The Interpretation of Dreams · Sigmund Freud
THE FAIR ONE.
Comments on the dream and seemingly harmless observations 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. Another example deserves to be recorded in detail. A young man has a very distinct dream which recalls to him phantasies 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 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,[99] who, in his _Beitrag zur Psychologie des Gerüchtes_ relates how the veiled erotic dream of a school-girl was understood by her friends without interpretation and continued by them with variations, remarks in connection with reports 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, displacements, 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 presents 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 between 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 described 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 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 inadequate, 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 supposing 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 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._
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 dreaming. 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, 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 foreconscious. 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 certain 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.
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 phantastic absurdity in which the dream disguises itself. Displacement 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 expression would confront dream representation with difficulties 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 associations 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 disguise quite as readily as the dream.[DZ] That dream conception also profits by this displacement of expression is easily demonstrated. It is naturally confusing if an ambiguous word is put in the place of two ambiguous ones; and the employment 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 interpreted literally or figuratively, or whether they refer to the dream material directly or only through the agency of interpolated forms of speech.[EA] 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 interpretation 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 established 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, 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 representation, we may try with the same key to open the second apparent absurdity,—that of the coal which her sister hands 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 his wife in the parquette, and by the open love-affair attributed 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 “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 considered 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 subordinate ideas associated with the essential dream thoughts, that one will be preferred which permits of a visual representation, 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 psychological 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 otherwise 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 generally 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 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 characteristic 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 preparation (the “vineyard” of the Lord, the “seeds,” the “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. Wherever the neurosis employs a disguise of this sort, it treads the 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 standing 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._[EB] (_b_) Main dream[EC]: _She is descending from a high place[ED] over balustrades that are curiously fashioned or fences which are united into big squares and consist of a conglomeration of little squares.[EE] 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 respectable while she is going.[EF] She is also carrying a large bough in her hand,[EG] really a bough of a tree, which is thickly studded with red blossoms; it has many branches, and spreads out.[EH] 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.[EI] When she arrives at the bottom of 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.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.