criticism in its conflict with parvenu-pride, and to take
as its content a rational warning instead of the fulfilment of
a prohibitive wish ? I have already mentioned that the
answer to this question entails many difficulties . We may
 THE DREAM-WORK 379

conclude that the foundation of the dream was at first formed

by a phantasy of overweening ambition, but that only its
suppression and its abashment reached the dream content
in its stead. One should remember that there are masochistic
tendencies in the psychic life to which such an inversion
might be attributed . But a more thorough investigation of
the individual dreams allows the recognition of still another
element. In an indistinct subordinate portion of one of my
laboratory dreams, I was just at the age which placed me in the
most gloomy and most unsuccessful year of my professional
career ; I still had no position and no means of support, when
I suddenly found that I had the choice of many women whom
I could marry ! I was , therefore, young again , and , what is
more, she was young again- the woman who has shared with
me all these hard years . In this way one of the wishes which
constantly frets the heart of the ageing man was revealed as
the unconscious dream inciter. The struggle raging in the
other psychic strata between vanity and self-criticism has
certainly determined the dream content , but the more deeply
rooted wish of youth has alone made it possible as a dream .
One may say to himself even in the waking state : To be sure
it is very nice now, and times were once very hard ; but it
was nice, too , even then, you were still so young.
In considering dreams reported by a poet one may often
assume that he has excluded from the report those details
which he perceived as disturbing and which he considered
unessential . His dreams, then, give us a riddle which could
be readily solved if we had an exact reproduction of the dream
content.
O. Rank has called my attention to the fact that in Grimm's
fairy tale of the valiant little tailor , or " Seven at one Stroke , "
a very similar dream of an upstart is related . The tailor ,
who became the hero and married the king's daughter,
dreamed one night while with the princess , his wife, about his
trade ; the latter, becoming suspicious , ordered armed guards
for the following night , who should listen to what was spoken
in the dream, and who should do away with the dreamer.
But the little tailor was warned, and knew enough to correct
his dream .
The complex of processes of suspension, subtraction ,
380 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

and inversion-through which the affects of the dream

thoughts finally become those of the dream, may well be
observed in the suitable synthesis of completely analysed
dreams. I shall here treat a few cases of emotional excitement
in the dream which furnish examples of some of the cases
discussed.
In the dream about the odd task which the elder Bruecke
gives me to perform - of preparing my own pelvis - the
appropriate horror is absent in the dream itself. Now this is a
wish-fulfilment in various senses . Preparation signifies self
analysis, which I accomplish, as it were, by publishing my
book on dreams , and which has been so disagreeable to me that
I have already postponed printing the finished manuscript
for more than a year. The wish is now actuated that I may
disregard this feeling of opposition, and for that reason I feel
no horror (Grauen, which also means to grow grey) in the dream .
I should also like to escape the horror-in the other (German )
sense of growing grey ; for I am already growing grey fast ,
and the grey in my hair warns me withal to hold back no
longer. For we know that at the end of the dream the thought
secures expression in that I should have to leave my children
to get to the goal of their difficult journey .
In the two dreams that shift the expression of satisfaction
to the moments immediately after awakening, this satisfac
tion is in the one case motivated by the expectation that I
am now going to learn what is meant by " I have already
dreamed of it ," and refers in reality to the birth of my first
child, and in the other case it is motivated by the conviction
that " that which has been announced by a sign " is now going
to happen, and the latter satisfaction is the same which I
felt at the arrival of my second son. Here the same emotions
that dominated in the dream thoughts have remained in the
dream, but the process is probably not so simple as this in
every dream. If the two analyses are examined a little , it
will be seen that this satisfaction which does not succumb to
the censor receives an addition from a source which must fear
the censor ; and the emotion drawn from this source would
certainly arouse opposition if it did not cloak itself in a similar
emotion of satisfaction that is willingly admitted , if it did
not, as it were, sneak in behind the other. Unfortunately, I am
 THE DREAM-WORK 381

unable to show this in the case of the actual dream specimen ,

but an example from another province will make my meaning
intelligible .
I construct the following case : Let there be a
person near me whom I hate so that a strong feeling arises
in me that I should be glad if something were to happen to
him . But the moral part of my nature does not yield to this
sentiment ; I do not dare to express this ill-wish, and when
something happens to him which he does not deserve , I suppress
my satisfaction at it, and force myself to expressions and
thoughts of regret . Everyone will have found himself in
such a position. But now let it happen that the hated person
draws upon himself a well-deserved misfortune by some fault ;
now I may give free rein to my satisfaction that he has been
visited by a just punishment , and I express opinion in the
matter which coincides with that of many other people who
are impartial. But I can see that my satisfaction turns out
to be more intense than that of the others , for it has received
an addition from another source-from my hatred , which has
hitherto been prevented by the inner censor from releasing
an emotion, but which is no longer prevented from doing so
under the altered circumstances . This case is generally typi
cal of society , where persons who have aroused antipathy or are
adherents of an unpopular minority incur guilt . Their punish
ment does not correspond to their transgression but to their
transgression plus the ill-will directed against them that has
hitherto been ineffective. Those who execute the punish
ment doubtless commit an injustice, but they are prevented
from becoming aware of it by the satisfaction arising from
the release within themselves of a suppression of long standing.
In such cases the emotion is justified according to its quality,
but not according to its quantity ; and the self-criticism that
has been appeased as to the one point is only too ready to
neglect examination of the second point. Once you have
opened the doors , more people get through than you originally
intended to admit.
The striking feature of the neurotic character, that in
citements capable of producing emotion bring about a result
that is qualitatively justified but is quantitatively excessive ,
is to be explained in this manner, in so far as it admits of a
psychological explanation at all. The excess is due to sources
382 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of emotion which have remained unconscious and have hitherto

been suppressed, which can establish in the associations a
connection with the actual incitement , and which can thus
find release for its emotions through the vent which the un
objectionable and admitted source of emotion opens . Our
attention is thus called to the fact that we may not consider
the relation of mutual restraint as obtaining exclusively
between the suppressed and the suppressing psychic judg
ment . The cases in which the two judgments bring about a
pathological emotion by co-operation and mutual strength
ening deserve just as much attention . The reader is requested
to apply these hints regarding the psychic mechanism for the
purpose of understanding the expressions of emotion in the
dream . A satisfaction which makes its appearance in the
dream , and which may readily be found at its proper place
in the dream thoughts, may not always be fully explained
by means of this reference . As a rule it will be necessary to
search for a second source in the dream thoughts, upon which
the pressure of the censor is exerted , and which under the pres
sure would have resulted not in satisfaction , but in the opposite
emotion-which, however, is enabled by the presence of the
first source to free its satisfaction affect from suppression and
to reinforce the satisfaction springing from the other source.
Hence emotions in the dream appear as though formed
by the confluence of several tributaries, and as though
over-determined in reference to the material of the dream
thoughts ; sources of affect which can furnish the same affect
join each other in the dream activity in order to produce it. *
Some insight into these tangled relations is gained from
analysis of the admirable dream in which " Non vixit " con
stitutes the central point (cf. p . 333 ) . The expressions of emo
tion in this dream, which are of different qualities , are forced
together at two points in the manifest content . Hostile and
painful feelings (in the dream itself we have the phrase, " seized
by strange emotions ") overlap at the point where I destroy
my antagonistic friend with the two words . At the end of
the dream I am greatly pleased , and am quite ready to believe
in a possibility which I recognise as absurd when I am awake,
* As analogy to this, I have since explained the extraordinary effect of
pleasure produced by " tendency " wit.
1
.
 THE DREAM-WORK 383

namely, that there are revenants who can be put out of the way
by a mere wish .
I have not yet mentioned the occasion for this dream . It
is an essential one, and goes a long way towards explaining it .
I had received the news from my friend in Berlin (whom I
have designated as F. ) that he is about to undergo an opera
tion and that relatives of his living in Vienna would give me
information about his condition . The first few messages after
the operation were not reassuring, and caused me anxiety. I
should have liked best to go to him myself, but at that time I
was affected with a painful disease which made every move
ment a torture for me . I learn from the dream thoughts that
I feared for the life of my dear friend . I knew that his
only sister, with whom I had not been acquainted , had died
early after the shortest possible illness . (In the dream F. tells
about his sister, and says : " In three-quarters of an hour she
was dead." ) I must have imagined that his own constitution
was not much stronger, and that I should soon be travelling,
in spite of my health, in answer to far worse news-and that
I should arrive too late, for which I should reproach myself for
ever.* This reproach about arriving too late has become the
central point of the dream, but has been represented in a scene
in which the honoured teacher of my student years - Bruecke
reproaches me for the same thing with a terrible look from his
blue eyes . The cause of this deviation from the scene will
soon be clear ; the dream cannot reproduce the scene itself
in the manner in which it occurred to me. To be sure, it leaves
the blue eyes to the other man , but it gives me the part of
the annihilator, an inversion which is obviously the result of
the wish-fulfilment. My concern for the life of my friend , my
self-reproach for not having gone to him, my shame (he had
repeatedly come to me in Vienna ), my desire to consider myself
excused on account of my illness-all of this makes up a
tempest of feeling which is distinctly felt in sleep, and which
raged in every part of the dream thoughts .
But there was another thing about the occasion for the

* It is this fancy from the unconscious dream thoughts which peremp

torily demands non vivit instead of non vixit. " You have come too late, he
is no longer alive." The fact that the manifest situation also tends
towards " non vivit " has been mentioned on page 334.
384 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

dream which had quite the opposite effect . With the un

favourable news during the first days of the operation, I also
received the injunction to speak to no one about the whole
affair, which hurt my feelings, for it betrayed an unnecessary
distrust of my discretion . I knew, of course, that this request
did not proceed from my friend , but that it was due to clumsi
ness or excessive timidity on the part of the messenger, but
the concealed reproach made me feel very badly because it
was not altogether unjustified . Only reproaches which " have
something in them " have power to irritate, as everyone knows.
For long before, in the case of two persons who were friendly
to each other and who were willing to honour me with their
friendship, I had quite needlessly tattled what the one had
said about the other ; to be sure this incident had nothing
to do with the affairs of my friend F. Nor have I forgotten
the reproaches which I had to listen to at that time . One
of the two friends between whom I was the trouble- maker
was Professor Fleischl ; the other one I may name Joseph, a
name which was also borne by my friend and antagonist P.,
who appears in the dream .
Two dream elements , first inconspicuously, and secondly
the question of Fl. as to how much of his affairs I have mentioned
to P. , give evidence of the reproach that I am incapable of
keeping anything to myself. But it is the admixture of these
recollections which transposes the reproach for arriving too
late from the present to the time when I was living in Bruecke's
laboratory ; and by replacing the second person in the annihi
lation scene of the dream by a Joseph I succeed in representing
not only the first reproach that I arrive too late, but also a
second reproach , which is more rigorously suppressed , that I
keep no secrets . The condensing and replacing activity of
this dream , as well as the motives for it, are now obvious .
My anger at the injunction not to give anything away ,
originally quite insignificant, receives confirmation from
sources that flow far below the surface, and so become a
swollen stream of hostile feelings towards persons who are in
reality dear to me. The source which furnishes the confirma
tion is to be found in childhood . I have already said that
my friendships as well as my enmities with persons of my own
age go back to my childish relations with my nephew, who
 THE DREAM-WORK 385

was a year older than I. In these he had the upper hand ,

and I early learned how to defend myself ; we lived together
inseparably, loved each other, and at the same time, as state
ments of older persons testify, scuffled with and accused each
other. In a certain sense all my friends are incarnations of
this first figure, " which early appeared to my blurred sight " ;
they are all revenants. My nephew himself returned in the
years of adolescence, and then we acted Cæsar and Brutus .
An intimate friend and a hated enemy have always been
indispensable requirements for my emotional life ; I have
always been able to create them anew, and not infrequently
my childish ideal has been so closely approached that friend
and enemy coincided in the same person , not simultaneously,
of course, nor in repeated alterations, as had been the case in
my first childhood years .
I do not here wish to trace the manner in which a recent
occasion for emotion may reach back to one in childhood
through connections like these I have just described- in order
to find a substitute for itself, in this earlier occasion for the
sake of increased emotional effect. Such an investigation
would belong to the psychology of the unconscious, and would
find its place in a psychological explanation of neuroses . Let
us assume for the purposes of dream interpretation that a
childhood recollection makes its appearance or is formed by
the fancy, say to the following effect : Two children get into
a fight on account of some object-just what we shall leave
undecided , although memory or an allusion of memory has a
very definite one in mind—and each one claims that he got
to it first, and that he, therefore, has first right to it. They
come to blows , for might makes right ; and, according to the
intimation of the dream, I must have known that I was in the
wrong (noticing the error myself) , but this time I remain the
stronger and take possession of the battlefield ; the defeated
combatant hurries to my father, his grandfather, and accuses
me, and I defend myself with the words which I know from
my father : " I hit him because he hit me." Thus this re
collection , or more probably fancy, which forces itself upon my
attention in the course of the analysis-from my present
knowledge I myself do not know how-becomes an inter
mediary of the dream thoughts that collects the emotional
2 B
386 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

excitements obtaining in the dream thoughts , as the bowl of a

fountain collects the streams of water flowing into it. From
this point the dream thoughts flow along the following paths :
" It serves you quite right if you had to vacate your place
for me ; why did you try to force me out of my place ? I
don't need you ; I'll soon find someone else to play with," &c.
Then the ways are opened through which these thoughts again
follow into the representation of the dream. For such an
" ôte-toi que je m'y mette " I once had to reproach my de
ceased friend Joseph. He had been next to me in the line of
promotion in Bruecke's laboratory, but advancement there
was very slow. Neither of the two assistants budged from
his place, and youth became impatient . My friend , who
knew that his time of life was limited , and who was bound by
no tie to his superior, was a man seriously ill ; the wish for his
removal permitted an objectionable interpretation—he might
be moved by something besides promotion. Several years
before, the same wish for freedom had naturally been more
intense in my own case ; wherever in the world there are
gradations of rank and advancement, the doors are opened
for wishes needing suppression . Shakespeare's Prince Hal
cannot get rid of the temptation to see how the crown fits
even at the bed of his sick father. But, as may easily be
understood, the dream punishes this ruthless wish not upon
me but upon him. *
" As he was ambitious , I slew him. " As he could not wait
for the other man to make way for him, he himself has been
put out of the way. I harbour these thoughts immediately
after attending the unveiling of the statue to the other man
at the university . A part of the satisfaction which I feel in
the dream may therefore be interpreted : Just punishment ;
it served you right.
At the funeral of this friend a young man made the follow
ing remark, which seemed out of place : " The preacher talked
as though the world couldn't exist without this one human
being. " The displeasure of the sincere man, whose sorrow

It is striking that the name Joseph plays such a large part in my

dreams ( see the dream about my uncle). I can hide my ego in the dream
behind persons of this name with particular ease, for Joseph was the name
of the dream interpreter in the Bible,
 THE DREAM-WORK 387

has been marred by the exaggeration, begins to arise in him.

But with this speech are connected the dream thoughts :
" No one is really irreplaceable ; how many men have I
already escorted to the grave, but I am still living , I have
survived them all , I claim the field ." Such a thought at the
moment when I fear that when I travel to see him I shall find
my friend no longer among the living, permits only of the
further development that I am glad I am surviving someone,
that it is not I who have died , but he that I occupy the field
as I once did in the fancied scene in childhood . This satis
faction , coming from sources in childhood, at the fact that I
claim the field , covers the larger part of the emotion which
appears in the dream. I am glad that I am the survivor
I express this sentiment with the naïve egotism of the husband
who says to his wife : " If one of us dies , I shall move to Paris . "
It is such a matter of course for my expectation that I am not
to be the one .
It cannot be denied that great self-control is necessary to
interpret one's dreams and to report them. It is necessary
for you to reveal yourself as the one scoundrel among all the
noble souls with whom you share the breath of life. Thus ,
I consider it quite natural that revenants exist only as long as
they are wanted, and that they can be obviated by a wish .
This is the thing for which my friend Joseph has been punished.
But the revenants are the successive incarnations of the friend
of my childhood ; I am also satisfied at the fact that I have
replaced this person for myself again and again , and a substi
tute will doubtless soon be found even for the friend whom I
am about to lose. No one is irreplaceable .
But what has the dream censor been doing meanwhile ?
Why does it not raise the most emphatic objection to a train
of thought characterised by such brutal selfishness, and change
the satisfaction that adheres to it into profound repugnance ?
I think it is because other unobjectionable trains of thought
likewise result in satisfaction and cover the emotion coming
from forbidden infantile sources with their own. In another
stratum of thought I said to myself at that festive unveiling :
" I have lost so many dear friends , some through death, some
through the dissolution of friendship - is it not beautiful that
I have found substitutes for them, that I have gained one who
388 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

means more to me than the others could , whom I shall from

now on always retain , at the age when it is not easy to form
new friendships ? " The satisfaction that I have found this
substitute for lost friends can be taken over into the dream
without interference , but behind it there sneaks in the inimical
satisfaction from the infantile source . Childish affection un
doubtedly assists in strengthening the justifiable affection of
to-day ; but childish hatred has also found its way into the
representation.
But besides this there is distinct reference in the dream to
another chain of thoughts , which may manifest itself in the
form of satisfaction . My friend had shortly before had a little
daughter born , after long waiting. I knew how much he had
grieved for the sister whom he lost at an early age, and I wrote
to him that he would transfer to this child the love he had felt
for her. This little girl would at last make him forget his
irreparable loss .
Thus this chain also connects with the intermediary thoughts
of the latent dream content, from which the ways spread out
in opposite directions : No one is irreplaceable . You see ,
nothing but revenants ; all that one has lost comes back. And
now the bonds of association between the contradictory ele
ments of the dream thoughts are more tightly drawn by the
accidental circumstance that the little daughter of my friend
bears the same name as the girl playmate of my own youth,
who was just my own age and the sister of my oldest friend
and antagonist . I have heard the name " Pauline " with
satisfaction, and in order to allude to this coincidence I have
replaced one Joseph in the dream by another Joseph, and have
not overlooked the similarity in sound between the names
Fleischl and F. From this point a train of thought runs to the
naming of my own children . I insisted that the names should
not be chosen according to the fashion of the day but should
be determined by regard for the memory of beloved persons.
The children's names make them " revenants." And , finally,
is not the having of children the only access to immortality
for us all ?
I shall add only a few remarks about the emotions of the
dream from another point of view. An emotional inclination
-what we call a mood-may occur in the mind of a sleeping
 THE DREAM-WORK 389

person as its dominating element, and may induce a corre

sponding mood in the dream. This mood may be the result
of the experiences and thoughts of the day, or it may be of
somatic origin ; in either case it will be accompanied by the
chains of thought that correspond to it . The fact that in the
one case this presentation content conditions the emotional
inclination primarily, and that in the other case it is brought
about secondarily by a disposition of feeling of somatic origin
remains without influence upon the formation of the dream.
This formation is always subject to the restriction that it can
represent only a wish-fulfilment, and that it may put its psychic
motive force at the service only of the wish. The mood that
is actually present will receive the same treatment as the sen
sation which actually comes to the surface during sleep (cf.
p . 198), which is either neglected or reinterpreted so as to
signify a wish-fulfilment. Disagreeable moods during sleep
become a motive force of the dream by actuating energetic
wishes , which the dream must fulfil . The material to which
they are attached is worked over until it finally becomes suit
able for the expression of the fulfilled wish . The more intense
and the more dominating the element of the disagreeable mood
in the dream thought, the more surely will the wish-impulses
that have been most rigorously suppressed take advantage of
the opportunity to secure representation, for they find that
the difficult part of the work necessary in securing representa
tion has already been accomplished in that the repugnance is
already actually in existence , which they would otherwise
have had to produce by their own effort . With this discus
sion we again touch upon the problem of anxiety dreams ,
which we may regard as bounding the province of the dream
activity.

(h) Secondary Elaboration.

We may at last proceed to an exposition of the fourth of

the factors which take part in the formation of the dream .
If we continue the examination of the dream content, in
the manner already outlined— that is , by testing striking occur
rences as to their origin in the dream thoughts -we encounter
elements which can be explained only by making an entirely
390 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

new assumption. I have in mind cases where one shows

astonishment, anger, or resistance in a dream, and that , too ,
against a party of the dream content itself. Most of these
exercises of the critical faculty in dreams are not directed
against the dream content, but prove to be portions of dream
material which have been taken over and suitably made use
of, as I have shown by fitting examples . Some things of this
sort, however, cannot be disposed of in such a way ; their
correlative cannot be found in the dream material. What,
for instance, is meant by the criticism not infrequent in dreams :
66
' Well, it's only a dream " ? This is a genuine criticism of
the dream such as I might make if I were awake. Not at all
infrequently it is the forerunner to waking ; still oftener it
is preceded by a painful feeling , which subsides when the cer
tainty of the dream state has been established . The thought :
" But it's only a dream, " occurring during the dream, has the
same object which is meant to be conveyed on the stage
through the mouth of the beautiful Helen von Offenbach ;
it wants to minimise what has just occurred and secure in
dulgence for what is to follow. Its purpose is to reassure and,
so to speak, put to sleep a certain instance which at the given
moment has every reason to be active and to forbid the con
tinuation of the dream-or the scene . It is pleasanter to go
on sleeping and to tolerate the dream, " because it's only a
dream anyway. " I imagine that the disparaging criticism ,
" But it's only a dream ," enters into the dream at the moment
when the censor, which has never been quite asleep, feels that
it has been surprised by the already admitted dream. It is
too late to suppress the dream, and the instance therefore
carries with it that note of fear or of painful feeling which pre
sents itself in the dream. It is an expression of the esprit
d'escalier on the part of the psychic censor.
In this example we have faultless proof that not every
thing which the dream contains comes from the dream thoughts,
but that a psychic function which cannot be differentiated
from our waking thoughts may make contributions to the dream
content . The question now is, does this occur only in alto
gether exceptional cases, or does the psychic instance which
is usually active only as censor take a regular part in the
formation of dreams ?
 THE DREAM-WORK 391

One must decide unhesitatingly for the latter view. It

is indisputable that the censoring instance, whose influence
we have so far recognised only in limitations and omissions in
the dream content , is also responsible for interpolations and
amplifications in this content. Often these interpolations are
easily recognised ; they are reported irresolutely, prefaced
66
by an as if, " they are not in themselves particularly vivid,
and are regularly inserted at points where they may serve to
connect two portions of the dream content or improve the
sequence between two sections of the dream. They manifest
less ability to stick in the memory than genuine products of
the dream material ; if the dream is subject to forgetting, they
are the first to fall away, and I am strongly inclined to believe
that our frequent complaint that we have dreamed so much,
that we have forgotten most of this and have remembered
only fragments of it, rests on the immediate falling away of
just these cementing thoughts . In a complete analysis these
interpolations are often betrayed by the fact that no material
is to be found for them in the dream thoughts . But after
careful examination I must designate this case as a rare one ;
usually interpolated thoughts can be traced to an element
in the dream thoughts , which, however, can claim a place in
the dream neither on account of its own merit nor on account
of over-determination. The psychic function in dream forma
tion, which we are now considering, aspires to the original
creations only in the most extreme cases ; whenever possible ,
it makes use of anything available it can find in the dream
material.
The thing which distinguishes and reveals this part of the
dream activity is its tendency. This function proceeds in a
manner similar to that which the poet spitefully attributes
to the philosopher ; with its scraps and rags , it stops up the
breaches in the structure of the dream . The result of its
effort is that the dream loses the appearance of absurdity
and incoherence, and approaches the pattern of an intelligible
experience. But the effort is not always crowned with com
plete success . Thus dreams occur which may seem fault
lessly logical and correct upon superficial examination ; they
start from a possible situation , continue it by means of consis
tent changes, and end up-although this is very rare- with
392 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

a not unnatural conclusion . These dreams have been subjected

to the most thorough elaboration at the hands of a psychic
function similar to our waking thought ; they seem to have
a meaning, but this meaning is very far removed from the
real signification of the dream. If they are analysed, one is
convinced that the secondary elaboration has distorted the
material very freely, and has preserved its proper relations as
little as possible. These are the dreams which have, so to
speak, already been interpreted before we subject them to
waking interpretation . In other dreams this purposeful
elaboration has been successful only to a certain point ; up
to this point consistency seems to be dominant, then the dream
becomes nonsensical or confused , and perhaps finally it lifts
itself for a second time in its course to an appearance of
rationality . In still other dreams the elaboration has failed
completely ; we find ourselves helpless in the presence of a
senseless mass of fragmentary contents .
I do not wish to deny to this fourth dream-moulding power,
which will soon seem to us a familiar one-it is in reality the
only one among the four dream-moulders with which we are
familiar,—I do not wish to deny this fourth factor the capability
of creatively furnishing the dream with new contributions .
But surely its influence, like that of the others , manifests
itself preponderatingly in the preferring and choosing of
already created psychic material in the dream thoughts .
Now there is a case where it is spared the work, for the most
part, of building , as it were , a façade to the dream , by the fact
that such a structure , waiting to be used , is already to be found
complete in the material of the dream thoughts . The element
of the dream thoughts which I have in mind , I am in the habit
66
of designating as a phantasy " ; perhaps I shall avoid
misunderstanding if I immediately adduce the day dream of
waking life as an analogy . * The part played by this element
in our psychic life has not yet been fully recognised and in
vestigated by the psychiatrists ; in this study M. Benedikt has ,
it seems to me, made a highly promising beginning . The sig
nificance of the day dream has not yet escaped the unerring
insight of poets ; the description of the day dreams of one
of his subordinate characters which A. Daudet gives us in
*
Rêve, petit roman- day-dream, story.
 THE DREAM-WORK 393

Nabab is universally known . A study of the psychoneuroses

discloses the astonishing fact that these phantasies or day
dreams are the immediate predecessors of hysterical symptoms
—at least of a great many of them ; hysterical symptoms
directly depend not upon the memories themselves , but upon
phantasies built on the basis of memories . The frequent
Occurrence of conscious day phantasies brings these formations
within the scope of our knowledge ; but just as there are
such conscious phantasies , so there are a great many un
conscious ones , which must remain unconscious on account
of their content and on account of their origin from repressed
material. A more thorough examination into the character
of these day phantasies shows with what good reason the
same name has been given to these formations as to the pro
ducts of our nocturnal thought, -dreams. They possess an
essential part of their properties in common with nocturnal
dreams ; an examination of them would really have afforded
the shortest and best approach to an understanding of night
dreams .
Like dreams, they are fulfilments of wishes ; like dreams
a good part of them are based upon the impressions of childish
experiences ; like dreams their creations enjoy a certain amount
of indulgence from the censor. If we trace their formation ,
we see how the wish motive, which is active in their production,
has taken the material of which they are built , mixed it to
gether, rearranged it, and composed it into a new unit. They
bear the same relation to the childish memories, to which
they go back, as some of the quaint palaces of Rome bear to
the ancient ruins , whose freestones and pillars have furnished
the material for the structure built in modern form .
""
In the secondary elaboration " of the dream content
which we have ascribed to our fourth dream-making factor,
we again find the same activity which in the creation of day
dreams is allowed to manifest itself unhampered by other
influences . We may say without further preliminary that
this fourth factor of ours seeks to form something like a day
dream from the material at hand . Where, however, such a
day dream has already been formed in connection with the
dream thought , this factor of the dream-work will preferably
get control of it, and strive to introduce it into the dream
394 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

content. There are dreams which consist merely of the repe

tition of such a day fancy, a fancy which has perhaps remained
unconscious-as, for instance, the dream of the boy that he
is riding with the heroes of the Trojan war in a war chariot.
In my dream " Autodidasker, " at least the second part of the
dream is the faithful repetition of a day phantasy- harmless
in itself—about my dealings with Professor N. The fact that
the phantasy thus provided more often forms only one part of
the dream , or that only one part of the phantasy that makes its
way to the dream content, has its origin in the complexity of
the conditions which the dream must satisfy at its genesis . On
the whole, the phantasy is treated like any other component of
the latent material ; still it is often recognisable in the dream
as a whole. In my dreams parts often occur which are empha
sized by an impression different from that of the rest. They
seem to me to be in a state of flux, to be more coherent and at
the same time more transient than other pieces of the same
dream. I know that these are unconscious phantasies which
get into the dream by virtue of their association , but I have
never succeeded in registering such a phantasy. For the rest
these phantasies , like all other component parts of the dream
thoughts, are jumbled together and condensed , one covered
up by another, and the like ; but there are all degrees , from
the case where they may constitute the dream content or at
least the dream façade unchanged to the opposite case, where
they are represented in the dream content by only one of their
elements or by a remote allusion to such an element . The
extent to which the phantasies are able to withstand the de
mands of the censor and the tendency to condensation are, of
course, also decisive of their fate among the dream thoughts .
In my choice of examples for dream analysis I have,
wherever possible, avoided those dreams in which unconscious
fancies play a somewhat important part, because the intro
duction of this psychic element would have necessitated ex
tensive discussion of the psychology of unconscious thought .
""
But I cannot entirely omit the " phantasy even in this matter
of examples , because it often gets fully into the dream and
still more often distinctly pervades it. I may mention one
more dream, which seems to be composed of two distinct and
opposed phantasies , overlapping each other at certain places,
 THE DREAM-WORK 395

of which the first is superficial, while the second becomes, as

it were, the interpreter of the first . *
The dream— it is the only one for which I have no careful
notes- is about to this effect : The dreamer-an unmarried
young man-is sitting in an inn, which is seen correctly ;
several persons come to get him, among them someone who
wants to arrest him. He says to his ' table companions , " I
will pay later, I am coming back." But they call to him,
laughing scornfully : " We know all about that ; that's what
everybody says ." One guest calls after him : " There goes
another one.'"" He is then led to a narrow hall , where he finds
a woman with a child in her arms. One of his escorts says :
66 That is Mr. Müller." A commissioner or some other official
is running through a bundle of tickets or papers repeating
Müller, Müller, Müller. At last the commissioner asks him
a question, which he answers with " Yes." He then takes
a look at the woman, and notices that she has grown a
large beard .
The two component parts are here easily separated . What
is superficial is the phantasy of being arrested ; it seems to be
newly created by the dream-work. But behind it appears the
phantasy of marriage, and this material, on the contrary, has
undergone but slight change at the hands of the dream
activity. The features which are common to both phantasies
come into distinct prominence as in a Galton's composite
photograph. The promise of the bachelor to come back to
his place at the club table, the scepticism of the drinking com
panions, sophisticated in their many experiences , the calling
after : "There goes (marries ) another one,"-all these features
can easily be capable of the other interpretation . Likewise
the affirmative answer given to the official. Running through
the bundle of papers with the repetition of the name, corre

* I have analysed a good example of a dream of this kind having its

origin in the stratification of several phantasies, in the Bruchstück einer
Hysterie Analyse, 1905. Moreover I undervalued the significance of such
phantasies for dream formation, as long as I was working chiefly with my
own dreams, which were based rarely upon day dreams, most frequently
upon discussions and mental conflicts. With other persons it is often
much easier to prove the full analogy between the nocturnal dream and the day
dream. It is often possible in an hysterical patient to replace an attack by
a dream ; it is then obvious that the phantasy of day dreams is the first
step for both psychic formations.
396 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

sponds to a subordinate but well-recognised feature of the

marriage ceremonies-the reading aloud of the congratulatory
telegrams which have arrived irregularly, and which, of
course, are all addressed to the same name. In the matter of
the bride's personal appearance in this dream, the marriage
phantasy has even got the better of the arrest phantasy which
conceals it . The fact that this bride finally displays a beard,
I can explain from an inquiry-I had no chance to make an
analysis. The dreamer had on the previous day crossed the
street with a friend who was just as hostile to marriage as
himself, and had called his friend's attention to a beautiful
brunette who was coming towards them . The friend had
remarked : " Yes , if only these women wouldn't get beards,
as they grow older, like their fathers."
Of course there is no lack of elements in this dream, on which
the dream disfigurement has done more thorough work. Thus
the speech : " I will pay later," may have reference to the
conduct of the father-in-law in the matter of dowry- which
is uncertain. Obviously all kinds of scruples are preventing
the dreamer from surrendering himself with pleasure to the
phantasy of marrying . One of these apprehensions—lest one's
freedom be lost when one marries-has embodied itself in the
transformation to a scene of arrest .
Let us return to the thesis that the dream activity likes
to make use of a phantasy which is finished and at hand,
instead of creating one afresh from the material of the dream
thoughts ; we shall perhaps solve one of the most interesting
riddles of the dream if we keep this fact in mind . I have on
page 21 related the dream of Maury,48 who is struck on the
back of the neck with a stick, and who awakes in the possession
of a long dream-a complete romance from the time of the
French Revolution . Since the dream is represented as co
herent and as explicable by reference to the disturbing stimulus
alone, about the occurrence of which stimulus the sleeper could
suspect nothing, only one assumption seems to be left , namely,
that the whole richly elaborated dream must have been com
posed and must have taken place in the short space of time
between the falling of the stick on Maury's cervical vertebra
and the awakening induced by the blow. We should not feel
justified in ascribing such rapidity to the waking mental
 THE DREAM-WORK 397

activity, and so are inclined to credit the dream activity with

a remarkable acceleration of thought as one of its characteristics .
Against this inference , which rapidly becomes popular,
more recent authors (Le Lorrain,45 Egger,20 and others ) have
made emphatic objection . They partly doubt the correctness
with which the dream was reported by Maury, and partly try
to show that the rapidity of our waking mental capacity is
quite as great as that which we may concede without reserva
tion to the dream activity. The discussion raises fundamental
questions , the settlement of which I do not think concerns
me closely. But I must admit that the argument, for instance,
of Egger has not impressed me as convincing against the
guillotine dream of Maury. I would suggest the following
explanation of this dream : Would it be very improbable that
the dream of Maury exhibits a phantasy which had been pre
served in his memory in a finished state for years, and which
was awakened-I should rather say alluded to-at the moment
when he became aware of the disturbing stimulus ? The diffi
culty of composing such a long story with all its details in the
exceedingly short space of time which is here at the disposal
of the dreamer then disappears ; the story is already com
posed . If the stick had struck Maury's neck when he was
awake there would perhaps have been time for the thought :
" Why, that's like being guillotined ." But as he is struck
by the stick while asleep , the dream activity quickly finds
occasion in the incoming stimulus to construct a wish-fulfil
ment, as though it thought (this is to be taken entirely figura
tively) : " Here is a good opportunity to realise the wish
phantasy which I formed at such and such a time while I was
reading." That this dream romance is just such a one as a
youth would be likely to fashion under the influence of power
ful impressions does not seem questionable to me. Who
would not have been carried away-especially a Frenchman
and a student of the history of civilisation- by descriptions of
the Reign of Terror, in which the aristocracy, men and women,
the flower of the nation, showed that it was possible to die
with a light heart, and preserved their quick wit and refine
ment of life until the fatal summons ? How tempting to
fancy one's self in the midst of all this as one of the young men
who parts from his lady with a kiss of the hand to climb
398 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

fearlessly upon the scaffold ! Or perhaps ambition is the

ruling motive of the phantasy-the ambition to put one's self
in the place of one of those powerful individuals who merely,
by the force of their thinking and their fiery eloquence , rule
the city in which the heart of mankind is beating so convul
sively, who are impelled by conviction to send thousands of
human beings to their death, and who pave the way for the
transformation of Europe ; who, meanwhile, are not sure of
their own heads , and may one day lay them under the knife
of the guillotine, perhaps in the rôle of one of the Girondists
or of the hero Danton ? The feature, " accompanied by an
innumerable multitude," which is preserved in the memory,
seems to show that Maury's phantasy is an ambitious one of
this sort .
But this phantasy , which has for a long time been ready,
need not be experienced again in sleep ; it suffices if it is, so
to speak, " touched off." What I mean is this : If a few notes
are struck and someone says , as in Don Juan : “ That is from
Figaro's Wedding by Mozart ," memories suddenly surge up
within me, none of which I can in the next moment recall
to consciousness . The characteristic phrase serves as an en
trance station from which a complete whole is simultaneously
put in motion. It need not be different in the case of un
conscious thought . The psychic station which opens the way
to the whole guillotine phantasy is set in motion by the waking
stimulus . This phantasy, however, is not passed in review
during sleep, but only afterwards in waking memory. Upon
awakening one remembers the details of the phantasy , which in
the dream was regarded as a whole. There is, withal , no means
of making sure that one really has remembered anything which
has been dreamed . The same explanation, namely, that one
is dealing with finished phantasies which have been set in
motion as wholes by the waking stimulus , may be applied to
still other dreams which proceed from a waking stimulus
for instance to the battle dream of Napoleon at the explosion
of the bomb. I do not mean to assert that all waking dreams
admit of this explanation , or that the problem of the accelerated
discharge of ideas in dreams is to be altogether solved in this
manner.
We must not neglect the relation of this secondary elabora
 THE DREAM-WORK 399

tion of the dream content to the other factors in the dream

activity. Might the procedure be as follows : the dream
creating factors, the impulse to condense, the necessity of
evading the censor, and the regard for dramatic fitness in the
psychic resources of the dream-these first of all create a pro
visional dream content, and this is then subsequently modified
until it satisfies the exactions of a second instance ? This is
hardly probable . It is necessary rather to assume that the
demands of this instance are from the very beginning lodged
in one of the conditions which the dream must satisfy, and
that this condition , just like those of condensation , of censor
ship , and of dramatic fitness , simultaneously affect the whole
mass of material in the dream thoughts in an inductive and
selective manner. But of the four conditions necessary for
the dream formation, the one last recognised is the one whose
exactions appear to be least binding upon the dream .
That this psychic function, which undertakes the so-called
secondary elaboration of the dream content is identical
with the work of our waking thought may be inferred with
great probability from the following consideration :-Our
waking (foreconscious ) thought behaves towards a given object
of perception just exactly as the function in question behaves
towards the dream content . It is natural for our waking
thought to bring about order in the material of perception ,
to construct relationships , and to make it subject to the re
quirements of an intelligible coherence . Indeed , we go too
far in doing this ; the tricks of prestidigitators deceive us by
taking advantage of this intellectual habit . In our effort to
put together the sensory impressions which are offered to us
in a comprehensible manner, we often commit the most bizarre
errors and even distort the truth of the material we have
before us. Proofs for this are too generally familiar to need
more extended consideration here. We fail to see errors in a
printed page because our imagination pictures the proper words .
The editor of a widely-read French paper is said to have risked
the wager that he could print the words " from in front " or
"from behind " in every sentence of a long article without any
of his readers noticing it . He won the wager. A curious ex
ample of incorrect associations years ago caught my attention
in a newspaper. After the session of the French chamber,
400 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

at which Dupuy quelled a panic caused by the explosion of a

bomb thrown into the hall by an anarchist by saying calmly,
" La séance continue, " the visitors in the gallery were asked
to testify as to their impression of the attempted assassination.
Among them were two provincials . One of these told that
immediately after the conclusion of a speech he had heard a
detonation, but had thought that it was the custom in parlia
ment to fire a shot whenever a speaker had finished . The
other, who had apparently already heard several speakers,
had got the same idea, with the variation, however, that he
supposed this shooting to be a sign of appreciation following
an especially successful speech .
Thus the psychic instance which approaches the dream
content with the demand that it must be intelligible, which
subjects it to preliminary interpretation , and in doing so
brings about a complete misunderstanding of it , is no other
than our normal thought . In our interpretation the rule will
be in every case to disregard the apparent coherence of the
dream as being of suspicious origin, and, whether the elements
are clear or confused , to follow the same regressive path to the
dream material.
We now learn upon what the scale of quality in dreams
from confusion to clearness -mentioned above , page 305
essentially depends . Those parts of the dream with which
the secondary elaboration has been able to accomplish some
thing seem to us clear ; those where the power of this activity
has failed seem confused . Since the confused parts of the
dream are often also those which are less vividly imprinted,
we may conclude that the secondary dream-work is also re
sponsible for a contribution to the plastic intensity of the
individual dream structures.
If I were to seek an object of comparison for the definitive
formation of the dream as it manifests itself under the in
fluence of normal thinking, none better offers itself than those
mysterious inscriptions with which Die Fliegende Blaetter has
so long amused its readers . The reader is supposed to find a
Latin inscription concealed in a given sentence which, for the
sake of contrast , is in dialect and as scurrilous as possible in
significance . For this purpose the letters are taken from their
groupings in syllables and are newly arranged . Now and then
 THE DREAM-WORK 401

a genuine Latin word results , at other places we think that we

have abbreviations of such words before us , and at still other
places in the inscription we allow ourselves to be carried along
over the senselessness of the disjointed letters by the semblance
of disintegrated portions or by breaks in the inscription . If
we do not wish to respond to the jest we must give up
looking for an inscription, must take the letters as we see them,
and must compose them into words of our mother tongue,
unmindful of the arrangement which is offered .
I shall now undertake a résumé of this extended discussion
of the dream activity. We were confronted by the question
whether the mind exerts all its capabilities to the fullest
development in dream formation , or only a fragment of its
capabilities , and these restricted in their activity. Our
investigation leads us to reject such a formulation of the
question entirely as inadequate to our circumstances . But if we
are to remain on the same ground when we answer as that on
which the question is urged upon us, we must acquiesce in
two conceptions which are apparently opposed and mutually
exclusive . The psychic activity in dream formation resolves
itself into two functions-the provision of the dream thoughts
and the transformation of these into the dream content. The
dream thoughts are entirely correct, and are formed with all
the psychic expenditure of which we are capable ; they belong
to our thoughts which have not become conscious, from which
our thoughts which have become conscious also result by
means of a certain transposition . Much as there may be
about them which is worth knowing and mysterious, these
problems have no particular relation to the dream, and have
no claim to be treated in connection with dream problems .
On the other hand , there is that second portion of the activity
which changes the unconscious thoughts into the dream
content, an activity peculiar to dream life and characteristic
of it . Now, this peculiar dream-work is much further removed
from the model of waking thought than even the most decided
depreciators of psychic activity in dream formation have
thought . It is not, one might say, more negligent, more
incorrect, more easily forgotten, more incomplete than
waking thought ; it is something qualitatively altogether
different from waking thought, and therefore not in any way
20
402 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

comparable to it. It does not in general think, calculate , or

judge at all, but limits itself to transforming. It can be ex
haustively described if the conditions which must be satisfied
at its creation are kept in mind . This product , the dream,
must at any cost be withdrawn from the censor, and for this
purpose the dream activity makes use of the displacement of
psychic intensities up to the transvaluation of all psychic
values ; thoughts must exclusively or predominatingly be
reproduced in the material of visual and acoustic traces of
memory, and this requirement secures for the dream- work
the regard for presentability, which meets the requirement by
furnishing new displacements. Greater intensities are (prob
ably) to be provided than are each night at the disposal of
the dream thoughts , and this purpose is served by the prolific
condensation which is undertaken with the component parts
of the dream thoughts . Little attention is paid to the logical
relations of the thought material ; they ultimately find a
veiled representation in the formal peculiarities of the dream.
The affects of the dream thoughts undergo lesser changes
than their presentation content. As a rule they are sup
pressed ; where they are preserved they are freed from the
presentations and put together according to their similarity.
Only one part of the dream-work-the revision varying in
amount, made by the partially roused conscious thought
at all agrees with the conception which the authors have tried
to extend to the entire activity of dream formation .
 VII

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM ACTIVITIES

AMONG the dreams which I have heard from others there is

one which at this point is especially worthy of our attention.
It was told to me by a female patient who in turn had heard
it in a lecture on dreams . Its original source is unknown to
me. This dream evidently made a deep impression upon the
lady, as she went so far as to imitate it, i.e. to repeat the
elements of this dream in a dream of her own in order to
express by this transference her agreement with it in a certain
point.
The essential facts of this illustrative dream are as follows :
For days and nights a father had watched at the sick-bed of
his child . After the child died , he retired to rest in an ad
joining room, leaving the door ajar, however, so as to enable
him to look from his room into the other, where the corpse lay
surrounded by burning candles. An old man, who was left
as a watch, sat near the corpse murmuring prayers . After
sleeping a few hours the father dreamed that the child stood
near his bed clasping his arms and calling out reproachfully,
"Father, don't you see that I am burning ? " The father woke
and noticed a bright light coming from the adjoining room .
Rushing in, he found the old man asleep, and the covers and
one arm of the beloved body burned by the fallen candle .
The meaning of this affecting dream is simple enough, and
the explanation given by the lecturer, as my patient reported
it , was correct . The bright light coming through the open
door into the eyes of the sleeper produced the same impression
on him as if he had been awake ; namely, that a fire had been
started near the corpse by a falling candle. It is quite possible
that on going to sleep he feared that the aged guardian was
not equal to his task.
We can find nothing to change in this interpretation. We
can add only that the contents of the dream must be over
408
404 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

determined, and that the talking of the child consisted of

phrases that it had uttered while still living , which recalled to
the father important events . Perhaps the complaint, “ I am
burning," recalled the fever from which the child died, and
the words quoted , " Father, don't you see ? " recalled an
emotional occurrence unknown to us.
But after we have recognised the dream as a senseful
occurrence which can be correlated with our psychic existence,
it may be surprising that a dream should have taken place
under circumstances which necessitated such immediate
awakening. We also notice that the dream does not lack the
wish-fulfilment . The child acts as if living ; it warns the
father itself ; it comes to his bed and clasps his arms, as it
probably did on the occasion which gave origin to the first
part of the speech in the dream. It was for the sake of this
wish-fulfilment that the father slept a moment longer. The
dream triumphed over the conscious reflection because it could
show the child once more alive . If the father had awakened
first, and had then drawn the conclusion which led him into
the adjoining room, he would have shortened the child's life
by this one moment.
The peculiar feature in this brief dream which engages our
interest is quite plain. So far we have mainly endeavoured
to ascertain wherein the secret meaning of the dream consists ,
in what way this is to be discovered , and what means the
dream -work uses to conceal it. In other words, our greatest
interest has hitherto centred on the problems of interpreta
tion. We now encounter a dream, however, which can be
easily explained , the sense of which is plainly presented ; and
we notice that in spite of this fact the dream still preserves
the essential features which plainly differentiate our dreaming
from our conscious thinking , and thus clearly demands an
explanation . After clearing up all the problems of interpreta
tion, we can still feel how imperfect our psychology of the
dream is .
Before entering, however, into this new territory, let us
stop and reflect whether we have not missed something im
portant on our way hither. For it must be frankly admitted
that we have been traversing the easy and comfortable part
our journey. Hitherto all the paths we have followed
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 405

have led, if I mistake not, to light , to explication, and to full

understanding, but from the moment that we wish to pene
trate deeper into the psychic processes of the dream all paths
lead into darkness . It is quite impossible to explain the
dream as a psychic process , for to explain means to trace to
the known, and as yet we do not possess any psychological
knowledge under which we can range what may be inferred
from our psychological investigation of dreams as their funda
mental explanation . On the contrary, we shall be compelled
to build a series of new assumptions concerning the structure
of the psychic apparatus and its active forces ; and this we
shall have to be careful not to carry beyond the simplest
logical concatenation, as its value may otherwise merge into
uncertainty. And, even if we should make no mistake in
our conclusions, and take cognisance of all the logical possi
bilities involved, we shall still be threatened with complete
failure in our solution through the probable incompleteness
of our elemental data . It will also be impossible to gain,
or at least to establish, an explanation for the construction
and workings of the psychic instrument even through a most
careful investigation of the dream or any other single activity.
On the contrary, it will be necessary for this end to bring
together whatever appears decisively as constant after a
comparative study of a whole series of psychic activities . Thus
the psychological conceptions which we shall gain from an
analysis of the dream process will have to wait , as it were,
at the junction point until they can be connected with the
results of other investigations which may have advanced to the
nucleus of the same problem from another starting point .

(a) Forgetting in Dreams.

I propose, then, first, to turn to a subject which has given

rise to an objection hitherto unnoticed, threatening to under
mine the foundation of our work in dream interpretation . It
has been objected in more than one quarter that the dream
which we wish to interpret is really unknown to us , or, to be
more precise, that we have no assurance of knowing it as it
has really occurred (see p . 37). What we recollect of the dream,
and what we subject to our methods of interpretation, is in the
first place disfigured through our treacherous memory, which
406 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

seems particularly unfitted to retain the dream , and which

may have omitted precisely the most important part of the
dream content . For, when we pay attention to our dreams,
we often find cause to complain that we have dreamed much
more than we remember ; that, unfortunately, we know nothing
more than this one fragment, and that even this seems to us
peculiarly uncertain . On the other hand , everything assures
us that our memory reproduces the dream not only fragmen
tarily but also delusively and falsely. Just as on the one hand
we may doubt whether the material dreamt was really as dis
connected and confused as we remember it , so on the other
hand may we doubt whether a dream was as connected as we
relate it ; whether in the attempt at reproduction we have
not filled in the gaps existing or caused by forgetfulness with
new material arbitrarily chosen ; whether we have not em
bellished, rounded off, and prepared the dream so that all
judgment as to its real content becomes impossible. Indeed ,
one author (Spitta 4 ) has expressed his belief that all that is
orderly and connected is really first put into the dream during
our attempt to recall it . Thus we are in danger of having
wrested from our hands the very subject whose value we have
undertaken to determine.
In our dream interpretations we have thus far ignored
these warnings . Indeed , the demand for interpretation was,
on the contrary, found to be no less perceptible in the smallest,
most insignificant, and most uncertain ingredients of the
dream content than in those containing the distinct and de
finite parts . In the dream of Irma's injection we read , “ I
quickly called in Dr. M. , " and we assumed that even this
small addendum would not have gotten into the dream if it
had not had a special derivation . Thus we reached the history
of that unfortunate patient to whose bed I " quickly " called
in the older colleague . In the apparently absurd dream
which treated the difference between 51 and 56 as quantité
négligé, the number 51 was repeatedly mentioned . Instead
of finding this self-evident or indifferent, we inferred from it
a second train of thought in the latent content of the dream
which led to the number 51. By following up this clue we
came to the fears which placed 51 years as a limit of life, this
being in most marked contrast to a dominant train of thought
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 407

which boastfully knew no limit to life . In the dream " Non

Vixit " I found, as an insignificant interposition that I at first
overlooked, the sentence, " As P. does not understand him,
Fl. asks me," &c. The interpretation then coming to a
standstill, I returned to these words, and found through them
the way to the infantile phantasy , which appeared in the dream
thoughts as an intermediary point of junction . This came
about by means of the poet's verses :

Seldom have you understood me,

Seldom have I understood you,
But when we got into the mire,
We at once understood each other.

Every analysis will demonstrate by examples how the most

insignificant features of the dream are indispensable to the
analysis , and how the finishing of the task is delayed by the
fact that attention is not at first directed to them. In the
same way we have in the interpretation of dreams respected .
every nuance of verbal expression found in the dream ; indeed,
if we were confronted by a senseless or insufficient wording
betraying an unsuccessful effort to translate the dream in the
proper style, we have even respected these defects of expression .
In brief, what the authorities have considered arbitrary im
provisation, concocted hastily to suit the occasion, we have
treated like a sacred text. This contradiction requires an
explanation.
It is in our favour, without disparagement to the authorities .
From the viewpoint of our newly-acquired understanding con
cerning the origin of the dream, the contradictions fall into
perfect agreement . It is true that we distort the dream in
our attempt to reproduce it ; and herein we find another
instance of what we have designated as the often misunder
stood secondary elaboration of the dream through the influ
ence of normal thinking . But this distortion is itself only a
part of the elaboration to which the dream thoughts are
regularly subjected by virtue of the dream censor . The
authorities have here divined or observed that part of the
dream distortion most obviously at work ; to us this is of little
importance, for we know that a more prolific work of distortion,
not so easily comprehensible, has already chosen the dream
 ON
408 THE INTERPRETATI OF DREAMS

from among the concealed thoughts as its object. The

authorities err only in considering the modifications of the
dream while it is being recalled and put in words as arbitrary
and insoluble ; and hence, as likely to mislead us in the inter
pretation of the dream. We over-estimate the determination
of the psychic. There is nothing arbitrary in this field . It
can quite generally be shown that a second train of thought
immediately undertakes the determination of the elements
which have been left undetermined by the first . I wish,
e.g., to think quite voluntarily of a number. This , however,
is impossible . The number that occurs to me is definitely
and necessarily determined by thoughts within me which may
be far from my momentary intention. * Just as far from arbi
trary are the modifications which the dream experiences
through the revision of the waking state. They remain in
associative connection with the content, the place of which
they take, and serve to show us the way to this content , which
may itself be the substitute for another.
In the analysis of dreams with patients I am accustomed
to institute the following proof of this assertion, which has
never proved unsuccessful. If the report of a dream appears
to me at first difficult to understand , I request the dreamer
to repeat it. This he rarely does in the same words . The
passages wherein the expression is changed have become
known to me as the weak points of the dream's disguise , which
are of the same service to me as the embroidered mark on
Siegfried's raiment was to Hagen . The analysis may start
from these points . The narrator has been admonished by
my announcement that I mean to take special pains to solve
the dream, and immediately, under the impulse of resistance,
he protects the weak points of the dream's disguise, replacing
the treacherous expressions by remoter ones . He thus calls
my attention to the expressions he has dropped . From the
efforts made to guard against the solution of the dream, I can
also draw conclusions as to the care with which the dream's
raiment was woven.
The authors are, however, less justified in giving so much
importance to the doubt which our judgment encounters in

See the Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 4th ed. , 1912. (English

translation in preparation. )
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 409

relating the dream . It is true that this doubt betrays the lack
of an intellectual assurance, but our memory really knows no
guarantees, and yet, much more often than is objectively
justified, we yield to the pressure of lending credence to its
statements . The doubt concerning the correct representa
tion of the dream, or of its individual data, is again only an
offshoot of the dream censor-that is , of the resistance against
penetration to consciousness of the dream thoughts . This
resistance has not entirely exhausted itself in bringing about
the displacements and substitutions , and it therefore adheres
as doubt to what has been allowed to pass through. We can
recognise this doubt all the easier through the fact that it
takes care not to attack the intensive elements of the dream ,
but only the weak and indistinct ones . For we already know
that a transvaluation of all the psychic values has taken
place between the dream thoughts and the dream. The dis
figurement has been made possible only by the alteration of
values ; it regularly manifests itself in this way and occasion
ally contents itself with this . If doubt attaches to an indis
tinct element of the dream content , we may, following the hint ,
recognise in this element a direct offshoot of one of the out
lawed dream thoughts. It is here just as it was after a great
revolution in one of the republics of antiquity or of the Re
naissance. The former noble and powerful ruling families
are now banished ; all high positions are filled by upstarts ;
in the city itself only the very poor and powerless citizens or
the distant followers of the vanquished party are tolerated .
Even they do not enjoy the full rights of citizenship . They
are suspiciously watched . Instead of the suspicion in the
comparison, we have in our case the doubt. I therefore insist
that in the analysis of dreams one should emancipate one's self
from the entire conception of estimating trustworthiness , and
when there is the slightest possibility that this or that occurred
in the dream, it should be treated as a full certainty. Until
one has decided to reject these considerations in tracing the
dream elements , the analysis will remain at a standstill . An
tipathy toward the element concerned shows its psychic effect
in the person analysed by the fact that the undesirable idea
will evoke no thought in his mind . Such effect is really not
self-evident . It would not be inconsistent if one would say :
410 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS
66
Whether this or that was contained in the dream I do not
know, but the following thoughts occur to me in this direction."
But he never expresses himself thus ; and it is just this dis
turbing influence of doubt in the analysis that stamps it as
an offshoot and instrument of the psychic resistance . Psycho
analysis is justly suspicious . One of its rules reads : Whatever
disturbs the continuation of the work is a resistance.
The forgetting of dreams, too , remains unfathomable as
long as we do not consider the force of the psychic censor in
its explanation. The feeling, indeed, that one has dreamt a
great deal during the night and has retained only a little of it
may have another meaning in a number of cases . It may
perhaps signify that the dream-work has continued percep
tibly throughout the night, and has left behind only this short
dream . There is, however, no doubt of the fact that the dream
is progressively forgotten on awakening . One often forgets it
in spite of painful effort to remember. I believe, however,
that just as one generally over-estimates the extent of one's
forgetting, so also one over-estimates the deficiencies in one's
knowledge, judging them by the gaps occurring in the dream .
All that has been lost through forgetting in a dream content
can often be brought back through analysis . At least, in a
whole series of cases, it is possible to discover from one single
remaining fragment, not the dream , to be sure, which is of little
importance, but all the thoughts of the dream. It requires a
greater expenditure of attention and self-control in the analysis ;
that is all. But, at the same time, this suggests that the for
getting of the dream does not lack a hostile intention.
A convincing proof of the purposeful nature of dream
forgetting, in the service of resistance, is gained in analysis
through the investigation of a preliminary stage of forgetting . *
It often happens that in the midst of interpretation work an
omitted fragment of the dream suddenly comes to the surface .
This part of the dream snatched from forgetfulness is always
the most important part . It lies on the shortest road toward
the solution of the dream, and for that very reason it was
most objectionable to the resistance . Among the examples of
dreams that I have collected in connection with this treatise ,

* Concerning the object of forgetting in general, see the Psychopathology

of Everyday Life.
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 411

it once happened that I had to interpose subsequently such a

piece of dream content . It was a travelling dream , which
took vengeance upon an unlovable female travelling com
panion ; I have left it almost entirely uninterpreted on account
of its being in part coarse and nasty. The part omitted read :
" I said about a book by Schiller, ' It is from but cor
rected myself, for I noticed the mistake myself, ' It is by.'
Upon this the man remarked to his sister, ' Indeed , he said it
239
correctly .'
The self-correction in dreams , which seems so wonderful to
some authors , does not merit consideration by us . I shall rather
show from my own memory the model for the grammatical
error in the dream . I was nineteen years old when I visited
England for the first time, and spent a day on the shore of the
Irish Sea . I naturally amused myself by catching the sea
animals left by the waves, and occupied myself in particular
with a starfish (the dream begins with Hollthurn - Holothurian ),
when a pretty little girl came over to me and asked me, " Is
it a starfish ? Is it alive ? " I answered , " Yes , he is alive,"
but was then ashamed of my mistake and repeated the sentence
correctly. For the grammatical mistake which I then made,
the dream substitutes another which is quite common with
Germans . " Das Buch ist von Schiller " should not be trans
lated by the book is from, but the book is by. That the dream
work produces this substitution because the word from makes
possible, through consonance, a remarkable condensation with
the German adjective fromm (pious , devout ) , no longer surprises
us after all that we have heard about the aims of the dream
work and about its reckless selection of means of procedure.
But what is the meaning of the harmless recollection of the
seashore in relation to the dream ? It explains by means of a
very innocent example that I have used the wrong gender
i.e. that I have put " he," the word denoting the sex or the
sexual, where it does not belong . This is surely one of the
keys to the solution of dreams. Who ever has heard of the
origin of the book-title Matter and Motion (Molière in Malade
Imaginaire : La matière est-elle laudable ? -A motion of
the bowels ) will readily be able to supply the missing
parts .
Moreover, I can prove conclusively by a demonstratio ad
412 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

oculos that the forgetting in dreams is in great part due to the

activity of resistance . A patient tells me that he has dreamed,
but that the dream has vanished without leaving a trace, as
if nothing had happened . We continue to work, however ; I
strike a resistance which I make plain to the patient ; by en
couraging and urging I help him to become reconciled to some
disagreeable thought ; and as soon as I have succeeded he
exclaims, " Now, I can recall what I have dreamed." The
same resistance which that day disturbed him in the work
caused him also to forget the dream. By overcoming this
resistance, I brought the dream to memory .
In the same way the patient may, on reaching a certain
part of the work, recall a dream which took place three, four,
or more days before , and which has rested in oblivion through
out all this time.
Psychoanalytic experience has furnished us with another
proof of the fact that the forgetting of dreams depends more
on the resistance than on the strangeness existing between
the waking and sleeping states, as the authorities have be
lieved . It often happens to me, as well as to the other analysts
and to patients under treatment, that we are awakened from
sleep by a dream, as we would say, and immediately there
after, while in full possession of our mental activity, we begin
to interpret the dream. In such cases I have often not rested
until I gained a full understanding of the dream , and still it
would happen that after the awakening I have just as com
pletely forgotten the interpretation work as the dream content
itself, though I was aware that I had dreamed and that I had
interpreted the dream. The dream has more frequently
taken along into forgetfulness the result of the interpretation
work than it was possible for the mental activity to retain the
dream in memory . But between this interpretation work and
the waking thoughts there is not that psychic gap through
which alone the authorities wish to explain the forgetting of
dreams. Morton Prince objects to my explanation of the
forgetting of dreams on the ground that it is only a particular
example of amnesia for dissociated states , and that the im
possibility of harmonising my theory with other types of
amnesia makes it also valueless for other purposes . He thus
makes the reader suspect that in all his description of such
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 418

dissociated states he has never made the attempt to find

the dynamic explanation for these phenomena . For, had he
done so, he surely would have discovered that the repression
and the resistance produced thereby " is quite as well the
cause of this dissociation as of the amnesia for its psychic
content ."
That the dream is as little forgotten as the other psychic
acts, and that it clings to memory just as firmly as the other
psychic activities was demonstrated to me by an experiment
which I was able to make while compiling this manuscript .
I have kept in my notes many dreams of my own which, for
some reason at the time I could analyse only imperfectly or
not at all. In order to get material to illustrate my assertions ,
I attempted to subject some of them to analysis from one to
two years later. I succeeded in this attempt without any
exception. Indeed, I may even state that the interpretation
went more easily at this later time than at the time when the
dreams were recent occurrences . As a possible explanation
for this fact, I would say that I had gotten over some of the
resistances which disturbed me at the time of dreaming. In
such subsequent interpretations I have compared the past
results in dream thoughts with the present, which have
usually been more abundant, and have invariably found the
past results falling under the present without change . I have ,
however, soon put an end to my surprise by recalling that I
have long been accustomed to interpret dreams from former
years which have occasionally been related to me by patients
as if they were dreams of the night before, with the same
method and the same success. I shall report two examples of
such delayed dream interpretations in the discussion of
anxiety dreams . When I instituted this experiment for the
first time, I justly expected that the dream would behave in
this respect like a neurotic symptom. For when I treat a
neurotic, perhaps an hysteric, by psychoanalysis, I am com
pelled to find explanations for the first symptoms of the
disease which have long been forgotten, just as for those still
existing which have brought the patient to me ; and I find
the former problem easier to solve than the more exigent one
of to-day. In the Studien über Hysterie, published as early
as 1895 , I was able to report the explanation of a first
414 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

hysterical attack of anxiety which the patient, a woman over

forty years of age, had experienced in her fifteenth year. *
I may now proceed in an informal way to some further
observations on the interpretation of dreams, which will perhaps
be of service to the reader who wishes to test my assertion by
the analysis of his own dreams .
No one must expect that the interpretations of his dreams
will come to him overnight without any exertion . Practice
is required even for the perception of endoptic phenomena
and other sensations usually withdrawn from attention,
although this group of perceptions is not opposed by any
psychic motive. It is considerably more difficult to become
master of the " undesirable presentations." He who wishes
to do this will have to fulfil the requirements laid down in this
treatise. Obeying the rules here given, he will strive during the
work to curb in himself every critique, every prejudice, and
every affective or intellectual one-sidedness . We will always
be mindful of the precept of Claude Bernard for the experi
menter in the physiological laboratory-" Travailler comme
une bête "-meaning he should be just as persistent, but also
just as unconcerned about the results . He who will follow
these counsels will surely no longer find the task difficult . The
interpretation of a dream cannot always be accomplished in
one session ; you often feel , after following up a concatenation
of thoughts , that your working capacity is exhausted ; the
dream will not tell you anything more on that day ; it is then
best to break off, and return to the work the following day.
Another portion of the dream content then solicits your
attention, and you thus find an opening to a new stratum of
the dream thoughts . We may call this the " fractionary "
interpretation of dreams.
It is most difficult to induce the beginner in the inter
pretation of dreams to recognise the fact that his task is not
finished though he is in possession of a complete interpretation
of the dream which is ingenious and connected, and which
explains all the elements of the dream. Besides this another
superimposed interpretation of the same dream may be pos
sible which has escaped him. It is really not simple to form
* Translated by A. A. Brill, appearing under the title Selected Papers on
Hysteria.
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 415

an idea of the abundant unconscious streams of thought

striving for expression in our minds, and to believe in the
skilfulness displayed by the dream-work in hitting , so to speak,
with its ambiguous manner of expression, seven flies with one
stroke, like the journeyman tailor in the fairy tale. The reader
will constantly be inclined to reproach the author for uselessly
squandering his ingenuity, but anyone who has had experience
of his own will learn to know better.
The question whether every dream can be interpreted may
be answered in the negative. One must not forget that in the
work of interpretation one must cope with the psychic forces
which are responsible for the distortion of the dream. Whether
one can become master of the inner resistances through his
intellectual interest, his capacity for self-control , his psycho
logical knowledge, and his practice in dream interpretation
becomes a question of the preponderance of forces . It is
always possible to make some progress . One can at least go
far enough to become convinced that the dream is an ingenious
construction , generally far enough to gain an idea of its mean
ing. It happens very often that a second dream confirms
and continues the interpretation assumed for the first. A
whole series of dreams running for weeks or months rests on
a common basis , and is therefore to be interpreted in con
nection. In dreams following each other, it may be often
observed how one takes as its central point what is indicated
only as the periphery of the next , or it is just the other way,
so that the two supplement each other in interpretation .
That the different dreams of the same night are quite regu
larly in the interpretation to be treated as a whole I have
already shown by examples .
In the best interpreted dreams we must often leave one
portion in obscurity because we observe in the interpretation
that it represents the beginning of a tangle of dream thoughts
which cannot be unravelled but which has furnished no new
contribution to the dream content . This, then , is the keystone
of the dream , the place at which it mounts into the unknown .
For the dream thoughts which we come upon in the interpre
tation must generally remain without a termination, and merge
in all directions into the net-like entanglement of our world
of thoughts. It is from some denser portion of this texture
416 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

that the dream-wish then arises like the mushroom from its
mycelium .
Let us now return to the facts of dream-forgetting, as we
have really neglected to draw an important conclusion from
them. If the waking life shows an unmistakable intention
to forget the dream formed at night , either as a whole , immedi
ately after awakening, or in fragments during the course of
the day, and if we recognise as the chief participator in this
forgetting the psychic resistance against the dream which has
already performed its part in opposing the dream at night—
then the question arises, What has the dream formation
actually accomplished against this resistance ? Let us con
sider the most striking case in which the waking life has done
away with the dream as though it had never happened. If
we take into consideration the play of the psychic forces, we
are forced to assert that the dream would have never come
into existence had the resistance held sway during the night
as during the day. We conclude then, that the resistance
loses a part of its force during the night ; we know that it
has not been extinguished , as we have demonstrated its interest
in the dream formation in the production of the distortion.
We have, then, forced upon us the possibility that it abates at
night , that the dream formation has become possible with
this diminution of the resistance, and we thus readily under
stand that, having regained its full power with the awakening,
it immediately sets aside what it was forced to admit as long
as it was in abeyance . Descriptive psychology teaches us
that the chief determinant in dream formation is the dormant
state of the mind . We may now add the following eluci
dation The sleeping state makes dream formation possible by
diminishing the endopsychic censor.
We are certainly tempted to look upon this conclusion as
the only one possible from the facts of dream-forgetting, and
to develop from it further deductions concerning the pro
portions of energy in the sleeping and waking states . But
we shall stop here for the present . When we have penetrated
somewhat deeper into the psychology of the dream we shall
find that the origin of the dream formation may be differently
conceived. The resistance operating to prevent the dream
thoughts coming to consciousness may perhaps be eluded
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 417

without suffering diminution per se. It is also plausible that

both the factors favourable to dream formation , the diminution
as well as the eluding of the resistance , may be made possible
simultaneously through the sleeping state. But we shall pause
here, and continue this line of thought later.
There is another series of objections against our procedure
in the dream interpretation which we must now consider.
In this interpretation we proceed by dropping all the end
presentations which otherwise control reflection, we direct
our attention to an individual element of the dream, and then
note the unwished-for thoughts that occur to us in this con
nection. We then take up the next component of the dream
content, and repeat the operation with it ; and , without caring
in what direction the thoughts take us, we allow ourselves to
be led on by them until we end by rambling from one subject
to another. At the same time, we harbour the confident
hope that we may in the end, without effort, come upon the
dream thoughts from which our dream originated . Against
this the critic brings the following objection : That one can
arrive somewhere, starting from a single element in the
dream is nothing wonderful. Something can be associatively
connected with every idea. It is remarkable only that one
should succeed in hitting the dream thoughts in this aimless
and arbitrary excursion of thought . It is probably a self
deception ; the investigator follows the chain of association
from one element until for some reason it is seen to break,
when a second element is taken up ; it is thus but natural that
the association, originally unbounded , should now experience
a narrowing. He keeps in mind the former chain of associa
tions, and he will therefore in analysis more easily hit upon
certain thoughts which have something in common with the
thoughts from the first chain . He then imagines that he has
found a thought which represents a point of junction between
two elements of the dream. As he, moreover, allows himself
every freedom of thought connection , excepting only the tran
sitions from one idea to another which are made in normal
thinking, it is not finally difficult for him to concoct something
which he calls the dream thought out of a series of " inter
mediary thoughts " ; and without any guarantee, as they
are otherwise unknown, he palms these off as the psychic
2 D
418 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

equivalent of the dream. But all this is accompanied by

arbitrary procedure and over-ingenious exploitation of coin
cidence. Anyone who will go to this useless trouble can in
this way work out any desired interpretation for any dream
whatever.
If such objections are really advanced against us , we may
refer in our defence to the agreement of our dream interpre
tations , to the surprising connections with other dream
elements which appear in following out the different particular
presentations , and to the improbability that anything which so
perfectly covers and explains the dream as our dream interpre
tations do could be gained otherwise than by following psychic
connections previously established . We can also justify our
selves by the fact that the method of dream analysis is identical
with the method used in the solution of hysterical symptoms ,
where the correctness of the method is attested through the
emergence and fading away of the symptoms-that is , where
the elucidation of the text by the interposed illustrations
finds corroboration . But we have no object in avoiding this
problem- how one can reach to a pre-established aim by
following a chain of thoughts spun out thus arbitrarily and
aimlessly-for, though we are unable to solve the problem,
we can get rid of it entirely.
It is in fact demonstrably incorrect to state that we
abandon ourselves to an aimless course of thought when, as
in the interpretation of dreams, we relinquish our reflection
and allow the unwished -for idea to come to the surface. It can
be shown that we can reject only those end-presentations that
are familiar to us , and that as soon as these stop the unknown,
or, as we say more precisely, the unconscious end-presenta
tions , immediately come into play, which now determined the
course of the unwished-for presentations . A mode of think
ing without end-idea can surely not be brought about through
any influence we can exert on our own mental life ; nor do I
know either of any state of psychic derangement in which
such mode of thought establishes itself. The psychiatrists
have in this field much too early rejected the solidity of the
psychic structure. I have ascertained that an unregulated
stream of thoughts , devoid of the end-presentation , occurs as
little in the realm of hysteria and paranoia as in the formation
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 419

or solution of dreams . Perhaps it does not appear at all in

the endogenous psychic affections , but even the deliria of
confused states are senseful according to the ingenious theory
of Leuret and become incomprehensible to us only through
omissions. I have come to the same conviction wherever I
have found opportunity for observation . The deliria are the
work of a censor which no longer makes any effort to conceal
its sway, which, instead of lending its support to a revision no
longer obnoxious to it, cancels regardlessly that which it raises
objections against, thus causing the remnant to appear dis
connected . This censor behaves analogously to the Russian
newspaper censor on the frontier, who allows to fall into the
hands of his protected readers only those foreign journals
that have passed under the black pencil .
The free play of the presentations following any associative
concatenation perhaps makes its appearance in destructive
organic brain lesions . What, however, is taken as such in
the psychoneuroses can always be explained as the influence
of the censor on a series of thoughts which have been pushed
into the foreground by the concealed end-presentation . * It
has been considered an unmistakable sign of association free
from the end-presentations when the emerging presentations
(or pictures ) were connected with one another by means of
the so-called superficial associations-that is, by assonance ,
word ambiguity, and causal connection without inner sense
relationship ; in other words , when they were connected
through all those associations which we allow ourselves to
make use of in wit and play upon words . This distinguishing
mark proves true for the connections of thought which lead
us from the elements of the dream content to the collaterals ,
and from these to the thoughts of the dream proper ; of this
we have in our dream analysis found many surprising ex
amples . No connection was there too loose and no wit too
objectionable to serve as a bridge from one thought to another.
But the correct understanding of such tolerance is not remote .
Whenever one psychic element is connected with another through
an obnoxious or superficial association, there also exists a correct

* Jung has brilliantly corroborated this statement by analyses of

Dementia Praecox. (The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, translated by
F. Peterson and A. A. Brill. )
420 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

and more profound connection between the two which succumbs

to the resistance of the censor.
The correct explanation for the predominance of the
superficial associations is the pressure of the censor, and not
the suppression of the end- presentations . The superficial
associations supplant the deep ones in the presentation when
ever the censor renders the normal connective paths impassable .
It is as if in a mountainous region a general interruption of
traffic, e.g., an inundation , should render impassable the long
and broad thoroughfares ; traffic would then have to be main
tained through inconvenient and steep footpaths otherwise
used only by the hunter.
We can here distinguish two cases which, however, are
essentially one. In the first case the censor is directed only
against the connection of the two thoughts , which, having
been detached from each other, escape the opposition. The
two thoughts then enter successively into consciousness ;
their connection remains concealed ; but in its place there occurs
to us a superficial connection between the two which we would
not otherwise have thought of, and which as a rule connects
with another angle of the presentation complex instead of
with the one giving rise to the suppressed but essential con
nection. Or, in the second case, both thoughts on account of
their content succumb to the censor ; both then appear not
in their correct but in a modified substituted form ; and both
substituted thoughts are so selected that they represent ,
through a superficial association, the essential relation which
existed between those which have been replaced by them.
Under the pressure of the censor the displacement of a normal
and vital association by a superficial and apparently absurd
one has thus occurred in both cases .
Because we know of this displacement we unhesitatingly
place reliance even upon superficial associations in the dream
analysis . *
The psychoanalysis of neurotics makes prolific use of the
* The same considerations naturally hold true also for the case where
superficial associations are exposed in the dream, as, e.g., in both dreams re
ported by Maury(p. 50, pélerinage -pelletier -pelle, kilometer-kilogram-gilolo,
Lobelia- Lopez- Lotto). I know from my work with neurotics what kind of
reminiscence preferentially represents itself in this manner. It is the
consultation of encyclopædias by which most people pacify their desire for
explanation of the sexual riddle during the period of curiosity in puberty.
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 421

two axioms, first that with the abandonment of the conscious

end-presentation the domination of the train of presenta
tion is transferred to the concealed end -presentations ; and ,
secondly, that superficial associations are only a substitutive
displacement for suppressed and more profound ones ; indeed ,
psychoanalysis raises these two axioms to pillars of its
technique. When I request a patient to dismiss all reflection ,
and to report to me whatever comes into his mind , I firmly
cling to the presupposition that he will not be able to drop
the end-idea of the treatment, and I feel justified in conclud
ing that what he reports , even though seemingly most harm
less and arbitrary, has connection with this morbid state. My
own personality is another end-presentation concerning which
the patient has no inkling . The full appreciation , as well as
the detailed proof of both these explanations , belongs accord
ingly to the description of the psychoanalytic technique as
a therapeutic method . We have here reached one of the allied
subjects with which we propose to leave the subject of the
interpretation of dreams .*
Of all the objections only one is correct, and still remains ,
namely, that we ought not to ascribe all mental occurrences
of the interpretation work to the nocturnal dream-work. In
the interpretation in the waking state we are making a road
running from the dream elements back to the dream thoughts .
The dream-work has made its way in the opposite direction,
and it is not at all probable that these roads are equally
passable in the opposite directions . It has , on the contrary,
been shown that during the day, by means of new thought
connections we make paths which strike the intermediate
thoughts and the dream thoughts in different places. We
can see how the recent thought material of the day takes its
place in the groups of the interpretation, and probably also
forces the additional resistance appearing through the night
to make new and further detours . But the number and form
of the collaterals which we thus spin during the day is psycho
logically perfectly negligible if it only leads the way to the
desired dream thoughts.

* The above sentences, which when written sounded very improbable,

have since been justified experimentally by Jung and his pupils in the
Diagnostiche Assoziationsstudien.
422 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

(b) Regression.

Now that we have guarded against objection, or at least

indicated where our weapons for defence rest , we need no longer
delay entering upon the psychological investigations for which
we have so long prepared . Let us bring together the main
results of our investigations up to this point . The dream is
a momentous psychic act ; its motive power is at all times to
fulfil a wish ; its indiscernibleness as a wish and its many
peculiarities and absurdities are due to the influence of the
psychic censor to which it has been subjected during its for
mation. Apart from the pressure to withdraw itself from this
censor, the following have played a part in its formation : a
strong tendency to the condensation of psychic material, a
consideration for dramatisation into mental pictures , and
(though not regularly) a consideration for a rational and in
telligible exterior in the dream structure. From every one
of these propositions the road leads further to psychological
postulates and assumptions. Thus the reciprocal relation of
the wish motives and the four conditions, as well as the
relations of these conditions to one another will have to be
investigated ; and the dream will have to be brought into
association with the psychic life.
At the beginning of this chapter we cited a dream in order
to remind us of the riddles that are still unsolved. The in
terpretation of this dream of the burning child afforded us no
difficulties , although it was not perfectly given in our present
sense. We asked ourselves why it was necessary, after all,
that the father should dream instead of awakening, and we
recognised the wish to represent the child as living as the
single motive of the dream . That there was still another wish
playing a part in this connection , we shall be able to show
after later discussions . For the present, therefore , we may say
that for the sake of the wish-fulfilment the mental process of
sleep was transformed into a dream .
If the wish realisation is made retrogressive , only one
quality still remains which separates the two forms of psychic
occurrences from each other. The dream thought might have
read : " I see a glimmer coming from the room in which the
corpse reposes . Perhaps a candle has been upset, and the child
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 423

is burning ! " The dream reports the result of this reflection

unchanged , but represents it in a situation which takes place
in the present, and which is conceivable by the senses like an
experience in the waking state . This , however, is the most
common and the most striking psychological character of the
dream ; a thought, usually the one wished for, is in the dream
made objective and represented as a scene, or, according to our
belief, as experienced .
But how are we now to explain this characteristic
peculiarity of the dream-work, or, to speak more modestly ,
how are we to bring it into relati
on with the psychic
processes ?
On closer examination, it is plainly seen that there are
two pronounced characters in the manifestations of the dream
which are almost independent of each other. The one is the
representation as a present situation with the omission of the
" perhaps " ; the other is the transformation of the thought
into visual pictures and into speech .
The transformation in the dream thoughts, which shifts
into the present the expectation expressed in them, is perhaps
in this particular dream not so very striking . This is probably
in consonance with the special or rather subsidiary rôle of the
wish-fulfilment in this dream . Let us take another dream in
which the dream-wish does not separate itself in sleep from a
continuation of the waking thoughts , e.g., the dream of Irma's
injection. Here the dream thought reaching representation
is in the optative, " If Otto could only be blamed for Irma's
sickness ! " The dream suppresses the optative, and replaces
it by a simple present, " Yes , Otto is to blame for Irma's
sickness ." This is therefore the first of the changes which even
the undistorted dream undertakes with the dream thought .
But we shall not stop long at this first peculiarity of the dream.
We elucidate it by a reference to the conscious phantasy,
the day dream, which behaves similarly with its presentation
content . When Daudet's Mr. Joyeuse wanders through the
streets of Paris unemployed while his daughter is led to be
lieve that he has a position and is in his office, he likewise
dreams in the present of circumstances that might help him
to obtain protection and a position . The dream therefore
employs the present in the same manner and with the same
 424 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

right as the day dream. The present is the tense in which

the wish is represented as fulfilled .
The second quality, however, is peculiar to the dream as
distinguished from the day dream , namely, that the presenta
tion content is not thought, but changed into perceptible
images to which we give credence and which we believe we
experience. Let us add, however, that not all dreams show
this transformation of presentation into perceptible images .
There are dreams which consist solely of thoughts to which
we cannot , however, on that account deny the substantiality
of dreams . My dream " Autodidasker- the waking phantasy
with Professor N. "-is of that nature ; it contains hardly more
perceptible elements than if I had thought its content during
the day. Moreover, every long dream contains elements
which have not experienced the transformation into the per
ceptible, and which are simply thought or known as we are
wont to think or know in our waking state. We may also
recall here that such transformation of ideas into perceptible
images does not occur in dreams only but also in hallucina
tions and visions which perhaps appear spontaneously in
health or as symptoms in the psychoneuroses. In brief, the
relation which we are investigating here is in no way an
exclusive one ; the fact remains, however, that where this
character of the dream occurs , it appears to us as the most
noteworthy, so that we cannot think of it apart from the
dream life. Its explanation, however, requires a very detailed
discussion.
Among all the observations on the theory of dreams to be
found in authorities on the subject , I should like to lay stress
upon one as being worth mentioning. The great G. T.
Fechner 35 expresses his belief (Psychophysik, Part II., p . 520 ) ,
in connection with some discussion devoted to the dream ,
that the seat of the dream is elsewhere than in the waking
ideation. No other theory enables us to conceive the special
qualities of the dream life.
The idea which is placed at our disposal is one of psychic
locality. We shall entirely ignore the fact that the
psychic apparatus with which we are here dealing is also
familiar to us as an anatomical specimen , and we shall care
fully avoid the temptation to determine the psychic locality
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 425

in any way anatomically. We shall remain on psychological

ground, and we shall think ourselves called upon only to
conceive the instrument which serves the psychic activities
somewhat after the manner of a compound microscope, a
photographic or other similar apparatus. The psychic locality,
then, corresponds to a place within such an apparatus in which
one of the primary elements of the picture comes into exist
ence . As is well known , there are in the microscope and tele
scope partly fanciful locations or regions in which no tangible
portion of the apparatus is located . I think it superfluous
to apologise for the imperfections of this and all similar figures .
These comparisons are designed only to assist us in our attempt
to make clear the complication of the psychic activity by
breaking up this activity and referring the single activities
to the single component parts of the apparatus. No one, so
far as I know, has ever ventured to attempt to discover the
composition of the psychic instrument through such analysis.
I see no harm in such an attempt . I believe that we may
give free rein to our assumptions provided we at the same
time preserve our cool judgment and do not take the scaffold
ing for the building. As we need nothing except auxiliary
ideas for the first approach to any unknown subject, we
shall prefer the crudest and most tangible hypothesis to all
others .
We therefore conceive the psychic apparatus as a compound
instrument, the component parts of which let us call in
stances, or, for the sake of clearness , systems. We then enter
tain the expectation that these systems perhaps maintain a
constant spatial relationship to each other like the different
systems of lenses of the telescope, one behind another. Strictly
speaking, there is no need of assuming a real spatial arrange
ment of the psychic system. It will serve our purpose if a
firm sequence be established through the fact that in certain
psychological occurrences the system will be traversed by the
excitement in a definite chronological order. This sequence
may experience an alteration in other processes ; such possi
bility may be left open. For the sake of brevity, we shall
henceforth speak of the component parts of the apparatus
as " Y-systems ."
The first thing that strikes us is the fact that the apparatus
 426 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

composed of Y-systems has a direction. All our psychic

activities proceed from (inner or outer) stimuli and terminate
in innervations . We thus ascribe to the apparatus a sensible
and a motor end ; at the sensible end we find a system which
receives the perceptions, and at the motor end another which
opens the locks of motility. The psychic process generally
takes its course from the perception end to the motility end.
The most common scheme of the psychic apparatus has there
fore the following appearance :

P M

FIG. 1.

But this is only in compliance with the demand long familiar

to us, that the psychic apparatus must be constructed like a
reflex apparatus . The reflex act remains the model for every
psychic activity.
We have now reason to admit a first differentiation at the
sensible end. The perceptions that come to us leave a trace
in our psychic apparatus which we may call a " Memory
trace." The function which relates to this memory trace we
call the memory. If we hold seriously to our resolution to
connect the psychic processes into systems , the memory trace
can then consist only of lasting changes in the elements of the
systems. But, as has already been shown in other places ,
obvious difficulties arise if one and the same system faithfully
preserves changes in its elements and still remains fresh and
capable of admitting new motives for change . Following the
principle which directs our undertaking, we shall distribute
these two activities among two different systems . We assume
that a first system of the apparatus takes up the stimuli of
perception, but retains nothing from them-that is, it has no
memory ; and that behind this there lies a second system
which transforms the moment tement of the first into
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 427

lasting traces . This would then be a diagram of our psychic

apparatus :

P Mem Mem' Mem" M

TIT

FIG. 2.

It is known that from the perceptions that act on the P

system we retain something else as lasting as the content
itself. Our perceptions prove to be connected with one
another in memory, and this is especially the case when they
have once fallen together in simultaneity. We call this the
fact of association. It is now clear that if the P-system is
entirely lacking in memory, it certainly cannot preserve
traces for the associations ; the individual P-elements would
be intolerably hindered in their function if a remnant of
former connection should make its influence felt against a new
perception. Hence we must , on the contrary, assume that
the memory system is the basis of the association. The fact
of the association, then, consists in this-that , in consequence
of the diminutions in resistance and a smoothing of the ways
from one of the Mem-elements , the excitement transmits
itself to a second rather than to a third Mem-system .
On further investigation we find it necessary to assume
not one but many such Mem-systems, in which the same
excitement propagated by the P-elements experiences a diver
sified fixation. The first of these Mem-systems will contain in
any case the fixation of the association through simultaneity ,
while in those lying further away the same exciting material
will be arranged according to other forms of concurrence ;
so that relationships of similarity, &c., might perhaps be
represented through these later systems . It would naturally
be idle to attempt to report in words the psychic significance
of such a system. Its characteristic would lie in the intimacy
428 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

of its relations to elements of raw memory material—that is,

if we wish to point to a profounder theory in the gradations
of the resistances to conduction toward these elements .
We may insert here an observation of a general nature
which points perhaps to something of importance. The P
system, which possesses no capability of preserving changes
and hence no memory, furnishes for our consciousness the
entire manifoldness of the sensible qualities . Our memories,
on the other hand, are unconscious in themselves ; those
that are most deeply impressed form no exception . They
can be made conscious, but there can be no doubt that they
develop all their influences in the unconscious state . What
we term our character is based, to be sure, on the memory
traces of our impressions, and indeed on these impressions
that have affected us most strongly, those of our early youth
those that almost never become conscious . But when memories
become conscious again they show no sensible quality or a very
slight one in comparison to the perceptions. If, now, it can
be confirmed that memory and quality exclude each other, as far
as consciousness in the Y-systems is concerned, a most promising
insight reveals itself to us in the determinations of the neuron
excitement.
What we have so far assumed concerning the composition
of the psychic apparatus at the sensible end follows regardless
of the dream and the psychological explanations derived from
it. The dream, however, serves as a source of proof for the
knowledge of another part of the apparatus. We have seen
that it became impossible to explain the dream formation
unless we ventured to assume two psychic instances , one of
which subjected the activity of the other to a critique as
a consequence of which the exclusion from consciousness
resulted.
We have seen that the criticising instance entertains
closer relations with consciousness than the criticised . The
former stands between the latter and consciousness like a
screen . We have, moreover, found essential reasons for iden
tifying the criticising instance with that which directs our
waking life and determines our voluntary conscious actions .
If we now replace these instances in the development of our
theory by systems, the criticising system is then to be ascribed
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 429

to the motor end because of the fact just mentioned . We now

enter both systems in our scheme, and express by the names
given them their relation to consciousness .

Unc.
P Mem Mem' Forec.

FIG. 3.

The last of the systems at the motor end we call the fore
conscious in order to denote that exciting processes in this
system can reach consciousness without any further detention
provided certain other conditions be fulfilled , e.g. , the attain
ment of a certain intensity, a certain distribution of that
function which must be called attention, and the like. This
is at the same time the system which possesses the keys to
voluntary motility . The system behind it we call the un
conscious because it has no access to consciousness except
through the foreconscious, in the passage through which its
excitement must submit to certain changes .
In which of these systems, now, do we localise the impulse
to the dream formation ? For the sake of simplicity, let us
say in the system Unc . To be sure we shall find in later
discussions that this is not quite correct, that the dream
formation is forced to connect with dream thoughts which
belong to the system of the foreconscious . But we shall
learn later, when we come to deal with the dream-wish, that
the motive power for the dream is furnished by the Unc . , and,
owing to this latter movement , we shall assume the uncon
scious system as the starting-point of the dream formation .
This dream impulse , like all other thought structures, will
now strive to continue itself in the foreconscious, and thence
to gain admission to consciousness .
Experience teaches us that the road leading from the fore
conscious to consciousness is closed to the dream thoughts
during the day by the resistance of the censor . At night the
430 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

dream thoughts gain admission to consciousness , but the

question arises , in what way and because of what change . If
this admission was rendered possible to the dream thoughts
through the fact that the resistance watching on the boundary
between the unconscious and foreconscious sinks at night ,
we should then get dreams in the material of our presentations
which did not show the hallucinatory character which just
now interests us .
The sinking of the censor between the two systems, Unc .
66
and Forec., can explain to us only such dreams as Auto
didasker, " but not dreams like the one of the burning child ,
which we have taken as a problem at the outset in these
present investigations .
What takes place in the hallucinatory dream we can de
scribe in no other way than by saying that the excitement
takes a retrogressive course. It takes its station, not at the
motor end of the apparatus, but at the sensible end , and finally
reaches the system of the perceptions. If we call the direc
tion towards which the psychic process continues from the
unconscious into the waking state the progressive, we may
then speak of the dream as having a regressive character.
This regression is surely one of the most important peculi
arities of the dream process ; but we must not forget that it
does not belong to the dream alone. The intentional recol
lection and other processes of our normal thinking also require
a retrogression in the psychic apparatus from any complex
presentation act to the raw material of the memory traces
lying at its basis. But during the waking state this turning
backward does not reach beyond the memory pictures ; it
is unable to produce the hallucinatory vividness of the per
ception pictures . Why is this different in the dream ? When
we spoke of the condensation work of the dream we could not
avoid the assumption that the intensities adhering to the
presentations are fully transferred from one to another through
the dream -work. It is probably this modification of the former
psychic process which makes possible the occupation of the
system of P to its full sensual vividness in the opposite
direction from thought .
I hope that we are far from deluding ourselves about the
importance of this present discussion . We have done nothing
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 431

more than give a name to an inexplicable phenomenon . We

call it regression if the presentation in the dream is changed
back to the perceptible image from which it once originated .
But even this step demands justification . Why this naming,
if it does not teach us anything new ? I believe , however ,
""
that the name 66 Regression will serve us to the extent of
connecting a fact familiar to us with a scheme of the psychic
apparatus which is supplied with a direction . At this point ,
for the first time, it is worth the trouble to construct such a
scheme. For, with the help of this scheme, any other peculi
arity of the dream formation will become clear to us without
further reflection . If we look upon the dream as a process
of regression in the assumed psychic apparatus, we can readily
understand the empirically proven fact that all mental relation
of the dream thoughts either is lost in the dream-work or
can come to expression only with difficulty. According to our
scheme, these mental relations are contained not in the first
Mem-systems, but in those lying further to the front, and in
the regression they must forfeit their expression in favour of
the perception pictures . The structure of the dream thoughts is
in the regression broken up into its raw material.
But what change renders possible this regression which
is impossible during the day ? Let us here be content with
assumption. There must evidently be some alterations in
the charge of energy belonging to the single systems causing
the latter to become accessible or inaccessible to the discharge
of the excitement ; but in any such apparatus the same effect
upon the course of excitement might be brought about through
more than one form of such changes . This naturally reminds
us of the state of sleep and of the many changes of energy
this state produces at the sensible end of the apparatus.
During the day there is a continuous coursing stream from the
Y-system of the P toward the motility ; this current ceases
at night, and no longer hinders a streaming of the current of
excitement in the opposite direction. This would appear to
be that " seclusion from the outer world " which according to
the theory of some authors is supposed to explain the psycho
logical character of the dream (vide p. 30). In the explanation
of the regression of the dream we shall, however, have to con
sider those other regressions which originate during morbid
 432 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

waking states. In these other forms the explanation just

given plainly leaves us in the lurch. Regression takes place
in spite of the uninterrupted sensible current in a progressive
direction.
The hallucinations of hysteria and paranoia, as well as the
1
visions of mentally normal persons, I can explain as actually
corresponding to regressions, being in fact thoughts trans
formed into images ; and only such thoughts are subjected
to this transformation as are in intimate connection with
suppressed or unconscious recollections. As an example I
shall cite one of my youngest hysterical patients- a boy,
twelve years old, who was prevented from falling asleep by
66
green faces with red eyes, " which terrified him. The source
of this manifestation was the suppressed , but once conscious ,
memory of a boy whom he had often seen during four years,
and who offered him a deterring example of many childish
bad habits , including onanism , which now formed the subject
of his own reproach. His mother had noticed at the time
that the complexion of the ill-bred boy was greenish and that
he had red (i.e. red bordered) eyes . Hence the terrible vision
which constantly served to remind him of his mother's warning
that such boys become demented , that they are unable to make
progress at school, and are doomed to an early death. A
part of this prediction came true in the case of the little patient ;
he could not successfully pursue his high school studies, and ,
as appeared on examination of his involuntary fancies , he stood
in great dread of the remainder of the prophecy. However,
after a brief period of successful treatment, his sleep was re
stored, he lost his fears , and finished his scholastic year with
an excellent record.
I may also add here the interpretation of a vision related
to me by an hysteric forty years of age, as having occurred in
her normal life . On opening her eyes one morning she beheld
in the room her brother, whom she knew to be confined in
an insane asylum. Her little son was asleep by her side.
Lest the child should be frightened on seeing his uncle, and
fall into convulsions , she pulled the sheet over the little
one ; this done, the phantom disappeared. This vision is
the re-casting of one of her infantile reminiscences which,
although conscious, is most intimately connected with all the
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 433

unconscious material in her mind. Her nursemaid told her that

her mother, who had died young (the patient was then only a
year and a half old ) , had suffered from epileptic or hysterical
convulsions , which dated back to a fright caused by her brother
(the patient's uncle ) , who appeared to her disguised as a spectre
with a sheet over his head. The vision contains the same ele
ments as the reminiscence , viz. the appearance of the brother,
the sheet , the fright, and its effect . These elements , however,
are ranged in different relations , and are transferred to other
persons. The obvious motive of the vision , which replaces
the idea, is her solicitude lest her little son, who bore a striking
resemblance to his uncle, should share the latter's fate . Both
examples here cited are not entirely unrelated to sleep, and
may therefore be unsuitable as proof for my assertion. I
may therefore refer to my analysis of an hallucinatory
paranoia,* and to the results of my hitherto unpublished
studies on the psychology of the psychoneuroses in order to
emphasize the fact that in these cases of regressive thought
transformation one must not overlook the influence of a
suppressed or unconscious reminiscence, this being in most
cases of an infantile character . This recollection , so to speak,
draws into the regression the thought with which it is connected,
which is prevented from expression by the censor- that is ,
into that form of representation in which the recollection
itself exists psychically. I may here mention as a result of
my studies in hysteria that if we succeed in restoring infantile
scenes to consciousness (whether recollections or fancies ) they
are seen as hallucinations , and are divested of this character
only after reproduction . It is also known that the earliest
infantile memories retain the character of perceptible vivid
ness until late in life, even in persons who are otherwise not
visual in memory .
If, now, we keep in mind what part is played in the dream
thoughts by the infantile reminiscences or the phantasies
based upon them, how often fragments of these reminiscences
emerge in the dream content, and how often they even give
origin to dream wishes , we cannot deny the probability that
in the dream, too , the transformation of thoughts into visual
* Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, p. 165, translated
by A. A. Brill (Journal Mental and Nervous Disease Publishing Co. ).
2 E
434 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

images may be the result of the attraction exerted by the

visually represented reminiscences , striving for reanimation,
upon the thoughts severed from consciousness and struggling
for expression. Following this conception, we may further
describe the dream as a modified substitute for the infan
tile scene produced by transference to recent material. The
infantile cannot enforce its renewal, and must therefore be
satisfied to return as a dream .
This reference to the significance of the infantile scenes
(or of their phantastic repetitions), as in a manner furnishing
the pattern for the dream content, renders superfluous the
assumption made by Scherner and his pupils, of an inner
source of excitement . Scherner assumes a state of " visual
excitation " of internal excitement in the organ of sight when
the dreams manifest a particular vividness or a special
abundance of visual elements . We need not object to this
assumption, but may be satisfied with establishing such state
of excitation for the psychic perceptive system of the organs
of vision only ; we shall, however, assert that this state of
excitation is formed through the memory, and is merely a
refreshing of the former actual visual excitation . I cannot,
from my own experience, give a good example showing
such an influence of infantile reminiscence ; my own dreams
are surely less rich in perceptible elements than I must fancy
those of others ; but in my most beautiful and most vivid
dream of late years I can easily trace the hallucinatory dis
tinctness of the dream contents to the sensuous nature of
recently received impressions. On page 368 I mentioned a
dream in which the dark blue colour of the water, the brown
colour of the smoke issuing from the ship's funnels, and the
sombre brown and red of the buildings which I had seen made
a profound and lasting impression on my mind. This dream ,
if any, must be attributed to visual excitation . But what
has brought my visual organ into this excitable state ? It
was a recent impression uniting itself with a series of former
ones. The colours I beheld were those of the toy blocks with
which my children erected a grand structure for my admi
ration on the day preceding the dream. The same sombre
red colour covered the large blocks and the same blue and
brown the small ones . Connected with these were the colour
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 435

impression of my last journey in Italy, the charming blue of

the Isonzo and the Lagoon , the brown hue of the Alpine region.
The beautiful colours seen in the dream were but a repetition
of those seen in the memory.
Let us review what we have learned about this peculiarity
which the dream has of transforming its content of ideas into
plastic images . We have neither explained this character of
the dream-work nor traced it to known laws of psychology,
but we have singled it out as pointing to unknown connections ,
and designated it by the name of the " regredient " character.
Wherever this regression has occurred , we have regarded it
as an effect of the resistance which opposes the progress of
the thought on its normal way to consciousness , as well as a
result of the simultaneous attraction exerted upon it by the
vivid memories present . Regression is perhaps facilitated in
the dream by the cessation of the progressive stream running
from the sense organs during the day. For this auxiliary
moment there must be compensation in the other forms of
regression through a fortifying of the other motives of re
gression. We must also bear in mind that in pathological
cases of regression, as in the dream, the process of transference
of energy must be different from that of the regressions of
normal psychic life, as it renders possible a full hallucinatory
occupation of the perception systems. What we have de
scribed in the analysis of the dream-work as " Regard for
Dramatic Fitness " may be referred to the selective attraction
of visually recollected scenes , touched by the dream thoughts .
It is quite possible that this first part of our psychological
utilisation of the dream does not entirely satisfy even us. We
must , however, console ourselves with the fact that we are
compelled to build in the dark. If we have not altogether
strayed from the right path, we shall be sure to reach about
the same ground from another starting-point , and thereafter
perhaps be better able to see our way.

(c) The Wish-Fulfilment.

The dream of the burning child cited above affords us a
welcome opportunity for appreciating the difficulties con
fronting the theory of wish-fulfilment. That the dream
should be nothing but a wish-fulfilment surely seemed strange
436 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 , contradic
tions , 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 con
clusion 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 -fulfil
ment, 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-fulfilment in the dream,
and into the significance of the waking thoughts continued
in sleep .
It is in fact the wish-fulfilment that has already induced
us to separate dreams into two groups . We have found some
dreams that were plainly wish-fulfilments ; and others in
which wish-fulfilment could not be recognised , and was fre
quently concealed by every available means. In this latter
class of dreams we recognised 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.
We may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the dream
originates . But to what opposition or to what diversity do
we refer this " whence " ? I think it is to the opposition
tween conscious daily life and a psychic activity remaining
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 437

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 suppres
sion . If we now follow our scheme of the psychic apparatus,
we can localise 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. This view is supported
by the dream of the little girl who continued the sea trip
interrupted during the day, and by the other children's dreams
referred to ; they are explained by an unfulfilled but not sup
pressed wish from the day-time. 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 (Dutzendmensch) . *

* The German word " Dutzendmensch " (a man of dozens) which the
young lady wished to use in order to express her real opinion of her friend's
fiancé, denotes a person with whom figures are everything. (Translator.)
 438 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 varia
tions ; 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 life 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
› unsconscious wish which reinforces it. Following the sugges
tions 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 439

the latter.* It may therefore seem that the conscious wish

alone has been realised 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 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 demon
strated, but I maintain nevertheless that it can be frequently
demonstrated, even where 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 (see p . 185) . 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

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.
440 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 accomplish
ing it, or in accomplishing it perfectly. Unsolved problems ,
harassing cares, overwhelming impressions continue the think
ing 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
paralysed 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 noc
turnal excitation in the Forec. 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 ?
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 441

There is no doubt that they penetrate abundantly into the

dream, that they utilise the dream content to obtrude them
selves 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-fulfilment 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 (p . 228) . 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-fulfilment . 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 explana
tion for my being impelled to select just this substitution for
the day thought . I must have always been prepared in the
Unc. to identify myself with Professor R., as it meant the
realisation 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 expres
sion 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 un
conscious and suppressed wish, which then allowed it, though
66
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.
442 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

We can now sharply define the significance of the un

conscious 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 rem
nants of daily life ; and I believe that even my cherished
desire to become at some future time a " professor extra
""
ordinarius 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 relation
ship 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 un
finished 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 illustra
tion of the dream structure. As shown on p. 285 we can
recognise in most dreams a centre especially supplied with
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 448

perceptible intensity. This is regularly the direct representa

tion of the wish-fulfilment ; 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-fulfil
ment 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 ex
pression of the wish-fulfilment 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-fulfilments ; 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 (p. 153) . 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 . 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 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
444 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 re
pressed 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 fore
conscious 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 indif
ferent 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 prefer
ence for trivial elements , the constant presence of recent ele
ments 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 associa
tions , and the recent ones because they have had insufficient
time to form such associations .
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 445

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 at
tempted to penetrate more deeply into the psychic processes ,
we should first have to throw more light on the play of emo
tions 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 analysed 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 an unsolved problem
of the waking state . We do not , however, possess an example.
the analysis of which might reveal the infantile or repressed
wish source furnishing such alliance and successful strength
ening of the efforts of the foreconscious activity. But we
have not come one step nearer a solution of the riddle : Why
can the unconscious furnish the motive power for the wish
fulfilment 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,
446 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 ex
perience 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
fulfilment, and the full revival of the perception by the want
excitement constitutes the shortest road to the wish-fulfil
ment . 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
fulfilment 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 447

gratification does not take place, and the want continues. In

order to equalise 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 re
called purposes . But this entire complicated mental activity
which works its way from the memory picture to the establish
ment of the perception identity from the outer world merely
represents a detour which has been forced upon the wish-fulfil
ment by experience.* Thinking is indeed nothing but the
equivalent of the hallucinatory wish ; and if the dream be
called a wish-fulfilment 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 aban
doned 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.
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 endeavour to penetrate

* 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."
448 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

to consciousness and dominate motility by the road lead

ing through the system of the foreconscious. It is , therefore ,
the censor lying between the Unc. and the Forec . , the assump
tion of which is forced upon us by the dream, that we have to
recognise and honour 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 sup
pressed 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 other
wise 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 opera
tion of the critical censor, but through pathological enfeeble
ment 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 psycho
logical construction , which has been interrupted by the in
troduction 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 realisation is because it is a product of the Unc. ,
which knows no other aim in its activity but the fulfilment
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
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 449

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-fulfilment, but there must be other forms of abnormal
wish-fulfilment besides this of dreams. Indeed , the theory
of all psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the proposition
that they too must be taken as wish-fulfilments ofthe 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-fulfilments , 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 realised
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 deter
mination not derived from the Unc. is, as far as I can see,
invariably a stream of thought in reaction against the un
conscious wish, e.g., a self-punishment. Hence I may say, in
general, that an hysterical symptom originates only where two
contrasting wish-fulfilments, having their source in different
psychic systems, are able to combine in one expression. (Com
pare my latest formulation of the origin of the hysterical
symptoms in a treatise published by the Zeitschrift für
Sexualwissenschaft, by Hirschfeld and others , 1908 ) . Ex
amples 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 realisation of an
2 F
450 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

unconscious fancy from the time of puberty, that she might

be continuously pregnant and have a multitude of children , 1
and this was subsequently united with the wish that she might
have them from as many men as possible. Against this im
moderate 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 favour in the eyes of mankind , the
symptom was therefore in keeping with her punitive trend of
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-fulfilment which the queen of the
Parthians chose for the triumvir Crassus. 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-fulfilment of
the unconscious ; and apparently the dominating forecon
scious 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 realised 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 " (p. 116) . 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 realise this
wish by producing the necessary changes of energy in the
psychic apparatus, and may finally retain it through the entire
duration of sleep . *
This persistent wish to sleep on the part of the forecon
scious 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

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.)
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 451

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 analyse 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. On
page 104 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 recognised in the waking dreams , which so
transform the objective sensory stimulus as to render it com
patible 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 conscious
ness 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
452 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 favour of a real situation ."

(d) Waking caused by the Dream—―The Function of the

Dream -The Anxiety 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 un
conscious 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 endeavours 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 re
gressive 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 453

on the form of dramatisation . 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 per
ceptions . 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 conscious
ness . 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 Y-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 auto
matically 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 accom
plish this the Forec. system needed some qualities of its own
which could attract consciousness , and most probably re
ceived 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 in
terest for the nocturnal mental processes is indeed purposeful.
Nothing is to disturb the mind ; the Forec. wants to sleep .
454 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 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 .
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 sug
29
gested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream , Goblot 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 Goblot
was forced to repudiate many facts in order to generalise 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 pene
tration to perception must continue throughout the night.
And we are probably always right assert that we feel
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 455

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 regu
larly perceive something dreamt on being suddenly aroused
from a sound sleep . Here , as well as in spontaneous awaken
ing, 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
456 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

the power to disturb sleep, i.e. the fulfilment of the forecon

scious 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 ex
perience 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 our sleep we have removed the disturbance.
As demonstrated by familiar examples from the sleep of wet
nurses , &c. , the fulfilment of the wish to sleep is quite com
patible with the retention of a certain amount of attention in
a given direction.
But we must here take cognisance 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, 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 ex
hausted after the dream has been taken cognisance 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 remark
able 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 457

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 adjust
ment 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 to 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 fore
conscious labour, 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
458 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 simul
taneously both systems by fulfilling both wishes in so far as
they are compatible with each other. A glance at Robert's
"C
elimination theory," referred to on page 66, 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 ship
wreck. The dream process is in the first instance admitted
as a wish-fulfilment of the unconscious, but if this tentative
wish-fulfilment disturbs the 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 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-fulfilment 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-fulfilment has long ceased to impress us as a contradic
tion. 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.
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 459

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 pro
position that the reason why the suppression of the uncon
scious 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 concern
ing 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
460 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 realisation 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 subject anxiety dreams
to analysis in order to demonstrate the sexual material in their
dream thoughts .
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 sub
jected 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 bird's 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 re
miniscence 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
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 461

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 bird's
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 interpre
tation of the secondary elaboration in the dream must there
fore 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 fore
conscious elaboration because I was already under the domina
tion 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 axe
was running after him ; he wished to run, but felt paralysed
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 axe he recalled that during that period of his life he once
hurt his hand with an axe while chopping wood . This
immediately led to his relations with his younger brother ,

* The German of the word bird is " Vogel," which gives origin to the
vulgar expression " vöglen," denoting sexual intercourse. (Trans. note.)
462 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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
66
violence and wrestling," and thus reached a sadistic con
ception 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 under
standing , and is probably also inacceptable to them because
their parents are involved in it. For the same reason 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 above (pp. 209-215).
For the night terrors with hallucinations (pavor nocturnus)
frequently found in children, I would 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 463

wearing the blinders of medical mythology may miss the under

standing of such cases I will relate a case which I found in a
thesis on pavor nocturnus by Debacker,17 1881 (p . 66) . 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 in
variably 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 odour 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
practised 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 punish
ments with which he was then threatened .
Let us , however, quote the conclusions drawn by our author
(p . 69) . 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 .†

* The italics are my own, though the meaning is plain enough without
them. † The italics are mine.
464 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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."

(e) The Primary and Secondary Processes- Regression .

In venturing to attempt to penetrate more deeply into the

psychology of the dream processes , I have undertaken a diffi
cult task, to which, indeed, my power of description is hardly
equal . To reproduce in 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 neu
roses, 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 465

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 pro
blems 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 expres
sion 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
2 G
466 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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-fulfilment. 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 ,40 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 con
tent 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 begin
ning of the dream-work. In the bitter and seemingly irrecon
cilable 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 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 ap
paratus ; still it cannot be denied that these dream thoughts
have originated during the day, and it is 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 467

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 uncontest
able ; 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 recog
nised, 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 two
fold wish-fulfilment 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,23 " an archaic
world of vast emotions and imperfect thoughts, " appear to us as
happy anticipations of our deductions to the effect that primi
tive modes of work suppressed during the day participate in
the formation of the dream ; and with us, as with Delage, 15 the
suppressed material becomes the mainspring of the dreaming.
We have fully recognised 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 pro
duces 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 clue to the source of the dream
thoughts, but almost everything that he ascribes to the dream
468 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 contra
dictory 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 neces
sarily 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, con
sequently , we have repeated in the interpretation of the dream.
All that we have termed the " dream-work " seems so remote
from the psychic processes recognised 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 enlighten
ment 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 high order, we find repeated
in the dream thoughts . There is , however, no need of assum
ing 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. T thoughts may
just as well have originated from the noticed by
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 469

our consciousness from their inception, they may have con

tinued 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 opera
tions are possible without the co-operation 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 with
drawn 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 atten
tion 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 occu
66
pation, 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
470 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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."
energy ." We shall be obliged some
what 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 ex
citement requiring an outlet into dormant energy. * If this
first issue is brought about the process has no further signifi
cance 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 conscious
ness . 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-occupa
tion ; 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 occu
pation, receives occupation from the unconscious wish .
The stream of thought is henceforth subjected to a series
of transformations which we no longer recognise as normal
psychic processes and which give us a surprising result, viz .
* Cf.the significant observations by J. Breuer i dies on Hysteria,
1895, and 2nd ed. 1909.
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 471

a psychopathological formation. Let us emphasize and group

the same .
1. The intensities of the individual ideas become capable
of discharge in their entirety, and, proceeding from one con
ception to the other, they thus form single presentations
endowed with marked intensity. Through the repeated re
currence 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 with which
we became acquainted in the chapter on " The Dream-Work. "
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) . His
torians of art call our attention to the fact that the most
ancient historical sculptures follow a similar principle in ex
pressing 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 centre 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 subor
dinate to his superior in our own days is only an echo of that
ancient principle of representation.
472 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

The direction taken by the condensations of the dream is

prescribed on the one hand by the true foreconscious relations
of the dream thoughts, on 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 " presenta
tion 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 utilised 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 com
promises 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 pro
cesses 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 recognise
the high importance attached to the fact of rendering the occu
pation 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 im
portance. 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,
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 473

e.g. the dream " Autodidasker -Conversation with Court

Councillor N.," present the same processes of displacement
and condensation as the others .
Hence we cannot refuse to acknowledge that the two kinds
of essentially different psychic processes 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 in
Chapter VI 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 per
fectly 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 conden
sation and compromise formation, through superficial associa
tions, under cover of contradictions, and eventually over the road
of regression. In view of the complete identity found be
tween 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 in
fantile 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 ad
mitted, cannot be universally demonstrated though it cannot
474 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 gratifi
cation 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 occu
pation of the memory for gratification . But this hallucina
tion, 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 ter
minology 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 475

world through the motility, there is required the accumula

tion 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
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 suc
ceeds 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 ; anyone 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 -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 dor
mant 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 inhibi
tion 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 per
ceptive 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 with
draws the apparatus from perception and at the same time
476 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

from pain, but on the reappearance of the perception this mani

festation will immediately repeat itself (perhaps as a move
ment 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 hallucina
tion 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 pre
cisely, 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 regu
larly 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 behaviour 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 there
fore altogether incapable of introducing anything unpleasant
into the mental associations . The system cannot do any
thing 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 de
velopment 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 477

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 re
sulting from the inhibition of the second system I shall call
the secondary process . I show by another point for what
purpose the second system is obliged to correct the primary
process . The primary process 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 compro
mise 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
478 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 effi
ciency of our psychic apparatus through which the thoughts
forming the material of the secondary mental work are en
abled 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 considera
tion of the order of precedence and capability , but also as
admitting the temporal relations to a share in the nomen
clature . 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 479

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 conse
quence of this retardation of the foreconscious occupation a
large sphere of the memory material remains inaccessible.
Among these indestructible and unincumbered wish feel
ings originating from the infantile life, there are also some, the
fulfilments of which have entered into a relation of contradic
tion to the end-presentation of the secondary thinking . The
fulfilment 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 " re
pression," in which we recognise the infantile first step ofpassing
adverse sentence or of rejecting through reason. To investigate
in what way and through what motive forces such a trans
formation 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 to the Forec.,
and for that reason their emotional discharge cannot be in
hibited . It is just on account of this affective development
that these ideas are not even now accessible to the forecon
scious thoughts to which 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 favourable case the development of pain termi
nates as soon as the energy has been withdrawn from the
thoughts of transference in the Forec. , and this effect charac
terises 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
480 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 fore
conscious 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 pro
cesses 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 described 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
 PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 481

the sexual constitution , which is really formed from the

original bisexuality, or in consequence of unfavourable in
fluences 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 . * 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 com
pared . 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 psycho

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 uncon
scious. 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 dream-work 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 ofthe 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.
2 H
482 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

logical 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
my own dreams and from those of neurotic patients may be
rejected without comment. Hence, when we draw conclu
sions from the phenomena as to their motive forces, we recog
nise 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 condi
tions 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 character
istics 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, bo."
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 483

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 marvellous 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 patho
logical 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 estab
lishment of new splittings in its interior ; it is rather to be
explained dynamically through the strengthening and weaken
ing 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 subtilisation
even of the normal activity which would be impossible for a
single system . *

(f) The Unconscious and Consciousness -Reality.

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 dis
cussions 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 dream is not the only phenomenon tending to base psycho

pathology on psychology. In a short series of unfinished articles
" Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie " entitled Über den
psychischen Mechanismus der Vergeslichkeit, 1898, and Über Deckerinnerungen,
1899) I attempt to interpret a number of psychic manifestations from
everyday life in support of the same conception. These and other articles
on " Forgetting," " Lapse of Speech," &c., have since been published collec
tively under the title of Psychopathology ofEveryday Life, 1904 and 1907, of
which an English translation will shortly appear.
484 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 with
drawn 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 localised 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 responsi
bility ; it is now time to examine the theoretical opinions
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 485

governing present-day psychology and to test their relation

to our theories . The question of the unconscious in psycho
logy 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 contradic
tion, 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 indispen
sable 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 con
sciousness 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 recognise 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 effect on conscious
ness 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 .

" The Conception of the Unconscious in Psychology " : Lecture

delivered at the Third International Congress of Psychology at Munich,
1897.
486 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

A reaction from the over-estimation of the quality of

consciousness becomes the indispensable preliminary condition
for any correct insight into the behaviour 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 be
tween 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 ex
cited 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 symbolising 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 phan
tasies 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 com
munications 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
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 487

finished . There is nothing strange about the assistance of

the conscious activity in other cases where there was a con
certed 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 in
stance, 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 uncon
scious," 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 uncon
scious 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 psychopatho
logical 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

* Cf. here (p. 82) the dream (Za-rupos) of Alexander the Great at the
siege of Tyrus.
488 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

there are two kinds of unconscious, which we do not as yet

find distinguished by the psychologists . Both are uncon
scious in the psychological sense ; but 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 favour 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 character
istics 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-systems, is turned to the outer world, is itself
the outer world for the sensory organ of Cons .; the teleo
logical 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.
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 489

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 quanti
tative 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
co-operation of consciousness, have found it difficult to attri
bute 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 un
consciously and through the displacement of quantities . It
is probable that the principle of pain first regulates the dis
placements 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 libera
tion of pain. We learn from neuropsychology that an im
portant part in the functional activity of the apparatus is
attributed to such regulations through the qualitative exci
tation 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
490 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 re
miniscences 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 accomplished repressions.
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 connec
tion 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 accompany
ing 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 quanti
tative 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 .
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 491

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 con
sciousness 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 con
vulsif, 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 checker-board before him. He commented on various posi
tions that were favourable or unfavourable, 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,
492 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

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 newmamma. 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 re
miniscence 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 oppor
tunity to return the reproaches and threats of his father-
which had previously been made because the child played
with his genitals (the checker-board ; the prohibitive moves ;
the 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 someone may ask,
for psychic knowledge and for the discovering of the secret
peculiarities of individual character ? Have not the un
conscious 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 endeavoured to discover the significance of the
dream ; most probably it was not what it seemed to be. And
PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAM ACTIVITIES 493

even if a dream of different content had the significance of

this offence against majesty, it would still have been in place
to remember the words of Plato, that the virtuous man con
tents 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 con
sciousness are neutralised 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 alter
native, 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.
* Professor Ernst Oppenheim (Vienna) has shown me from folk-lore
material that there is a class of dreams for which even the people drop the
expectation of future interpretation, and which they trace in a perfectly
correct manner to wish feelings and wants arising during sleep. He will
in the near future fully report upon these dreams, which for the most part
are in the form of " funny stories."
 VIII

LITERARY INDEX

1. Aristoteles . Über Träume und Traumdeutungen . Translated

by Bender.
2. Artemidoros aus Daldis. Symbolik der Traüme. Translated
by Friedrich. S. Krauss. Wien , 1881 .
66
3. Benini, V. La Memoria e la Durata dei Sogni. " Rivista
Italiana de Filosofia, Marz-April 1898.
4. Binz, C. Über den Traum. Bonn, 1878.
5. Borner, J. Das Alpdrücken, seine Begründung und Verhütung.
Würzburg, 1855.
6. Bradley, J. H. " On the Failure of Movement in Dream ."
Mind, July 1894.
7. Brander, R. Der Schlaf und das Traumleben. 1884.
8. Burdach. Die Physiologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft, 3 Bd.
1830.
9. Büchsenschütz, B. Traum und Traumdeutung in Altertum.
Berlin, 1868.
10. Chaslin, Ph. Du Rôle du Rêve dans l'Evolution du Délire. Thèse
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11. Chabaneix. Le Subconscient chez les Artistes , les Savants et
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14. Dandolo, G. La Coscienza nel Sonno. Padova, 1889.
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16. Delbœuf, J. Le Sommeil et les Rêves. Paris, 1885.
17. Debacker. Terreurs nocturnes des Enfants. Thèses de Paris.
1881 .
18. Dugas. " Le Souvenir du Rêve." Revue philosophique,
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19. Dugas. " Le Sommeil et la Cérébration inconsciente durant
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66
21. Egger. ' Le Souvenir dans le Rêve." Revue philosophique,
XLVI. , 1898.
 LITERARY INDEX 495

22. Ellis Havelock. " On Dreaming of the Dead." The Psycho

logical Review, II . , Nr. 5, September 1895.
23. Ellis Havelock. " The Stuff that Dreams are made of."
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24. Ellis Havelock. "A Note on Hypnogogic Paramnesia." Mind,
April 1897.
25. Fechner, G. Th. Elemente der Psychophysik. 2 Aufl . , 1889 .
26. Fichte, J. H. "Psychologie. " Die Lehre vom bewussten
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27. Giessler, M. Aus den Tiefen des Traumlebens. Halle, 1890.
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29. Goblot. 66 Sur le Souvenir des Rêves." Revue philosophique,
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30. Graffunder. Traum und Traumdeutung. 1894.
31. Griesinger. Pathologie und Therapie der psychischen Krank
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66 Schlafen und Traümen.
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35. Hildebrandt, F. W. Der Traum und seine Verwertung für
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36. Jessen. Versuch einer Wissenschaftlichen Begründung der
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37. Jodl. Lehrbuch der Psychologie. Stuttgart, 1896 .
38. Kant, J. Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Kirch
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39. Krauss , A. " Der Sinn im Wahnsinn." Allgemeine Zeitschrift
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40. Ladd. " Contribution to the Psychology of Visual Dreams. ”
Mind, April 1892 .
41. Leidesdorf, M. Das Traumleben . Wien, 1880. Sammlung der
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42. Lémoine. Du Sommeil au Point de Vue physiologique et psycho
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43. Lièbeault, A. Le Sommeil provoqué et les Etats analogues.
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44. Lipps, Th. Grundtatsachen des Sellenlebens. Bonn, 1883.
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46. Maudsley. The Pathology of Mind. 1879.
66
47. Maury, A. Analogies des Phénomènes du Rêve et de
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48. Maury, A. Le Sommeil et les Rêves. Paris, 1878 .
49. Moreau, J. " De l'Identité de l'Etat de Rêve et de Folie."
Annales med. psych., 1855 , p . 361 .
496 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

50. Nelson, J. " A Study of Dreams." Amer. J. of Psychology,

I. , 1888.
51. Pilcz. “ Über eine gewisse Gesetzmassigkeit in den Träumen.”
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52. Pfaff, E. R. Das Traumleben und seine Deutung nach den
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53. Purkinje. Artikel : Wachen, Schlaf, Traum und verwandte
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54. Radestock, P. Schlaf und Traum. Leipzig, 1878.
55. Robert, W. Der Traum als Naturnotwendigkeit erklärt. 1886.
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57. Sante de Sanctis. " Sui rapporti d'Identità, di Somiglianza,
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di Psicologia, Psichiatria, Neuropatologia. 15, Nov. 1897.
58. Scherner, R. A. Das Leben des Traümes. Berlin. 1861 .
59. Scholz, Fr. Schlaf und Traum. Leipzig, 1887.
60. Schopenhauer. " Versuch über das Geistersehen und was
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61. Schleiermacher, Fr. Psychologie. Edited by L. George.
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62. Siebek, A. Das Traumleben der Seele. 1877. Sammlung
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63. Simon, M. " Le Monde des Rêves." Paris, 1888. Biblio
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64. Spitta, W. Die Schlaf- und Traumzustände der menschlichen
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65. Stumpf, E. J. G. Der Traum und seine Deutung. Leipzig,
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66. Strümpell, L. Die Natur und Entstehung der Träume. Leipzig,
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67. Tannery. " Sur la Mémoire dans le Rêve." Revue philo
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68. Tissió, Ph. " Les Rêves, Physiologie et Pathologie." 1898.
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69. Titchener. 66 Taste Dreams." Amer. Jour. of Psychology, VI.,
1893.
70. Thomayer . " Sur la Signification de quelques Rêves." Revue
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66
71. Vignoli. Von den Träumen , Illusionen und Halluzinationen ."
Internationale wissenschaftliche Bibliothek, Bd. 47.
72. Volkelt, J. Die Traumphantasie. Stuttgart, 1875.
73. Vold, J. Mourly. " Expériences sur les Rêves et en particulier
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74. Vold, J. Mourly. " Einige Experimente über Gesichtsbilder
 LITERARY INDEX 497

im Traume." Dritter internationaler Kongress für Psychologie in

München. 1897.
(74a. Vold, J. Mourly. " Über den Traum." Experimentell
psychologische Untersuchungen. Herausgegeben von O. Klemm. Erster
Band. Leipzig, 1910. )
75. Weygandt, W. Entstehung der Träume. Leipzig, 1893.
76. Wundt. Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie. II. Bd. ,
2 Aufl. 1880.
77. Stricker. Studien über das Bewusstsein. Wien, 1879.
78. Stricker. Studien über die Assoziation der Vorstellungen. Wien,
1883.

PSYCHOANALYTIC LITERATURE OF DREAMS

79. Abraham, Karl (Berlin ) : Traum und Mythos : Eine Studie
zur Volker-psychologie. Schriften z. angew. Seelenkunde, Heft 4,
Wien und Leipzig, 1909.
80. Abraham, Karl (Berlin) : “ Über hysterische Traumzustände. ”
(Jahrbuch f. psychoanalyt. und psychopatholog. Forschungen, Vol. II. ,
1910. )
81. Adler, Alfred (Wien) : " Zwei Träume einer Prostituierten."
(Zeitschrift f. Sexualwissenschaft, 1908, Nr. 2. )
82. Adler, Alfred (Wien) : " Ein erlogener Traum." (Zentralbl.
f. Psychoanalyse, 1 Jahrg. 1910, Heft 3. )
83. Bleuler, E. (Zürich) : " Die Psychanalyse Freuds." (Jahrb.
f. psychoanalyt. u. psychopatholog. Forschungen, Bd. II. , 1910. )
84. Brill, A. A. (New York) : " Dreams and their Relation to the
Neuroses." (New York Medical Journal, April 23, 1910. )
Brill. Hysterical Dreamy States. Ebenda May 25, 1912.
85. Ellis, Havelock : " The Symbolism of Dreams." (The Popular
Science Monthly, July 1910. )
86. Ellis , Havelock : The World of Dreams. London , 1911 .
87. Ferenczi, S. (Budapest ) : " Die psychologische Analyse der
Traume." (Psychiatrisch-neurologische Wochenschrift, XII ., Jahrg.,
Nr. 11-13, Juni 1910. English translation under the title : The
Psychological Analysis of Dreams in the American Journal of Psychology,
April 1910. )
88. Freud, S. (Wien) : " Über den Traum. (Grenzfragen des
Nerven- und Seelenlebens. Edited by Löwenfeld und Kurella, Heft 8.
Wiesbaden, Bergmann, 1901 , 2 Aufl. 1911. )
89. Freud, S. (Wien) : " Bruchstük einer Hysterieanalyse.
(Monatsschr. f. Psychiatrie und Neurologie, Bd. 18, Heft 4 und 5, 1905
Reprinted in Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre , 2 Folge.
Leipzig u. Wien, 1909. )
90. Freud, S (Wien) : " Der Wahn und die Träume in W. Jensen's
Gradiva. (Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, Heft 1 , Wien und
Leipzig, 1907. )
91. Freud, S. (Wien) : " Über den Gegensinn der Urworte." A
2 I
498 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

review of the brochure of the same name by Karl Abel, 1884. (Jahrbuch
für psychoanalyt. und psychopatholog. Forschungen, Bd. II. , 1910. )
92. "Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Ödipustraumes. " (Zentralbl.
für Psychoanalyse, I. Jahrg. 1910, Heft. 1. )
93. Freud, S. (Wien) : Nachträge zur Traumdeutung. (Ebenda,
Heft 5.)
94. Hitschmann, Ed. (Wien ) : Freud's Neurosenlehre. Nach ihrem
gegenwartigen Stande zusammenfassend dargestellt. Wien und Leipzig,
1911. (Kap. V., 66 Der Traum. ")
95. Jones, Ernest (Toronto) : "Freud's Theory of Dreams. "
(American Journal of Psychology, April 1910. )
96. Jones, Ernest (Toronto) : 66 Some Instances of the Influence of
Dreams on Waking Life." (The Journ. of Abnormal Psychology,
April-May 1911.)
97. Jung, C. G. (Zürich ) : “ L'Analyse des Rêves." (L'Année
psychologique, tome XV. )
98. Jung, C. G. (Zürich) : " Assoziation, Traum und hysterisches
Symptom." (Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien. Beiträge zur experi
mentellen Psychopathologie, hrg. von Doz. C. G. Jung, II. Bd. ,
Leipzig 1910. Nr. VIII., S. 31–66. )
99. Jung, C. G. (Zürich) : " Ein Beitrag zur Psychologie des
Gerüchtes." (Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I. Jahrg. 1910, Heft 3. )
66
100. Maeder, Alphonse (Zürich) : Essai d'Interprétation de
quelques Rêves." (Archives de Psychologie, t. VI. , Nr. 24, April 1907. )
101. Maeder, Alphonse (Zürich ) : " Die Symbolik in den Legen
den, Märchen, Gebrauchen und Träumen." (Psychiatrisch-Neurolog.
Wochenschr . X. Jahrg. )
102. Meisl, Alfred (Wien) : Der Traum. Analytische Studien
über die Elemente der Psychischen Funktion V. (Wr. klin. Rdsch. ,
1907, Nr. 3-6.)
103. Onuf, B. ( New York ) : " Dreams and their Interpretations
as Diagnostic and Therapeutic Aids in Psychology." (The Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, Feb.-Mar. 1910. )
104. Pfister, Oskar (Zürich) : Wahnvorstellung und Schülerselbst
mord. Auf Grund einer Traumanalyse beleuchtet. (Schweiz. Blätter für
Schulgesundheitspflege, 1909, Nr. 1. )
105. Prince, Morton (Boston ) : " The Mechanism and Interpreta
tion of Dreams." (The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Oct. -Nov.
1910. )
106. Rank, Otto (Wien) : " Ein Traum, der sich selbst deutet."
(Jahrbuch für psychoanalyt. und psychopatholog. Forschungen, Bd.
II. , 1910. )
107. Rank, Otto (Wien) : Ein Beitrag zum Narzissismus. (Ebenda,
Bd. III., 1.).
108. Rank, Otto (Wien) : " Beispiel eines verkappten Ödipus
traumes." (Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, I. Jahrg. , 1910. )
109. Rank, Otto (Wien) : Zum Thema der Zahnreiztraume. (Ebenda. )
110. Rank, Otto (Wien) : Das Verlienen als Symptomhandlung.
 LITERARY INDEX 499

Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verstandnis der Beziehungen des Traumlebens

zu den Fehlleistungen des Alltagslebens. (Ebenda. )
111. Robitsek, Alfred (Wien) : “ Die Analyse von Egmonts Traum. "
(Jahrb. f. psychoanalyt. u. psychopathol. Forschungen, Bd. II. 1910. )
112. Silberer, Herbert (Wien) : "Bericht über eine Methode,
gewisse symbolische Halluzinationserscheinungen hervorzurufen und
zu beobachten." (Jahr. Bleuler-Freud, Bd . I. , 1909. )
113. Silberer , Herbert (Wien) : Phantasie und Mythos. (Ebenda,
Bd. II. , 1910. )
66
114. Stekel, Wilhelm (Wien) : ' Beiträge zur Traumdeutung."
(Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopatholog. Forschungen,
Bd. I., 1909. )
115. Stekel, Wilhelm (Wien) : Nervöse Angstzustände und ihre
Behandlung. (Wien und Berlin, 1908. )
116. Stekel, Wilhelm (Wien) : Die Sprache des Traumes. A
description of the symbolism and interpretation of the Dream and its
relation to the normal and abnormal mind for physicians and psycho
logists. (Wiesbaden, 1911. )
117. Swoboda Hermann. Die Perioden des menschlichen Organismus.
(Wien und Leipzig, 1904.)
118. Waterman, George A. (Boston ) : " Dreams as a Cause of
Symptoms " (The Journal of Abnormal Psychol., Oct.-Nov. 1910. )
 INDEX

ABRAHAM , K. , 78 , 245
Absurd dreams, 59, 327 , 334-364 Auditory hallucinations, 26
Absurdity of dreams, 327 pictures, 41
Acceleration of thought in dreams , Automatisms , 489
397
Accidental stimuli, 185 , 186 BENEDIKT, M., 392
Adler, Alf. , 241 Benini , V. , 37 ; quoted, 59
Affects, flagging of, 457 Bernard, Claude, 414
in the dream , 364-389 Binz, C., 63 ; quoted, 14, 47
- inversion of, 375 Bisexuality, 481
restraint of, 372 Bladder- exciting dreams , 72
sources of, 382 Bleuler and Freud, 41, 81, 111
suppression of, 371 , 372 , 375 Bodily stimuli, 185 , 193
--- transformation of, 479 --- symbolisation of, 190
Agoraphobia, 249, 259 Boerner, 28
Alarm clock dreams , 21 , 22, 186 Brandes, G. , 225
Allegorising interpretation of dreams , Breuer, J., 83, 470
48 Brill, A. A. , 111 , 136, 195 , 240 , 419
symbolisms, 81 Bruecke, 325, 357
Altruistic impulses, 212 Burdach quoted, 4, 5, 41-43, 65 ,
Ambiguity of dreams, 125 68, 188
Amnesia, 412, 413 Buzareingues, Giron de, 19
Analyses of dreams , 90-102, 116-120,
124-128, 131 , 143-146, 155–157, CALKINS , Miss Whiton, 15, 16, 36 ,
160-166, 167-183, 193-196, 201 186
203 , 219-221 , 227-230, 232-259, Causality, law of, 42
264-283, 308, 309 , 312 , 317 , 318 , Causal relations , 292 , 293
320-364, 366-376, 378-389, 397, Censor of resistance , 287
398, 460-462 Cerebral anæmia , 463 , 464
self, 87 Chabaneix , 36 , 53
Characteristics of the sleeping state ,
Analysis of dream life, 33
of psy chological formations, 487 466
Anamnesis , 281 Chemistry of the sexual processes ,
Anxiety dreams , 27 , 28, 74, 114, 136, 276
137, 199 , 200 , 226 , 231 , 245 , 247, Childish impressions, 323
413, 436, 458-464 Children's dreams , 107-112, 155 , 438
Apparent duration of dreams, 53 Chronic psychotic persons , 75
Arbitrariness in dream interpreta Cicero quoted, 6, 46
tion, 190 Cipher method of interpreting dreams,
Aristotle, 2, 27 82, 83, 87, 245
Arithmetic speeches in dreams , 322 Clark, G. S., 222
334 Cla ustrophobia, 267
Artemidoros of Daldis , 82, 481 Coinage of words in dreams , 279
Artificial dreams , 81 Complications of the human char
Artigues , 27 acter, 493
Association dreams , 186 Compositions in dreams , 300 , 301
Compression . principle of, 471
501
502 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Compulsion neurosis, 207, 212, 221 Displacement of psychic intensities,

Compulsive ideas, 83, 283 402
Condensation, principle of, 471 Distortion in dreams, 113-137, 415
work of the dream, 261, 283, Disturbing stimuli, 62
288, 315, 358, 430, 472 Divinatory power of the dream, 53
Condensing activity of the dream, 277 Dream activity, 329, 401
Conflict of psychic forces, 372 affects in the, 364-389
of the will, 208, 312 censor, 198, 387, 407, 409
Connection between dream content - condensation , 261 , 283, 286, 288,
and reality, 7 315, 358, 430, 472
Conscious day phantasies, 393 curative activity of the, 69
end-presentations, 421 digestive disturbances and the,
thought activity in dream forma 28, 185
tions, 445 disfigurement, 115, 184, 304, 365
— wishes, 438, 439 - displacement, 150, 286-288
Consciousness , problems of, 490 - divinatory power of the dream,53
Consolation dreams, 232 - enigma of the, 365
Content of perception, 453, 454 ethical feelings in the, 54
Convenience dreams, 105 etiology of the, 53
Correspondence between dreams and fear, 136
reality, 157 - formation, 185, 198-200, 262,
Counter volition, 312 263, 273, 276, 277, 285, 287, 322,
- wish dreams, 133, 135 389, 390, 400, 429, 450, 465, 481
Curative activity of the dream, 69 - displacement in, 314
laws of the, 23
DATTNER, B. , 254 mechanism of, 297
Daudet, A., 268, 392 ―――― origin of the, 416
David, J. J., 280 psychic activity in, 401
Day phantasies, 393, 394 formation, requirements of, 322
Death-wish towards parents, 218 functions of the, 61-73, 458
Debacker, 114, 463 hallucinations, 42
De Biran, Maine, 75 hypermnesia, 10, 465
Defence-neuropsychoses , 195 images, variegated, 189
Degeneration, 212 - interpretation, cipher method of,
D'Hervey, Marquis, 20, 51 82, 83, 87, 245
Delage, Yves, 152, 467 ; quoted, 67, -- method of, 80-102
68 ―――― problem of, 80
Delbœuf, J., 8, 9, 16, 42, 48, 152 ; -- symbolic, 81
quoted, 15, 43, 88 illusions, 24
theory of, 62, 63 - influence of sexual excitement
Deliriums of hunger, 447 on the, 28
Delusions, 75, 452 - keystone of the, 415
Demonomania, 464 life, theory of, 46, 78
Demonomaniacal hallucinations, 464 material of the, 7-16
Dental irritation, dreams of, 230, means of representation in the,
234, 235 288
― stimulus , 191 memory in the, 7-16, 14, 48, 184
De Sanctis, Sante, 74, 79 of nerve stimulus, 186
" Desired " ideas, 85 obscurity of the, 1
Digestive disturbances and dreams, origin of the, 407
28, 185 paramnesia in the, 352
Disagreeable dreams, 112, 135 peculiarity of the, 45
Disfigurement of dreams, 115, 184, phantasy , 70-72
305, 365 phenomena of the, 487
Disfiguring activity of dreams, 327 pre-scientific conception of the, 2
isplacement in dream formation, 314 - problem, present status of the, 1
 INDEX 503

Dream, problems of the, 3 Dreams, apparent duration of, 53

processes, primary, 464-474 arithmetic speeches in, 322-334
psychology of the, 464 ――――― artificial, 81
―― secondary, 474-479 as picture puzzles, 261
prophetic power of the, 27 as psychic products, 51
psychic activity in the, 46, 68 association, 186
capacities in the, 48 - bladder-exciting, 72
― resources of the, 399 children's dreams, 107-112, 155,
psychological character of the, 438
52, 423, 431 composition in, 300, 301
psychology of the, 416 consolation, 232
psychotherapy of the, 75 counter-wish, 133, 135
――― reactions, 155 digestive organs and, 185
regression of the, 431 disagreeable, 122, 135
relation of the, to the waking - disfigurement of, 115, 135
state, 4-7 disfiguring activity of, 327
riddles of the, 444 distortion in, 113-137, 415
- scientific theories of the, 80 egotism in, 229
sources, 16-35 etiology of, 24, 33, 64
stimuli, 16-35, 139, 155 examination, 230, 231 , 378
strangeness of the, 1 exhibition, 207 , 267, 311
— sway of the, 11 experimentally produced, 23
― symbolism, 249 - forgetting in, 262, 405-421
the guardian of sleep, 197 formation of, 185, 198-200, 262,
theories, 61-73 263, 273, 277, 285, 287
66
thoughts, elements of the, 284, fractionary " interpretation of,
285 414
emotions of the, 375 - hallucinatory, 430
- logical relations among the, - harmless, 155, 157
291 headache, 71 , 189
- revealed upon analysis, 159 - healing properties of, 66
- - structure of, 431 historical significance of, 487
verbal compositions of the, 283 - hunger, 113, 241
waking caused by the, 452-458 hypermnesia, 9, 11
wishes, 429, 437, 438 hypocritical, 122, 376
transferred, 455 illusory formations in, 191
wish-fulfilment of the, 76 immoral, 59
within the dream, 313 ---- impression, 232
work, the, 260–402 - language of, 104
Dreams about fire, 239 mantic power of, 3
absurd, 59, 327, 334-364 material of, 138-259
acceleration of thought in, 397 memory of, 38
alarm clock, 21 , 22 , 186 nerve-exciting, 34
- ambiguity of, 125 - of convenience, 105, 241 , 451
- analyses of, 90-102 , 116–120, of death, 216, 218
124-128, 131 , 143-146, 155–157, - of dental irritation, 230, 234,
160-166, 167-183, 193-196, 201 235
203, 219–221 , 227-230, 232-259, of falling, 239
264-283, 308 , 309, 312, 317, 318, of fear, 114, 226
320-364, 366-376, 378-389, 397, of flying, 239
398, 460-462 of intestinal excitement , 72
and mental diseases, 73-79 of inversion, 303
disturbance , 77 of nakedness, 207
anxiety, 27, 28, 74, 114, 136 , 137 , of neurotics, 87
199, 200 , 226, 231 , 245, 247, 413, of swimming, 239
436, 458-464 ――― of the dead, 338
504 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Dreams of thirst, 105, 241 Endoptic phenomena, 414

-- of visual stimulation, 191 End-presentations, 419, 421 , 470
partition of, 293 Enigma of the dream, 365
parturition, 243–245 Enuresis nocturna of children, 240
perennial, 159 Ephialtes, 2
pollution, 310 Essence of consciousness, 121
prophetic power of, 3 Ethical feelings in the dream, 54
psychic source of, 33 Etiology of dreams, 24, 33, 53, 64, 132
psychological investigation in, of neuroses, 281
405 Examination dreams, 230, 231 , 378
peculiarity of, 39, 40 Examination-phobia, 230
punitive, 378 Excitation of want, 446
scientific literature on, 1-79 Excitations, unconscious, 440, 448 ,
self-correction in, 411 460
sexual, 240 Exhibitional cravings, 206
- organs and, 185 Exhibition dreams, 207, 267 , 311
somatic origin of, 64 External nerve stimuli, 186
sources of, 138-259 - (objective) sensory stimuli, 17–
supernatural origin of, 3 27, 193
symbolic interpretation of, 316
- symbolism in, 249-259 FADING of memories, 457
the fulfilment of wishes, 103–112 , Falling in dreams, 239
123, 128, 134, 393 Fancies while asleep, 307
theoretical value of the study of, Fechner, G. Th., quoted, 39, 40, 46,
492 424
theory of the origin of, 29, 127 Federn, Dr. Paul, 239
the result of egotistical motives, Fensterln, 170
346 Féré, 75
toothache, 189 , 190 Ferenczi, S. , 82, 207
tooth exciting, 72 Festschrift, 264
transforming activity of, 327 Figaro quoted, 175
typical, 131-137, 203-259 Fischer, R. P. , 55
unburdening properties of, 66 Flagging of affects, 457
urinary organs and, 185 Fliess, W. , 140
――― why forgotten after awakening, Fliesse, W. , 79
35 Flying in dreams, 239
wish, 113, 123, 128, 219 Forbidden wishes, 209
wish-fulfilment in, 104 Foreconscious wishes, 456
word coinage in, 279–281 Forgetting in dreams, 35-37 , 262,
Dreaming, psychology of, 154 405-421
Dugas, 454 ; quoted, 46, 50 Formation of dreams, 185, 198-200 ,
Duration of dreams, 53 262, 263, 273, 276, 277 , 285, 287,
Dyspnoea, 267 322, 389, 390, 400, 429, 450, 465,
481
EGGER, V. , 21 , 53, 397 ; quoted, 38 of hysterical symptoms, 481 ,
Egotism in dreams, 229 482
of the infantile mind, 226 ――― of illusions, 187
66 97
Elements of dream thoughts, 284, Fractionary' interpretation of
285 dreams, 414
Elimination theory, 458 France, Anatole, quoted, 78
Ellis, Havelock, quoted, 14, 50, 467 Freud, Dr., 236, 237 , 256, 279
Emotions of the dream thoughts, 375 Functions of the dream, 61 , 458
of the psychic life, 197 Furuncles, 194
- theory of the, 371 Furunculosis, 185
Endogenous psychic affections, 419
Endopsychic censor, 416 GARNIER, 20
 INDEX
Gastric sensations , 30 505
General and specific sensations, 30 Hysterical symptoms , theory of, 449
Goblot quoted , 454 - formation of, 481 , 482, 487
Goethe, 486 vomiting, 449
Gregory , 19
Griesinger, 76 , 113 " IDEAL " masochists , 134
Gruppe, O. , quoted , 2 Ideas, concatenation of, 295
Gschnas, 183 " desired " 85
Guislain, 75 transformation of, 424
transformed into hallucinations,
HAGEN, 75 41
Hallam , Miss Florence, 13, 113
Hallucinations 4, 43 44 49 74 76 46' undesired ," 85
, , , , , , Ideation, unconscious , 459
187 , 424, 446 Illusions , 24 , 49, 76
- auditory 26 formation of, 23, 187
,
hypnogogic , 25, 40 Illusory formations in dreams , 191
tr
ideas ansformed into, 41 Imaginations, 43
of hysteria, 432 Immoral dreams , 59
of paranoia, 432, 433 Impression dreams , 139, 232
Hallucinatory dreams , 430 Incest, 248
paranoia, 77 Incomprehensible neologis
ms, 247
psychoses, 447 Independent psychic activity in the
regression, 448 dream , 68
Harmless drea ms , 155, 157 Individual dream images , 306
Hartman, Edward von, 113
Hauffbauer, 18 psychology, 13
Infantile psychology , 211 , 221
Headache dreams , 71 , 189
etiology of the neuroses, 373
Healing properties of dreams , 66 experiences as the
Helmholtz , 486 dreams, 157-184 D source of
Herbart quoted , 63
Hildebrandt, F. W. , 53 , 55 , 59 , 60, phantasies, 407
reminiscences , 12, 13
138 ; quoted, 6, 7 , 11 , 13, 15 , 20, Influence of sexual excitement on the
21 , 47, 51 , 57, 58 dream , 28
Hilferding, Mrs. M. , 376 Inner nerve stimuli, 66, 198
Historical significance of dreams , 487
Hohnbaum , 74 Insose nsor stimuli, 66
mnia, 2y
Homer, 208 Intensive objective stimulation, 193
Homosexuality, 233, 248, 304 Intermediary presentations, 472
Human character, co mp lication of,
thoughts, 417
493 Internal bodily stimulation, 185
Hunger dreams , 113
Hypermnesia of the dream, 465 (subjective) sensory stimuli, 24
Interpretation of pathological ideas,
Hypermnesic dreams , 9, 11 85
Hypnogogic hallucinations , 25 , 40 Intestinal excitement dreams , 72
sensory images , 185 Inversion of affects , 375
Hypocritical dreams , 122, 376 Irma's dream, 88-90
Hysteria, 283, 418 - - analys
hallucinations of 432 is of, 90-102
,
study of, 456 JENSEN, W., 81
theory of, 473 Jessen quoted, 5, 9, 18, 38, 54 , 60
Hysterical counter-reaction , 220 Jodl, 48
--- identification , 126, 127
Jones , Dr. , 229
imitation , 126 Josephus quoted , 309
paralysis , theory for , 444 Jung, C. G. , 78, 234, 309, 419, 421
phantasy, 127
- phobia 83, 22 48
s, 0, 6 KANT, 58 ; quoted , 75
Keller, G. , quoted , 208
506 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Keys to voluntary mobility, 429 Mental disturbance and dreams, 77

Keystone of the dream, 415 - stimuli, 34
Kleinpaul, 246 Method of dream interpretation ,
Koenigstein, Dr. , 264 80-102, 203
Koerner, 85 Meyer, C. F., 374
Kontuszówka, 10 Meynert, 187, 212
Krauss, A. , 30, 77 ; quoted, 75 Misunderstanding of the dream con
tent, 205
LADD, T. , 26, 27, 466 Moral nature of man, 55
Language of dreams, 104 Moreau, J. , 75
Lasalle, 280 Motor impulses, 220
Lasker, 280 paralysis in sleep, 311 , 312
Latent dream content, 114, 138, 157, stimuli, 189
167, 171 , 173, 206, 228, 240, 260, Müller, J. , 25
352 Muscular sensations, 30
Law of causality, 42 Muthmann, 78
Laws of Association , 49 Myers, 9
of the dream formation, 23
Legend of King Edipus, 222–224 NÄCKE, 240
- of Nausikaa, 208, 209 Names and syllables, play on, 280, 281
Le Lorrain, 21 , 53, 397, 447 Nelson, J. , 13
Lelut, 75 Nerve-exciting dreams, 34
Lemoine, 46 Nerve stimuli, 185, 186, 196
Leuret, theory of, 419 Nervous excitements, 306
Liébault, A. , 450 Neuron excitement, 428
Lipps, Th., 485, 486 ; quoted, 188 Neuropathology, 481
Literature on dreams, 1-97 Neuropsychology, 489
Logical relations among the dream Neuroses, 315
thoughts, 291 etiology of, 281
Lucretius quoted , 5 -- infantile etiology of the, 373
Lynkus, 79 - psychoanalysis of the, 438
psychological explanation of the,
MACNISH quoted, 19 385
Maeder, A., 246 investigation of the, 439
Manifestations of pain, 453 psychology of the, 443, 460
Manifest dream content, 114, 138, psychotherapy of the, 439
159, 166, 173, 181 , 240, 243 study of the, 456
Manifold determination of the dream Neuroses, theory of the, 374
content, 285 Neurotic fear, 136
Mantic power of dreams, 3 Neurotics, psychoanalysis of, 420
Masochistic wish-dreams, 135 Nightmare, 2
Material of the dream, 7-16, 138-259 Night terrors, 462, 463
Maury, A. , 19–21 , 25 , 28 , 49, 53, 64, Nocturnal excitations, 440
74, 75 , 158 , 396, 397, 420, 454 ; sensations, 155
quoted, 5, 9, 12, 46 , 51 , 60, 61 Nordenskjold, O. , 111
Means of representation in the dream, Novalis quoted, 69
288
Mechanism of dream formation , 297 OBJECTIVE external excitements, 197
of psychoneuroses, 172 Objective sensory stimuli, 17–24, 185,
Medical theory of dream life, 77 186, 451 , 465
Meier, 18 Obscurity of the dream, 1
Memory, fading, 457 Obsessions, 315, 452
in the dream, 7-16, 38, 48 Obsessive impulses, 75
- traces, 426, 430, 446 Oppenheim, Prof. E., 493
Mental diseases, relations between Organic sensory stimuli, 71
dreams and, 73-79 Origin of the dream , 407, 416
 INDEX 507

Origin of dreams, theory of the, 29 Problems of the dream, 3, 260

of hysterical symptoms , 449 Prophetic power of dreams, 3, 27
of the psychoses, 29 Psi-systems, 425, 428, 431 , 453, 475
Outer nerve stimuli, 186, 198 Psychic activity in the dream, 46,
- sensory stimuli, 66 A 62, 401
- apparatus, 426-428, 430, 431 ,
PAINFUL stimuli, 189, 194, 453 437, 445, 482, 483 ; diagrams of,
Paramnesia in the dream, 352 426, 427, 429
Paranoia, 63, 206, 207, 418 capacity of the dream, 48, 52, 53
- hallucinatory, 77, 432, 433 censor , 422
Partition of dreams, 293 complexes , 365
Parturition dreams, 243-245 condition of dream formation, 263
Pathological cases of regression, 435 dream stimuli, 33
Pavor nocturnus, 462, 463 emotions, 445
Peculiarities of the dream, 45 exciting sources, 33-35
Penetration into consciousness, 484 function in dream formation, 391
Perception content, 453 impulses, 221
- identity , 477 infection, 126
stimuli, 426 intensity, 285
Peripheral sensations, 30 repression, 476
Perennial dreams, 159 resources of the, 399
Perversion, 248 sensory organs, 490
Peterson, F., 419 source of dreams, 33
Pfaff, E. R., quoted, 55 state of sleep, 468
Pfister, O. , 245 stimuli, 34
Phantasies, infantile, 407 -- symptomatology , 187
Phantastic ganglia cells, 73 Psychoanalysis , 84, 209, 235, 236,
illusions, 187 366, 469, 413
- visual manifestations, 25 of adult neurotics, 219
Phantasy combinations, 43 - of neurotics, 87, 154, 420
- of being arrested, 395 of the neuroses, 438
— of marriage, 395 Psychoanalytic investigations, 9
Phenomena of the dream, 487 method of treatment, 78, 491
Phobias, 315 Psychological character of the dream ,
Physical sensations, 30 52, 423, 431
stimuli, 71 , 77, 187 explanation of the neuroses, 385
Pilcz, 15 formations, 471
Plasticity of the psychic material, analysis of, 487
246 investigation in dreams, 405, 422
Plato, 493 of the neuroses, 439
Pleasure stimulus, 453 - peculiarity of dreams, 39, 40
Pneumatic sensations, 30 Psychology of children, 107
Pollution dreams, 310 ― of dream activities, 403-493
Pre-scientific conception of the dream , of dreaming, 154
2 of the dream, 416, 464
Presentation content, 210, 365, 367, - of the neuroses, 87, 433, 460
389, 424 of the psychoneuroses, 433
Present status of the dream prob of the sleeping state, 184
lem, 1 of the unconscious, 385
Pressure stimulus, 188 Psychoneuroses, 87, 127, 199, 283,
Primary psychic process, 152 318, 365, 393, 480, 492
Prince, Morton, 12 mechanism of the, 172
Problems of consciousness, 490 psychology of the, 433
of dream interpretation , 80 sexual etiology for, 347
- of repression, 479
Psychoneurotic symptom formations,
- of sleep, 4 481
508 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Psychoneurotic symptoms, 473 Secondary elaboration, 355, 389–402,

Psychoneurotics, 221 , 223 454, 461
Psychopathology, 4, 121 Self-analyses, 87, 380
- of the dream, 75 Self-correction in dreams, 411
Psychoses, origin of the, 29 Sensational intensity, 285
Psychosexual excitements, 200 Sensations, gastric, 30
Psychotherapy, 457 muscular, 30
of the neuroses, 439 nocturnal, 155
Punitive dreams, 378 of falling, 466
Purkinje quoted, 69 - of flying, 466
Purpose served by condensation, 277 of impeded movement, 311
Purposefulnature ofdream-forgetting, ―――― peripheral, 30
410 -- physical, 30
pneumatic, 30
RADESTOCK, P. , 20, 28, 37, 38, 48, sexual, 30
74, 113 ; quoted, 5, 46, 54, 59, 76, Senseful psychological structures, 1
77 Sensory images, 186
Rank, O. , 78, 85, 242, 379 ; quoted, hypnogogic, 185
136 intensity, 306
Regard for presentability, 313-322 organs , psychic, 491
Regression, 422-435 stimuli, 17-27, 187, 189, 454
of the dream, 431 (objective), 185
Relation between dream content and (organic), 71
dream stimuli, 187 (outer and inner), 66
between dreams and mental (subjective), 185
diseases, 73-79 Sexual anamnesis, 281
between dreams and the psy - dreams, 240
choses, 74 etiology, 281
- of sexuality to cruelty, 284 for psychoneuroses, 347
- of the dream to the waking organs and dreams, 185
state, 4-7, 138 - sensations, 30
Repressed wishes, 199 symbolism, 319
Repression, 478, 479, 484 symbols, 246, 248
Requirements of dream formation, wish feelings, 480
322 Shakespeare quoted, 333
Restraint of affects, 372 Siebeck, A., quoted, 48
Riddles of the dream, 33, 34, 444 Silberer, H., 41
Riklin, 78 Simon, B. M. , 24, 27, 28 , 31 , 32, 112
Robert, W. , 13 , 138, 139, 467 ; Sleep, problems of, 4
quoted, 65, 66 - psychic state of, 468
elimination theory of, 458 Sources of affects, 382
Robitsek, Dr. R. , 81 , 82 - of dreams, 138–259
Rosegger quoted, 376, 377, 378 Somatic dream stimuli, 33
exciting sources, 53
SCALIGER'S dream, 9 origin of dreams, 64
Scherner, R. A. , 30, 31 , 33, 69–71 , 80, sources of dreams, 184
189-191 , 310 , 434, 467 , 486 theory of stimulation, 185
Scherner's method of dream inter Spitta, W., 28, 41 , 47, 50, 55, 75,
pretation, 319 406 ; quoted, 39, 46, 48, 58
Schelling, school of, 3 Stekel, W., 78, 232, 241 , 248, 251 ,
Schiller, Fr., quoted, 85, 86, 361 298, 313
Schleiermacher, Fr. , 40, 59, 85 accidental stimuli, 185, 186
Scholz, Fr., 48, 112 ; quoted, 15, 55 Stimuli of dreams, 16-35
Schopenhauer, 29, 54, 75 of perception, 426
Scientific literature on dreams, 1-79 pain, 453
- theories of the dream, 80 physical, 71 , 77
 INDEX 509

Stimuli, pleasure, 453 Theory of the neuroses, 374

- psychic, 34 Thirst dreams, 105
Strangeness of the dream, 1 Thomayer, 74
Stricker, 364 ; quoted , 48, 61 Thought identity, 477
Structure of dream thoughts, 431 Tissié, Ph. , 28, 29, 38, 74, 113 ;
Strumpell, L., 16, 31 , 36 , 42 , 47, 138, quoted, 27, 34
154, 186, 188, 191 ; quoted, 4, 5, Toothache dreams, 189, 190
11, 14, 23, 27, 37, 45, 49 Tooth-exciting dreams, 72
Study of the neuroses, 456 Trains of thought revealed by
Stumpf, E. J. G., 81 analysis, 263
Subjective sensory stimuli, 24-27, Transferred dream-wishes, 455
185 Transformation of affects, 479
Supernatural dream content, 466 of ideas, 424
origin of dreams, 3 Transforming activity of dreams,
Suppressed wishes, 199, 209 327
Suppression of the affects, 371 , 372, - ideas into plastic images, 435
375 Transvaluation of psychic values,
Sway of the dream, 11 306, 402, 409
Swimming in dreams, 239 Trenck, Baron, 1 , 3
Swoboda, H. , 79, 140-142 Typical dreams, 31 , 131 , 203-259
Symbolic concealment, 310
dream formations, 310 UNBURDENING properties of dreams,
interpretation, 81 , 316 66
- methods of interpreting dreams, Unconscious end-presentations, 418
83 excitations, 440, 448, 460
Symbolisation of bodily stimuli, 190 ideation, 459
- of the body, 319 - phantasies, 486
Symbolism in dreams, application of, psychic life, 220
249-259 process, 485
- sexual, 319 wishes, 438, 443, 457, 479-493
Symbols in the dream content, 246 " Undesired " ideas, 85
sexual, 246, 248 Undesirable presentations, 59, 60,
Synthesis of syllables, 278 414
Unmoral period of childhood, 212
TABETIC paralysis, 282 Unwished-for presentations, 418
Tactile stimulus , 188 Urinary organs and dreams, 185
" Tannhauser," quotation from , 272
Taylor, B., 269 VARIEGATED dream images, 189
Temporal relations of life, 346 Verbal compositions of the dream ,
Theoretical value of the study of 283
dreams, 492 Visceral sensations, 191
Theories of the dream, 61-73 Visions, 4, 424
Theory of dream life, 46 Visual excitation, 434
of dreams, 127 - pictures, 41
of hysteria, 473 Vold, J. Mourly, 32
of hysterical paralysis, 444 Volition, 312
of Leuret, 419 Volkelt, J., 30, 71 , 113, 189, 191 , 319 ;
of organic stimulation, 310 quoted, 11, 20, 34, 49, 54, 59, 69,
of partial waking, 24 70, 72, 190
of psychoneurotic symptoms,
449 WAKING caused by the dream, 452
-- of somatic stimuli, 188 458
of the psychoneuroses, 480 " Weaver's Masterpiece ," quotation
of wish-fulfilment, 374, 376, 435, from, 265
458 Weed, Sarah, 113
- of the emotions, 371 Weed -Hallam, 138
510 THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

Weygandt, W. , 5, 20, 28, 34, 49 ; Wish-fulfilment of the dream, 76 ,

quoted, 105 104, 205, 229, 233, 389, 423, 435–
Why dreams are forgotten, 35 452
Winckler, Hugo, 82 theory of, 374, 376, 458
Wish-dreams, 113, 123, 128, 219 Word-play and dream activity, 315
― masochistic, 135 Work of displacement, 283-288
Wishes, forbidden, 209 Wundt, 23, 34, 48, 49, 71 , 187, 188 ;
foreconscious, 456 quoted, 75
repressed, 199 theory of, 198
- suppressed, 199, 209
unconscious, 438, 443, 457, 479, Zalzstangeln, 183
493 Zola, E., 182

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Edinburgh & London.
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