The Interpretation of Dreams · Sigmund Freud
INDEX
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 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, “thinking 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 preferably 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 experienced. 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.
Footnote BP: _Cf._ the passage in Griesinger[31] and the remarks in my second essay on the “defence-neuropsychoses”—_Selected Papers on Hysteria_, translated by A. A. Brill. Footnote BQ: In the two sources from which I am acquainted with this dream, the report of its contents do not agree. Footnote BR: 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. Footnote BS: “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Footnote BT: The child also appears in the fairy tale, for there a child suddenly calls: “Why, he hasn’t anything on at all.” Footnote BU: 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. Footnote BV: For obvious reasons the presence of the “whole family” in the dream has the same significance. Footnote BW: 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 occupation of ghosts. “Stair-wit” is equivalent to lack of quickness at repartee (German: _Schlagfertigkeit_—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”?
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