A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

SEVENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Manifest Dream Content and Latent Dream Thought

WE have not studied the problem of errors in vain.Thanks to our efforts in this field, under the conditions known to you, we have evolved two different things, a conception of the elements of the dream and a technique for dream interpretation.The conception of the dream element goes to show something unreal, a substitute for something else, unknown to the dreamer, similar to the tendency of errors, a substitute for something the dreamer knows but cannot approach.We hope to transfer the same conception to the whole dream, which consists of just such elements.Our method consists of calling up, by means of free associations, other substitute formations in addition to these elements, from which we divine what is hidden.

Let me ask you to permit a slight change in our nomenclature which will greatly increase the flexibility of our vocabulary. Instead of hidden, unapproachable, unreal, let us give a truer description and say inaccessible or unknown to the consciousness of the dreamer. By this we mean only what the connection with the lost word or with the interfering intention of the error can suggest to you, namely, unconscious for the time being. Naturally in contrast to this we may term conscious the elements of the dream itself and the substitute formations just gained by association. As yet there is absolutely no theoretical construction implied in this nomenclature. The use of the word unconscious as a suitable and intelligible descriptive epithet is above criticism.

If we transfer our conception from a single element to the entire dream, we find that the dream as a whole is a distorted substitute for something else, something unconscious.To discover this unconscious thing is the task of dream interpretation. From this, three important rules, which we must observe in the work of dream interpretation, are straightway derived:

1. What the dream seems to say, whether it be sensible or absurd, clear or confused is not our concern, since it can under no condition be that unconscious content we are seeking. Later we shall have to observe an obvious limitation of this rule. 2. The awakening of substitute formations for each element shall be the sole object of our work. We shall not reflect on these, test their suitability or trouble how far they lead away from the element of the dream. 3. We shall wait until the hidden unconscious we are seeking appears of itself, as the missing word Monaco in the experiment which we have described.

Now we can understand, too, how unimportant it is how much, how little, above all, how accurately or how indifferently the dream is remembered.For the dream which is remembered is not the real one, but a distorted substitute, which is to help us approach the real dream by awakening other substitute formations and by making the unconscious in the dream conscious.Therefore if our recollection of the dream was faulty, it has simply brought about a further distortion of this substitute, a distortion which cannot, however, be unmotivated.

One can interpret one's own dreams as well as those of others.One learns even more from these, for the process yields more proof.If we try this, we observe that something impedes the work.Haphazard ideas arise, but we do not let them have their way.Tendencies to test and to choose make themselves felt.As an idea occurs, we say to ourselves "No, that does not fit, that does not belong here"; of a second "that is too senseless"; of a third, "this is entirely beside the point"; and one can easily observe how the ideas are stifled and suppressed by these objections, even before they have become entirely clear.On the one hand, therefore, too much importance is attached to the dream elements themselves; on the other, the result of free association is vitiated by the process of selection.If you are not interpreting the dream alone, if you allow someone else to interpret it for you, you will soon discover another motive which induces you to make this forbidden choice.At times you say to yourself, "No, this idea is too unpleasant, I either will not or cannot divulge this."

Clearly these objections are a menace to the success of our work.We must guard against them, in our own case by the firm resolve not to give way to them; and in the interpretation of the dreams of others by making the hard and fast rule for them, never to omit any idea from their account, even if one of the following four objections should arise: that is, if it should seem too unimportant, absurd, too irrelevant or too embarrassing to relate.The dreamer promises to obey this rule, but it is annoying to see how poorly he keeps his promise at times.At first we account for this by supposing that in spite of the authoritative assurance which has been given to the dreamer, he is not impressed with the importance of free association, and plan perhaps to win his theoretic approval by giving him papers to read or by sending him to lectures which are to make him a disciple of our views concerning free association.But we are deterred from such blunders by the observation that, in one's own case, where convictions may certainly be trusted, the same critical objections arise against certain ideas, and can only be suppressed subsequently, upon second thought, as it were.

Instead of becoming vexed at the disobedience of the dreamer, these experiences can be turned to account in teaching something new, something which is the more important the less we are prepared for it. We understand that the task of interpreting dreams is carried on against a certain resistance which manifests itself by these critical objections. This resistance is independent of the theoretical conviction of the dreamer. Even more is apparent. We discover that such a critical objection is never justified. On the contrary, those ideas which we are so anxious to suppress, prove without exception to be the most important, the most decisive, in the search for the unconscious. It is even a mark of distinction if an idea is accompanied by such an objection.

This resistance is something entirely new, a phenomenon which we have found as a result of our hypotheses although it was not originally included in them.We are not too pleasantly surprised by this new factor in our problem.We suspect that it will not make our work any easier.It might even tempt us to abandon our entire work in connection with the dream.Such an unimportant thing as the dream and in addition such difficulties instead of a smooth technique!But from another point of view, these same difficulties may prove fascinating, and suggest that the work is worth the trouble. Whenever we try to penetrate to the hidden unconscious, starting out from the substitute which the dream element represents, we meet with resistance. Hence, we are justified in supposing that something of weight must be hidden behind the substitute. What other reason could there be for the difficulties which are maintained for purposes of concealment? If a child does not want to open his clenched fist, he is certainly hiding something he ought not to have.

Just as soon as we bring the dynamic representation of resistance into our consideration of the case, we must realize that this factor is something quantitatively variable.There may be greater or lesser resistances and we are prepared to see these differences in the course of our work.We may perhaps connect this with another experience found in the work of dream interpretation.For sometimes only one or two ideas serve to carry us from the dream element to its unconscious aspect, while at other times long chains of associations and the suppression of many critical objections are necessary.We shall note that these variations are connected with the variable force of resistance.This observation is probably correct.If resistance is slight, then the substitute is not far removed from the unconscious, but strong resistance carries with it a great distortion of the unconscious and in addition a long journey back to it.

Perhaps the time has come to take a dream and try out our method to see if our faith in it shall be confirmed.But which dream shall we choose?You cannot imagine how hard it is for me to decide, and at this point I cannot explain the source of the difficulty.Of course, there must be dreams which, as a whole, have suffered slight distortion, and it would be best to start with one of these.But which dreams are the least distorted?Those which are sensible and not confused, of which I have already given you two examples?This would be a gross misunderstanding.Testing shows that these dreams have suffered by distortion to an exceptionally high degree.But if I take the first best dream, regardless of certain necessary conditions, you would probably be very much disappointed.Perhaps we should have to note such an abundance of ideas in connection with single elements of dream that it would be absolutely impossible to review the work in perspective. If we write the dream out and confront it with the written account of all the ideas which arise in connection with it, these may easily amount to a reiteration of the text of the dream. It would therefore seem most practical to choose for analysis several short dreams of which each one can at least reveal or confirm something. This is what we shall decide upon, provided experience should not point out where we shall really find slightly distorted dreams.

But I know of another way to simplify matters, one which, moreover, lies in our path.Instead of attempting the interpretation of entire dreams, we shall limit ourselves to single dream elements and by observing a series of examples we shall see how these are explained by the application of our method.

1.A lady relates that as a child she often dreamt "that God had a pointed paper hat on his head."How do you expect to understand that without the help of the dreamer?Why, it sounds quite absurd.It is no longer absurd when the lady testifies that as a child she was frequently made to wear such a hat at the table, because she could not help stealing glances at the plates of her brothers and sisters to see if one of them had gotten more than she.The hat was therefore supposed to act as a sort of blinder.This explanation was moreover historic, and given without the least difficulty.The meaning of this fragment and of the whole brief dream, is clear with the help of a further idea of the dreamer."Since I had heard that God was all-knowing and all-seeing," she said, "the dream can only mean that I know everything and see everything just as God does, even when they try to prevent me."This example is perhaps too simple.

2.A sceptical patient has a longer dream, in which certain people happen to tell her about my book concerning laughter and praise it highly.Then something is mentioned about a certain "'canal,' perhaps another book in which 'canal' occurs, or something else with the word 'canal' ...she doesn't know ...it is all confused."

Now you will be inclined to think that the element "canal" will evade interpretation because it is so vague.You are right as to the supposed difficulty, but it is not difficult because it is vague, but rather it is vague for a different reason, the same reason which also makes the interpretation difficult. The dreamer can think of nothing concerning the word canal, I naturally can think of nothing. A little while later, as a matter of fact on the next day, she tells me that something occurred to her that may perhaps be related to it, a joke that she has heard. On a ship between Dover and Calais a well-known author is conversing with an Englishman, who quoted the following proverb in a certain connection: "Du sublime au ridicule, il n'y a qu'un pas."[24] The author answers, "Oui, le pas de Calais,"[25] with which he wishes to say that he finds France sublime and England ridiculous. But the "Pas de Calais" is really a canal, namely, the English Channel.Do I think that this idea has anything to do with the dream?Certainly, I believe that it really gives the solution to the puzzling dream fragments.Or can you doubt that this joke was already present in the dream, as the unconscious factor of the element, "canal."Can you take it for granted that it was subsequently added to it?The idea testifies to the scepticism which is concealed behind her obtrusive admiration, and the resistance is probably the common reason for both phenomena, for the fact that the idea came so hesitatingly and that the decisive element of the dream turned out to be so vague.Kindly observe at this point the relation of the dream element to its unconscious factor.It is like a small part of the unconscious, like an allusion to it; through its isolation it became quite unintelligible.

3.A patient dreams, in the course of a longer dream: "Around a table of peculiar shape several members of his family are sitting, etc." In connection with this table, it occurs to him that he saw such a piece of furniture during a visit to a certain family.Then his thoughts continue: In this family a peculiar relation had existed between father and son, and soon he adds to this that as a matter of fact the same relation exists between himself and his father.The table is therefore taken up into the dream to designate this parallel.

This dreamer had for a long time been familiar with the claims of dream interpretation.Otherwise he might have taken exception to the fact that so trivial a detail as the shape of a table should be taken as the basis of the investigation. As a matter of fact we judge nothing in the dream as accidental or indifferent, and we expect to reach our conclusion by the explanation of just such trivial and unmotivated details. Perhaps you will be surprised that the dream work should arouse the thought "we are in exactly the same position as they are," just by the choice of the table. But even this becomes clear when you learn that the name of the family in question is Tischler. By permitting his own family to sit at such a table, he intends to express that they too are TischlerPlease note how, in relating such a dream interpretation, one must of necessity become indiscreet.Here you have arrived at one of the difficulties in the choice of examples that I indicated before.I could easily have substituted another example for this one, but would probably have avoided this indiscretion at the cost of committing another one in its place.

The time has come to introduce two new terms, which we could have used long ago.We shall call that which the dream relates, the manifest content of the dream; that which is hidden, which we can only reach by the analysis of ideas we shall call latent dream thoughts.We may now consider the connection between the manifest dream content and the latent dream thoughts as they are revealed in these examples.Many different connections can exist.In examples 1 and 2 the manifest content is also a constituent part of the latent thought, but only a very small part of it.A small piece of a great composite psychic structure in the unconscious dream thought has penetrated into the manifest dream, like a fragment of it, or in other cases, like an allusion to it, like a catchword or an abbreviation in the telegraphic code.The interpretation must mould this fragment, or indication, into a whole, as was done most successfully in example 2.One sort of distortion of which the dream mechanism consists is therefore substitution by means of a fragment or an allusion.In the third, moreover, we must recognize another relation which we shall see more clearly and distinctly expressed in the following examples:

4.The dreamer "pulls a certain woman of his acquaintance from behind a bed."He finds the meaning of this dream element himself by his first association.It means: This woman "has a pull" with him.[26]

5.Another man dreams that "his brother is in a closet." The first association substitutes clothes-press for closet, and the second gives the meaning: his brother is close-pressed for money.[27]

6.The dreamer "climbs a mountain from the top of which he has an extraordinarily distant view."This sounds quite sensible; perhaps there is nothing about it that needs interpretation, and it is simply necessary to find out which reminiscence this dream touches upon and why it was recalled.But you are mistaken; it is evident that this dream requires interpretation as well as any other which is confused.For no previous mountain climbing of his own occurs to the dreamer, but he remembers that an acquaintance of his is publishing a "Rundschau," which deals with our relation to the furthermost parts of the earth.The latent dream thought is therefore in this case an identification of the dreamer with the "Rundschauer."

Here you find a new type of connection between the manifest content and the latent dream element.The former is not so much a distortion of the latter as a representation of it, a plastic concrete perversion that is based on the sound of the word.However, it is for this very reason again a distortion, for we have long ago forgotten from which concrete picture the word has arisen, and therefore do not recognize it by the image which is substituted for it.If you consider that the manifest dream consists most often of visual images, and less frequently of thoughts and words, you can imagine that a very particular significance in dream formation is attached to this sort of relation.You can also see that in this manner it becomes possible to create substitute formations for a great number of abstract thoughts in the manifest dream, substitutions that serve the purpose of further concealment all the same.This is the technique of our picture puzzle.What the origin is of the semblance of wit which accompanies such representations is a particular question which we need not touch upon at this time.

A fourth type of relation between the manifest and the latent dream cannot be dealt with until its cue in the technique has been given.Even then I shall not have given you a complete enumeration, but it will be sufficient for our purpose.

Have you the courage to venture upon the interpretation of an entire dream? Let us see if we are well enough equipped for this undertaking. Of course, I shall not choose one of the most obscure, but one nevertheless that shows in clear outline the general characteristics of a dream.

A young woman who has been married for many years dreams: "She is sitting in the theatre with her husband; one side of the orchestra is entirely unoccupied.Her husband tells her that Elise L.and her bridegroom had also wished to come, but had only been able to procure poor seats, three for 1 Fl., 50 Kr.and those of course they could not take.She thinks this is no misfortune for them."

The first thing that the dreamer has to testify is that the occasion for the dream is touched upon in its manifest content.Her husband had really told her that Elise L., an acquaintance of about her age, had become engaged.The dream is the reaction to this news.We already know that in the case of many dreams it is easy to trace such a cause to the preceding day, and that the dreamer often gives these deductions without any difficulty.The dreamer also places at our disposal further information for other parts of the manifest dream content.Whence the detail that one side of the orchestra is unoccupied?It is an allusion to an actual occurrence of the previous week.She had made up her mind to go to a certain performance and had procured tickets in advance, so much in advance that she had been forced to pay a preference tax.[28] When she arrived at the theatre, she saw how needless had been her anxiety, for one side of the orchestra was almost emptyShe could have bought the tickets on the day of the performance itself.Her husband would not stop teasing her about her excessive haste.Whence the 1 Fl.50 Kr.?From a very different connection that has nothing to do with the former, but which also alludes to an occurrence of the previous day.Her sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a present from her husband, and knew no better, the poor goose, than to hasten to the jeweler and spend the money on a piece of jewelry.Whence the number 3?She can think of nothing in connection with this unless one stresses the association that the bride, Elise L., is only three months younger than she herself, who has been married for almost ten years. And the absurdity of buying three tickets for two people? She says nothing of this, and indeed denies all further associations or information.

But she has given us so much material in her few associations, that it becomes possible to derive the latent dream thought from it. It must strike us that in her remarks concerning the dream, time elements which constitute a common element in the various parts of this material appear at several points. She attended to the tickets too soon, took them too hastily, so that she had to pay more than usual for them; her sister-in-law likewise hastened to carry her money to the jeweler's to buy a piece of jewelry, just as if she might miss it. Let us add to the expressions "too early," "precipitately," which are emphasized so strongly, the occasion for the dream, namely, that her friend only three months younger than herself had even now gotten a good husband, and the criticism expressed in the condemnation of her sister-in-law, that it was foolish to hurry so. Then the following construction of the latent dream thought, for which the manifest dream is a badly distorted substitute, comes to us almost spontaneously:

"How foolish it was of me to hurry so in marrying! Elise's example shows me that I could have gotten a husband later too." (The precipitateness is represented by her own behavior in buying the tickets, and that of her sister-in-law in purchasing jewelry. Going to the theatre was substituted for getting married. This appears to have been the main thought; and perhaps we may continue, though with less certainty, because the analysis in these parts is not supported by statements of the dreamer.) "And I would have gotten 100 times as much for my money." (150 Fl. is 100 times as much as 1 Fl. 50 Kr.) . If we might substitute the dowry for the money, then it would mean that one buys a husband with a dowry; the jewelry as well as the poor seats would represent the husband. It would be even more desirable if the fragment "3 seats" had something to do with a husband. But our understanding does not penetrate so far. We have only guessed that the dream expresses her disparagement of her own husband, and her regret at having married so early

It is my opinion that we are more surprised and confused than satisfied by the result of this first dream interpretation. We are swamped by more impressions than we can master. We see that the teachings of dream interpretation are not easily exhausted. Let us hasten to select those points that we recognize as giving us new, sound insight.

In the first place, it is remarkable that in the latent thought the main emphasis falls on the element of haste; in the manifest dream there is absolutely no mention of this to be found.Without the analysis we should not have had any idea that this element was of any importance at all.So it seems possible that just the main thing, the central point of the unconscious thoughts, may be absent in the manifest dream.Because of this, the original impression in the dream must of necessity be entirely changed.Secondly: In the dream there is a senseless combination, 3 for 1 Fl.50 Kr.; in the dream thought we divine the sentence, "It was senseless (to marry so early)."Can one deny that this thought, "It was senseless," was represented in the manifest dream by the introduction of an absurd element?Thirdly: Comparison will show that the relation between the manifest and latent elements is not simple, certainly not of such a sort that a manifest element is always substituted for the latent.There must rather be a quantitative relationship between the two groups, according to which a manifest element may represent several latent ones, or a latent element represented by several manifest elements.

Much that is surprising might also be said of the sense of the dream and the dreamer's reaction to it.She acknowledges the interpretation but wonders at it.She did not know that she disparaged her husband so, and she did not know why she should disparage him to such a degree.There is still much that is incomprehensible.I really believe that we are not yet fully equipped for dream interpretation, and that we must first receive further instruction and preparation.

EIGHTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Dreams of Childhood

WE think we have advanced too rapidly.Let us go back a little.Before our last attempt to overcome the difficulties of dream distortion through our technique, we had decided that it would be best to avoid them by limiting ourselves only to those dreams in which distortion is either entirely absent or of trifling importance, if there are such.But here again we digress from the history of the evolution of our knowledge, for as a matter of fact we become aware of dreams entirely free of distortion only after the consistent application of our method of interpretation and after complete analysis of the distorted dream.

The dreams we are looking for are found in children.They are short, clear, coherent, easy to understand, unambiguous, and yet unquestionable dreams. But do not think that all children's dreams are like this.Dream distortion makes its appearance very early in childhood, and dreams of children from five to eight years of age have been recorded that showed all the characteristics of later dreams. But if you will limit yourselves to the age beginning with conscious psychic activity, up to the fourth or fifth year, you will discover a series of dreams that are of a so-called infantile character.In a later period of childhood you will be able to find some dreams of this nature occasionally.Even among adults, dreams that closely resemble the typically infantile ones occur under certain conditions.

From these children's dreams we gain information concerning the nature of dreams with great ease and certainty, and we hope it will prove decisive and of universal application.

1. For the understanding of these dreams we need no analysis, no technical methods. We need not question the child that is giving an account of his dream.But one must add to this a story taken from the life of the child.An experience of the previous day will always explain the dream to us.The dream is a sleep-reaction of psychic life upon these experiences of the day.

We shall now consider a few examples so that we may base our further deductions upon them.

a).A boy of 22 months is to present a basket of cherries as a birthday gift.He plainly does so very unwillingly, although they promise him that he will get some of them himself.The next morning he relates as his dream, "Hermann eat all cherries."

b).A little girl of three and a quarter years makes her first trip across a lake.At the landing she does not want to leave the boat and cries bitterly.The time of the trip seems to her to have passed entirely too rapidly.The next morning she says, "Last night I rode on the lake."We may add the supplementary fact that this trip lasted longer.

c).A boy of five and a quarter years is taken on an excursion into the Escherntal near Hallstatt.He had heard that Hallstatt lay at the foot of the Dachstein, and had shown great interest in this mountain.From his home in Aussee there was a beautiful view of the Dachstein, and with a telescope one could discern the Simonyhütte upon it.The child had tried again and again to see it through the telescope, with what result no one knew.He started on the excursion in a joyously expectant mood.Whenever a new mountain came in sight the boy asked, "Is that the Dachstein?"The oftener this question was answered in the negative, the more moody he became; later he became entirely silent and would not take part in a small climb to a waterfall.They thought he was overtired, but the next morning, he said quite happily, "Last night I dreamed that we were in the Simonyhütte."It was with this expectation, therefore, that he had taken part in the excursion.The only detail he gave was one he had heard before, "you had to climb steps for six hours."

These three dreams will suffice for all the information we desire.

2. We see that children's dreams are not meaningless; they are intelligible, significant, psychic actsYou will recall what I represented to you as the medical opinion concerning the dream, the simile of untrained fingers wandering aimlessly over the keys of the piano. You cannot fail to see how decidedly these dreams of childhood are opposed to this conception. But it would be strange indeed if the child brought forth complete psychic products in sleep, while the adult in the same condition contents himself with spasmodic reactions. Indeed, we have every reason to attribute the more normal and deeper sleep to the child.

3. Dream distortion is lacking in these dreams, therefore they need no interpretation. The manifest and latent dreams are merged. Dream distortion is therefore not inherent in the dream. I may assume that this relieves you of a great burden. But upon closer consideration we shall have to admit of a tiny bit of distortion, a certain differentiation between manifest dream content and latent dream thought, even in these dreams.

4. The child's dream is a reaction to an experience of the day, which has left behind it a regret, a longing or an unfulfilled desire. The dream brings about the direct unconcealed fulfillment of this wish. Now recall our discussions concerning the importance of the role of external or internal bodily stimuli as disturbers of sleep, or as dream producers. We learned definite facts about this, but could only explain a very small number of dreams in this way. In these children's dreams nothing points to the influence of such somatic stimuli; we cannot be mistaken, for the dreams are entirely intelligible and easy to survey. But we need not give up the theory of physical causation entirely on this account. We can only ask why at the outset we forgot that besides the physical stimuli there are also psychic sleep-disturbing stimuli. For we know that it is these stimuli that commonly cause the disturbed sleep of adults by preventing them from producing the ideal condition of sleep, the withdrawal of interest from the world. The dreamer does not wish to interrupt his life, but would rather continue his work with the things that occupy him, and for this reason he does not sleep. The unfulfilled wish, to which he reacts by means of the dream, is the psychic sleep-disturbing stimulus for the child.

5.From this point we easily arrive at an explanation of the function of the dream.The dream, as a reaction to the psychic stimulus, must have the value of a release of this stimulus which results in its elimination and in the continuation of sleep.We do not know how this release is made possible by the dream, but we note that the dream is not a disturber of sleep, as calumny says, but a guardian of sleep, whose duty it is to quell disturbancesIt is true, we think we would have slept better if we had not dreamt, but here we are wrong; as a matter of fact, we would not have slept at all without the help of the dream.That we have slept so soundly is due to the dream alone.It could not help disturbing us slightly, just as the night watchman often cannot avoid making a little noise while he drives away the rioters who would awaken us with their noise.

6.One main characteristic of the dream is that a wish is its source, and that the content of the dream is the gratification of this wish.Another equally constant feature is that the dream does not merely express a thought, but also represents the fulfillment of this wish in the form of a hallucinatory experience."I should like to travel on the lake," says the wish that excites the dream; the dream itself has as its content "I travel on the lake." One distinction between the latent and manifest dream, a distortion of the latent dream thought, therefore remains even in the case of these simple children's dreams, namely, the translation of the thought into experienceIn the interpretation of the dream it is of utmost importance that this change be traced back.If this should prove to be an extremely common characteristic of the dream, then the above mentioned dream fragment, "I see my brother in a closet" could not be translated, "My brother is close-pressed," but rather, "I wish that my brother were close-pressed, my brother should be close-pressed."Of the two universal characteristics of the dream we have cited, the second plainly has greater prospects of unconditional acknowledgment than the first.Only extensive investigation can ascertain that the cause of the dream must always be a wish, and cannot also be an anxiety, a plan or a reproach; but this does not alter the other characteristic, that the dream does not simply reproduce the stimulus but by experiencing it anew, as it were, removes, expells and settles it.

7.In connection with these characteristics of the dream we can again resume the comparison between the dream and the error.In the case of the latter we distinguish an interfering tendency and one interfered with, and the error is the compromise between the two.The dream fits into the same scheme.The tendency interfered with, in this case, can be no other than that of sleep. For the interfering tendency we substitute the psychic stimulus, the wish which strives for its fulfillment, let us say, for thus far we are not familiar with any other sleep-disturbing psychic stimulus. In this instance also the dream is the result of compromise. We sleep, and yet we experience the removal of a wish; we gratify the wish, but at the same time continue to sleep. Both are partly carried out and partly given up.

8. You will remember that we once hoped to gain access to the understanding of the dream problem by the fact that certain very transparent phantasy formations are called day dreamsNow these day dreams are actual wish fulfillments, fulfillments of ambitious or erotic wishes with which we are familiar; but they are conscious, and though vividly imagined, they are never hallucinatory experiences.In this instance, therefore, the less firmly established of the two main characteristics of the dream holds, while the other proves itself entirely dependent upon the condition of sleep and impossible to the waking state.In colloquial usage, therefore, there is a presentment of the fact that the fulfillment of a wish is a main characteristic of the dream.Furthermore, if the experience in the dream is a transformed representation only made possible by the condition of sleep—in other words, a sort of nocturnal day dream—then we can readily understand that the occurrence of phantasy formations can release the nocturnal stimulus and bring satisfaction.For day dreaming is an activity closely bound up in gratification and is, indeed, pursued only for this reason.

Not only this but other colloquial usages also express the same feeling.Well-known proverbs say, "The pig dreams of acorns, the goose of maize," or ask, "Of what does the hen dream?Of millet."So the proverb descends even lower than we do, from the child to the animal, and maintains that the content of a dream is the satisfaction of a need.Many turns of speech seem to point to the same thing—"dreamlike beauty," "I should never have dreamed of that," "in my wildest dreams I hadn't imagined that."This is open partisanship on the part of colloquial usage.For there are also dreams of fear and dreams of embarrassing or indifferent content, but they have not been drawn into common usage.It is true that common usage recognizes "bad" dreams, but still the dream plainly connotates to it only the beautiful wish fulfillment. There is indeed no proverb that tells us that the pig or the goose dreams of being slaughtered.

Of course it is unbelievable that the wish-fulfillment characteristic has not been noted by writers on the dream.Indeed, this was very often the case, but none of them thought of acknowledging this characteristic as universal and of making it the basis of an explanation of the dream.We can easily imagine what may have deterred them and shall discuss it subsequently.

See what an abundance of information we have gained, with almost no effort, from the consideration of children's dreams—the function of the dream as a guardian of sleep; its origin from two rival tendencies, of which the one, the longing for sleep, remains constant, while the other tries to satisfy a psychic stimulus; the proof that the dream is a significant psychic act; its two main characteristics: wish fulfillment and hallucinatory experience.And we were almost able to forget that we are engaged in psychoanalysis.Aside from its connection with errors our work has no specific connotation.Any psychologist, who is entirely ignorant of the claims of psychoanalysis, could have given this explanation of children's dreams. Why has no one done so?

If there were only infantile dreams, our problem would be solved, our task accomplished, and that without questioning the dreamer, or approaching the unconscious, and without taking free association into consideration.The continuation of our task plainly lies in this direction.We have already repeatedly had the experience that characteristics that at first seemed universally true, have subsequently held good only for a certain kind and for a certain number of dreams. It is therefore for us to decide whether the common characteristics which we have gathered from children's dreams can be applied universally, whether they also hold for those dreams that are not transparent, whose manifest content shows no connection with wishes left over from the previous day.We think that these dreams have undergone considerable distortion and for this reason are not to be judged superficially.We also suspect that for the explanation of this distortion we shall need the psychoanalytic method which we could dispense with in the understanding of children's dreams.

There is at any rate a class of dreams that are undistorted, and, just like children's dreams, are easily recognizable as wish fulfillments. It is those that are called up throughout life by the imperative needs of the body—hunger, thirst, sexual desire—hence wish fulfillments in reaction to internal physical stimuli. For this reason, I have noted the dream of a young girl, that consisted of a menu following her name (Anna F...... , strawberry, huckleberry, egg-dish, pap), as a reaction to an enforced day of fasting on account of a spoiled stomach, which was directly traceable to the eating of the fruits twice mentioned in the dream. At the same time, the grandmother, whose age added to that of her grandchild would make a full seventy, had to go without food for a day on account of kidney-trouble, and dreamed the same night that she had been invited out and that the finest tid-bits had been set before her. Observations with prisoners who are allowed to go hungry, or with people who suffer privations on travels or expeditions, show that under these conditions the dreams regularly deal with the satisfaction of these needs. Otto Nordenskjold, in his book Antarctic (1904), testifies to the same thing concerning his crew, who were ice-bound with him during the winter (Vol. 1, page 336). "Very significant in determining the trend of our inmost thoughts were our dreams, which were never more vivid and numerous than just at this time. Even those of our comrades who ordinarily dreamed but seldom, now had long stories to tell, when in the morning we exchanged our latest experiences in that realm of phantasy. All of them dealt with that outside world that now was so far away from us, but often they fitted into our present condition. Food and drink were most often the pivots about which our dreams revolved. One of us, who excelled in going to great dinners in his sleep, was most happy whenever he could tell us in the morning that he attended a dinner of three courses; another one dreamed of tobacco, whole mountains of tobacco; still another dreamed of a ship that came along on the open sea, under full sail. One other dream deserves mention: The postman comes with the mail and gives a long explanation of why it is so late; he had delivered it to the wrong address and only after great trouble on his part had succeeded in getting it back. Of course one occupies himself with even more impossible things in sleep, but in nearly all the dreams that I myself dreamed or heard tell of, the lack of phantasy was quite striking. It would surely be of great psychological interest if all these dreams were recorded. It is easy to understand how we longed for sleep, since it could offer us everything for which each one of us felt the most burning desire." I quote further from Du Prel. "Mungo Park, who during a trip in Africa was almost exhausted, dreamed without interruption of the fertile valleys and fields of his home. Trenck, tortured by hunger in the redoubt at Magdeburg, likewise saw himself surrounded by wonderful meals, and George Back, who took part in Franklin's first expedition, dreamed regularly and consistently of luxurious meals when, as a result of terrible privations, he was nearly dead of hunger."

A man who feels great thirst at night after enjoying highly seasoned food for supper, often dreams that he is drinking.It is of course impossible to satisfy a rather strong desire for food or drink by means of the dream; from such a dream one awakes thirsty and must now drink real water.The effect of the dream is in this case practically trifling, but it is none the less clear that it was called up for the purpose of maintaining the sleep in spite of the urgent impulse to awake and to act.Dreams of satisfaction often overcome needs of a lesser intensity.

In a like manner, under the influence of sexual stimuli, the dream brings about satisfaction that shows noteworthy peculiarities.As a result of the characteristic of the sexual urge which makes it somewhat less dependent upon its object than hunger and thirst, satisfaction in a dream of pollution may be an actual one, and as a result of difficulties to be mentioned later in connection with the object, it happens especially often that the actual satisfaction is connected with confused or distorted dream content.This peculiarity of the dream of pollution, as O.Rank has observed, makes it a fruitful subject to pursue in the study of dream distortion.Moreover, all dreams of desire of adults usually contain something besides satisfaction, something that has its origin in the sources of the purely psychic stimuli, and which requires interpretation to render it intelligible.

Moreover we shall not maintain that the wish-fulfillment dreams of the infantile kind occur in adults only as reactions to the known imperative desires.We also know of short clear dreams of this sort under the influence of dominating situations that arise from unquestionably psychic sources. As, for example, in dreams of impatience, whenever a person has made preparations for a journey, for a theatrical performance, for a lecture or for a visit, and now dreams of the anticipated fulfillment of his expectations, and so arrives at his goal the night before the actual experience, in the theatre or in conversation with his host. Or the well-named dreams of comfort, when a person who likes to prolong his sleep, dreams that he is already up, is washing himself, or is already in school, while as a matter of fact he continues sleeping, hence would rather get up in a dream than in reality. The desire for sleep which we have recognized as a regular part of the dream structure becomes intense in these dreams and appears in them as the actual shaping force of the dream. The wish for sleep properly takes its place beside other great physical desires.

At this point I refer you to a picture by Schwind, from the Schack Gallery in Munich, so that you may see how rightly the artist has conceived the origin of a dream from a dominating situation. It is the Dream of a Prisoner,[29] which can have no other subject than his release. It is a very neat stroke that the release should be effected through the window, for the ray of light that awakens the prisoner comes through the same window. The gnomes standing one above the other probably represent the successive positions which he himself had to take in climbing to the height of the window, and I do not think I am mistaken or that I attribute too much preconcerted design to the artist, by noting that the uppermost of the gnomes, who is filing the grating (and so does what the prisoner would like to do) has the features of the prisoner.

In all other dreams except those of children and those of the infantile type, distortion, as we have said, blocks our way.At the outset we cannot ascertain whether they are also wish fulfillments, as we suspect; from their manifest content we cannot determine from what psychic stimulus they derive their origin, and we cannot prove that they also are occupied in doing away with the stimulus and in satisfying it.They must probably be interpreted, that is, translated; their distortion must be annulled; their manifest content replaced by their latent thought before we can judge whether what we have found in children's dreams may claim a universal application for all dreams.

NINTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

The Dream Censor

WE have learned to know the origin, nature and function of the dream from the study of children's dreams. Dreams are the removal of sleep-disturbing psychic stimuli by way of hallucinated satisfaction. Of adults' dreams, to be sure, we could explain only one group, what we characterized as dreams of an infantile type. As to the others we know nothing as yet, nor do we understand them. For the present, however, we have obtained a result whose significance we do not wish to under-estimate. Every time a dream is completely comprehensible to us, it proves to be an hallucinated wish-fulfillment. This coincidence cannot be accidental, nor is it an unimportant matter.

We conclude, on the basis of various considerations and by analogy to the conception of mistakes, that another type of dream is a distorted substitute for an unknown content and that it must first be led back to that content.Our next task is the investigation and the understanding of this dream distortion.

Dream distortion is the thing which makes the dream seem strange and incomprehensible to us.We want to know several things about it; firstly, whence it comes, its dynamics; secondly, what it does; and finally, how it does it.We can say at this point that dream distortion is the product of the dream work, that is, of the mental functioning of which the dream itself is the conscious symptom.Let us describe the dream work and trace it back to the forces which work upon it.

And now I shall ask you to listen to the following dream.It was recorded by a lady of our profession, and according to her, originated with a highly cultivated and respected lady of advanced age.No analysis of this dream was made.Our informant remarks that to a psychoanalyst it needs no interpretation. The dreamer herself did not interpret it, but she judged and condemned it as if she understood its interpretation. For she said concerning it: "That a woman of fifty should dream such abominable, stupid stuff—a woman who has no other thought, day and night, than to care for her child!"

And now follows the dreams of the "services of love.""She goes into Military Hospital No.1, and says to the sentry at the gate, that she must speak to the chief physician ...(she mentions a name which is not familiar to her), as she wants to offer her service to the hospital.She stresses the word 'service,' so love services.Since she is an old lady he lets her pass after some hesitation.But instead of reaching the chief physician, she finds herself in a large somber room in which there are many officers and army doctors sitting and standing around a long table.She turns with her proposal to a staff doctor who, after a few words, soon understands her.The words of her speech in the dream are, 'I and numerous other women and girls of Vienna are ready for the soldiers, troops, and officers, without distinction....'Here in the dream follows a murmuring.That the idea is, however, correctly understood by those present she sees from the semi-embarrassed, somewhat malicious expressions of the officers.The lady then continues, 'I know that our decision sounds strange, but we are in bitter earnest.The soldier in the field is not asked either whether or not he wants to die.'A moment of painful silence follows.The staff doctor puts his arm around her waist and says, 'Madame, let us assume that it really came to that ...'(murmurs).She withdraws from his arm with the thought, 'They are all alike!'and answers, 'My heavens, I am an old woman, and perhaps will never be confronted with that situation; one consideration, moreover, must be kept in mind: the consideration of age, which prevents an older woman from ...with a very young boy ...(murmurs) ...that would be horrible.'The staff doctor, 'I understand perfectly.'Several officers, among them one who had paid court to her in her youth, laugh loudly, and the lady asks to be conducted to the chief physician, whom she knows, so that everything may be arranged.At this she realizes with great dismay that she does not know his name.The staff officer, nevertheless, very politely and respectfully shows her the way to the second story, up a very narrow winding iron stairway which leads to the upper story directly from the door of the room. In going up she hears an officer say, 'That is a tremendous decision irrespective of whether a woman is young or old; all honor to her!'

"With the feeling that she is merely doing her duty, she goes up an endless staircase."

This dream she repeats twice in the course of a few weeks, with—as the lady notices—quite insignificant and very senseless changes.

This dream corresponds in its structure to a day dream.It has few gaps, and many of its individual points might have been elucidated as to content through inquiry, which, as you know, was omitted.The conspicuous and interesting point for us, however, is that the dream shows several gaps, gaps not of recollection, but of original content.In three places the content is apparently obliterated, the speeches in which these gaps occur are interrupted by murmurs.Since we have performed no analysis, we have, strictly speaking, also no right to make any assertion about the meaning of the dream.Yet there are intimations given from which something may be concluded.For example, the phrase "services of love," and above all the bits of speech which immediately precede the murmurs, demand a completion which can have but one meaning.If we interpolate these, then the phantasy yields as its content the idea that the dreamer is ready, as an act of patriotic duty, to offer her person for the satisfaction of the erotic desires of the army, officers as well as troops.That certainly is exceedingly shocking, it is an impudent libidinous phantasy, but—it does not occur in the dream at all.Just at the point where consistency would demand this confession, there is a vague murmur in the manifest dream, something is lost or suppressed.

I hope you will recognize the inevitability of the conclusion that it is the shocking character of these places in the dream that was the motive for their suppression.Yet where do you find a parallel for this state of affairs?In these times you need not seek far.Take up any political paper and you will find that the text is obliterated here and there, and that in its place shimmers the white of the paper.You know that that is the work of the newspaper censor.In these blank spaces something was printed which was not to the liking of the censorship authorities, and for that reason it was crossed out. You think that it is a pity, that it probably was the most interesting part, it was "the best part."

In other places the censorship did not touch the completed sentence.The author foresaw what parts might be expected to meet with the objection of the censor, and for that reason he softened them by way of prevention, modified them slightly, or contented himself with innuendo and allusion to what really wanted to flow from his pen.Thus the sheet, it is true, has no blank spaces, but from certain circumlocutions and obscurities of expression you will be able to guess that thoughts of the censorship were the restraining motive.

Now let us keep to this parallel. We say that the omitted dream speeches, which were disguised by a murmuring, were also sacrifices to a censorship. We actually speak of a dream censor to which we may ascribe a contributing part in the dream distortion. Wherever there are gaps in the manifest dream, it is the fault of the dream censor. Indeed, we should go further, and recognize each time as a manifestation of the dream censor, those places at which a dream element is especially faint, indefinitely and doubtfully recalled among other, more clearly delineated portions. But it is only rarely that this censorship manifests itself so undisguisedly, so naively one may say, as in the example of the dream of the "services of love." Far more frequently the censorship manifests itself according to the second type, through the production of weakenings, innuendoes, allusions instead of direct truthfulness.

For a third type of dream censorship I know of no parallel in the practice of newspaper censorship, yet it is just this type that I can demonstrate by the only dream example which we have so far analyzed.You will remember the dream of the "three bad theatre tickets for one florin and a half."In the latent thoughts of this dream, the element "precipitately, too soon," stood in the foreground. It means: "It was foolish to marry so early, it was also foolish to buy theatre tickets so early, it was ridiculous of the sister-in-law to spend her money so hastily, merely to buy an ornament."Nothing of this central element of the dream thought was evident in the manifest dream.In the latter, going to the theatre and getting the tickets were shoved into the foreground. Through this displacement of the emphasis, this regrouping of the elements of the content, the manifest dream becomes so dissimilar from the latent dream thoughts that no one would suspect the latter behind the former. This displacement of emphasis is a favorite device of the dream distortion and gives the dream that strangeness which makes the dreamer himself unwilling to recognize it as his own production.

Omission, modification, regrouping of the material, these, then, are the effects of the dream censor and the devices of dream distortion. The dream censorship itself is the author, or one of the authors, of the dream distortion whose investigation now occupies us. Modification and rearrangement we are already accustomed to summarize as displacement

After these remarks concerning the effects of the dream censor, let us now turn to their dynamics.I hope you will not consider the expression too anthropomorphically, and picture the dream censor as a severe little manikin who lives in a little brain chamber and there performs his duties; nor should you attempt to localize him too much, to think of a brain center from which his censoring influence emanates, and which would cease with the injury or extirpation of this center.For the present, the term "dream censor" is no more than a very convenient phrase for a dynamic relationship.This phrase does not prevent us from asking by what tendencies such influence is exerted and upon which tendencies it works; nor will we be surprised to discover that we have already encountered the dream censor before, perhaps without recognizing him.

For such was actually the case.You will remember that we had a surprising experience when we began to apply our technique of free association.We then began to feel that some sort of a resistance blocked our efforts to proceed from the dream element to the unconscious element for which the former is the substitute.This resistance, we said, may be of varying strength, enormous at one time, quite negligible at another.In the latter case we need cross only a few intermediate steps in our work of interpretation.But when the resistance is strong, then we must go through a long chain of associations, are taken far afield and must overcome all the difficulties which present themselves as critical objections to the association technique.What we met with in the work of interpretation, we must now bring into the dream work as the dream censor. The resistance to interpretation is nothing but the objectivation of the dream censor. The latter proves to us that the force of the censor has not spent itself in causing the dream distortion, has not since been extinguished, but that this censorship continues as a permanent institution with the purpose of preserving the distortion. Moreover, just as in the interpretation the strength of the resistance varied with each element, so also the distortion produced by the censor in the same dream is of varying magnitude for each element. If one compares the manifest with the latent dream one sees that certain isolated latent elements have been practically eliminated, others more or less modified, and still others left unchanged, indeed, have perhaps been taken over into the dream content with additional strength.

But we wanted to discover what purposes the censorship serves and against which tendencies it acts.This question, which is fundamental to the understanding of the dream, indeed perhaps to human life, is easily answered if we look over a series of those dreams which have been analyzed.The tendencies which the censorship exercises are those which are recognized by the waking judgment of the dreamer, those with which he feels himself in harmony.You may rest assured that when you reject an accurate interpretation of a dream of your own, you do so with the same motives with which the dream censor works, the motives with which it produces the dream distortion and makes the interpretation necessary.Recall the dream of our fifty-year old lady.Without having interpreted it, she considers her dream abominable, would have been still more outraged if our informant had told her anything about the indubitable meaning; and it is just on account of this condemnation that the shocking spots in her dream were replaced by a murmur.

The tendencies, however, against which the dream censor directs itself, must now be described from the standpoint of this instance.One can say only that these tendencies are of an objectionable nature throughout, that they are shocking from an ethical, aesthetic and social point of view, that they are things one does not dare even to think, or thinks of only with abhorrence.These censored wishes which have attained to a distorted expression in the dream, are above all expressions of a boundless, reckless egoism.And indeed, the personal ego occurs in every dream to play the major part in each of them, even if it can successfully disguise itself in the manifest content. This sacro egoismo of the dream is surely not unconnected with the sleep-inducing cessation of psychic activity which consists, it should be noted, in the withdrawal of interest from the entire external world.

The ego which has been freed of all ethical restraints feels itself in accord with all the demands of the sexual striving, with those demands which have long since been condemned by our aesthetic rearing, demands of such a character that they resist all our moral demands for restraint.The pleasure-striving—the libido, as we term it—chooses its objects without inhibitions, and indeed, prefers those that are forbidden.It chooses not only the wife of another, but, above all, those incestuous objects declared sacred by the agreement of mankind—the mother and sister in the man's case, the father and brother in the woman's.Even the dream of our fifty-year old lady is an incestuous one, its libido unmistakably directed toward her son.Desires which we believe to be far from human nature show themselves strong enough to arouse dreams. Hate, too, expends itself without restraint.Revenge and murderous wishes toward those standing closest to the dreamer are not unusual, toward those best beloved in daily life, toward parents, brothers and sisters, toward one's spouse and one's own children.These censored wishes seem to arise from a veritable hell; no censorship seems too harsh to be applied against their waking interpretation.

But do not reproach the dream itself for this evil content.You will not, I am sure, forget that the dream is charged with the harmless, indeed the useful function of guarding sleep from disturbance.This evil content, then, does not lie in the nature of the dream.You know also that there are dreams which can be recognized as the satisfaction of justified wishes and urgent bodily needs.These, to be sure, undergo no dream distortion.They need none.They can satisfy their function without offending the ethical and aesthetic tendencies of the ego.And will you also keep in mind the fact that the amount of dream distortion is proportional to two factors.On the one hand, the worse the censorable wish, the greater the distortion; on the other hand, however, the stricter the censor himself is at any particular time the greater the distortion will be also.A young, strictly reared and prudish girl will, by reason of those factors, disfigure with an inexorable censorship those dream impulses which we physicians, for example, and which the dreamer herself ten years later, would recognize as permissible, harmless, libidinous desires.

Besides, we are far from being at the point where we can allow ourselves to be shocked by the results of our work of interpretation.I think we are not yet quite adept at it; and above all there lies upon us the obligation to secure it against certain attacks.It is not at all difficult to "find a hitch" in it.Our dream interpretations were made on the hypotheses we accepted a little while ago, that the dream has some meaning, that from the hypnotic to the normal sleep one may carry over the idea of the existence at such times of an unconscious psychic activity, and that all associations are predetermined.If we had come to plausible results on the basis of these hypotheses, we would have been justified in concluding that the hypotheses were correct.But what is to be done when the results are what I have just pictured them to be?Then it surely is natural to say, "These results are impossible, foolish, at least very improbable, hence there must have been something wrong with the hypotheses.Either the dream is no psychic phenomenon after all, or there is no such thing as unconscious mental activity in the normal condition, or our technique has a gap in it somewhere.Is that not a simpler and more satisfying conclusion than the abominations which we pretend to have disclosed on the basis of our suppositions?"

Both, I answer.It is a simpler as well as a more satisfying conclusion, but not necessarily more correct for that reason.Let us take our time, the matter is not yet ripe for judgment.Above all we can strengthen the criticism against our dream interpretation still further.That its conclusions are so unpleasant and unpalatable is perhaps of secondary importance.A stronger argument is the fact that the dreamers to whom we ascribe such wish-tendencies from the interpretation of their dreams reject the interpretations most emphatically, and with good reason."What," says the one, "you want to prove to me by this dream that I begrudged the sums which I spent for my sister's trousseau and my brother's education?But indeed that can't be so.Why I work only for my sister, I have no interest in life but to fulfill my duties toward her, as being the oldest child, I promised our blessed mother I would." Or a woman says of her dream, "You mean to say that I wish my husband were dead! Why, that is simply revolting, nonsense. It isn't only that we have the happiest possible married life, you probably won't believe me when I tell you so, but his death would deprive me of everything else that I own in the world." Or another will tell us, "You mean that I have sensual desires toward my sister? That is ridiculous. I am not in the least fond of her. We don't get along and I haven't exchanged a word with her in years." We might perhaps ignore this sort of thing if the dreamers did not confirm or deny the tendencies ascribed to them; we could say that they are matters which the dreamers do not know about themselves. But that the dreamers should feel the exact opposite of the ascribed wish, and should be able to prove to us the dominance of the opposite tendency—this fact must finally disconcert us. Is it not time to lay aside the whole work of the dream interpretation as something whose results reduce it to absurdity?

By no means; this stronger argument breaks down when we attack it critically.Assuming that there are unconscious tendencies in the psychic life, nothing is proved by the ability of the subject to show that their opposites dominate his conscious life.Perhaps there is room in the psychic life even for antithetical tendencies, for contradictions which exist side by side, yes, possibly it is just the dominance of the one impulse which is the necessary condition for the unconsciousness of its opposite.The first two objections raised against our work hold merely that the results of dream interpretation are not simple, and very unpleasant.In answer to the first of these, one may say that for all your enthusiasm for the simple solution, you cannot thereby solve a single dream problem.To do so you must make up your mind to accept the fact of complicated relationships.And to the second of these objections one may say that you are obviously wrong to use a preference or a dislike as the basis for a scientific judgment.What difference does it make if the results of the dream interpretation seem unpleasant, even embarrassing and disgusting to you?"That doesn't prevent them from existing," as I used to hear my teacher Charcot say in similar cases, when I was a young doctor.One must be humble, one must keep personal preferences and antipathies in the background, if one wishes to discover the realities of the world. If a physicist can prove to you that the organic life of this planet must, within a short period of time, become completely extinct, do you also venture to say to him, "That cannot be so. This prospect is too unpleasant." On the contrary, you will be silent until another physicist proves some error in the assumptions or calculations of the first. If you reject the unpleasant, you are repeating the mechanism of dream construction instead of understanding and mastering it.

Perhaps you will promise to overlook the repulsive character of the censored dream-wishes, and will take refuge in the argument that it is improbable, after all, that so wide a field be given over to the evil in the constitution of man.But does your own experience justify you in saying that?I will not discuss the question of how you may estimate yourselves, but have you found so much good will among your superiors and rivals, so much chivalry among your enemies, so little envy in their company, that you feel yourselves in duty bound to enter a protest against the part played by the evil of egoism in human nature?Are you ignorant of how uncontrolled and undependable the average human being is in all the affairs of sex life?Or do you not know that all the immoralities and excesses of which we dream nightly are crimes committed daily by waking persons?What else does psychoanalysis do here but confirm the old saying of Plato, that the good people are those who content themselves with dreaming what the others, the bad people, really do?

And now turn your attention from the individual case to the great war devastating Europe.Think of the amount of brutality, the cruelty and the lies allowed to spread over the civilized world.Do you really believe that a handful of conscienceless egoists and corruptionists could have succeeded in setting free all these evil spirits, if the millions of followers did not share in the guilt?Do you dare under these circumstances to break a lance for the absence of evil from the psychic constitution of mankind?

You will reproach me with judging the war one-sidedly, you will say that it has also brought forth all that is most beautiful and noble in mankind, its heroic courage, its self-sacrifice, its social feeling.Certainly, but do not at this point allow yourselves to become guilty of the injustice which has so often been perpetrated against psychoanalysis, of reproaching it with denying one thing because it was asserting another. It is not our intention to deny the noble strivings of human nature, nor have we ever done anything to deprecate their value. On the contrary, I show you not only the censored evil dream-wishes, but also the censor which suppresses them and renders them unrecognizable. We dwell on the evil in mankind with greater emphasis only because others deny it, a method whereby the psychic life of mankind does not become better, but merely incomprehensible. When, however, we give up this one-sided ethical estimate, we shall surely be able to find a more accurate formula for the relationship of the evil to the good in human nature.

And thus the matter stands.We need not give up the conclusions to which our labors in dream interpretation lead us even though we must consider those conclusions strange.Perhaps we can approach their understanding later by another path.For the present, let us repeat: dream distortion is a consequence of the censorship practised by accredited tendencies of the ego against those wish-impulses that are in any way shocking, impulses which stir in us nightly during sleep.Why these wish-impulses come just at night, and whence they come—these are questions which will bear considerable investigation.

It would be a mistake, however, to omit to mention, with fitting emphasis, another result of these investigations.The dream wishes which try to disturb our sleep are not known to us, in fact we learn of them first through the dream interpretation.Therefore, they may be described as "at that time" unconscious in the sense above defined.But we can go beyond this and say that they are more than merely "at that time" unconscious.The dreamer to be sure denies their validity, as we have seen in so many cases, even after he has learned of their existence by means of the interpretation.The situation is then repeated which we first encountered in the interpretation of the tongue slip "hiccough" where the toastmaster was outraged and assured us that neither then nor ever before had he been conscious of disrespectful impulse toward his chief.This is repeated with every interpretation of a markedly distorted dream, and for that reason attains a significance for our conception.We are now prepared to conclude that there are processes and tendencies in the psychic life of which one knows nothing at all, has known nothing for some time, might, in fact, perhaps never have known anything. The unconscious thus receives a new meaning for us; the idea of "at present" or "at a specific time" disappears from its conception, for it can also mean permanently unconscious, not merely latent at the timeObviously we shall have to learn more of this at another session.

TENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Symbolism in the Dream

WE have discovered that the distortion of dreams, a disturbing element in our work of understanding them, is the result of a censorious activity which is directed against the unacceptable of the unconscious wish-impulses.But, of course, we have not maintained that censorship is the only factor which is to blame for the dream distortion, and we may actually make the discovery in a further study of the dream that other items play a part in this result.That is, even if the dream censorship were eliminated we might not be in a position to understand the dreams; the actual dream still might not be identical with the latent dream thought.

This other item which makes the dream unintelligible, this new addition to dream distortion, we discover by considering a gap in our technique.I have already admitted that for certain elements of the dream, no associations really occur to the person being analyzed.This does not happen so often as the dreamers maintain; in many cases the association can be forced by persistence.But still there are certain instances in which no association is forthcoming, or if forced does not furnish what we expected.When this happens in the course of a psychoanalytic treatment, then a particular meaning may be attached thereto, with which we have nothing to do here.It also occurs, however, in the interpretation of the dreams of a normal person or in interpreting one's own dreams. Once a person is convinced that in these cases no amount of forcing of associations will avail, he will finally make the discovery that the unwished-for contingency occurs regularly in certain dream elements, and he will begin to recognize a new order of things there, where at first he believed he had come across a peculiar exception to our technique.

In this way we are tempted to interpret these silent dream elements ourselves, to undertake their translation by the means at hand.The fact that every time we trust to this substitution we obtain a satisfactory meaning is forced upon us; until we resolve upon this decision the dream remains meaningless, its continuity is broken.The accumulation of many similar cases tends to give the necessary certainty to our first timid attempts.

I am expounding all this in rather a schematic manner, but this is permissible for purposes of instruction, and I am not trying to misstate, but only to simplify matters.

In this manner we derive constant translations for a whole series of dream elements just as constant translations are found in our popular dream books for all the things we dream.But do not forget that in our association technique we never discover constant substitutes for the dream elements.

You will say at once that this road to interpretation appears far more uncertain and open to objection than the former methods of free association.But a further fact is to be taken into consideration.After one has gathered a sufficient number of such constant substitutes empirically, he will say that of his own knowledge he should actually have denied that these items of dream interpretation could really be understood without the associations of the dreamer.The facts that force us to recognize their meaning will appear in the second half of our analysis.

We call such a constant relationship between a dream element and its interpretation symbolic. The dream element is itself a symbol of the unconscious dream thought. You will remember that previously, when we were investigating the relationship between dream elements and their actuality, I drew three distinctions, viz. , that of the part of the whole, that of the allusion, and that of the imagery. I then announced that there was a fourth, but did not name it. This fourth is the symbolic relationship here introduced. Very interesting discussions center about this, and we will now consider them before we express our own particular observations on symbolism. Symbolism is perhaps the most noteworthy chapter of dream study.

In the first place, since symbols are permanent or constant translations, they realize, in a certain measure, the ideal of ancient as well as popular dream interpretation, an ideal which by means of our technique we had left behind.They permit us in certain cases to interpret a dream without questioning the dreamer who, aside from this, has no explanation for the symbol. If the interpreter is acquainted with the customary dream symbols and, in addition, with the dreamer himself, the conditions under which the latter lives and the impressions he received before having the dream, it is often possible to interpret a dream without further information—to translate it "right off the bat." Such a trick flatters the interpreter and impresses the dreamer; it stands out as a pleasurable incident in the usual arduous course of cross-examining the dreamer. But do not be misled. It is not our function to perform tricks. Interpretation based on a knowledge of symbols is not a technique that can replace the associative technique, or even compare with it. It is a supplement to the associative technique, and furnishes the latter merely with transplanted, usable results. But as regards familiarity with the dreamer's psychic situation, you must consider the fact that you are not limited to interpreting the dreams of acquaintances; that as a rule you are not acquainted with the daily occurrences which act as the stimuli for the dreams, and that the associations of the subject furnish you with a knowledge of that very thing we call the psychic situation.

Furthermore, it is very extraordinary, particularly in view of circumstances to be mentioned later, that the most vehement opposition has been voiced against the existence of the symbolic relationship between the dream and the unconscious.Even persons of judgment and position, who have otherwise made great progress in psychoanalysis, have discontinued their support at this point.This is the more remarkable since, in the first place, symbolism is neither peculiar to the dream nor characteristic of it, and since in the second place, symbolism in the dream was not discovered through psychoanalysis, although the latter is not poor otherwise in making startling discoveries.The discoverer of dream symbolism, if we insist on a discovery in modern times, was the philosopher K.A.Scherner (1861).Psychoanalysis affirmed Scherner's discovery and modified it considerably.

Now you will want to know something of the nature of dream symbolism, and to hear some examples.I shall gladly impart to you what I know, but I admit that our knowledge is not so complete as we could desire it to be.

The nature of the symbol relationship is a comparison, but not any desired comparison.One suspects a special prerequisite for this comparison, but is unable to say what it is.Not everything to which we are able to compare an object or an occurrence occurs in the dream as its symbol; on the other hand, the dream does not symbolize anything we may choose, but only specific elements of the dream thought.There are limitations on both sides.It must be admitted that the idea of the symbol cannot be sharply delimited at all times—it mingles with the substitution, dramatization, etc., even approaches the allusion.In one series of symbols the basic comparison is apparent to the senses.On the other hand, there are other symbols which raise the question of where the similarity, the "something intermediate" of this suspected comparison is to be sought.We may discover it by more careful consideration, or it may remain hidden to us.Furthermore, it is extraordinary, if the symbol is a comparison, that this comparison is not revealed by the association, that the dreamer is not acquainted with the comparison, that he makes use of it without knowing of its existence.Indeed, the dreamer does not even care to admit the validity of this comparison when it is pointed out to him.So you see, a symbolic relationship is a comparison of a very special kind, the origin of which is not yet clearly understood by us.Perhaps later we may find references to this unknown factor.

The number of things that find symbolic representation in the dream is not great—the human body as a whole, parents, children, brothers and sisters, birth, death, nakedness and a few others. The only typical, that is, regular representation of the human person as a whole is in the form of a house, as was recognized by Scherner who, indeed, wished to credit this symbol with an overwhelming significance which it does not deserve. It occurs in dreams that a person, now lustful, now frightened, climbs down the fronts of houses. Those with entirely smooth walls are men; but those which are provided with projections and balconies to which one can hold on, are women. Parents appear in the dream as king and queen, or other persons highly respected. The dream in this instance is very pious. It treats children, and brothers and sisters, less tenderly; they are symbolized as little animals or vermin. Birth is almost regularly represented by some reference to water; either one plunges into the water or climbs out of it, or rescues someone from the water, or is himself rescued from it, i.e. , there is a mother-relation to the person. Death is replaced in the dream by taking a journey, riding in a train; being dead, by various darksome, timid suggestions; nakedness, by clothes and uniformsYou see here how the lines between symbolic and suggestive representation merge one into another.

In contrast to the paucity of this enumeration, it is a striking fact that the objects and subject matter of another sphere are represented by an extraordinarily rich symbolism.This is the sphere of the sexual life, the genitals, the sex processes and sexual intercourse.The great majority of symbols in the dream are sex symbols.A remarkable disproportion results from this fact.The designated subject matters are few, their symbols extraordinarily profuse, so that each of these objects can be expressed by any number of symbols of almost equal value.In the interpretation something is disclosed that arouses universal objection.The symbol interpretations, in contrast to the many-sidedness of the dream representations, are very monotonous—this displeases all who deal with them; but what is one to do?

Since this is the first time in these lectures that we speak of the sexual life, I must tell you the manner in which I intend to handle this theme.Psychoanalysis sees no reason for hiding matters or treating them by innuendo, finds no necessity of being ashamed of dealing with this important subject, believes it is proper and decent to call everything by its correct name, and hopes most effectively in this manner to ward off disturbing or salacious thoughts.The fact that I am talking before a mixed audience can make no difference on this point.Just as there is no special knowledge either for the Delphic oracle or for flappers, so the ladies present among you have, by their appearance in this lecture hall, made it clear that they wish to be considered on the same basis as the men.

The dream has a number of representations for the male genital that may be called symbolic, and in which the similarity of the comparison is, for the most part, very enlightening.In the first place, the holy figure 3 is a symbolical substitute for the entire male genital.The more conspicuous and more interesting part of the genital to both sexes, the male organ, has symbolical substitute in objects of like form, those which are long and upright, such as sticks, umbrellas, poles, trees, etc. It is also symbolized by objects that have the characteristic, in common with it, of penetration into the body and consequent injury, hence pointed weapons of every type, knives, daggers, lances, swords, and in the same manner firearms, guns, pistols and the revolver, which is so suitable because of its shape. In the troubled dream of the young girl, pursuit by a man with a knife or a firearm plays a big role. This, probably the most frequent dream symbolism, is easily translatable. Easily comprehensible, too, is the substitution for the male member of objects out of which water flows: faucets, water cans, fountains, as well as its representation by other objects that have the power of elongation, such as hanging lamps, collapsible pencils, etc. That pencils, quills, nail files, hammers and other instruments are undoubtedly male symbols is a fact connected with a conception of the organ, which likewise is not far to seek.

The extraordinary characteristic of the member of being able to raise itself against the force of gravity, one of the phenomena of erection, leads to symbolic representations by balloons, aeroplanes, and more recently, Zeppelins. The dream has another far more expressive way of symbolizing erection. It makes the sex organ the essential part of the whole person and pictures the person himself as flyingDo not feel disturbed because the dreams of flying, often so beautiful, and which we all have had, must be interpreted as dreams of general sexual excitement, as erection dreams. P.Federn, among the psychoanalytical students, has confirmed this interpretation beyond any doubt, and even Mourly Vold, much praised for his sobriety, who carried on his dream experiments with artificial positions of the arms and legs, and who was really opposed to psychoanalysis—perhaps knew nothing about psychoanalysis—has come to the same conclusion as a result of his research.It is no objection to this conclusion that women may have the same dreams of flying.Remember that our dreams act as wish-fulfillments, and that the wish to be a man is often present in women, consciously or unconsciously.And the fact that it is possible for a woman to realize this wish by the same sensation as a man does, will not mislead anyone acquainted with anatomy.There is a small organ in the genitals of a woman similar to that of the male, and this small organ, the clitoris, even in childhood, and in the years before sexual intercourse, plays the same role as does the large organ of the male.

To the less comprehensible male sex-symbols belong certain reptiles and fish, notably the famous symbol of the snake. Why hats and cloaks should have been turned to the same use is certainly difficult to discover, but their symbolic meaning leaves no room for doubt. And finally the question may be raised whether possibly the substitution of some other member as a representation for the male organ may not be regarded as symbolic. I believe that one is forced to this conclusion by the context and by the female counterparts.

The female genital is symbolically represented by all those objects which share its peculiarity of enclosing a space capable of being filled by something—viz. , by pits, caves, and hollows, by pitchers and bottles, by boxes and trunks, jars, cases, pockets, etc. The ship, too, belongs in this category. Many symbols represent the womb of the mother rather than the female genital, as wardrobes, stoves, and primarily a room. The room-symbolism is related to the house-symbol, doors and entrances again become symbolic of the genital opening. But materials, too, are symbols of the woman—wood, paper, and objects that are made of these materials, such as tables and books. Of animals, at least the snail and mussel are unmistakably recognizable as symbols for the female; of parts of the body the mouth takes the place of the genital opening, while churches and chapels are structural symbolisms. As you see, all of these symbols are not equally comprehensible.

The breasts must be included in the genitals, and like the larger hemispheres of the female body are represented by apples, peaches and fruits in general. The pubic hair growth of both sexes appears in the dream as woods and bushes. The complicated topography of the female genitals accounts for the fact that they are often represented as scenes with cliffs, woods and water, while the imposing mechanism of the male sex apparatus leads to the use of all manner of very complicated machinery, difficult to describe.

A noteworthy symbol of the female genital is also the jewel-casket; jewels and treasure are also representatives of the beloved person in the dream; sweets frequently occur as representatives of sexual delights. The satisfaction in one's own genital is suggested by all types of play, in which may be included piano-playing. Exquisite symbolic representations of onanism are sliding and coasting as well as tearing off a branch. A particularly remarkable dream symbol is that of having one's teeth fall out, or having them pulled. Certainly its most immediate interpretation is castration as a punishment for onanism. Special representations for the relations of the sexes are less numerous in the dream than we might have expected from the foregoing. Rhythmic activities, such as dancing, riding and climbing may be mentioned, also harrowing experiences, such as being run over. One may include certain manual activities, and, of course, being threatened with weapons

You must not imagine that either the use or the translation of these symbols is entirely simple. All manner of unexpected things are continually happening. For example, it seems hardly believable that in these symbolic representations the sex differences are not always sharply distinguished. Many symbols represent a genital in general, regardless of whether male or female, e.g. , the little child, the small son or daughter. It sometimes occurs that a predominantly male symbol is used for a female genital, or vice versa. This is not understood until one has acquired an insight into the development of the sexual representations of mankind. In many instances this double meaning of symbols may be only apparent; the most striking of the symbols, such as weapons, pockets and boxes are excluded from this bisexual usage.

I should now like to give a summary, from the point of view of the symbols rather than of the thing represented, of the field out of which the sex symbols are for the most part taken, and then to make a few remarks about the symbols which have points in common that are not understood. An obscure symbol of this type is the hat, perhaps headdress on the whole, and is usually employed as a male representation, though at times as a female. In the same way the cloak represents a man, perhaps not always the genital aspect. You are at liberty to ask, why? The cravat, which is suspended and is not worn by women, is an unmistakable male symbol. White laundry, all linen, in fact, is female. Dresses, uniforms are, as we have already seen, substitutes for nakedness, for body-formation; the shoe or slipper is a female genital. Tables and wood have already been mentioned as puzzling but undoubtedly female symbols. Ladders, ascents, steps in relation to their mounting, are certainly symbols of sexual intercourse. On closer consideration we see that they have the rhythm of walking as a common characteristic; perhaps, too, the heightening of excitement and the shortening of the breath, the higher one mounts.

We have already spoken of natural scenery as a representation of the female genitals. Mountains and cliffs are symbols of the male organ; the garden a frequent symbol of the female genitals. Fruit does not stand for the child, but for the breasts. Wild animals signify sensually aroused persons, or further, base impulses, passions. Blossoms and flowers represent the female genitals, or more particularly, virginity. Do not forget that the blossoms are really the genitals of the plants.

We already know the room as a symbol. The representation may be extended in that the windows, entrances and exits of the room take on the meaning of the body openings. Whether the room is open or closed is a part of this symbolism, and the key that opens it is an unmistakable male symbol.

This is the material of dream symbolism.It is not complete and might be deepened as well as extended.But I am of the opinion it will seem more than enough to you, perhaps will make you reluctant.You will ask, "Do I really live in the midst of sex symbols?Are all the objects that surround me, all the clothes I put on, all the things that I touch, always sex symbols, and nothing else?"There really are sufficient grounds for such questions, and the first is, "Where, in fact, are we to find the meaning of these dream symbols if the dreamer himself can give no information concerning them, or at best can give only incomplete information?"

My answer is: "From many widely different sources, from fairy tales and myths, jokes and farces, from folklore, that is, the knowledge of the customs, usages, sayings and songs of peoples, from the poetic and vulgar language.Everywhere we find the same symbolism and in many of these instances we understand them without further information.If we follow up each of these sources separately we shall find so many parallels to the dream symbolism that we must believe in the correctness of our interpretations."

The human body, we have said, is, according to Scherner, frequently symbolized in the dream by the house. Continuing this representation, the windows, doors and entrances are the entrances into the body cavities, the facades are smooth or provided with balconies and projections to which to hold. The same symbolism is to be found in our daily speech when we greet a good friend as "old house" or when we say of someone, "We'll hit him in the belfry," or maintain of another that he's not quite right in the upper story. In anatomy the body openings are sometimes called the body-portals

The fact that we meet our parents in the dream as imperial or royal persons is at first surprising. But it has its parallel in the fairy tale. Doesn't it begin to dawn upon us that the many fairy tales which begin "Once upon a time there was a king and a queen" intend nothing else than, "Once there was a father and a mother?" In our families we refer to our children as princes, the eldest as the crown-prince. The king usually calls himself the father of the country. We playfully designate little children as worms, and say, sympathetically, "poor little worm."

Let us return to the symbolism of the house. When we use the projections of the house to hold ourselves on to in the dream, are we not reminded of the familiar colloquialism about persons with well-developed breasts: "She has something to hold onto"? The folk express this in still another way when it says, "there's lots of wood in front of her house"; as though it wished to come to the aid of our interpretation that wood is a feminine, maternal symbol.

In addition to wood there are others. We might not understand how this material has come to be a substitute for the maternal, the feminine. Here our comparison of languages may be helpful. The German word Holz (wood) is said to be from the same stem as the Greek word, νλη, which means stuff, raw material. This is an example of the case, not entirely unusual, where a general word for material finally is exclusively used for some special material. There is an island in the ocean, known by the name of Madeira. The Portuguese gave it this name at the time of its discovery because it was at that time entirely covered with forests, for in the language of the Portuguese, Madeira means woodYou will recognize, however, that Madeira, is nothing else than the slightly changed Latin word materia which again has the general meaning of material Material is derived from mater, mother.The material out of which something is made, is at the same time its mother-part.In the symbolic use of wood for woman, mother, this ancient conception still lives.

Birth is regularly expressed in dreams by some connection with water; one plunges into the water, or comes out of the water, which means one gives birth to, or is born.Now let us not forget that this symbol may refer in two ways to the truths of evolutionary history.Not alone have all land-mammals, including the ancestors of man, developed out of water animals—this is the ultimate fact—but every single mammal, every human being, lived the first part of his existence in the water—namely, lived in the body of his mother as an embryo in the amniotic fluid and came out of the water at the time of his birth.I do not wish to maintain that the dreamer knows this, on the contrary I hold that he does not have to know.The dreamer very likely knows some things because of the fact that he was told about them in his childhood, and for that very reason I maintain that this knowledge has played no part in the construction of his symbols.He was told in childhood that the stork brought him—but where did it get him?Out of a lake, out of the well—again, out of the water.One of my patients to whom such information had been given, a little count, disappeared for a whole afternoon.Finally he was discovered lying at the edge of the palace lake, his little face bent above the water and earnestly peering into it to see if he could not see the little children at the bottom.

In the myths of the birth of the hero, which O.Rank submitted to comparative examination,—the oldest is that of King Sargon of Agade, about 2800 B.C.—exposure in the water and rescue from water play a predominating role.Rank has recognized that these are representations of birth, analogous to those customary in dreams. When a person in his dream rescues another from the water, the latter becomes his mother, or just plainly mother; in the myth a person who rescues a child out of the water professes herself as the real mother of the child.In a well-known joke the intelligent Jewish boy is asked who was the mother of Moses.He answered without hesitation, the Princess.But no, he is told, she only took him out of the water. "That's what she says," is his reply, and thereby he shows that he has found the correct interpretation of the myth.

Leaving on a trip represents death in the dream. Likewise it is the custom in the nursery when a child asks where someone who has died, and whom he misses, may be, to say to him that the absent one has taken a trip. Again I should like to deny the truth of the belief that the dream symbol originates in this evasion used for the benefit of children. The poet makes use of the same symbol when he speaks of the Hereafter as "that undiscovered bourne from which no traveler returns." Even in everyday speech it is customary to refer to the last journey. Every person acquainted with ancient rite knows how seriously, for example, the Egyptians considered the portrayal of a journey to the land of the dead. There still exist many copies of the "death book" which was given to the mummy for this journey as a sort of Baedeker. Since the burial places have been separated from the living quarters, the last journey of the dead person has become a reality.

In the same manner the genital symbolism is just as little peculiar to the dream alone.Every one of you has perhaps at some time or other been so unkind as to call some woman an "old casket" without perhaps being aware that he was using a genital symbol. In the New Testament one may read "Woman is a weak vessel." The Holy Scriptures of the Jews, so nearly poetic in their style, are filled with sex-symbolic expressions which have not always been correctly understood, and the true construction of which, in the Song of Songs, for example, has led to many misunderstandings. In the later Hebraic literature the representation of woman as a house, the door taking the place of the sex opening, is very widespread. The man complains, for instance, when he discovers a lack of virginity, that he has found the door open. The symbol of the table for woman is also known to this literature. The woman says of her husband, "I set the table for him, but he upset it." Lame children are supposed to result from the fact that the man has overturned the table. I take these examples from a work by L. Levy of Brünn, The Sexual Symbolism of the Bible and the Talmud

That ships, too, represent women in dreams is a belief derived from the etymologists, who maintain "ship" was originally the name of an earthen vessel and is the same word as Schaff (to create). The Greek myth of Periander of Corinth and his wife Melissa is proof that the stove or oven is a woman, and a womb. When, according to Herodotus, the tyrant entreated the shade of his beloved wife, whom, however, he had murdered in a fit of jealousy, for some sign of its identity, the deceased identified herself by the reminder that he, Periander, had thrust his bread into a cold oven, as a disguise for an occurrence that could have been known to no other person. In the Anthropophyteia published by F. S. Krauss, an indispensable source book for everything that has to do with the sex life of nations, we read that in a certain German region it is commonly said of a woman who has just been delivered of a child, "Her oven has caved in."The making of a fire and everything connected therewith is filled through and through with sex symbolism.The flame is always the male genital, the fireplace, the hearth, is the womb of the woman.

If you have often wondered why it is that landscapes are so often used to represent the female genitals in the dream, then let the mythologist teach you the role Mother Earth has played in the symbolisms and cults of ancient times. You may be tempted to say that a room represents a woman in the dream because of the German colloquialism which uses the term Frauenzimmer instead of Frau, in other words, it substitutes for the human person the idea of that room that is set aside for her exclusive use. In like manner we speak of the Sublime Porte, and mean the Sultan and his government; furthermore, the name of the ancient Egyptian ruler, Pharaoh, means nothing other than "great court room." (In the ancient Orient the court yards between the double gates of the town were the gathering places of the people, in the same manner as the market place was in the classical world.) What I mean is, this derivation is far too superficial. It seems more probable to me that the room, as the space surrounding man, came to be the symbol of woman. We have seen that the house is used in such a representation; from mythology and poetry we may take the city, fortress, palace, citadel, as further symbols of woman.The question may easily be decided by the dreams of those persons who do not speak German and do not understand it.In the last few years my patients have been predominantly foreign-language speaking, and I think I can recall that in their dreams as well the room represents woman, even where they had no analogous usages in their languages. There are still other signs which show that the symbolization is not limited by the bounds of language, a fact that even the old dream investigator, Schubert (1862) maintained. Since none of my dreamers were totally ignorant of German I must leave this differentiation to those psychoanalysts who can gather examples in other lands where the people speak but one language.

Among the symbol-representations of the male genital there is scarcely one that does not recur in jokes or in vulgar or poetical usage, especially among the old classical poets.Not alone do those symbols commonly met with in dreams appeal here, but also new ones, e.g., the working materials of various performances, foremost of which is the incantation.Furthermore, we approach in the symbolic representation of the male a very extended and much discussed province, which we shall avoid for economic reasons.I should like to make a few remarks, however, about one of the unclassified symbols—the figure 3.Whether or not this figure derives its holiness from its symbolic meaning may remain undecided.But it appears certain that many objects which occur in nature as three-part things derive their use as coats-of-arms and emblems from such symbolic meaning, e.g., the clover, likewise the three-part French lily, (fleur-de-lys), and the extraordinary coats-of-arms of two such widely separated islands as Sicily and the Isle of Man, where the Triskeles (three partly bended knees, emerging from a central point) are merely said to be the portrayal in a different form of the male genitals.Copies of the male member were used in antiquity as the most powerful charms (Apotropaea) against evil influences, and this is connected with the fact that the lucky amulets of our own time may one and all be recognized as genital or sex-symbols.Let us study such a collection, worn in the form of little silver pendants: the four-leaf clover, a pig, a mushroom, a horse-shoe, a ladder, a chimney-sweep.The four-leaf clover, it seems, has usurped the place of the three-leaf clover, which is really more suitable as a symbol; the pig is an ancient symbol of fertility; the mushroom is an unquestionable penis symbol—there are mushrooms that derive their systematic names from their unmistakable similarity to the male member (Phallus impudicus); the horseshoe recalls the contour of the female genital opening; and the chimney sweep who carries a ladder belongs in this company because he carries on that trade with which the sex-intercourse is vulgarly compared (cf. the Anthropophyteia).We have already become acquainted with his ladder as a sex symbol in the dream; the German usage is helpful here, it shows us how the verb "to mount"[30] is made use of in an exquisite sexual sense. We use the expressions "to run after women," which literally translated would be "to climb after women," and "an old climber."[31] In French, where "step" is "la marche" we find that the analogous expression for a man about town is "un vieux marcheur." It is apparently not unknown in this connection that the sexual intercourse of many of the larger animals requires a mounting, a climbing upon the female.

The tearing off of a branch as the symbolic representation of onanism is not alone in keeping with the vulgar representation of the fact of onanism, but has far-reaching mythological parallels.Especially noteworthy, however, is the representation of onanism, or rather the punishment therefor, castration, by the falling out or pulling out of teeth, because there is a parallel in folk-lore which is probably known to the fewest dreamers.It does not seem at all questionable to me that the practice of circumcision common among so many peoples is an equivalent and a substitute for castration.And now we are informed that in Australia certain primitive tribes practice circumcision as a rite of puberty (the ceremony in honor of the boy's coming of age), while others, living quite near, have substituted for this act the striking out of a tooth.

I end my exposition with these examples.They are only examples.We know more about these matters, and you may well imagine how much richer and how much more interesting such a collection would appear if made, not by amateurs like ourselves, but by real experts in mythology, anthropology, philology and folk-lore.We are compelled to draw a few conclusions which cannot be exhaustive, but which give us much food for thought.

In the first place, we are faced by the fact that the dreamer has at his disposal a symbolic means of expression of which he is unconscious while awake, and does not recognize when he sees. That is as remarkable as if you should make the discovery that your chambermaid understands Sanskrit, although you know she was born in a Bohemian village and never learned the language. It is not easy to harmonize this fact with our psychological views. We can only say that the dreamer's knowledge of symbolism is unconscious, that it is a part of his unconscious mental life. We make no progress with this assumption. Until now it was only necessary to admit of unconscious impulses, those about which one knew nothing, either for a period of time or at all times. But now we deal with something more; indeed, with unknown knowledge, with thought relationships, comparisons between unlike objects which lead to this, that one constant may be substituted for another. These comparisons are not made anew each time, but they lie ready, they are complete for all time. That is to be concluded from the fact of their agreement in different persons, agreement despite differences in language.

But whence comes the knowledge of these symbol-relationships?The usages of language cover only a small part of them.The dreamer is for the most part unacquainted with the numerous parallels from other sources; we ourselves must first laboriously gather them together.

Secondly, these symbolic representations are peculiar neither to the dreamer nor to the dream work by means of which they become expressed.We have learned that mythology and fairy-tales make use of the same symbolism, as well as do the people in their sayings and songs, the ordinary language of every day, and poetic phantasy.The field of symbolism is an extraordinarily large one, and dream symbolism is but a small part thereof.It is not even expedient to approach the whole problem from the dream side.Many of the symbols that are used in other places do not occur in the dream at all, or at best only very seldom.Many of the dream symbols are to be found in other fields only very rarely, as you have seen.One gets the impression that he is here confronted with an ancient but no longer existent method of expression, of which various phases, however, continue in different fields, one here, one there, a third, perhaps in a slightly altered form, in several fields.I am reminded of the phantasy of an interesting mental defective, who had imagined a fundamental language, of which all these symbolic representations were the remains.

Thirdly, you must have noticed that symbolism in these other fields is by no means sex symbolism solely, while in the dream the symbols are used almost entirely to express sexual objects and processes.Nor is this easily explained.Is it possible that symbols originally sexual in their meaning later came to have other uses, and that this was the reason perhaps for the weakening of the symbolic representation to one of another nature?These questions are admittedly unanswerable if one has dealt only with dream-symbolism.One can only adhere to the supposition that there is an especially intimate connection between true symbols and things sexual.

An important indication of this has been given us recently.A philologist, H.Sperber (Upsala) who works independently of psychoanalysis, advanced the theory that sexual needs have played the largest part in the origin and development of languages.The first sounds served as means of communication, and called the sexual partner; the further development of the roots of speech accompanied the performance of the primitive man's work.This work was communal and progressed to the accompaniment of rhythmically repeated word sounds.In that way a sexual interest was transferred to the work.The primitive man made work acceptable at the same time that he used it as an equivalent and substitute for sex-activity.The word thus called forth by the common labor had two meanings, designating the sex-act as well as the equivalent labor-activity.In time the word became disassociated from its sexual significance and became fixed on this work.Generations later the same thing happened to a new word that once had sexual significance and came to be used for a new type of work.In this manner a number of word-roots were formed, all of sexual origin, and all of which had lost their sexual significance.If the description sketched here approximates the truth, it opens up the possibility for an understanding of the dream symbolism.We can understand how it is that in the dream, which preserves something of these most ancient conditions, there are so extraordinarily many symbols for the sexual, and why, in general, weapons and implements always stand for the male, materials and things manufactured, for the female.Symbolic relationships would be the remnants of the old word-identity; things which once were called by the same names as the genitals can now appear in the dream as symbols for them.

From our parallels to dream symbolization you may also learn to appreciate what is the character of psychoanalysis which makes it a subject of general interest, which is true of neither psychology nor psychiatry. Psychoanalytic work connects with so many other scientific subjects, the investigation of which promises the most pertinent discoveries, with mythology, with folk-lore, with racial psychology and with religion. You will understand how a journal can have grown on psychoanalytic soil, the sole purpose of which is the furtherance of these relationships. This is the Imago founded in 1912 and edited by Hanns Sachs and Otto Rank. In all of these relations, psychoanalysis is first and foremost the giving, less often the receiving, part. Indeed it derives benefit from the fact that its unusual teachings are substantiated by their recurrence in other fields, but on the whole it is psychoanalysis that provides the technical procedure and the point of view, the use of which will prove fruitful in those other fields. The psychic life of the human individual provides us, upon psychoanalytic investigation, with explanations with which we are able to solve many riddles in the life of humanity, or at least show these riddles in their proper light.

Furthermore, I have not even told you under what conditions we are able to get the deepest insight into that suppositious "fundamental language," or from which field we gain the most information.So long as you do not know this you cannot appreciate the entire significance of the subject.This field is the neurotic, its materials, the symptoms and other expressions of the nervous patient, for the explanation and treatment of which psychoanalysis was devised.

My fourth point of view returns to our premise and connects up with our prescribed course.We said, even if there were no such thing as dream censorship, the dream would still be hard to understand, for we would then be confronted with the task of translating the symbol-language of the dream into the thought of our waking hours.Symbolism is a second and independent item of dream distortion, in addition to dream censorship.It is not a far cry to suppose that it is convenient for the dream censorship to make use of symbolism since both lead to the same end, to making the dream strange and incomprehensible.

Whether or not in the further study of the dream we shall hit upon a new item that influences dream distortion, remains to be seen.I should not like to leave the subject of dream symbolism without once more touching upon the curious fact that it arouses such strong opposition in the case of educated persons, in spite of the fact that symbolism in myth, religion, art and speech is undoubtedly so prevalent.Is not this again because of its relationship to sexuality?

ELEVENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

The Dream-Work

IF you have mastered dream censorship and symbolic representation, you are, to be sure, not yet adept in dream distortion, but you are nevertheless in a position to understand most dreams. For this you employ two mutually supplementary methods, call up the associations of the dreamer until you have penetrated from the substitute to the actual, and from your own knowledge supply the meaning for the symbol.Later we shall discuss certain uncertainties which show themselves in this process.

We are now in a position to resume work which we attempted, with very insufficient means at an earlier stage, when we studied the relation between the manifest dream elements and their latent actualities, and in so doing established four such main relationships: that of a part of the whole, that of approach or allusion, the symbolic relationship and plastic word representation.We shall now attempt the same on a larger scale, by comparing the manifest dream content as a whole, with the latent dream which we found by interpretation.

I hope you will never again confuse these two. If you have achieved this, you have probably accomplished more in the understanding of the dream than the majority of the readers of my Interpretation of Dreams. Let me remind you once more that this process, which changes the latent into the manifest dream, is called dream-work. Work which proceeds in the opposite direction, from the manifest dream to the latent, is our work of interpretationThe work of interpretation attempts to undo the dream-work.Infantile dreams that are recognized as evident wish fulfillments nevertheless have undergone some dream-work, namely, the transformation of the wish into reality, and generally, too, of thoughts into visual pictures.Here we need no interpretation, but only a retracing of these transformations. Whatever dream-work has been added to other dreams, we call dream distortion, and this can be annulled by our work of interpretation.

The comparison of many dream interpretations has rendered it possible for me to give you a coherent representation of what the dream-work does with the material of the latent dream.I beg of you, however, not to expect to understand too much of this.It is a piece of description that should be listened to with calm attention.

The first process of the dream-work is condensationBy this we understand that the manifest dream has a smaller content than the latent one, that is, it is a sort of abbreviated translation of the latter.Condensation may occasionally be absent, but as a rule it is present, often to a very high degree.The opposite is never true, that is, it never occurs that the manifest dream is more extensive in scope and content than the latent.Condensation occurs in the following ways: 1.Certain latent elements are entirely omitted; 2.only a fragment of the many complexes of the latent dream is carried over into the manifest dream; 3.latent elements that have something in common are collected for the manifest dream and are fused into a whole.

If you wish, you may reserve the term "condensation" for this last process alone.Its effects are particularly easy to demonstrate.From your own dreams you will doubtless recall the fusion of several persons into one.Such a compound person probably looks like A., is dressed like B., does something that one remembers of C., but in spite of this one is conscious that he is really D.By means of this compound formation something common to all four people is especially emphasized.One can make a compound formation of events and of places in the same way as of people, provided always that the single events and localities have something in common which the latent dream emphasizes.It is a sort of new and fleeting concept of formation, with the common element as its kernel.This jumble of details that has been fused together regularly results in a vague indistinct picture, as though you had taken several pictures on the same film.

The shaping of such compound formations must be of great importance to the dream-work, for we can prove, (by the choice of a verbal expression for a thought, for instance) that the common elements mentioned above are purposely manufactured where they originally do not exist. We have already become acquainted with such condensation and compound formations; they played an important part in the origin of certain cases of slips of the tongue. You recall the young man who wished to inscort a woman. Furthermore, there are jokes whose technique may be traced to such a condensation. But entirely aside from this, one may maintain that this appearance of something quite unknown in the dream finds its counterpart in many of the creations of our imagination which fuse together component parts that do not belong together in experience, as for example the centaurs, and the fabulous animals of old mythology or of Boecklin's pictures. For creative imagination can invent nothing new whatsoever, it can only put together certain details normally alien to one another. The peculiar thing, however, about the procedure of the dream-work is the following: The material at the disposal of the dream-work consists of thoughts, thoughts which may be offensive and unacceptable, but which are nevertheless correctly formed and expressed. These thoughts are transformed into something else by the dream-work, and it is remarkable and incomprehensible that this translation, this rendering, as it were, into another script or language, employs the methods of condensation and combination. For a translation usually strives to respect the discriminations expressed in the text, and to differentiate similar things. The dream-work, on the contrary, tries to fuse two different thoughts by looking, just as the joke does, for an ambiguous word which shall act as a connecting link between the two thoughts. One need not attempt to understand this feature of the case at once, but it may become significant for the conception of the dream-work.

Although condensation renders the dream opaque, one does not get the impression that it is an effect of dream censorship.One prefers to trace it back to mechanical or economic conditions; but censorship undoubtedly has a share in the process.

The results of condensation may be quite extraordinary.With its help, it becomes possible at times to collect quite unrelated latent thought processes into one manifest dream, so that one can arrive at an apparently adequate interpretation, and at the same time conceive a possible further interpretation.

The consequence of condensation for the relation between latent and manifest dreams is the fact that no simple relations can exist between the elements of the one and the other.A manifest element corresponds simultaneously to several latent ones, and vice versa, a latent element may partake of several manifest ones, an interlacing, as it were.In the interpretation of the dream it also becomes evident that the associations to a single element do not necessarily follow one another in orderly sequence.Often we must wait until the entire dream is interpreted.

Dream-work therefore accomplishes a very unusual sort of transcription of dream thoughts, not a translation word for word, or sign for sign, not a selection according to a set rule, as if all the consonants of a word were given and the vowels omitted; nor is it what we might call substitution, namely, the choice of one element to take the place of several others.It is something very different and much more complicated.

The second process of the dream-work is displacementFortunately we are already prepared for this, since we know that it is entirely the work of dream censorship.The two evidences of this are firstly, that a latent element is not replaced by one of its constituent parts but by something further removed from it, that is, by a sort of allusion; secondly, that the psychic accent is transferred from an important element to another that is unimportant, so that the dream centers elsewhere and seems strange.

Substitution by allusion is known to our conscious thinking also, but with a difference.In conscious thinking the allusion must be easily intelligible, and the substitute must bear a relation to the actual content.Jokes, too, often make use of allusion; they let the condition of content associations slide and replace it by unusual external associations, such as resemblances in sound, ambiguity of words, etc. They retain, however, the condition of intelligibility; the joke would lose all its effect if the allusion could not be traced back to the actual without any effort whatsoever.The allusion of displacement has freed itself of both these limitations.Its connection with the element which it replaces is most external and remote, is unintelligible for this reason, and if it is retraced, its interpretation gives the impression of an unsuccessful joke or of a forced, far-fetched explanation. For the dream censor has only then accomplished its purpose, when it has made the path of return from the allusion to the original undiscoverable.

The displacement of emphasis is unheard of as a means of expressing thoughts.In conscious thinking we occasionally admit it to gain a comic effect.I can probably give you an idea of the confusion which this produces by reminding you of the story of the blacksmith who had committed a capital crime.The court decided that the penalty for the crime must be paid, but since he was the only blacksmith in the village and therefore indispensable, while there were three tailors, one of the latter was hung in his stead.

The third process of the dream-work is the most interesting from a psychological point of view. It consists of the translation of thoughts into visual images. Let us bear in mind that by no means all dream thoughts undergo this translation; many of them retain their form and appear in the manifest dream also as thought or consciousness; moreover, visual images are not the only form into which thoughts are translated. They are, however, the foundation of the dream fabric; this part of the dream work is, as we already know, the second most constant, and for single dream elements we have already learned to know "plastic word representation."

It is evident that this process is not simple.In order to get an idea of its difficulties you must pretend that you have undertaken the task of replacing a political editorial in a newspaper by a series of illustrations, that you have suffered an atavistic return from the use of the alphabet to ideographic writing.Whatever persons or concrete events occur in this article you will be able to replace easily by pictures, perhaps to your advantage, but you will meet with difficulties in the representation of all abstract words and all parts of speech denoting thought relationships, such as particles, conjunctions, etc. With the abstract words you could use all sorts of artifices.You will, for instance, try to change the text of the article into different words which may sound unusual, but whose components will be more concrete and more adapted to representation.You will then recall that most abstract words were concrete before their meaning paled, and will therefore go back to the original concrete significance of these words as often as possible, and so you will be glad to learn that you can represent the "possession" of an object by the actual physical straddling of it.[32] The dream work does the same thing. Under such circumstances you can hardly demand accuracy of representation. You will also have to allow the dream-work to replace an element that is as hard to depict as for instance, broken faith, by another kind of rupture, a broken leg.[33] In this way you will be able to smooth away to some extent the crudity of imagery when the latter is endeavoring to replace word expression.

In the representation of parts of speech that denote thought relations, such as because, therefore, but, etc., you have no such aids; these constituent parts of the text will therefore be lost in your translation into images.In the same way, the dream-work resolves the content of the dream thought into its raw material of objects and activities. You may be satisfied if the possibility is vouchsafed you to suggest certain relations, not representable in themselves, in a more detailed elaboration of the image. In quite the same way the dream-work succeeds in expressing much of the content of the latent dream thought in the formal peculiarities of the manifest dream, in its clearness or vagueness, in its division into several parts, etc. The number of fragmentary dreams into which the dream is divided corresponds as a rule to the number of main themes, of thought sequences in the latent dream; a short preliminary dream often stands as an introduction or a motivation to the complementary dream which follows; a subordinate clause in dream thought is represented in the manifest dream as an interpolated change of scene, etc. The form of the dream is itself, therefore, by no means without significance and challenges interpretation. Different dreams of the same night often have the same meaning, and testify to an increasing effort to control a stimulus of growing urgency. In a single dream a particularly troublesome element may be represented by "duplicates," that is, by numerous symbols.

By continually comparing dream thought with the manifest dream that replaces it, we learn all sorts of things for which we were not prepared, as for instance, the fact that even the nonsense and absurdity of the dream have meaning. Yes, on this point the opposition between the medical and psychoanalytic conception of the dream reaches a climax not previously achieved. According to the former, the dream is senseless because the dreaming psychic activity has lost all power of critical judgment; according to our theory, on the other hand, the dream becomes senseless, whenever a critical judgment, contained in the dream thought, wishes to express the opinion: "It is nonsense." The dream which you all know, about the visit to the theatre (three tickets 1 Fl. 50 Kr.) is a good example of this. The opinion expressed here is: "It was nonsense to marry so early."

In the same way, we discover in interpretation what is the significance of the doubts and uncertainties so often expressed by the dreamer as to whether a certain element really occurred in the dream; whether it was this or something else.As a rule these doubts and uncertainties correspond to nothing in the latent dream thought; they are occasioned throughout by the working of the dream censor and are equivalent to an unsuccessful attempt at suppression.

One of the most surprising discoveries is the manner in which the dream-work deals with those things which are opposed to one another in the latent dream.We already know that agreements in the latent material are expressed in the manifest dream by condensations.Now oppositions are treated in exactly the same way as agreements and are, with special preference, expressed by the same manifest element.An element in a manifest dream, capable of having an opposite, may therefore represent itself as well as its opposite, or may do both simultaneously; only the context can determine which translation is to be chosen.It must follow from this that the particle "no" cannot be represented in the dream, at least not unambiguously.

The development of languages furnishes us with a welcome analogy for this surprising behavior on the part of the dream work.Many scholars who do research work in languages have maintained that in the oldest languages opposites—such as strong, weak; light, dark; big, little—were expressed by the same root word.(The Contradictory Sense of Primitive Words.) In old Egyptian, ken originally meant both strong and weak. In conversation, misunderstanding in the use of such ambiguous words was avoided by the tone of voice and by accompanying gestures, in writing by the addition of so-called determinatives, that is, by a picture that was itself not meant to be expressed. Accordingly, if ken meant strong, the picture of an erect little man was placed after the alphabetical signs, if ken, weak, was meant, the picture of a cowering man followed. Only later, by slight modifications of the original word, were two designations developed for the opposites which it denoted. In this way, from ken meaning both strong and weak, there was derived a ken, strong, and a ken, weak.It is said that not only the most primitive languages in their last developmental stage, but also the more recent ones, even the living tongues of to-day have retained abundant remains of this primitive opposite meaning.Let me give you a few illustrations of this taken from C.Abel (1884).

In Latin there are still such words of double meaning:

altus—high, deep, and sacer, sacred, accursed.

As examples of modifications of the same root, I cite:

clamare—to scream, clam—quiet, still, secret;

siccus—dry, succus—juice.

And from the German:

Stimme—voice, stumm—dumb.

The comparison of related tongues yields a wealth of examples:

English: lock; German: Loch—hole, Lücke—gap.

English: cleave; German: kleben—to stick, to adhere.

The English without, is to-day used to mean "not with"; that "with" had the connotation of deprivation as well as that of apportioning, is apparent from the compounds: withdraw, withhold. The German wieder, again, closely resembles this.

Another peculiarity of dream-work finds it prototype in the development of language.It occurred in ancient Egyptian as well as in other later languages that the sequence of sounds of the words was transposed to denote the same fundamental idea.The following are examples from English and German:

Topf—pot; boat—tub; hurry—Ruhe (rest, quiet).

Balken (beam)—Kloben (mallet)—club

From the Latin and the German:

capere (to seize)—packen (to seize, to grasp).

Inversions such as occur here in the single word are effected in a very different way by the dream-work.We already know the inversion of the sense, substitution by the opposite.Besides there are inversions of situations, of relations between two people, and so in dreams we are in a sort of topsy-turvy world.In a dream it is frequently the rabbit that shoots the hunter.Further inversion occurs in the sequence of events, so that in the dream the cause is placed after the effect.It is like a performance in a third-rate theatre, where the hero falls before the shot which kills him is fired from the wings.Or there are dreams in which the whole sequence of the elements is inverted, so that in the interpretation one must take the last first, and the first last, in order to obtain a meaning.You will recall from our study of dream symbolism that to go or fall into the water means the same as to come out of it, namely, to give birth to, or to be born, and that mounting stairs or a ladder means the same as going down.The advantage that dream distortions may gain from such freedom of representation, is unmistakable.

These features of the dream-work may be called archaicThey are connected with ancient systems of expression, ancient languages and literatures, and involve the same difficulties which we shall deal with later in a critical connection.

Now for some other aspects of the matter. In the dream-work it is plainly a question of translating the latent thoughts, expressed in words, into psychic images, in the main, of a visual kind. Now our thoughts were developed from such psychic images; their first material and the steps which led up to them were psychic impressions, or to be more exact, the memory images of these psychic impressions. Only later were words attached to these and then combined into thoughts. The dream-work therefore puts the thoughts through a regressive treatment, that is, one that retraces the steps in their development. In this regression, all that has been added to the thoughts as a new contribution in the course of the development of the memory pictures must fall away.

This, then, is the dream-work.In view of the processes that we have discovered about it, our interest in the manifest dream was forced into the background.I shall, however, devote a few remarks to the latter, since it is after all the only thing that is positively known to us.

It is natural that the manifest dream should lose its importance for us.It must be a matter of indifference to us whether it is well composed or resolved into a series of disconnected single images.Even when its exterior seems to be significant, we know that it has been developed by means of dream distortion and may have as little organic connection with the inner content of the dream as the facade of an Italian church has with its structure and ground plan.At other times this facade of the dream, too, has its significance, in that it reproduces with little or no distortion an important part of the latent dream thought.But we cannot know this before we have put the dream through a process of interpretation and reached a decision as to what amount of distortion has taken place.A similar doubt prevails when two elements in the dream seem to have been brought into close relations to one another.This may be a valuable hint, suggesting that we may join together those manifest thoughts which correspond to the elements in the latent dream; yet at other times we are convinced that what belongs together in thought has been torn apart in the dream.

As a general rule we must refrain from trying to explain one part of the manifest dream by another, as if the dream were coherently conceived and pragmatically represented. At the most it is comparable to a Breccian stone, produced by the fusion of various minerals in such a way that the markings it shows are entirely different from those of the original mineral constituents. There is actually a part of the dream-work, the so-called secondary treatment, whose function it is to develop something unified, something approximately coherent from the final products of the dream-work.In so doing the material is often arranged in an entirely misleading sense and insertions are made wherever it seems necessary.

On the other hand, we must not over-estimate the dream-work, nor attribute too much to it.The processes which we have enumerated tell the full tale of its functioning; beyond condensing, displacing, representing plastically, and then subjecting the whole to a secondary treatment, it can do nothing.Whatever of judgment, of criticism, of surprise, and of deduction are to be found in the dream are not products of the dream-work and are only very seldom signs of afterthoughts about the dream, but are generally parts of the latent dream thought, which have passed over into the manifest dream, more or less modified and adapted to the context.In the matter of composing speeches, the dream-work can also do nothing.Except for a few examples, the speeches in the dream are imitations and combinations of speeches heard or made by oneself during the day, and which have been introduced into the latent thought, either as material or as stimuli for the dream.Neither can the dream pose problems; when these are found in the dream, they are in the main combinations of numbers, semblances of examples that are quite absurd or merely copies of problems in the latent dream thought.Under these conditions it is not surprising that the interest which has attached itself to the dream-work is soon deflected from it to the latent dream thoughts which are revealed in more or less distorted form in the manifest dream.It is not justifiable, however, to have this change go so far that in a theoretical consideration one regularly substitutes the latent dream thought for the dream itself, and maintains of the latter what can hold only for the former. It is odd that the results of psychoanalysis should be misused for such an exchange. "Dream" can mean nothing but the result of the dream-work, that is, the form into which the latent dream thoughts have been translated by the dream-work.

Dream-work is a process of a very peculiar sort, the like of which has hitherto not been discovered in psychic life.These condensations, displacements, regressive translations of thoughts into pictures, are new discoveries which richly repay our efforts in the field of psychoanalysis.You will realize from the parallel to the dream-work, what connections psychoanalytic studies will reveal with other fields, especially with the development of speech and thought.You can only surmise the further significance of these connections when you hear that the mechanism of the dream structure is the model for the origin of neurotic symptoms.

I know too that we cannot as yet estimate the entire contribution that this work has made to psychology.We shall only indicate the new proofs that have been given of the existence of unconscious psychic acts—for such are the latent dream thoughts—and the unexpectedly wide approach to the understanding of the unconscious psychic life that dream interpretation opens up to us.

The time has probably come, however, to illustrate separately, by various little examples of dreams, the connected facts for which you have been prepared.

TWELFTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Analysis of Sample Dreams

I HOPE you will not be disappointed if I again lay before you excerpts from dream analyses instead of inviting you to participate in the interpretation of a beautiful long dream. You will say that after so much preparation you ought to have this right, and that after the successful interpretation of so many thousands of dreams it should long ago have become possible to assemble a collection of excellent dream samples with which we could demonstrate all our assertions concerning dream-work and dream thoughts. Yes, but the difficulties which stand in the way of the fulfillment of your wish are too many.

First of all, I must confess to you that no one practices dream interpretation as his main occupation.When does one interpret dreams?Occasionally one can occupy himself with the dream of some friend, without any special purpose, or else he may work with his own dreams for a time in order to school himself in psychoanalytic method; most often, however, one deals with the dreams of nervous individuals who are undergoing analytic treatment.These latter dreams are excellent material, and in no way inferior to those of normal persons, but one is forced by the technique of the treatment to subordinate dream analysis to therapeutic aims and to pass over a large number of dreams after having derived something from them that is of use in the treatment.Many dreams we meet with during the treatment are, as a matter of fact, impossible of complete analysis.Since they spring from the total mass of psychic material which is still unknown to us, their understanding becomes possible only after the completion of the cure.Besides, to tell you such dreams would necessitate the disclosure of all the secrets concerning a neurosis.That will not do for us, since we have taken the dream as preparation for the study of the neuroses.

I know you would gladly leave this material, and would prefer to hear the dreams of healthy persons, or your own dreams explained.But that is impossible because of the content of these dreams. One can expose neither himself, nor another whose confidence he has won, so inconsiderately as would result from a thorough interpretation of his dreams—which, as you already know, refer to the most intimate things of his personality.In addition to this difficulty, caused by the nature of the material, there is another that must be considered when communicating a dream.You know the dream seems strange even to the dreamer himself, let alone to one who does not know the dreamer.Our literature is not poor in good and detailed dream analyses.I myself have published some in connection with case histories.Perhaps the best example of a dream interpretation is the one published by O.Rank, being two related dreams of a young girl, covering about two pages of print, the analysis covering seventy-six pages.I would need about a whole semester in order to take you through such a task.If we select a longer or more markedly distorted dream, we have to make so many explanations, we must make use of so many free associations and recollections, must go into so many bypaths, that a lecture on the subject would be entirely unsatisfactory and inconclusive.So I must ask you to be content with what is more easily obtained, with the recital of small bits of dreams of neurotic persons, in which we may be able to recognize this or that isolated fact.Dream symbols are the most easily demonstrable, and after them, certain peculiarities of regressive dream representations.[34] I shall tell you why I considered each of the following dreams worthy of communication.

1.A dream, consisting of only two brief pictures: "The dreamer's uncle is smoking a cigarette, although it is Saturday.A woman caresses him as though he were her child."

In commenting on the first picture, the dreamer (a Jew) remarks that his uncle is a pious man who never did, and never would do, anything so sinful as smoking on the Sabbath.As to the woman of the second picture, he has no free associations other than his mother.These two pictures or thoughts should obviously be brought into connection with each other, but how? Since he expressly rules out the reality of his uncle's action, then it is natural to interpolate an "if." "If my uncle, that pious man, should smoke a cigarette on Saturday, then I could also permit my mother's caresses." This obviously means that the mother's caresses are prohibited, in the same manner as is smoking on Saturday, to a pious Jew. You will recall, I told you that all relations between the dream thoughts disappear in the dream-work, that these relations are broken up into their raw material, and that it is the task of interpretation to re-interpolate the omitted connections.

2.Through my publications on dreams I have become, in certain respects, the public consultant on matters pertaining to dreams, and for many years I have been receiving communications from the most varied sources, in which dreams are related to me or presented to me for my judgment.I am of course grateful to all those persons who include with the story of the dream, enough material to make an interpretation possible, or who give such an interpretation themselves.It is in this category that the following dream belongs, the dream of a Munich physician in the year 1910.I select it because it goes to show how impossible of understanding a dream generally is before the dreamer has given us what information he has about it.I suspect that at bottom you consider the ideal dream interpretation that in which one simply inserts the meaning of the symbols, and would like to lay aside the technique of free association to the dream elements.I wish to disabuse your minds of this harmful error.

"On July 13, 1910, toward morning, I dreamed that I was bicycling down a street in Tübingen, when a brown Dachshund tore after me and caught me by the heel.A bit further on I get off, seat myself on a step, and begin to beat the beast, which has clenched its teeth tight. (I feel no discomfort from the biting or the whole scene.) Two elderly ladies are sitting opposite me and watching me with grins on their faces.Then I wake up and, as so often happens to me, the whole dream becomes perfectly clear to me in this moment of transition to the waking state."

Symbols are of little use in this case.The dreamer, however, informs us, "I lately fell in love with a girl, just from seeing her on the street, but had no means of becoming acquainted with her. The most pleasant means might have been the Dachshund, since I am a great lover of animals, and also felt that the girl was in sympathy with this characteristic." He also adds that he repeatedly interfered in the fights of scuffling dogs with great dexterity and frequently to the great amazement of the spectators. Thus we learn that the girl, who pleased him, was always accompanied by this particular dog. This girl, however, was disregarded in the manifest dream, and there remained only the dog which he associates with her. Perhaps the elderly ladies who simpered at him took the place of the girl. The remainder of what he tells us is not enough to explain this point. Riding a bicycle in the dream is a direct repetition of the remembered situation. He had never met the girl with the dog except when he was on his bicycle.

3.When anyone has lost a loved one, he produces dreams of a special sort for a long time afterward, dreams in which the knowledge of death enters into the most remarkable compromises with the desire to have the deceased alive again.At one time the deceased is dead and yet continues to live on because he does not know that he is dead, and would die completely only if he knew it; at another time he is half dead and half alive, and each of these conditions has its particular signs.One cannot simply label these dreams nonsense, for to come to life again is no more impossible in the dream than, for example, it is in the fairy story, in which it occurs as a very frequent fate.As far as I have been able to analyze such dreams, I have always found them to be capable of a sensible solution, but that the pious wish to recall the deceased to life goes about expressing itself by the oddest methods.Let me tell you such a dream, which seems queer and senseless enough, and analysis of which will show you many of the points for which you have been prepared by our theoretical discussions.The dream is that of a man who had lost his father many years previously.

"Father is dead, but has been exhumed and looks badly.He goes on living, and the dreamer does everything to prevent him from noticing that fact." Then the dream goes on to other things, apparently irrelevant.

The father is dead, that we know.That he was exhumed is not really true, nor is the truth of the rest of the dream important. But the dreamer tells us that when he came back from his father's funeral, one of his teeth began to ache. He wanted to treat this tooth according to the Jewish precept, "If thy tooth offend thee, pluck it out," and betook himself to the dentist. But the latter said, "One does not simply pull a tooth out, one must have patience with it. I shall inject something to kill the nerve. Come again in three days and then I will take it out."

"This 'taking it out'," says the dreamer suddenly, "is the exhuming."

Is the dreamer right?It does not correspond exactly, only approximately, for the tooth is not taken out, but something that has died off is taken out of it.But after our other experiences we are probably safe in believing that the dream work is capable of such inaccuracies.It appears that the dreamer condensed, fused into one, his dead father and the tooth that was killed but retained.No wonder then, that in the manifest dream something senseless results, for it is impossible for everything that is said of the tooth to fit the father.What is it that serves as something intermediate between tooth and father and makes this condensation possible?

This interpretation must be correct, however, for the dreamer says that he is acquainted with the saying that when one dreams of losing a tooth it means that one is going to lose a member of his family.

We know that this popular interpretation is incorrect, or at least is correct only in a scurrilous sense.For that reason it is all the more surprising to find this theme thus touched upon in the background of other portions of the dream content.

Without any further urging, the dreamer now begins to tell of his father's illness and death as well as of his relations with him.The father was sick a long time, and his care and treatment cost him, the son, much money.And yet it was never too much for him, he never grew impatient, never wished it might end soon.He boasts of his true Jewish piety toward his father, of rigid adherence to the Jewish precepts.But are you not struck by a contradiction in the thoughts of the dream?He had identified tooth with father.As to the tooth he wanted to follow the Jewish precept that carries out its own judgment, "pull it out if it causes pain and annoyance."He had also been anxious to follow the precept of the law with regard to his father, which in this case, however, tells him to disregard trouble and expense, to take all the burdens upon himself and to let no hostile intent arise toward the object which causes the pain. Would not the agreement be far more compelling if he had really developed feelings toward his father similar to those about his sick tooth; that is, had he wished that a speedy death should put an end to that superfluous, painful and expensive existence?

I do not doubt that this was really his attitude toward his father during the latter's extended illness, and that his boastful assurances of filial piety were intended to distract his attention from these recollections.Under such circumstances, the death-wish directed toward the parent generally becomes active, and disguises itself in phrases of sympathetic consideration such as, "It would really be a blessed release for him."But note well that we have here overcome an obstacle in the latent dream thoughts themselves.The first part of these thoughts was surely unconscious only temporarily, that is to say, during the dream-work, while the inimical feelings toward the father might have been permanently unconscious, dating perhaps from childhood, occasionally slipping into consciousness, shyly and in disguise, during his father's illness.We can assert this with even greater certainty of other latent thoughts which have made unmistakable contributions to the dream content.To be sure, none of these inimical feelings toward the father can be discovered in the dream.But when we search a childhood history for the root of such enmity toward the father, we recollect that fear of the father arises because the latter, even in the earliest years, opposes the boy's sex activities, just as he is ordinarily forced to oppose them again, after puberty, for social motives.This relation to the father applies also to our dreamer; there had been mixed with his love for him much respect and fear, having its source in early sex intimidation.

From the onanism complex we can now explain the other parts of the manifest dream."He looks badly" does, to be sure, allude to another remark of the dentist, that it looks badly to have a tooth missing in that place; but at the same time it refers to the "looking badly" by which the young man betrayed, or feared to betray, his excessive sexual activity during puberty.It was not without lightening his own heart that the dreamer transposed the bad looks from himself to his father in the manifest content, an inversion of the dream work with which you are familiar. "He goes on living since then," disguises itself with the wish to have him alive again as well as with the promise of the dentist that the tooth will be preserved. A very subtle phrase, however, is the following: "The dreamer does everything to prevent him (the father) from noticing the fact," a phrase calculated to lead us to conclude that he is dead.Yet the only meaningful conclusion is again drawn from the onanism complex, where it is a matter of course for the young man to do everything in order to hide his sex life from his father.Remember, in conclusion, that we were constantly forced to interpret the so-called tooth-ache dreams as dreams dealing with the subject of onanism and the punishment that is feared.

You now see how this incomprehensible dream came into being, by the creation of a remarkable and misleading condensation, by the fact that all the ideas emerge from the midst of the latent thought process, and by the creation of ambiguous substitute formations for the most hidden and, at the time, most remote of these thoughts.

4.We have tried repeatedly to understand those prosaic and banal dreams which have nothing foolish or repulsive about them, but which cause us to ask: "Why do we dream such unimportant stuff?"So I shall give you a new example of this kind, three dreams belonging together, all of which were dreamed in the same night by a young woman.

(a)."She it going through the hall of her house and strikes her head against the low-hanging chandelier, so that her head bleeds."

She has no reminiscence to contribute, nothing that really happened.The information she gives leads in quite another direction."You know how badly my hair is falling out.Mother said to me yesterday, 'My child, if it goes on like this, you will have a head like the cheek of a buttock.'" Thus the head here stands for the other part of the body.We can understand the chandelier symbolically without other help; all objects that can be lengthened are symbols of the male organ.Thus the dream deals with a bleeding at the lower end of the body, which results from its collision with the male organ.This might still be ambiguous; her further associations show that it has to do with her belief that menstrual bleeding results from sexual intercourse with a man, a bit of sexual theory believed by many immature girls.

(b)."She sees a deep hole in the vineyard which she knows was made by pulling out a tree." Herewith her remark that "she misses the tree."She means that she did not see the tree in the dream, but the same phrase serves to express another thought which symbolic interpretation makes completely certain.The dream deals with another bit of the infantile sex theory, namely, with the belief that girls originally had the same genitals as boys and that the later conformation resulted from castration (pulling out of a tree).

(c)."She is standing in front of the drawer of her writing table, with which she is so familiar that she knows immediately if anybody has been through it." The writing-table drawer, like every drawer, chest, or box, stands for the female genital. She knows that one can recognize from the genital the signs of sexual intercourse (and, as she thinks, even of any contact at all) and she has long been afraid of such a conviction. I believe that the accent in all these dreams is to be laid upon the idea of knowingShe is reminded of the time of her childish sexual investigations, the results of which made her quite proud at the time.

5.Again a little bit of symbolism.But this time I must first describe the psychic situation in a short preface.A man who spent the night with a woman describes his partner as one of those motherly natures whose desire for a child irresistibly breaks through during intercourse.The circumstances of their meeting, however, necessitated a precaution whereby the fertilizing discharge of semen is kept away from the womb.Upon awaking after this night, the woman tells the following dream:

"An officer with a red cap follows her on the street.She flees from him, runs up the staircase, and he follows after her.Breathlessly she reaches her apartment and slams and locks the door behind her.He remains outside and as she looks through a peephole she sees him sitting outside on a bench and weeping."

You undoubtedly recognize in the pursuit by an officer with a red cap, and the breathless stair climbing, the representation of the sexual act.The fact that the dreamer locks herself in against the pursuer may serve as an example of that inversion which is so frequently used in dreams, for in reality it was the man who withdrew before the completion of the act. In the same way her grief has been transposed to the partner, it is he who weeps in the dream, whereby the discharge of the semen is also indicated.

You must surely have heard that in psychoanalysis it is always maintained that all dreams have a sexual meaning.Now you yourselves are in a position to form a judgment as to the incorrectness of this reproach.You have become acquainted with the wish-fulfillment dreams, which deal with the satisfying of the plainest needs, of hunger, of thirst, of longing for freedom, the dreams of convenience and of impatience and likewise the purely covetous and egoistic dreams. But that the markedly distorted dreams preponderantly—though again not exclusively—give expression to sex wishes, is a fact you may certainly keep in mind as one of the results of psychoanalytical research.

6.I have a special motive for piling up examples of the use of symbols in dreams. At our first meeting I complained of how hard it is, when lecturing on psychoanalysis, to demonstrate the facts in order to awaken conviction; and you very probably have come to agree with me since then.But the various assertions of psychoanalysis are so closely linked that one's conviction can easily extend from one point to a larger part of the whole.We might say of psychoanalysis that if we give it our little finger it promptly demands the whole hand.Anyone who was convinced by the explanation of errors can no longer logically disbelieve in all the rest of psychoanalysis.A second equally accessible point of approach is furnished by dream symbolism.I shall give you a dream, already published, of a peasant woman, whose husband is a watchman and who has certainly never heard anything about dream symbolism and psychoanalysis.You may then judge for yourselves whether its explanation with the help of sex symbols can be called arbitrary and forced.

"Then someone broke into her house and she called in fright for a watchman.But the latter had gone companionably into a church together with two 'beauties.'A number of steps led up to the church.Behind the church was a hill, and on its crest a thick forest.The watchman was fitted out with a helmet, gorget and a cloak.He had a full brown beard.The two were going along peacefully with the watchman, had sack-like aprons bound around their hips. There was a path from the church to the hill. This was overgrown on both sides with grass and underbrush that kept getting thicker and that became a regular forest on the crest of the hill."

You will recognize the symbols without any difficulty. The male genital is represented by a trinity of persons, the female by a landscape with a chapel, hill and forest. Again you encounter steps as the symbol of the sexual act. That which is called a hill in the dream has the same name in anatomy, namely, mons veneris, the mount of Venus.

7.I have another dream which can be solved by means of inserting symbols, a dream that is remarkable and convincing because the dreamer himself translated all the symbols, even though he had had no preliminary knowledge of dream interpretation.This situation is very unusual and the conditions essential to its occurrence are not clearly known.

"He is going for a walk with his father in some place which must be the Prater,[35] for one can see the rotunda and before it a smaller building to which is anchored a captive balloon, which, however, seems fairly slack.His father asks him what all that is for; he wonders at it himself but explains it to his father.Then they come to a courtyard in which there lies spread out a big sheet of metal.His father wants to break off a big piece of it for himself but first looks about him to see if anyone might see him.He says to him that all he needs to do is to tell the inspector and then he can take some without more ado.There are steps leading from this courtyard down into a pit, the walls of which are upholstered with some soft material rather like a leather arm chair.At the end of this pit is a longish platform and then a new pit begins...."

The dreamer himself interprets as follows: "The rotunda is my genital, the balloon in front of it is my penis, of whose slackness I have been complaining."Thus one may translate in more detail, that the rotunda is the posterior—a part of the body which the child regularly considers as part of the genital—while the smaller building before it is the scrotum.In the dream his father asks him what all that is for; that is to say, he asks the object and function of the genitals.It is easy to turn this situation around so that the dreamer is the one who does the asking. Since no such questioning of the father ever took place in real life, we must think of the thought of this dream as a wish or consider it in the light of a supposition, "If I had asked father for sexual enlightenment." We will find the continuation of this idea in another place shortly.

The courtyard, in which the sheet metal lies spread out, is not to be considered primarily as symbolical but refers to the father's place of business.For reasons of discretion I have substituted the "sheet metal" for another material with which the father deals, without changing anything in the literal wording of the dream.The dreamer entered his father's business and took great offense at the rather dubious practices upon which the profits depended to a large extent.For this reason the continuation of the above idea of the dream might be expressed as "if I had asked him, he would only have deceived me as he deceives his customers."The dreamer himself gives us the second meaning of "breaking off the metal," which serves to represent the commercial dishonesty.He says it means masturbation.Not only have we long since become familiar with this symbol, but the fact also is in agreement.The secrecy of masturbation is expressed by means of its opposite—"It can be safely done openly."Again our expectations are fulfilled by the fact that masturbatory activity is referred to as the father's, just as the questioning was in the first scene of the dream.Upon being questioned he immediately gives the interpretation of the pit as the vagina on account of the soft upholstering of its walls.I will add arbitrarily that the "going down" like the more usual "going up" is meant to describe the sexual intercourse in the vagina.

Such details as the fact that the first pit ends in a platform and then a new one begins, he explains himself as having been taken from his own history.He practiced intercourse for a while, then gave it up on account of inhibitions, and now hopes to be able to resume it as a result of the treatment.

8.The two following dreams are those of a foreigner, of very polygamous tendencies, and I give them to you as proof for the claim that one's ego appears in every dream, even in those in which it is disguised in the manifest content.The trunks in the dream are a symbol for woman.

(a)."He is to take a trip, his luggage is placed on a carriage to be taken to the station, and there are many trunks piled up, among which are two big black ones like sample trunks. He says, consolingly, to someone, 'Well, they are only going as far as the station with us.'"

In reality he does travel with a great deal of luggage, but he also brings many tales of women with him when he comes for treatment.The two black trunks stand for two dark women who play the chief part in his life at present.One of them wanted to travel to Vienna after him, but he telegraphed her not to, upon my advice.

(b).A scene at the customs house: "A fellow traveler opens his trunk and says indifferently while puffing a cigarette, 'There's nothing in here.'The customs official seems to believe him but delves into the trunk once more and finds something particularly forbidden.The traveler then says resignedly, 'Well, there's no help for it.'"

He himself is the traveler, I the customs official.Though otherwise very frank in his confessions, he has on this occasion tried to conceal from me a new relationship which he had struck up with a lady whom he was justified in believing that I knew.The painful situation of being convicted of this is transposed into a strange person so that he himself apparently is not present in the dream.

9.The following is an example of a symbol which I have not yet mentioned:

"He meets his sister in company with two friends who are themselves sisters.He extends his hand to both of them but not to his sister."

This is no allusion to a real occurrence.His thoughts instead lead him back to a time when his observations made him wonder why a girl's breasts develop so late.The two sisters, therefore, are the breasts.He would have liked to touch them if only it had not been his sister.

10.Let me add an example of a symbol of death in a dream:

"He is walking with two persons whose name he knows but has forgotten.By the time he is awake, over a very high, steep iron bridge.Suddenly the two people are gone and he sees a ghostly man with a cap, and clad in white.He asks this man whether he is the telegraph messenger....No.Or is he a coachman?No.Then he goes on," and even in the dream he is in great fear. After waking he continues the dream by a phantasy in which the iron bridge suddenly breaks, and he plunges into the abyss.

When the dreamer emphasizes the fact that certain individuals in a dream are unknown, that he has forgotten their names, they are generally persons standing in very close relationship to the dreamer.This dreamer has two sisters; if it be true, as his dream indicates, that he wished these two dead, then it would only be justice if the fear of death fell upon him for so doing.In connection with the telegraph messenger he remarks that such people always bring bad news.Judged by his uniform he might also have been the lamp-lighter, who, however, also extinguishes the lamps—in other words, as the spirit of death extinguishes the flame of life.The coachman reminds him of Uhland's poem of King Karl's ocean voyage and also of a dangerous lake trip with two companions in which he played the role of the king in the poem.In connection with the iron bridge he remembers a recent accident and the stupid saying "Life is a suspension bridge."

11.The following may serve as another example of the representation of death in a dream: "An unknown man leaves a black bordered visiting card for him."

12.The following dream will interest you for several reasons, though it is one arising from a neurotic condition among other things:

"He is traveling in a train.The train stops in an open field.He thinks it means that there is going to be an accident, that he must save himself, and he goes through all the compartments of the train and strikes dead everyone whom he meets, conductors, engine drivers, etc."

In connection with this he tells a story that one of his friends told him.An insane man was being transported in a private compartment in a certain place in Italy, but through some mistake another traveler was put in the same compartment.The insane man murdered his fellow passenger.Thus he identifies himself with this insane person and bases his right so to do upon a compulsive idea which was then torturing him, namely, he must "do away with all persons who knew of his failings."But then he himself finds a better motivation which gave rise to the dream.The day before, in the theatre, he again saw the girl whom he had expected to marry but whom he had left because she had given him cause for jealousy. With a capacity for intense jealousy such as he has, he would really be insane if he married. In other words, he considers her so untrustworthy that out of jealousy he would have to strike dead all the persons who stood in his way. Going through a series of rooms, of compartments in this case, we have already learned to recognize as the symbol of marriage (the opposite of monogamy).

In connection with the train stopping in the open country and his fear of an accident, he tells the following: Once, when he was traveling in a train and it came to a sudden stop outside of a station, a young lady in the compartment remarked that perhaps there was going to be a collision, and that in that case the best precaution would be to pull one's legs up.But this "legs up" had also played a role in the many walks and excursions into the open which he had taken with the girl in that happy period in their first love.Thus it is a new argument for the idea that he would have to be crazy in order to marry her now.But from my knowledge of the situation I can assume with certainty that the wish to be as crazy as that nevertheless exists in him.

THIRTEENTH LECTURE

THE DREAM

Archaic Remnants and Infantilism in the Dream

LET us revert to our conclusion that the dream-work, under the influence of the dream censorship, transforms the latent dream thoughts into some other form of expression.The latent thoughts are no other than the conscious thoughts known to us in our waking hours; the new mode of expression is incomprehensible to us because of its many-sided features.We have said it extends back to conditions of our intellectual development which we have long progressed beyond, to the language of pictures, the symbol-representations, perhaps to those conditions which were in force before the development of our language of thought.So we called the mode of expression of the dream-work the archaic or regressive.

You may conclude that as a result of the deeper study of the dream-work we gain valuable information about the rather unknown beginnings of our intellectual development.I trust this will be true, but this work has not, up to the present time, been undertaken.The antiquity into which the dream-work carries us back is of a double aspect, firstly, the individual antiquity, childhood; and, secondly (in so far as every individual in his childhood lives over again in some more or less abbreviated manner the entire development of the human race), also this antiquity, the philogenetic.That we shall be able to differentiate which part of the latent psychic proceeding has its source in the individual, and which part in the philogenetic antiquity is not improbable.In this connection it appears to me, for example, that the symbolic relations which the individual has never learned are ground for the belief that they should be regarded as a philogenetic inheritance.

However, this is not the only archaic characteristic of the dream. You probably all know from your own experiences the peculiar amnesia, that is, loss of memory, concerning childhood. I mean the fact that the first years, to the fifth, sixth or eighth, have not left the same traces in our memory as have later experiences. One meets with individual persons, to be sure, who can boast of a continuous memory from the very beginning to the present day, but the other condition, that of a gap in the memory, is far more frequent. I believe we have not laid enough stress on this fact. The child is able to speak well at the age of two, it soon shows that it can become adjusted to the most complicated psychic situations, and makes remarks which years later are retold to it, but which it has itself entirely forgotten. Besides, the memory in the early years is more facile, because it is less burdened than in later years. Nor is there any reason for considering the memory-function as a particularly high or difficult psychic performance; in fact, the contrary is true, and you can find a good memory in persons who stand very low intellectually.

As a second peculiarity closely related to the first, I must point out that certain well-preserved memories, for the most part formatively experienced, stand forth in this memory-void which surrounds the first years of childhood and do not justify this hypothesis.Our memory deals selectively with its later materials, with impressions which come to us in later life.It retains the important and discards the unimportant.This is not true of the retained childhood memories.They do not bespeak necessarily important experiences of childhood, not even such as from the viewpoint of the child need appear of importance.They are often so banal and intrinsically so meaningless that we ask ourselves in wonder why just these details have escaped being forgotten.I once endeavored to approach the riddle of childhood amnesia and the interrupted memory remnants with the help of analysis, and I arrived at the conclusion that in the case of the child, too, only the important has remained in the memory, except that by means of the process of condensation already known to you, and especially by means of distortion, the important is represented in the memory by something that appears unimportant.For this reason I have called these childhood memories "disguise-memories," memories used to conceal; by means of careful analysis one is able to develop out of them everything that is forgotten.

In psychoanalytic treatment we are regularly called upon to fill out the infantile memory gaps, and in so far as the cure is to any degree successful, we are able again to bring to light the content of the childhood years thus clouded in forgetfulness.These impressions have never really been forgotten, they have only been inaccessible, latent, have belonged to the unconscious.But sometimes they bob up out of the unconscious spontaneously, and, as a matter of fact, this is what happens in dreams. It is apparent that the dream life knows how to find the entrance to these latent, infantile experiences.Beautiful examples of this occur in literature, and I myself can present such an example.I once dreamed in a certain connection of a person who must have performed some service for me, and whom I clearly saw.He was a one-eyed man, short in stature, stout, his head deeply sunk into his neck.I concluded from the content that he was a physician.Luckily I was able to ask my mother, who was still living, how the physician in my birth-place, which I left when I was three years old, looked, and I learned from her that he had one eye, was short and stout, with his head sunk into his neck, and also learned at what forgotten mishap he had been of service to me.This control over the forgotten material of childhood years is, then, a further archaic tendency of the dream.

The same information may be made use of in another of the puzzles that have presented themselves to us.You will recall how astonished people were when we came to the conclusion that the stimuli which gave rise to dreams were extremely bad and licentious sexual desires which have made dream-censorship and dream-distortion necessary.After we have interpreted such a dream for the dreamer and he, in the most favorable circumstances does not attack the interpretation itself, he almost always asks the question whence such a wish comes, since it seems foreign to him and he feels conscious of just the opposite sensations.We need not hesitate to point out this origin.These evil wish-impulses have their origin in the past, often in a past which is not too far away.It can be shown that at one time they were known and conscious, even if they no longer are so.The woman, whose dream is interpreted to mean that she would like to see her seventeen-year old daughter dead, discovers under our guidance that she in fact at one time entertained this wish. The child is the fruit of an unhappy marriage, which early ended in a separation. Once, while the child was still in the womb, and after a tense scene with her husband, she beat her body with her fists in a fit of anger, in order to kill the child. How many mothers who to-day love their children tenderly, perhaps too tenderly, received them unwillingly, and at the time wished that the life within them would not develop further; indeed, translated this wish into various actions, happily harmless. The later death-wish against some loved one, which seems so strange, also has its origin in early phases of the relationship to that person.

The father, the interpretation of whose dream shows that he wishes for the death of his eldest and favorite child, must be reminded of the fact that at one time this wish was no stranger to him.While the child was still a suckling, this man, who was unhappy in his choice of a wife, often thought that if the little being that meant nothing to him would die, he would again be free, and would make better use of his freedom.A like origin may be found for a large number of similar hate impulses; they are recollections of something that belonged to the past, were once conscious and played their parts in the psychic life.You will wish to conclude therefrom that such wishes and such dreams cannot occur if such changes in the relationship to a person have not taken place; if such relationship was always of the same character.I am ready to admit this, only wish to warn you that you are to take into consideration not the exact terms of the dream, but the meaning thereof according to its interpretation.It may happen that the manifest dream of the death of some loved person has only made use of some frightful mask, that it really means something entirely different, or that the loved person serves as a concealing substitute for some other.

But the same circumstances will call forth another, more difficult question.You say: "Granted this death wish was present at some time or other, and is substantiated by memory, yet this is no explanation.It is long outlived, to-day it can be present only in the unconscious and as an empty, emotionless memory, but not as a strong impulse.Why should it be recalled by the dream at all!"This question is justified.The attempt to answer it would lead us far afield and necessitate taking up a position in one of the most important points of dream study. But I must remain within the bounds of our discussion and practice restraint. Prepare yourselves for the temporary abstention. Let us be satisfied with the circumstantial proof that this outlived wish can be shown to act as a dream stimulator and let us continue the investigation to see whether or not other evil wishes admit of the same derivation out of the past.

Let us continue with the removal or death-wish which most frequently can be traced back to the unbounded egoism of the dreamer. Such a wish can very often be shown to be the inciting cause of the dream. As often as someone has been in our way in life—and how often must this happen in the complicated relationships of life—the dream is ready to do away with him, be he father, mother, brother, sister, spouse, etc. We have wondered sufficiently over this evil tendency of human nature, and certainly were not predisposed to accept the authenticity of this result of dream interpretation without question. After it has once been suggested to us to seek the origin of such wishes in the past, we disclose immediately the period of the individual past in which such egoism and such wish-impulses, even as directed against those closest to the dreamer, are no longer strangers. It is just in these first years of childhood which later are hidden by amnesia, that this egoism frequently shows itself in most extreme form, and from which regular but clear tendencies thereto, or real remnants thereof, show themselves. For the child loves itself first, and later learns to love others, to sacrifice something of its ego for another. Even those persons whom the child seems to love from the very beginning, it loves at the outset because it has need of them, cannot do without them, in others words, out of egoistical motives. Not until later does the love impulse become independent of egoism. In brief, egoism has taught the child to love.

In this connection it is instructive to compare the child's regard for his brothers and sisters with that which he has for his parents.The little child does not necessarily love his brothers and sisters, often, obviously, he does not love them at all.There is no doubt that in them he hates his rivals and it is known how frequently this attitude continues for many years until maturity, and even beyond, without interruption.Often enough this attitude is superseded by a more tender feeling, or rather let us say glossed over, but the hostile feeling appears regularly to have been the earlier. It is most noticeable in children of from two and one-half to four or five years of age, when a new little brother or sister arrives. The latter is usually received in a far from friendly manner. Expressions such as "I don't want him! Let the stork take him away again," are very usual. Subsequently every opportunity is made use of to disparage the new arrival, and even attempts to do him bodily harm, direct attacks, are not unheard of. If the difference in age is less, the child learns of the existence of the rival with intense psychic activity, and accommodates himself to the new situation. If the difference in age is greater, the new child may awaken certain sympathies as an interesting object, as a sort of living doll, and if the difference is eight years or more, motherly impulses, especially in the case of girls, may come into play. But to be truthful, when we disclose in a dream the wish for the death of a mother or sister we need seldom find it puzzling and may trace its origin easily to early childhood, often enough, also, to the propinquity of later years.

Probably no nurseries are free from mighty conflicts among the inhabitants.The motives are rivalry for the love of the parents, articles owned in common, the room itself.The hostile impulses are called forth by older as well as younger brothers and sisters.I believe it was Bernard Shaw who said: "If there is anyone who hates a young English lady more than does her mother, it is her elder sister."There is something about this saying, however, that arouses our antipathy.We can, at a pinch, understand hatred of brothers and sisters, and rivalry among them, but how may feelings of hatred force their way into the relationship between daughter and mother, parents and children?

This relationship is without doubt the more favorable, even when looked at from the viewpoint of the child.This is in accord with our expectation; we find it much more offensive for love between parents and children to be lacking than for love between brothers and sisters.We have, so to speak, made something holy in the first instance which in the other case we permitted to remain profane.But daily observation can show us how frequently the feelings between parents and their grown children fail to come up to the ideal established by society, how much enmity exists and would find expression did not accumulations of piety and of tender impulse hold them back. The motives for this are everywhere known and disclose a tendency to separate those of the same sex, daughter from mother, father from son. The daughter finds in her mother the authority that hems in her will and that is entrusted with the task of causing her to carry out the abstention from sexual liberty which society demands; in certain cases also she is the rival who objects to being displaced. The same type of thing occurs in a more glaring manner between father and son. To the son the father is the embodiment of every social restriction, borne with such great opposition; the father bars the way to freedom of will, to early sexual satisfaction, and where there is family property held in common, to the enjoyment thereof. Impatient waiting for the death of the father grows to heights approximating tragedy in the case of a successor to the throne. Less strained is the relationship between father and daughter, mother and son. The latter affords the purest examples of an unalterable tenderness, in no way disturbed by egoistical considerations.

Why do I speak of these things, so banal and so well known?Because there is an unmistakable disposition to deny their significance in life, and to set forth the ideal demanded by society as a fulfilled thing much oftener than it really is fulfilled.But it is preferable for psychology to speak the truth, rather than that this task should be left to the cynic.In any event, this denial refers only to actual life.The arts of narrative and dramatic poetry are still free to make use of the motives that result from a disturbance of this ideal.

It is not to be wondered at that in the case of a large number of people the dream discloses the wish for the removal of the parents, especially the parent of the same sex.We may conclude that it is also present during waking hours, and that it becomes conscious even at times when it is able to mask itself behind another motive, as in the case of the dreamer's sympathy for his father's unnecessary sufferings in example 3.It is seldom that the enmity alone controls the relationship; much more often it recedes behind more tender impulses, by which it is suppressed, and must wait until a dream isolates it.That which the dream shows us in enlarged form as a result of such isolation, shrinks together again after it has been properly docketed in its relation to life as a result of our interpretation (H.Sachs).But we also find this dream wish in places where it has no connection with life, and where the adult, in his waking hours, would never recognize it. The reason for this is that the deepest and most uniform motive for becoming unfriendly, especially between persons of the same sex, has already made its influence felt in earliest childhood.

I mean the love rivalry, with the especial emphasis of the sex character. The son, even as a small child, begins to develop an especial tenderness for his mother, whom he considers as his own property, and feels his father to be a rival who puts into question his individual possession; and in the same manner the little daughter sees in her mother a person who is a disturbing element in her tender relationship with her father, and who occupies a position that she could very well fill herself. One learns from these observations to what early years these ideas extend back—ideas which we designate as the Oedipus-complex, because this myth realizes with a very slightly weakened effect the two extreme wishes which grow out of the situation of the son—to kill his father and take his mother to wife.I do not wish to maintain that the Oedipus-complex covers entirely the relation of the child to its parents; this relation can be much more complicated.Furthermore, the Oedipus-complex is more or less well-developed; it may even experience a reversal, but it is a customary and very important factor in the psychic life of the child; and one tends rather to underestimate than to overestimate its influence and the developments which may follow from it.In addition, children frequently react to the Oedipus-idea through stimulation by the parents, who in the placing of their affection are often led by sex-differences, so that the father prefers the daughter, the mother the son; or again, where the marital affection has cooled, and this love is substituted for the outworn love.

One cannot maintain that the world was very grateful to psychoanalytic research for its discovery of the Oedipus-complex.On the contrary, it called forth the strongest resistance on the part of adults; and persons who had neglected to take part in denying this proscribed or tabooed feeling-relationship later made good the omission by taking all value from the complex through false interpretations.According to my unchanged conviction there is nothing to deny and nothing to make more palatable. One should accept the fact, recognized by the Greek myth itself, as inevitable destiny. On the other hand, it is interesting that this Oedipus-complex, cast out of life, was yielded up to poetry and given the freest play. O. Rank has shown in a careful study how this very Oedipus-complex has supplied dramatic literature with a large number of motives in unending variations, derivations and disguises, also in distorted forms such as we recognize to be the work of a censor. We may also ascribe this Oedipus-complex to those dreamers who were so fortunate as to escape in later life these conflicts with their parents, and intimately associated therewith we find what we call the castration complex, the reaction to sexual intimidation or restriction, ascribed to the father, of early infantile sexuality.

By applying our former researches to the study of the psychic life of the child, we may expect to find that the origin of other forbidden dream-wishes, of excessive sexual impulses, may be explained in the same manner.Thus we are moved to study the development of sex-life in the child also, and we discover the following from a number of sources: In the first place, it is a mistake to deny that the child has a sexual life, and to take it for granted that sexuality commences with the ripening of the genitals at the time of puberty.On the contrary—the child has from the very beginning a sexual life rich in content and differing in numerous respects from that which is later considered normal.What we call "perverse" in the life of the adult, differs from the normal in the following respects: first, in disregard for the dividing line of species (the gulf between man and animal); second, being insensible to the conventional feeling of disgust; third, the incest-limitation (being prohibited from seeking sexual satisfaction with near blood-relations); fourth, homosexuality, and fifth, transferring the role of the genitals to other organs and other parts of the body.None of these limitations exist in the beginning, but are gradually built up in the course of development and education.The little child is free from them.He knows no unbridgable chasm between man and animal; the arrogance with which man distinguishes himself from the animal is a later acquisition.In the beginning he is not disgusted at the sight of excrement, but slowly learns to be so disgusted under the pressure of education; he lays no special stress on the difference between the sexes, rather accredits to both the same genital formation; he directs his earliest sexual desires and his curiosity toward those persons closest to him, and who are dear to him for various reasons—his parents, brothers and sisters, nurses; and finally, you may observe in him that which later breaks through again, raised now to a love attraction, viz. , that he does not expect pleasure from his sexual organs alone, but that many other parts of the body portray the same sensitiveness, are the media of analogous sensations, and are able to play the role of the genitals. The child may, then, be called "polymorphus perverse," and if he makes but slight use of all these impulses, it is, on the one hand, because of their lesser intensity as compared to later life, and on the other hand, because the bringing up of the child immediately and energetically suppresses all his sexual expressions. This suppression continues in theory, so to say, since the grown-ups are careful to control part of the childish sex-expressions, and to disguise another part by misrepresenting its sexual nature until they can deny the whole business. These are often the same persons who discourse violently against all the sexual faults of the child and then at the writing table defend the sexual purity of the same children. Where children are left to themselves or are under the influence of corruption, they often are capable of really conspicuous performances of perverse sexual activity. To be sure, the grown-ups are right in looking upon these things as "childish performances," as "play," for the child is not to be judged as mature and answerable either before the bar of custom or before the law, but these things do exist, they have their significance as indications of innate characteristics as well as causes and furtherances of later developments, they give us an insight into childhood sex-life and thereby into the sex life of man. When we rediscover in the background of our distorted dreams all these perverse wish-impulses, it means only that the dream has in this field traveled back to the infantile condition.

Especially noteworthy among these forbidden wishes are those of incest, i.e., those directed towards sexual intercourse with parents and brothers and sisters.You know what antipathy society feels toward such intercourse, or at least pretends to feel, and what weight is laid on the prohibitions directed against it.The most monstrous efforts have been made to explain this fear of incest.Some have believed that it is due to evolutionary foresight on the part of nature, which is psychically represented by this prohibition, because inbreeding would deteriorate the race-character; others maintained that because of having lived together since early childhood the sexual desire is diverted from the persons under consideration. In both cases, furthermore, the incest-avoidance would be automatically assured, and it would be difficult to understand the need of strict prohibitions, which rather point to the presence of a strong desire. Psychoanalytic research has incontrovertibly shown that the incestuous love choice is rather the first and most customary choice, and that not until later is there any resistance, the source of which probably is to be found in the individual psychology.

Let us sum up what our plunge into child psychology has given us toward the understanding of the dream. We found not only that the materials of forgotten childhood experiences are accessible to the dream, but we saw also that the psychic life of children, with all its peculiarities, its egoism, its incestuous love-choice, etc., continues, for the purposes of the dream, in the unconscious, and that the dream nightly leads us back to this infantile stage. Thus it becomes more certain that the unconscious in our psychic life is the infantileThe estranging impression that there is so much evil in man, begins to weaken.This frightful evil is simply the original, primitive, infantile side of psychic life, which we may find in action in children, which we overlook partly because of the slightness of its dimensions, partly because it is lightly considered, since we demand no ethical heights of the child.Since the dream regresses to this stage, it seems to have made apparent the evil that lies in us.But it is only a deceptive appearance by which we have allowed ourselves to be frightened.We are not so evil as we might suspect from the interpretation of dreams.

If the evil impulses of the dream are merely infantilism, a return to the beginnings of our ethical development, since the dream simply makes children of us again in thinking and in feeling, we need not be ashamed of these evil dreams if we are reasonable.But being reasonable is only a part of psychic life.Many things are taking place there that are not reasonable, and so it happens that we are ashamed of such dreams, and unreasonably.We turn them over to the dream-censorship, are ashamed and angry if one of these dreams has in some unusual manner succeeded in penetrating into consciousness in an undistorted form, so that we must recognize it—in fact, we are at times just as ashamed of the distorted dream as we would be if we understood it. Just think of the scandalized opinion of the fine old lady about her uninterpreted dream of "services of love." The problem is not yet solved, and it is still possible that upon further study of the evil in the dream we shall come to some other decision and arrive at another valuation of human nature.

As a result of the whole investigation we grasp two facts, which, however, disclose only the beginnings of new riddles, new doubts.First: the regression of dream-work is not only formal, it is also of greater import.It not only translates our thoughts into a primitive form of expression, but it reawakens the peculiarities of our primitive psychic life, the ancient predominance of the ego, the earliest impulses of our sexual life, even our old intellectual property, if we may consider the symbolic relations as such.And second: We must accredit all these infantilisms which once were governing, and solely governing, to the unconscious, about which our ideas now change and are broadened.Unconscious is no longer a name for what is at that time latent, the unconscious is an especial psychic realm with wish-impulses of its own, with its own method of expression and with a psychic mechanism peculiar to itself, all of which ordinarily are not in force.But the latent dream-thoughts, which we have solved by means of the dream-interpretation, are not of this realm.They are much more nearly the same as any we may have thought in our waking hours.Still they are unconscious; how does one solve this contradiction?We begin to see that a distinction must be made.Something that originates in our conscious life, and that shares its characteristics—we call it the day-remnants—combines in the dream-fabrication with something else out of the realm of the unconscious.Between these two parts the dream-work completes itself.The influencing of the day-remnants by the unconscious necessitates regression.This is the deepest insight into the nature of the dream that we are able to attain without having searched through further psychic realms. The time will soon come, however, when we shall clothe the unconscious character of the latent dream-thought with another name, which shall differentiate it from the unconscious out of the realm of the infantile.

We may, to be sure, propound the question: what forces the psychological activity during sleep to such regression?Why do not the sleep disturbing psychic stimuli do the job without it?And if they must, because of the dream censorship, disguise themselves through old forms of expression which are no longer comprehensible, what is the use of giving new life to old, long-outgrown psychic stimuli, wishes and character types, that is, why the material regression in addition to the formal?The only satisfactory answer would be this, that only in this manner can a dream be built up, that dynamically the dream-stimulus can be satisfied only in this way.But for the time being we have no right to give such an answer.