The Interpretation of Dreams · Sigmund Freud
THE FAIR ONE.
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 transparent 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 conversation 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 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.
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 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, subsequently 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 reappeared 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 contrast 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 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 inferior, 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[DR] of the individual ideas does not come into consideration at all for the selection made by the dream, but only their greater or smaller multiplicity 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 impossible to believe that the two factors of manifold determination and of integral value do not tend in the same direction 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 impression received in the investigation of the manifold determination 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 particular 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 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 nevertheless 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.
From my attempts synthetically to construct dreams from the dream thoughts, I know that the material which is obtained 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 interpretation) conduct us from the dream content to the intermediary 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 construction, 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 connection; 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 structure? What representation do “if,” “because,” “as though,” “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 conjunctions, and undertakes the elaboration only of the objective 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 determination 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 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 contradiction 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 depicting 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. In the first place, the dream renders account of the connection 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 philosophers 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 incongruent 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 representation 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 “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 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 introductory 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-fulfilment: “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 the place of another. I said that both methods of representing 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 transformation 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.
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 antithesis and contradiction is most striking. This category is 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.[DU] 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 blossoming 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 the dream we may clearly distinguish the two trains of thought, of which the comforting one seems to be superficial, the reproachful 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 correspondences 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.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.