Chapter VIII: Literary Index 494 (6)

I must occupy myself still further with the interpretation of this dream. For my feelings it is not yet sufficiently cleared up. I am still disquieted by the ease with which I degrade two respected colleagues for the purpose of clearing the way to the professorship for myself. My dissatisfaction with my procedure has indeed diminished since I have learnt to evaluate statements made in dreams. I would argue against anyone who urged that I really consider R. a simpleton, and that I do not credit N.’s account of the blackmail affair. I do not believe either that Irma has been made seriously ill by an injection given her by Otto with a preparation of propyl. Here, as before, it is only the _wish that the case may be as the dream expresses it_. The statement in which my wish is realised sounds less absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is made here with a more skilful utilisation of facts as points of attachment, something like a well-constructed slander, where “there is something in it.” For my friend R. had at that time the vote of a professor from the department against him, and my friend N. had himself unsuspectingly furnished me with the material for slander. Nevertheless, I repeat, the dream seems to me to require further elucidation.

I remember now that the dream contains still another portion which so far our interpretation has not taken into account. After it occurs to me that my friend R. is my uncle, I feel great affection for him. To whom does this feeling belong? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I have never had any feelings of affection. For years my friend R. has been beloved and dear to me; but if I were to go to him and express my feelings for him in terms which came anywhere near corresponding to the degree of affection in the dream, he would doubtless be surprised. My affection for him seems untrue and exaggerated, something like my opinion of his psychic qualities, which I express by fusing his personality with that of my uncle; but it is exaggerated in an opposite sense. But now a new state of affairs becomes evident to me. The affection in the dream does not belong to the hidden content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands in opposition to this content; it is calculated to hide the information which interpretation may bring. Probably this is its very purpose. I recall with what resistance I applied myself to the work of interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I know from my psychoanalytical treatments how such condemnation is to be interpreted. It has no value as affording information, but only as the registration of an affect. If my little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she asserts that the apple has a bitter taste, without even having tasted it. If my patients act like the little girl, I know that it is a question of a notion which they want to _suppress_. The same applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it because it contains something to which I object. After the interpretation of the dream has been completed, I find out what it was I objected to; it was the assertion that R. is a simpleton. I may refer the affection which I feel for R. not to the hidden dream thoughts, but rather to this unwillingness of mine. If my dream as compared with its hidden content is disfigured at this point, and is disfigured, moreover, into something opposite, then the apparent affection in the dream serves the purpose of disfigurement; or, in other words, the disfigurement is here shown to be intended: it is a means of dissimulation. My dream thoughts contain an unfavourable reference to R.; in order that I may not become aware of it, its opposite, a feeling of affection for him, makes its way into the dream.

The fact here recognised might be of universal applicability. As the examples in Section III. have shown, there are dreams which are undisguised wish-fulfilments. Wherever a wish-fulfilment is unrecognisable and concealed, there must be present a feeling of repulsion towards this wish, and in consequence of this repulsion the wish is unable to gain expression except in a disfigured state. I shall try to find a case in social life which is parallel to this occurrence in the inner psychic life. Where in social life can a similar disfigurement of a psychic act be found? Only where two persons are in question, one of whom possesses a certain power, while the other must have a certain consideration for this power. This second person will then disfigure his psychic actions, or, as we may say, he will dissimulate. The politeness which I practise every day is largely dissimulation of this kind. If I interpret my dreams for the benefit of the reader I am forced to make such distortions. The poet also complains about such disfigurement:

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

The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell to the government finds himself in the same position. If he tells them without reserve, the government will suppress them—subsequently in case of a verbal expression of opinion, preventatively, if they are to be published in print. The writer must fear _censure_; he therefore modifies and disfigures the expression of his opinion. He finds himself compelled, according to the sensitiveness of this censure, either to restrain himself from certain particular forms of attack or to speak in allusion instead of direct designations. Or he must disguise his objectionable statement in a garb that seems harmless. He may, for instance, tell of an occurrence between two mandarins in the Orient, while he has the officials of his own country in view. The stricter the domination of the censor, the more extensive becomes the disguise, and often the more humorous the means employed to put the reader back on the track of the real meaning.

The correspondence between the phenomena of the censor and those of dream distortion, which may be traced in detail, justifies us in assuming similar conditions for both. We should then assume in each human being, as the primary cause of dream formation, two psychic forces (streams, systems), of which one constitutes the wish expressed by the dream, while the other acts as a censor upon this dream wish, and by means of this censoring forces a distortion of its expression. The only question is as to the basis of the authority of this second instance[AG] by virtue of which it may exercise its censorship. If we remember that the hidden dream thoughts are not conscious before analysis, but that the apparent dream content is remembered as conscious, we easily reach the assumption that admittance to consciousness is the privilege of the second instance. Nothing can reach consciousness from the first system which has not first passed the second instance, and the second instance lets nothing pass without exercising its rights and forcing such alterations upon the candidate for admission to consciousness as are pleasant to itself. We are here forming a very definite conception of the “essence” of consciousness; for us the state of becoming conscious is a particular psychic act, different from and independent of becoming fixed or of being conceived, and consciousness appears to us as an organ of sense, which perceives a content presented from another source. It may be shown that psychopathology cannot possibly dispense with these fundamental assumptions. We may reserve a more thorough examination of these for a later time.

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

Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream interpretation is capable of giving us hints about the structure of our psychic apparatus which we have thus far expected in vain from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow this track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have cleared up the subject of dream-disfigurement. The question has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be analysed as the fulfilments of wishes. We see now that this is possible in case dream-disfigurement has taken place, in case the disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions in regard to the two psychic instances, we may now proceed to say: disagreeable dreams, as a matter of fact, contain something which is disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time fulfils a wish of the first instance. They are wish dreams in the sense that every dream originates in the first instance, while the second instance acts towards the dream only in a repelling, not in a creative manner. If we limit ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance contributes to the dream, we can never understand the dream. If we do so, all the riddles which the authors have found in the dream remain unsolved.

That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns out to be the fulfilment of a wish, must be proved afresh for every case by means of an analysis. I therefore select several dreams which have painful contents and attempt an analysis of them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects, which require long preliminary statements, and now and then also an examination of the psychic processes which occur in hysteria. I cannot, however, avoid this added difficulty in the exposition.

When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical treatment, dreams are always, as I have said, the subject of our discussion. It must, therefore, give him all the psychological explanations through whose aid I myself have come to an understanding of his symptoms, and here I undergo an unsparing criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis that all dreams are the fulfilments of wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream material which is offered me to refute this position.

“You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled,” begins a clever lady patient. “Now I shall tell you a dream in which the content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is _not_ fulfilled. How do you reconcile that with your theory? The dream is as follows:—

“_I want to give a supper, but having nothing at hand except some smoked salmon, I think of going marketing, but I remember that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I next try to telephone to some caterers, but the telephone is out of order. Thus I must resign my wish to give a supper._”

I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of a wish-fulfilment. “But what occurrence has given rise to this dream?” I ask. “You know that the stimulus for a dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding day.”

_Analysis._—The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious wholesale butcher, had told her the day before that he is growing too fat, and that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity. He was going to get up early, take exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to relate how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because he, the painter, had never found such an expressive head. But her husband had answered in his rough way, that he was very thankful for the honour, but that he was quite convinced that a portion of the backside of a pretty young girl would please the artist better than his whole face.[AI] She said that she was at the time very much in love with her husband, and teased him a good deal. She had also asked him not to send her any caviare. What does that mean?

As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged herself the expense. Of course, she would at once get the caviare from her husband, as soon as she asked him for it. But she had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare, in order that she might tease him about it longer.

This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the habit of hiding behind such unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotised by Bernheim, who carried out a posthypnotic order, and who, upon being asked for their motives, instead of answering: “I do not know why I did that,” had to invent a reason that was obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the case with the caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish?

The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the interpretation of the dream. I beg for more. After a short pause, which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day before she had made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her husband is always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this friend is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now of what did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient: “When are you going to invite us again? You always have such a good table.”

Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the patient: “It is just as though you had thought at the time of the request: ‘Of course, I’ll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house and become still more pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more suppers.’ The dream then tells you that you cannot give a supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your friend’s figure. The resolution of your husband to refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one grows fat on the things served in company.” Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced. “How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur to you?” “Smoked salmon is the favourite dish of this friend,” she answered. I happen to know the lady, and may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself the caviare.

The dream admits of still another and more exact interpretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather cover each other and furnish a neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations. We have seen that at the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her friend’s—for increase in weight—should not be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreams that one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new interpretation, if in the dream she does not intend herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has identified herself with her friend.

I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this identification she has created an unfulfilled wish in reality. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To clear this up a thorough exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of a great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama by means of their own personalities alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all the symptoms which impress them when they occur in others, as though their pity were stimulated to the point of reproduction. But this only indicates the way in which the psychic process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which a psychic act proceeds and the act itself are two different things. The latter is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an example will show. The physician who has a female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection. Yes, but psychic infection proceeds in somewhat the following manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another than the physician knows about each of them, and they are concerned about each other when the visit of the doctor is over. Some of them have an attack to-day: soon it is known among the rest that a letter from home, a return of love-sickness or the like, is the cause of it. Their sympathy is aroused, and the following syllogism, which does not reach consciousness, is completed in them: “If it is possible to have this kind of an attack from such causes, I too may have this kind of an attack, for I have the same reasons.” If this were a cycle capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps express itself in _fear_ of getting the same attack; but it takes place in another psychic sphere, and, therefore, ends in the realisation of the dreaded symptom. Identification is therefore not a simple imitation, but a sympathy based upon the same etiological claim; it expresses an “as though,” and refers to some common quality which has remained in the unconscious.

Identification is most often used in hysteria to express sexual community. An hysterical woman identifies herself most readily—although not exclusively—with persons with whom she has had sexual relations, or who have sexual intercourse with the same persons as herself. Language takes such a conception into consideration: two lovers are “one.” In the hysterical phantasy, as well as in the dream, it is sufficient for the identification if one thinks of sexual relations, whether or not they become real. The patient, then, only follows the rules of the hysterical thought processes when she gives expression to her jealousy of her friend (which, moreover, she herself admits to be unjustified, in that she puts herself in her place and identifies herself with her by creating a symptom—the denied wish). I might further clarify the process specifically as follows: She puts herself in the place of her friend in the dream, because her friend has taken her own place in relation to her husband, and because she would like to take her friend’s place in the esteem of her husband.[AJ]

The contradiction to my theory of dreams in the case of another female patient, the most witty among all my dreamers, was solved in a simpler manner, although according to the scheme that the non-fulfilment of one wish signifies the fulfilment of another. I had one day explained to her that the dream is a wish-fulfilment. The next day she brought me a dream to the effect that she was travelling with her mother-inlaw to their common summer resort. Now I knew that she had struggled violently against spending the summer in the neighbourhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that she had luckily avoided her mother-in-law by renting an estate in a far-distant country resort. Now the dream reversed this wished-for solution; was not this in the flattest contradiction to my theory of wish-fulfilment in the dream? Certainly, it was only necessary to draw the inferences from this dream in order to get at its interpretation. According to this dream, I was in the wrong. _It was thus her wish that I should be in the wrong, and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled._ But the wish that I should be in the wrong, which was fulfilled in the theme of the country home, referred to a more serious matter. At that time I had made up my mind, from the material furnished by her analysis, that something of significance for her illness must have occurred at a certain time in her life. She had denied it because it was not present in her memory. We soon came to see that I was in the right. Her wish that I should be in the wrong, which is transformed into the dream, thus corresponded to the justifiable wish that those things, which at the time had only been suspected, had never occurred at all.

Without an analysis, and merely by means of an assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a little occurrence in the case of a friend, who had been my colleague through the eight classes of the Gymnasium. He once heard a lecture of mine delivered to a small assemblage, on the novel subject of the dream as the fulfilment of a wish. He went home, dreamt _that he had lost all his suits_—he was a lawyer—and then complained to me about it. I took refuge in the evasion: “One can’t win all one’s suits,” but I thought to myself: “If for eight years I sat as Primus on the first bench, while he moved around somewhere in the middle of the class, may he not naturally have had a wish from his boyhood days that I, too, might for once completely disgrace myself?”

In the same way another dream of a more gloomy character was offered me by a female patient as a contradiction to my theory of the wish-dream. The patient, a young girl, began as follows: “You remember that my sister has now only one boy, Charles: she lost the elder one, Otto, while I was still at her house. Otto was my favourite; it was I who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but of course not nearly as much as the dead one. Now I dreamt last night that _I saw Charles lying dead before me_. _He was lying in his little coffin, his hands folded: there were candles all about, and, in short, it was just like the time of little Otto’s death, which shocked me so profoundly._ Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me: am I really bad enough to wish my sister to lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean that I wish Charles to be dead rather than Otto, whom I like so much better?”

I assured her that this interpretation was impossible. After some reflection I was able to give her the interpretation of the dream, which I subsequently made her confirm.

Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been brought up in the house of a much older sister, and had met among the friends and visitors who came to the house, a man who made a lasting impression upon her heart. It looked for a time as though these barely expressed relations were to end in marriage, but this happy culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives have never found a complete explanation. After the break, the man who was loved by our patient avoided the house: she herself became independent some time after little Otto’s death, to whom her affection had now turned. But she did not succeed in freeing herself from the inclination for her sister’s friend in which she had become involved. Her pride commanded her to avoid him; but it was impossible for her to transfer her love to the other suitors who presented themselves in order. Whenever the man whom she loved, who was a member of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was sure to be found in the audience; she also seized every other opportunity to see him from a distance unobserved by him. I remembered that on the day before she had told me that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and that she was also going there, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on the day of the dream; and the concert was to take place on the day on which she told me the dream. I could now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any event which had happened after the death of little Otto. She answered immediately: “Certainly; at that time the Professor returned after a long absence, and I saw him once more beside the coffin of little Otto.” It was exactly as I had expected. I interpreted the dream in the following manner: If now the other boy were to die, the same thing would be repeated. You would spend the day with your sister, the Professor would surely come in order to offer condolence, and you would see him again under the same circumstances as at that time. The dream signifies nothing but this wish of yours to see him again, against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that you are carrying the ticket for to-day’s concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated the meeting which is to take place to-day by several hours.

In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a situation in which wishes of that sort are commonly suppressed—a situation which is so filled with sorrow that love is not thought of. And yet, it is very easily probable that even in the actual situation at the bier of the second, more dearly loved boy, which the dream copied faithfully, she had not been able to suppress her feelings of affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long a time.

A different explanation was found in the case of a similar dream of another female patient, who was distinguished in her earlier years by her quick wit and her cheerful demeanour, and who still showed these qualities at least in the notions which occurred to her in the course of treatment. In connection with a longer dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her in a box. She was strongly inclined to convert this dream-image into an objection to the theory of wish-fulfilment, but herself suspected that the detail of the box must lead to a different conception of the dream.[AK] In the course of the analysis it occurred to her that on the evening before, the conversation of the company had turned upon the English word “box,” and upon the numerous translations of it into German, such as box, theatre box, chest, box on the ear, &c. From other components of the same dream it is now possible to add that the lady had guessed the relationship between the English word “box” and the German _Büchse_, and had then been haunted by the memory that _Büchse_ (as well as “box”) is used in vulgar speech to designate the female genital organ. It was therefore possible, making a certain allowance for her notions on the subject of topographical anatomy, to assume that the child in the box signified a child in the womb of the mother. At this stage of the explanation she no longer denied that the picture of the dream really corresponded to one of her wishes. Like so many other young women, she was by no means happy when she became pregnant, and admitted to me more than once the wish that her child might die before its birth; in a fit of anger following a violent scene with her husband she had even struck her abdomen with her fists in order to hit the child within. The dead child was, therefore, really the fulfilment of a wish, but a wish which had been put aside for fifteen years, and it is not surprising that the fulfilment of the wish was no longer recognised after so long an interval. For there had been many changes meanwhile.

The group of dreams to which the two last mentioned belong, having as content the death of beloved relatives, will be considered again under the head of “Typical Dreams.” I shall there be able to show by new examples that in spite of their undesirable content, all these dreams must be interpreted as wish-fulfilments. For the following dream, which again was told me in order to deter me from a hasty generalisation of the theory of wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a patient, but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. “_I dream_,” my informant tells me, “_that I am walking in front of my house with a lady on my arm_. _Here a closed wagon is waiting, a gentleman steps up to me, gives his authority as an agent of the police, and demands that I should follow him. I only ask for time in which to arrange my affairs._ Can you possibly suppose this is a wish of mine to be arrested?” “Of course not,” I must admit. “Do you happen to know upon what charge you were arrested?” “Yes; I believe for infanticide.” “Infanticide? But you know that only a mother can commit this crime upon her newly born child?” “That is true.”[AL] “And under what circumstances did you dream; what happened on the evening before?” “I would rather not tell you that; it is a delicate matter.” “But I must have it, otherwise we must forgo the interpretation of the dream.” “Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the night, not at home, but at the house of a lady who means very much to me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between us. Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you.” “The woman is married?” “Yes.” “And you do not wish her to conceive a child?” “No; that might betray us.” “Then you do not practise normal coitus?” “I take the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation.” “Am I permitted to assume that you did this trick several times during the night, and that in the morning you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded?” “That might be the case.” “Then your dream is the fulfilment of a wish. By means of it you secure the assurance that you have not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same thing, that you have killed a child. I can easily demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long as no impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and the semen meet and a fœtus is formed is punished as a crime? In connection with this, we also recalled the mediæval controversy about the moment of time at which the soul is really lodged in the fœtus, since the concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point on. Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane.” “Strangely enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during the afternoon.” “Another echo of your dream. And now I shall demonstrate to you another subordinate wish-fulfilment in your dream. You walk in front of your house with the lady on your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The fact that the wish-fulfilment, which is the essence of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant form, has perhaps more than one reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you will see that I note interrupted coitus as one of the factors which cause the development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent with this that if after repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you should be left in an uncomfortable mood, which now becomes an element in the composition of your dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state of mind to conceal the wish-fulfilment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide has not yet been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to females, occur to you?” “I shall confess to you that I was involved in such an affair years ago. Through my fault a girl tried to protect herself from the consequences of a _liaison_ with me by securing an abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but I was naturally for a long time worried lest the affair might be discovered.” “I understand; this recollection furnished a second reason why the supposition that you had done your trick badly must have been painful to you.”

A young physician, who had heard this dream of my colleague when it was told, must have felt implicated by it, for he hastened to imitate it in a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another subject. The day before he had handed in a declaration of his income, which was perfectly honest, because he had little to declare. He dreamt that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and informed him that all the other declarations of income had passed uncontested, but that his own had awakened general suspicion, and that he would be punished with a heavy fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed fulfilment of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income. It likewise recalls the story of the young girl who was advised against accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper who would surely treat her to blows after they were married. The answer of the girl was: “I wish he _would_ strike me!” Her wish to be married is so strong that she takes into the bargain the discomfort which is said to be connected with matrimony, and which is predicted for her, and even raises it to a wish.

If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem flatly to contradict my theory, in that they contain the denial of a wish or some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of “counter wish-dreams,” I observe that they may all be referred to two principles, of which one has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives inspiring these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course of my treatment if the patient shows a resistance against me, and I can count with a large degree of certainty upon causing such a dream after I have once explained to the patient my theory that the dream is a wish-fulfilment.[AM] I may even expect this to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfil the wish that I may appear in the wrong. The last dream which I shall tell from those occurring in the course of treatment again shows this very thing. A young girl who has struggled hard to continue my treatment, against the will of her relatives and the authorities whom she has consulted, dreams as follows: _She is forbidden at home to come to me any more. She then reminds me of the promise I made her to treat her for nothing if necessary, and I say to her: “I can show no consideration in money matters.”_

It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfilment of a wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem, the solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the words which she puts into my mouth? Of course I have never told her anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one who has the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark about me. It is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her being ill.

The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in my own case. In the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component, which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic component into its opposite. Such people are called “ideal” masochists, if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon them, but in humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfilments, affording satisfaction for their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A young man, who has in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards whom he was homosexually inclined, but who has undergone a complete change of character, has the following dream, which consists of three parts: (1) _He is “insulted” by his brother._ (2) _Two adults are caressing each other with homosexual intentions._ (3) _His brother has sold the enterprise whose management the young man reserved for his own future._ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the most unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated: It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments which he has suffered at my hands.

I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice—until further objection can be raised—to make it seem credible that even dreams with a painful content are to be analysed as the fulfilments of wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which one does not like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is simply identical with the antipathy which endeavours—usually with success—to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its unpleasantness, we find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not preclude the existence of a wish; everyone has wishes which he would not like to tell to others, which he does not want to admit even to himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the disagreeable character of all these dreams with the fact of dream disfigurement, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and that the wish-fulfilment in them is disguised until recognition is impossible for no other reason than that a repugnance, a will to suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of the dream or in relation to the wish which the dream creates. Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. We shall take into consideration everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we reword our formula as follows: _The dream is the (disguised) fulfilment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish._[AN]

Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams with painful content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of which under dreams of wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained by the dream content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis, we become aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than the fear in a phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window, but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater than is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to the phobia applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it and comes from another source.

On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear, discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a little essay on “The Anxiety Neurosis,”[AO] I maintained that neurotic fear has its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied. From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content has been transformed into fear. Later on I shall have opportunity to support this assertion by the analysis of several dreams of neurotics. I shall have occasion to revert to the determinations in anxiety dreams and their compatibility with the theory of wish-fulfilment when I again attempt to approach the theory of dreams.

V
THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS

After coming to realise from the analysis of the dream of Irma’s injection that the dream is the fulfilment of a wish, our interest was next directed to ascertaining whether we had thus discovered a universal characteristic of the dream, and for the time being we put aside every other question which may have been aroused in the course of that interpretation. Now that we have reached the goal upon one of these paths, we may turn back and select a new starting-point for our excursions among the problems of the dream, even though we may lose sight for a time of the theme of wish-fulfilment, which has been as yet by no means exhaustively treated.

Now that we are able, by applying our process of interpretation, to discover a _latent_ dream content which far surpasses the _manifest_ dream content in point of significance, we are impelled to take up the individual dream problems afresh, in order to see whether the riddles and contradictions which seemed, when we had only the manifest content, beyond our reach may not be solved for us satisfactorily.

The statements of the authors concerning the relation of the dream to waking life, as well as concerning the source of the dream material, have been given at length in the introductory chapter. We may recall that there are three peculiarities of recollection in the dreams, which have been often remarked but never explained:

1. That the dream distinctly prefers impressions of the few days preceding; (Robert,[55] Strümpell,[66] Hildebrandt,[35] also Weed-Hallam [33]).

2. That it makes its selection according to principles other than those of our waking memory, in that it recalls not what is essential and important, but what is subordinate and disregarded (_cf._ p. 13).

3. That it has at its disposal the earliest impressions of our childhood, and brings to light details from this period of life which again seem trivial to us, and which in waking life were considered long ago forgotten.[AP]

These peculiarities in the selection of the dream material have of course been observed by the authors in connection with the manifest dream content.

(_a_) _Recent and Indifferent Impressions in the Dream_

If I now consult my own experience concerning the source of the elements which appear in the dream, I must at once express the opinion that some reference to the experiences of _the day which has most recently passed_ is to be found in every dream. Whatever dream I take up, whether my own or another’s, this experience is always reaffirmed. Knowing this fact, I can usually begin the work of interpretation by trying to learn the experience of the previous day which has stimulated the dream; for many cases, indeed, this is the quickest way. In the case of the two dreams which I have subjected to close analysis in the preceding chapter (of Irma’s injection, and of my uncle with the yellow beard) the reference to the previous day is so obvious that it needs no further elucidation. But in order to show that this reference may be regularly demonstrated, I shall examine a portion of my own dream chronicle. I shall report the dreams only so far as is necessary for the discovery of the dream stimulus in question.

1. I make a visit at a house where I am admitted only with difficulty, &c., and meanwhile I keep a woman _waiting_ for me.

_Source._—A conversation in the evening with a female relative to the effect that she would have to _wait_ for some aid which she demanded until, &c.

2. I have written a _monograph_ about a certain (obscure) species of plant.

_Source._—I have seen in the show-window of a book store a _monograph_ upon the genus cyclamen.

3. I see two women on the street, _mother and daughter_, the latter of whom is my patient.

_Source._—A female patient who is under treatment has told me what difficulties her _mother_ puts in the way of her continuing the treatment.

4. At the book store of S. and R. I subscribe to a periodical which costs _20 florins_ annually.

_Source._—During the day my wife has reminded me that I still owe her _20 florins_ of her weekly allowance.

5. I receive a _communication_, in which I am treated as a member, from the Social Democratic Committee.

_Source._—I have received _communications_ simultaneously from the Liberal Committee on Elections and from the president of the Humanitarian Society, of which I am really a member.

6. A man on _a steep rock in the middle of the ocean_, after the manner of Boecklin.

_Source._—_Dreyfus on Devil’s Island_; at the same time news from my relatives in _England_, &c.

The question might be raised, whether the dream is invariably connected with the events of the previous day, or whether the reference may be extended to impressions from a longer space of time in the immediate past. Probably this matter cannot claim primary importance, but I should like to decide in favour of the exclusive priority of the day before the dream (the dream-day). As often as I thought I had found a case where an impression of two or three days before had been the source of the dream, I could convince myself, after careful investigation, that this impression had been remembered the day before, that a demonstrable reproduction had been interpolated between the day of the event and the time of the dream, and, furthermore, I was able to point out the recent occasion upon which the recollection of the old impression might have occurred. On the other hand, I was unable to convince myself that a regular interval (H. Swoboda calls the first one of this kind eighteen hours) of biological significance occurs between the stimulating impression of the day and its repetition in the dream.[AQ]

I am, therefore, of the opinion that the stimulus for every dream is to be found among those experiences “upon which one has not yet slept” for a night.

Thus the impressions of the immediate past (with the exception of the day before the night of the dream) stand in no different relation to the dream content from those of times which are as far removed in the past as you please. The dream may select its material from all times of life, provided only, that a chain of thought starting from one of the experiences of the day of the dream (one of the “recent” impressions) reaches back to these earlier ones.

But why this preference for recent impressions? We shall reach some conjectures on this point if we subject one of the dreams already mentioned to a more exact analysis. I select the dream about the monograph.

_Content of the dream.—I have written a monograph upon a certain plant. The book lies before me, I am just turning over a folded coloured plate. A dried specimen of the plant is bound with every copy, as though from a herbarium._

_Analysis._—In the forenoon I saw in the show-window of a book store a book entitled, _The Genus Cyclamen_, apparently a monograph on this plant.

The cyclamen is the favourite flower of my wife. I reproach myself for so seldom thinking to bring her flowers, as she wishes. In connection with the theme “bringing flowers,” I am reminded of a story which I recently told in a circle of friends to prove my assertion that forgetting is very often the purpose of the unconscious, and that in any case it warrants a conclusion as to the secret disposition of the person who forgets. A young woman who is accustomed to receive a bunch of flowers from her husband on her birthday, misses this token of affection on a festive occasion of this sort, and thereupon bursts into tears. The husband comes up, and is unable to account for her tears until she tells him, “To-day is my birthday.” He strikes his forehead and cries, “Why, I had completely forgotten it,” and wants to go out to get her some flowers. But she is not to be consoled, for she sees in the forgetfulness of her husband a proof that she does not play the same part in his thoughts as formerly. This Mrs. L. met my wife two days before, and told her that she was feeling well, and asked about me. She was under my treatment years ago.