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The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter VI. THE DREAM-WORK Psychology
VI. THE DREAM-WORK
A. Condensation
The first thing that becomes clear to the investigator when he compares the dream-content with the dream-thoughts is that a tremendous work of condensation has been accomplished. The dream is meagre, paltry and laconic in comparison with the range and copiousness of the dream-thoughts. The dream, when written down fills half a page; the analysis, which contains the dream- thoughts, requires six, eight, twelve times as much space. The ratio varies with different dreams; but in my experience it is always of the same order. As a rule, the extent of the compression which has been accomplished is under-estimated, owing to the fact that the dream-thoughts which have been brought to light are believed to be the whole of the material, whereas a continuation of the work of interpretation would reveal still further thoughts hidden in the dream. We have already found it necessary to remark that one can never be really sure that one has interpreted a dream completely; even if the solution seems satisfying and flawless, it is always possible that yet another meaning has been manifested by the same dream. Thus the degree of condensation is- strictly speaking- indeterminable. Exception may be taken- and at first sight the objection seems perfectly plausible- to the assertion that the disproportion between dream- content and dream-thoughts justifies the conclusion that a considerable condensation of psychic material occurs in the formation of dreams. For we often have the feeling that we have been dreaming a great deal all night, and have then forgotten most of what we have dreamed. The dream which we remember on waking would thus appear to be merely a remnant of the dream- work, which would surely equal the dream-thoughts in range if only we could remember it completely. To a certain extent this is undoubtedly true; there is no getting away from the fact that a dream is most accurately reproduced if we try to remember it immediately after waking, and that the recollection of it becomes more and more defective as the day goes on. On the other hand, it has to be recognized that the impression that we have dreamed a good deal more than we are able to reproduce is very often based on an illusion, the origin of which we shall explain later on. Moreover, the assumption of a condensation in the dream-work is not affected by the possibility of forgetting a part of dreams, for it may be demonstrated by the multitude of ideas pertaining to those individual parts of the dream which do remain in the memory. If a large part of the dream has really escaped the memory, we are probably deprived of access to a new series of dream-thoughts. We have no justification for expecting that those portions of the dream which have been lost should likewise have referred only to those thoughts which we know from the analysis of the portions which have been preserved. *
* References to the condensation in dreams are to be found in the works of many
writers on the subject. Du Prel states in his Philosophie der Mystik that he is
absolutely certain that a condensation-process of the succession of ideas had
occurred. -
In view of the very great number of ideas which analysis elicits for each
individual element of the dream-content, the principal doubt in the minds of
many readers will be whether it is permissible to count everything that
subsequently occurs to the mind during analysis as forming part of the
dream-thoughts- in other words, to assume 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 new combinations of thoughts are developed in the
course of analysis, which did not participate in the formation of the dream? To
this objection I can give only a conditional reply. It is true, of course, that
separate combinations of thoughts make their first appearance during the
analysis; but one can convince oneself every time this happens that such new
combinations have been established only between thoughts which have already been
connected in other ways in the dream-thoughts; the new combinations are, so to
speak, corollaries, short-circuits, which are made possible by the existence of
other, more fundamental modes of connection. In respect of the great majority of
the groups of thoughts revealed by analysis, we are obliged to admit that they
have already been active in the formation of the dream, for if we work through a
succession of such thoughts, which at first sight seem to have played no part in
the formation of the dream, we suddenly come upon a thought which occurs in the
dream-content, and is indispensable to its interpretation, but which is
nevertheless inaccessible except through this chain of thoughts. The reader may
here turn to the dream of the botanical monograph, which is obviously the result
of an astonishing degree of condensation, even though I have not given the
complete analysis.
But how, then, are we to imagine the psychic condition of the sleeper which
precedes dreaming? Do all the dream-thoughts exist side by side, or do they
pursue one another, or are there several simultaneous trains of thought,
proceeding from different centres, which subsequently meet? I do not think it is
necessary at this point to form a plastic conception of the psychic condition at
the time of dream-formation. But let us not forget that we are concerned with
unconscious thinking, and that the process may easily be different from that
which we observe in ourselves in deliberate contemplation accompanied by
consciousness.
The fact, however, is irrefutable that dream-formation is based on a process of
condensation. How, then, is this condensation effected?
Now, if we consider that of the dream-thoughts ascertained only the most
restricted number are represented in the dream by means of one of their
conceptual elements, we might conclude that the condensation is accomplished by
means of omission, inasmuch as the dream is not a faithful translation or
projection, point by point, of the dream-thoughts, but a very incomplete and
defective reproduction of them. This view, as we shall soon perceive, is a very
inadequate one. But for the present let us take it as a point of departure, and
ask ourselves: If only a few of the elements of the dream-thoughts make their
way into the dream- content, what are the conditions that determine their
selection?
In order to solve this problem, let us turn our attention to those elements of
the dream-content which must have fulfilled the conditions for which we are
looking. The most suitable material for this investigation will be a dream to
whose formation a particularly intense condensation has contributed. I select
the dream, cited in chapter V., of the botanical monograph.
I.
Dream-content: I have written a monograph upon a certain (indeterminate) species
of plant. The book lies before me. I am just turning over a folded coloured
plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound up in this copy, as in a
herbarium.
The most prominent element of this dream is the botanical monograph. This is
derived from the impressions of the dream-day; I had actually seen a monograph
on the genus Cyclamen in a bookseller's window. The mention of this genus is
lacking in the dream-content; only the monograph and its relation to botany have
remained. The botanical monograph immediately reveals its relation to the work
on cocaine which I once wrote; from cocaine the train of thought proceeds on the
one hand to a Festschrift, and on the other to my friend, the oculist, Dr.
Koenigstein, who was partly responsible for the introduction of cocaine as a
local anaesthetic. Moreover, Dr. Koenigstein is connected with the recollection
of an interrupted conversation I had had with him on the previous evening, and
with all sorts of ideas relating to the remuneration of medical and surgical
services among colleagues. This conversation, then, is the actual
dream-stimulus; the monograph on cyclamen is also a real incident, but one of an
indifferent nature; as I now see, the botanical monograph of the dream proves to
be a common mean between the two experiences of the day, taken over unchanged
from an indifferent impression, and bound with the psychically significant
experience by means of the most copious associations.
Not only the combined idea of the botanical monograph, however, but also each of
its separate elements, botanical and monograph, penetrates farther and farther,
by manifold associations, into the confused tangle of the dream-thoughts. To
botanical belong the recollections of the person of Professor Gartner (German:
Gartner = gardener), of his blooming wife, of my patient, whose name is Flora,
and of a lady concerning whom I told the story of the forgotten flowers.
Gartner, again, leads me to the laboratory and the conversation with Koenigstein;
and the allusion to the two female patients belongs to the same conversation.
From the lady with the flowers a train of thoughts branches off to the favourite
flowers of my wife, whose other branch leads to the title of the hastily seen
monograph. Further, botanical recalls an episode at the Gymnasium, and a
university examination; and a fresh subject- that of my hobbies- which was
broached in the above-mentioned conversation, is linked up, by means of what is
humorously called my favourite flower, the artichoke, with the train of thoughts
proceeding from the forgotten flowers; behind artichoke there lies, on the one
hand, a recollection of Italy, and on the other a reminiscence of a scene of my
childhood, in which I first formed an acquaintance- which has since then grown
so intimate- with books. Botanical, then, is a veritable nucleus, and, for the
dream, the meeting-point of many trains of thought; which, I can testify, had
all really been brought into connection by the conversation referred to. Here we
find ourselves in a thought-factory, in which, as in The Weaver's Masterpiece:
The little shuttles to and fro
Fly, and the threads unnoted flow;
One throw links up a thousand threads.
Monograph in the dream, again, touches two themes: the one-sided nature of my
studies, and the costliness of my hobbies.
The impression derived from this first investigation is that the elements
botanical and monograph were taken up into the dream- content because they were
able to offer the most numerous points of contact with the greatest number of
dream-thoughts, and thus represented nodal points at which a great number of the
dream- thoughts met together, and because they were of manifold significance in
respect of the meaning of the dream. The fact upon which this explanation is
based may be expressed in another form: Every element of the dream-content
proves to be over- determined- that is, it appears several times over in the
dream- thoughts.
We shall learn more if we examine the other components of the dream in respect
of their occurrence in the dream-thoughts. The coloured plate refers (cf. the
analysis in chapter V.) to a new subject, the criticism passed upon my work by
colleagues, and also to a subject already represented in the dream- my hobbies-
and, further, to a memory of my childhood, in which I pull to pieces a book with
coloured plates; the dried specimen of the plant relates to my experience with
the herbarium at the Gymnasium, and gives this memory particular emphasis. Thus
I perceive the nature of the relation between the dream-content and
dream-thoughts: Not only are the elements of the dream determined several times
over by the dream-thoughts, but the individual dream-thoughts are represented in
the dream by several elements. Starting from an element of the dream, the path
of the association leads to a number of dream-thoughts; and from a single
dream-thought to several elements of the dream. In the process of
dream-formation, therefore, it is not the case that a single dream-thought, or a
group of dream-thoughts, supplies the dream-content with an abbreviation of
itself as its representative, and that the next dream-thought supplies another
abbreviation as its representative (much as representatives are elected from
among the population); but rather that the whole mass of the dream-thoughts is
subjected to a certain elaboration, in the course of which those elements that
receive the strongest and completest support stand out in relief; so that the
process might perhaps be likened to election by the scrutin du liste. Whatever
dream I may subject to such a dissection, I always find the same fundamental
principle confirmed- that the dream-elements have been formed out of the whole
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 superfluous to demonstrate this relation of the
dream-content to the dream-thoughts by means of a further example, which is
distinguished by a particularly artful intertwining of reciprocal relations. The
dream is that of a patient whom I am treating for claustrophobia (fear of
enclosed spaces). It will soon become evident why I feel myself called upon to
entitle this exceptionally clever piece of dream- activity:
II. "A Beautiful Dream"
The dreamer is driving with a great number of companions in X- street, where
there is a modest hostelry (which is not the case). A theatrical performance is
being given in one of the rooms of the inn. He is first spectator, then actor.
Finally the company is told to change their clothes, in order to return to the
city. Some of the company are shown into rooms on the ground floor, others to
rooms on the first floor. Then a dispute arises. The people upstairs are annoyed
because those downstairs have not yet finished changing, so that they cannot
come down. His brother is upstairs; he is downstairs; and he is angry with his
brother because they are so hurried. (This part obscure.) Besides, it was
already decided, upon their arrival, who was to go upstairs and who down. Then
he goes alone up the hill towards the city, and he walks so heavily, and with
such difficulty, that he cannot move from the spot. An elderly gentleman joins
him and talks angrily of the King of Italy. Finally, towards the top of the
hill, he is able to walk much more easily.
The difficulty experienced in climbing the hill was so distinct that for some
time after waking he was in doubt whether the experience was a dream or the
reality.
Judged by the manifest content, this dream can hardly be eulogized. Contrary to
the rules, I shall begin the interpretation with that portion to which the
dreamer referred as being the most distinct.
The difficulty dreamed of, and probably experienced during the dream- difficulty
in climbing, accompanied by dyspnoea- was one of the symptoms which the patient
had actually exhibited some years before, and which, in conjunction with other
symptoms, was at the time attributed to tuberculosis (probably hysterically
simulated). From our study of exhibition-dreams we are already acquainted with
this sensation of being inhibited in motion, peculiar to dreams, and here again
we find it utilized as material always available for the purposes of any other
kind of representation. The part of the dream-content which represents climbing
as difficult at first, and easier at the top of the hill, made me think, while
it was being related, of the well- known masterly introduction to Daudet's
Sappho. Here a young man carries the woman he loves upstairs; she is at first as
light as a feather, but the higher he climbs the more she weighs; and this scene
is symbolic of the process of their relation, in describing which Daudet seeks
to admonish young men not to lavish an earnest affection upon girls of humble
origin and dubious antecedents. * Although I knew that my patient had recently
had a love-affair with an actress, and had broken it off, I hardly expected to
find that the interpretation which had occurred to me was correct. The situation
in Sappho is actually the reverse of that in the dream; for in the dream
climbing was difficult at the first and easy later on; in the novel the
symbolism is pertinent only if what was at first easily carried finally proves
to be a heavy burden. To my astonishment, the patient remarked that the
interpretation fitted in very well with the plot of a play which he had seen the
previous evening. The play was called Rund um Wien (Round about Vienna), and
treated of the career of a girl who was at first respectable, but who
subsequently lapsed into the demimonde, and formed relations with highly-placed
lovers, thereby climbing, but finally she went downhill faster and faster. This
play reminded him of another, entitled Von Stufe zu Stufe (From Step to Step),
the poster advertising which had depicted a flight of stairs. -
* In estimating the significance of this passage we may recall the meaning of
dreams of climbing stairs, as explained in the chapter on Symbolism.
To continue the interpretation: The actress with whom he had had his most recent
and complicated affair had lived in X-street. There is no inn in this street.
However, while he was spending part of the summer in Vienna for the sake of this
lady, he had lodged (German: abgestiegen = stopped, literally stepped off) at a
small hotel in the neighbourhood. When he was leaving the hotel, he said to the
cab-driver: "I am glad at all events that I didn't get any vermin here!"
(Incidentally, the dread of vermin is one of his phobias.) Whereupon the
cab-driver answered: "How could anybody stop there! That isn't a hotel at all,
it's really nothing but a pub!"
The pub immediately reminded him of a quotation:
Of a wonderful host
I was lately 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. *
* Faust I.
There is not the slightest doubt what is meant by the apple-tree and the apples.
A beautiful bosom stood high among the charms by which the actress had bewitched
our dreamer.
Judging from the context of the analysis, we had every reason to assume that the
dream referred to an impression of the dreamer's childhood. If this is correct,
it must have referred to the wet- nurse of the dreamer, who is now a man of
nearly thirty years of age. The bosom of the nurse is in reality an inn for the
child. The nurse, as well as Daudet's Sappho, appears as an allusion to his
recently abandoned mistress.
The (elder) brother of the patient also appears in the dream- content; he is
upstairs, while the dreamer himself is downstairs. This again is an inversion,
for the brother, as I happen to know, has lost his social position, while my
patient has retained his. In relating the dream-content, the dreamer avoided
saying that his brother was upstairs and that he himself was downstairs. This
would have been to obvious an expression, for in Austria we say that a man is on
the ground floor when he has lost his fortune and social position, just as we
say that he has come down. Now the fact that at this point in the dream
something is represented as inverted must have a meaning; and the inversion must
apply to some other relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream- content.
There is an indication which suggests how this inversion is to be understood. It
obviously applies to the end of the dream, where the circumstances of climbing
are the reverse of those described in Sappho. Now it is evident what inversion
is meant: In Sappho the man carries the woman who stands in a sexual relation to
him; in the dream-thoughts, conversely, there is a reference to a woman carrying
a man: and, as this could occur only in childhood, the reference is once more 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 practise, so the portions of the dream in which people are busy upstairs
and downstairs, above and beneath, point to fancies of a sexual content with
which the dreamer is occupied, and which, as suppressed cravings, are not
unconnected with his neurosis. Dream-interpretation itself does not show that
these are fancies and not memories of actual happenings; it only furnishes us
with a set of thoughts and leaves it to us to determine their actual value. In
this case real and imagined happenings appear at first as of equal value- and
not only here, but also in the creation of more important psychic structures
than dreams. A large company, as we already know, signifies a secret. The
brother is none other than a representative, drawn into the scenes of childhood
by fancying backwards, of all of the subsequent for women's favours. Through the
medium of an experience indifferent in itself, the episode of the gentleman who
talks angrily of the King of Italy refers to the intrusion of people of low rank
into aristocratic society. It is as though the warning which Daudet gives to
young men were to be supplemented by a similar warning applicable to a suckling
child. *
* The fantastic nature of the situation relating to the dreamer's wet-nurse is
shown by the circumstance, objectively ascertained, that the nurse in this case
was his mother. Further, I may call attention to the regret of the young man in
the anecdote related to p. 222 above (that he had not taken better advantage of
his opportunities with his wet-nurse) as the probable source of his dream.
In the two dreams here cited I have shown by italics where one of the elements
of the dream recurs in the dream-thoughts, in order to make the multiple
relations of the former more obvious. Since, however, the analysis of these
dreams has not been carried to completion, it will probably be worth while to
consider a dream with a full analysis, in order to demonstrate the manifold
determination of the dream-content. For this purpose I shall select the dream of
Irma's injection (see chapter II). From this example we shall readily see that
the condensation-work in the dream-formation has made use of more means than
one.
The chief person in the dream-content is my patient Irma, who is seen with the
features which belong to her waking life, and who therefore, in the first
instance, represents herself. But her attitude, as I examine her at the window,
is taken from a recollection of another person, of the lady for whom I should
like to exchange my patient, as is shown by the dream-thoughts. Inasmuch as Irma
has a diphtheritic membrane, which recalls my anxiety about my eldest daughter,
she comes to represent this child of mine, behind whom, connected with her by
the identity of their names, is concealed the person of the patient who died
from the effects of poison. 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 display the differences
in their mental capacities. The transition was obviously effected by the idea of
my little daughter. Owing to her unwillingness to open her mouth, the same Irma
constitutes an allusion to another lady who was examined by me, and, also in the
same connection, to my wife. Further, in the morbid changes which I discover in
her throat I have summarized allusions to quite a number of other persons.
All these people whom I encounter as I follow up the associations 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, which, as
might be expected, has contradictory features. Irma comes to represent these
other persons, who are discarded in the work of condensation, inasmuch as I
allow anything to happen to her which reminds me of these persons, trait by
trait.
For the purposes of dream-condensation I may construct a composite person in yet
another fashion, by combining the actual features of two or more persons in a
single dream-image. It is in this fashion that the Dr. M of my dream was
constructed; he bears the name of Dr. M, and he speaks and acts as Dr. M does,
but his bodily characteristics and his malady 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 constructed in yet another
fashion. I have not united features peculiar to the one person with the features
of the other, thereby abridging by certain features the memory-picture of each;
but I have adopted the method employed by Galton in producing family portraits;
namely, I have superimposed the two images, so that the common features stand
out in stronger relief, while those which do not coincide neutralize one another
and become indistinct. In the dream of my uncle the fair beard stands out in
relief, as an emphasized feature, from a physiognomy which belongs to two
persons, and which is consequently blurred; further, in its reference to growing
grey the beard contains an allusion to my father and to myself.
The construction of collective and composite persons is one of the principal
methods of dream-condensation. We shall presently have occasion to deal with
this in another connection.
The notion of dysentry in the dream of Irma's injection has likewise a multiple
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 sent
to the East, and whose hysteria had been wrongly diagnosed.
The mention of propyls in the dream proves again to be an interesting case of
condensation. Not propyls but amyls were included in the dream-thoughts. One
might think that here a simple displacement had occured in the course of
dream-formation. This is in fact the case, but the displacement serves the
purposes of the condensation, as is shown from the following supplementary
analysis: If I dwell for a moment upon the word propylen (German) its assonance
with the word propylaeum suggests itself to me. But a propylaeum is to be found
not only in Athens, but also in Munich. In the latter city, a year before my
dream, I had visited a friend who was seriously ill, and the reference to him in
trimethylamin, which follows closely upon propyls, is unmistakable.
I pass over the striking circumstance that here, as elsewhere in the analysis of
dreams, associations of the most widely differing values are employed for making
thought-connections as though they were equivalent, and I yield to the
temptation to regard the procedure by which amyls in the dream-thoughts are
replaced in the dream-content by propyls as a sort of plastic process.
On the one hand, here is the group of ideas relating to my friend Otto, who does
not understand me, thinks I am in the wrong, and gives me the liqueur that
smells of amyls; on the other hand, there is the group of ideas- connected with
the first by contrast- relating to my Berlin friend who does understand me, who
would always think that I was right, and to whom I am indebted for so much
valuable information concerning the chemistry of sexual processes.
What elements in the Otto group are to attract my particular attention are
determined by the recent circumstances which are responsible for the dream;
amyls belong to the element so distinguished, which are predestined to find
their way into the dream-content. The large group of ideas centering upon
William is actually stimulated by the contrast between William and Otto, and
those elements in it are emphasized which are in tune with those already stirred
up in the Otto group. In the whole of this dream I am continually recoiling from
somebody who excites my displeasure towards another person with whom I can at
will confront the first; trait by trait I appeal to the friend as against the
enemy. Thus amyls in the Otto group awakes recollections in the other group,
also belonging to the region of chemistry; trimethylamin, which receives support
from several quarters, finds its way into the dream-content. Amyls, too, might
have got into the dream-content unchanged, but it yields to the influence of the
William group, inasmuch as out of the whole range of recollections covered by
this name an element is sought out which is able to furnish a double
determination for amyls. Propyls is closely associated with amyls; from the
William group comes Munich with its propylaeum. Both groups are united in
propyls- propylaeum. As though by a compromise, this intermediate element then
makes its way into the dream-content. Here a common mean which permits of a
multiple determination has been created. It thus becomes palpable that a
multiple determination must facilitate penetration into the dream-content. For
the purpose of this mean-formation a displacement of the attention has been
unhesitatingly effected from what is really intended to something adjacent to it
in the associations.
The study of the dream of Irma's injection has now enabled us to obtain some
insight into the process of condensation which occurs in the formation of
dreams. We perceive, as peculiarities of the condensing process, a selection of
those elements which occur several times over in the dream-content, the
formation of new unities (composite persons, mixed images), and the production
of common means. The purpose which is served by condensation, and the means by
which it is brought about, will be investigated when we come to study in all
their bearings the psychic processes at work in the formation of dreams. Let us
for the present be content with establishing the fact of dream-condensation as a
relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content which deserves
attention.
The condensation-work of dreams becomes most palpable when it takes words and
means as its objects. Generally speaking, words are often treated in dreams as
things, and therefore undergo the same combinations as the ideas of things. The
results of such dreams are comical and bizarre word-formations.
1. A colleague sent an essay of his, in which he had, in my opinion,
overestimated the value of a recent physiological discovery, and had expressed
himself, moreover, in extravagant terms. On the following night I dreamed a
sentence which obviously referred to this essay: "That is a truly norekdal
style." The solution of this word-formation at first gave me some difficulty; it
was unquestionably formed as a parody of the superlatives colossal, pyramidal;
but it was not easy to say where it came from. 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 article on Ibsen by the writer whose latest work I
was now criticizing in my dream.
2. One of my female patients dreams that a man with a fair beard and a peculiar
glittering eye is pointing to a sign-board attached to a tree which reads:
uclamparia- wet. *
* Given by translator, as the author's example could not be translated.
Analysis.- The man was rather authoritative-looking, and his peculiar glittering
eye at once recalled the church of San Paolo, near Rome, where she had seen the
mosaic portraits of the Popes. One of the early Popes had a golden eye (this is
really an optical illusion, to which the guides usually call attention). Further
associations showed that the general physiognomy of the man corresponded with
her own clergyman (pope), and the shape of the fair beard recalled her doctor
(myself), while the stature of the man in the dream recalled her father. All
these persons stand in the same relation to her; they are all guiding and
directing the course of her life. On further questioning, the golden eye
recalled gold- money- the rather expensive psycho-analytic treatment, which
gives her a great deal of concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold cure for
alcoholism- Herr D, whom she would have married, if it had not been for his
clinging to the disgusting alcohol habit- she does not object to anyone's taking
an occasional drink; she herself sometimes drinks beer and liqueurs. This again
brings her back to her visit to San Paolo (fuori la mura) and its surroundings.
She remembers that in the neighbouring monastery of the Tre Fontane she drank a
liqueur made of eucalyptus by the Trappist monks of the monastery. She then
relates how the monks transformed this malarial and swampy region into a dry and
wholesome neighbourhood by planting numbers of eucalyptus trees. The word
uclamparia then resolves itself into eucalyptus and malaria, and the word wet
refers to the former swampy nature of the locality. Wet also suggests dry. Dry
is actually the name of the man whom she would have married but for his
over-indulgence in alcohol. The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic origin (drei
= three) and hence, alludes to the monastery of the Three (drei) Fountains. In
talking of Mr. Dry's habit she used the strong expression: "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 refers
also to her neurosis, which was at first diagnosed as malaria. She went to Italy
because her attacks of anxiety, which were accompanied by marked rigors 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.
3. In a rather long and confused dream of my own, the apparent nucleus of which
is a sea-voyage, it occurs to me that the next port is Hearsing, and next after
that Fliess. The latter is the name of my friend in B, to which city I have
often journeyed. But Hearsing is put together from the names of the places in
the neighbourhood of Vienna, which so frequently end in "ing": Hietzing, Liesing,
Moedling (the old Medelitz, meae deliciae, my joy; that is, my own name, the
German for joy being Freude), and the English hearsay, which points to calumny,
and establishes the relation to the indifferent dream-stimulus of the day- a
poem in Fliegende Blatter about a slanderous dwarf, Sagter Hatergesagt (Saidhe
Hashesaid). By the combination of the final syllable ing with the name Fliess,
Vlissingen is obtained, which is a real port through which my brother passes
when he comes to visit us from England. But the English for Vlissingen is
Flushing, which signifies blushing, and recalls patients suffering from
erythrophobia (fear of blushing), whom I sometimes treat, and also a recent
publication of Bechterew's, relating to this neurosis, the reading of which
angered me. *
* 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 silverberries are growing
and pick them; then the berries are eliminated and the silver remains in a free
state." [Translator's example]. The first person who read and criticized this
book made the objection- with which other readers will probably agree- that "the
dreamer often appears too witty." That is true, so 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 conditions 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 quite as witty (at least, in intention), as my own, and even
more so. Nevertheless, this reproach impelled me to compare the technique of wit
with the dream-work.
4. Upon another occasion I had a dream which consisted of two separate parts.
The first was the vividly remembered word Autodidasker: the second was a
faithful reproduction in the dream- content of a short and harmless fancy which
had been developed a few days earlier, and which was to the effect that I must
tell Professor N, when I next saw him: "The patient about whose condition I last
consulted you is really suffering from a neurosis, just as you suspected." So
not only must the newly- coined Autodidasker satisfy the requirement that it
should contain or represent a compressed meaning, but this meaning must have a
valid connection with my resolve- repeated from waking life- to give Professor N
due credit for his diagnosis.
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 neighbourhood
as myself (J. J. David). One evening she told me how profoundly impressed she
had been by the pathetic sadness of a story in one of David's novels (a story of
wasted talents), and our conversation turned upon the signs of talent which we
perceive in our own children. Under the influence of what she had just read, my
wife expressed some concern about our children, and I comforted her with the
remark that precisely such dangers as she feared can be averted by training.
During the night my thoughts proceeded farther, took up my wife's concern for
the children, and interwove with it all sorts of other things. Something which
the novelist had said to my brother on the subject of marriage showed my
thoughts a by-path which might lead to representation in the dream. This path
led to Breslau; a lady who was a very good friend of ours had married and gone
to live there. I found in Breslau Lasker and Lasalle, two examples to justify
the fear lest our boys should be ruined by women, examples which enabled me to
represent simultaneously two ways of influencing a man to his undoing. * The
Cherchez la femme, by which these thoughts may be summarized, leads me, if taken
in another sense, to my brother, who is still married and whose name is
Alexander. Now I see that Alex, as we abbreviate the name, sounds almost like an
inversion of Lasker, and that this fact must have contributed to send my
thoughts on a detour by way of Breslau.
* Lasker died of progressive paralysis; that is, of the consequences of an
infection caught from a woman (syphilis); Lasalle, also a syphilitic, was killed
in a duel which he fought on account of the lady whom he had been courting.
But the playing with names and syllables in which I am here engaged has yet
another meaning. It represents the wish that my brother may enjoy a happy family
life, and this in the following manner: In the novel of artistic life, L'OEuvre,
which, by virtue of its content, must have been in association with my dream-
thoughts, the author, as is well-known, has incidentally given a description of
his own person and his own domestic happiness, and appears under the name of
Sandoz. In the metamorphosis of his name he probably went to work as follows:
Zola, when inverted (as children are fond of inverting names) gives Aloz. But
this was still too undisguised; he therefore replaced the syllable Al, which
stands at the beginning of the name Alexander, by the third syllable of the same
name, sand, and thus arrived at Sandoz. My autodidasker originated in a similar
fashion.
My phantasy- that I am telling Professor N that the patient whom we have both
seen is suffering from a neurosis- found its way into the dream in the following
manner: Shortly before the close of my working year, I had a patient in whose
case my powers of diagnosis failed me. A serious organic trouble- possibly some
alterative degeneration of the spinal cord- was to be assumed, but could not be
conclusively demonstrated. It would have been tempting to diagnose the trouble
as a neurosis, and this would have put an end to all my difficulties, but for
the fact that the sexual anamnesis, failing which I am unwilling to admit a
neurosis, was so energetically denied by the patient. In my embarrassment 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
concerning the aetiology of the neuroses, I refrained from contradicting him,
but I did not conceal my scepticism. A few days later I informed the patient
that I did not know what to do with him, and advised him to go to someone else.
Thereupon, to my great astonishment, he began to beg my pardon for having lied
to me: he had felt so ashamed; and now he revealed to me just that piece of
sexual aetiology 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 disconcerted by
the absence of anamnesis, had judged the case more correctly. I made up my mind
to tell him, when next I saw him, that he had been right and I had been wrong.
This is just what I do in the dream. But what sort of a wish is fulfilled if I
acknowledge that I am mistaken? This is precisely my wish; I wish to be mistaken
as regards my fears- that is to say, I wish that my wife, whose fears I have
appropriated in my dream-thoughts, may prove to be mistaken. The subject to
which the fact of being right or wrong is related in the dream is not far
removed from that which is really of interest to the dream- thoughts. We have
the same pair of alternatives, of either organic or functional impairment caused
by a woman, or actually by the sexual life- either tabetic paralysis or a
neurosis- with which latter the nature of Lasalle's undoing is indirectly
connected.
In this well-constructed (and on careful analysis quite transparent) dream,
Professor N appears not merely on account of this analogy, and my wish to be
proved mistaken, or the associated references to Breslau and to the family of
our married friend who lives there, but also on account of the following little
dialogue which followed our consultation: After he had acquitted himself of his
professional duties by making the above- mentioned suggestion, Dr. N proceeded
to discuss personal matters. "How many children have you now?"- "Six."- A
thoughtful and respectful gesture.- "Girls, boys?"- "Three of each. They are my
pride and my riches."- "Well, you must be careful; there is no difficulty about
the girls, but the boys are a difficulty later on as regards their upbringing."
I replied that until now they had been very tractable; obviously this prognosis
of my boys' future pleased me as little as his diagnosis of my patient, whom he
believed to be suffering only from a neurosis. These two impressions, then, are
connected by their continuity, by their being successively received; and when I
incorporate the story of the neurosis into the dream, I substitute it for the
conversation on the subject of upbringing, which is even more closely connected
with the dream-thoughts, since it touches so closely upon the anxiety
subsequently expressed by my wife. Thus, even my fear that N may prove to be
right in his remarks on the difficulties to be met with in bringing up boys is
admitted into the dream-content, inasmuch as it is concealed behind the
representation of my wish that I may be wrong to harbour such apprehensions. The
same phantasy serves without alteration to represent both the conflicting
alternatives.
Examination-dreams present the same difficulties to interpretation that I have
already described as characteristic of most typical dreams. The associative
material which the dreamer supplies only rarely suffices for interpretation. A
deeper understanding of such dreams has to be accumulated from a considerable
number of examples. Not long ago I arrived at a conviction that reassurances
like "But you already are a doctor," and so on, not only convey a consolation
but imply a reproach as well. This would have run: "You are already so old, so
far advanced in life, and yet you still commit such follies, are guilty of such
childish behaviour." This mixture of self- criticism and consolation would
correspond with the examination- dreams. After this it is no longer surprising
that the reproaches in the last analysed examples concerning follies and
childish behaviour should relate to repetitions of reprehensible sexual acts.
The verbal transformations in dreams are very similar to those which are known
to occur in paranoia, and which are observed also in hysteria and obsessions.
The linguistic tricks of children, who at a certain age actually treat words as
objects, and even invent new languages and artificial syntaxes, are a common
source of such occurrences both in dreams and in the psychoneuroses.
The analysis of nonsensical word-formations in dreams is particularly well
suited to demonstrate the degree of condensation effected in the dream-work.
From the small number of the selected examples here considered it must not be
concluded that such material is seldom observed or is at all exceptional. It is,
on the contrary, very frequent, but, owing to the dependence of dream
interpretation on psychoanalytic treatment, very few examples are noted down and
reported, and most of the analyses which are reported are comprehensible only to
the specialist in neuropathology.
When a spoken utterance, expressly distinguished as such from a thought, occurs
in a dream, it is an invariable rule that the dream-speech has originated from a
remembered speech in the dream- material. The wording of the speech has either
been preserved in its entirety or has been slightly altered in expression.
frequently the dream-speech is pieced together from different recollections of
spoken remarks; the wording has remained the same, but the sense has perhaps
become ambiguous, or differs from the wording. Not infrequently the dream-speech
serves merely as an allusion to an incident in connection with which the
remembered speech was made. *
* 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 had made himself, but corresponded to
the undistorted verbal expression of his obsessive thoughts, which came to his
waking consciousness only in an altered form.
The Interpretation of Dreams Chapter VI. THE DREAM-WORK B. The Work of Displacement
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