CHAPTER 4
DISTORTION IN DREAMS
If I now declare that wish-fulfilment is the meaning of every dream, so
that there cannot be any dreams other than wish-dreams, I know
beforehand that I shall meet with the most emphatic contradiction. My
critics will object: "The fact that there are dreams which are to be
understood as fulfilments of wishes is not new, but has long since been
recognized by such writers as Radestock, Volkelt, Purkinje, Griesinger
and others.[1] That there can be no other dreams than those of
wish-fulfilments is yet one more unjustified generalization, which,
fortunately, can be easily refuted. Dreams which present the most
painful content, and not the least trace of wish-fulfilment, occur
frequently enough. The pessimistic philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, is
perhaps most completely opposed to the theory of wish-fulfilment. In his
Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part II (Stereotyped German edition, p.
344), he says: 'As regards the dream, with it all the troubles of waking
life pass over into the sleeping state; all save the one thing which may
in some degree reconcile the cultured person with life- scientific and
artistic enjoyment....' But even less pessimistic observers have
emphasized the fact that in our dreams pain and disgust are more
frequent than pleasure (Scholz, p. 33; Volkelt, p. 80, et al.). Two
ladies, Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam, have even worked out, on the
basis of their dreams, a numerical value for the preponderance of
distress and discomfort in dreams. They find that 58 per cent of dreams
are disagreeable, and only 28.6 positively pleasant. Besides those
dreams that convey into our sleep the many painful emotions of life,
there are also anxiety-dreams, in which this most terrible of all the
painful emotions torments us until we wake. Now it is precisely by these
anxiety dreams that children are so often haunted (cf. Debacker on Pavor
nocturnus); and yet it was in children that you found the
wish-fulfilment dream in its most obvious form."
The anxiety-dream does really seem to preclude a generalization of
the thesis deduced from the examples given in the last chapter, that
dreams are wish-fulfilments, and even to condemn it as an absurdity.
Nevertheless, it is not difficult to parry these apparently
invincible objections. It is merely necessary to observe that our
doctrine is not based upon the estimates of the obvious dream- content,
but relates to the thought-content, which, in the course of
interpretation, is found to lie behind the dream. Let us compare and
contrast the manifest and the latent dream-content. It is true that
there are dreams the manifest content of which is of the most painful
nature. But has anyone ever tried to interpret these dreams- to discover
their latent thought-content? If not, the two objections to our doctrine
are no longer valid; for there is always the possibility that even our
painful and terrifying dreams may, upon interpretation, prove to be wish
fulfilments.[2]
In scientific research it is often advantageous, if the solution of
one problem presents difficulties, to add to it a second problem; just
as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead of separately. Thus,
we are confronted not only with the problem: How can painful and
terrifying dreams be the fulfilments of wishes? but we may add to this a
second problem which arises from the foregoing discussion of the general
problem of the dream: Why do not the dreams that show an indifferent
content, and yet turn out to be wish-fulfilments, reveal their meaning
without disguise? Take the exhaustively treated dream of Irma's
injection: it is by no means of a painful character, and it may be
recognized, upon interpretation, as a striking wish- fulfilment. But why
is an interpretation necessary at all? Why does not the dream say
directly what it means? As a matter of fact, the dream of Irma's
injection does not at first produce the impression that it represents a
wish of the dreamer's as fulfilled. The reader will not have received
this impression, and even I myself was not aware of the fact until I had
undertaken the analysis. If we call this peculiarity of dreams- namely,
that they need elucidation- the phenomenon of distortion in dreams, a
second question then arises: What is the origin of this distortion in
dreams?
If one's first thoughts on this subject were consulted, several
possible solutions might suggest themselves: for example, that during
sleep one is incapable of finding an adequate expression for one's
dream-thoughts. The analysis of certain dreams, however, compels us to
offer another explanation. I shall demonstrate this by means of a second
dream of my own, which again involves numerous indiscretions, but which
compensates for this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough
elucidation of the problem.
Preliminary Statement
In the spring of 1897 I learnt that two professors of our university had
proposed me for the title of Professor Extraordinarius (assistant
professor). The news came as a surprise to me, and pleased me
considerably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two eminent
men which could not be explained by personal interest. But I told myself
immediately that I must not expect anything to come of their proposal.
For some years past the Ministry had disregarded such proposals, and
several colleagues of mine, who were my seniors and at least my equals
in desert, had been waiting in vain all this time for the appointment. I
had no reason to suppose that I should fare any better. I resolved,
therefore, to resign myself to disappointment. I am not, so far as I
know, ambitious, and I was following my profession with gratifying
success even without the recommendation of a professorial title. Whether
I considered the grapes to be sweet or sour did not matter, since they
undoubtedly hung too high for me.
One evening a friend of mine called to see me; one of those
colleagues whose fate I had regarded as a warning. As he had long been a
candidate for promotion to the professorate (which in our society makes
the doctor a demigod to his patients), and as he was less resigned than
I, he was accustomed from time to time to remind the authorities of his
claims in the hope of advancing his interests. It was after one of these
visits that he called on me. He said that this time he had driven the
exalted gentleman into a corner, and had asked him frankly whether
considerations of religious denomination were not really responsible for
the postponement of his appointment. The answer was: His Excellency had
to admit that in the present state of public opinion he was not in a
position, etc. "Now at least I know where I stand," my friend concluded
his narrative, which told me nothing new, but which was calculated to
confirm me in my resignation. For the same denominational considerations
would apply to my own case.
On the morning after my friend's visit I had the following dream,
which was notable also on account of its form. It consisted of two
thoughts and two images, so that a thought and an image emerged
alternately. But here I shall record only the first half of the dream,
since the second half has no relation to the purpose for which I cite
the dream.
I. My friend R is my uncle- I have a great affection for him.
II. I see before me his face, somewhat altered. It seems to be
elongated; a yellow beard, which surrounds it, is seen with peculiar
distinctness.
Then follow the other two portions of the dream, again a thought and
an image, which I omit.
The interpretation of this dream was arrived at in the following
manner:
When I recollected the dream in the course of the morning, I laughed
outright and said, "The dream is nonsense." But I could not get it out
of my mind, and I was pursued by it all day, until at last, in the
evening, I reproached myself in these words: "If in the course of a
dream-interpretation one of your patients could find nothing better to
say than 'That is nonsense,' you would reprove him, and you would
suspect that behind the dream there was hidden some disagreeable affair,
the exposure of which he wanted to spare himself. Apply the same thing
to your own case; your opinion that the dream is nonsense probably
signifies merely an inner resistance to its interpretation. Don't let
yourself be put off." I then proceeded with the interpretation.
R is my uncle. What can that mean? I had only one uncle, my uncle
Joseph.[3] His story, to be sure, was a sad one. Once, more than thirty
years ago, hoping to make money, he allowed himself to be involved in
transactions of a kind which the law punishes severely, and paid the
penalty. My father, whose hair turned grey with grief within a few days,
used always to say that uncle Joseph had never been a bad man, but,
after all, he was a simpleton. If, then, my friend R is my uncle Joseph,
that is equivalent to saying: "R is a simpleton." Hardly credible, and
very disagreeable! But there is the face that I saw in the dream, with
its elongated features and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such
a face- long, and framed in a handsome yellow beard. My friend R was
extremely swarthy, but when black-haired people begin to grow grey they
pay for the glory of their youth. Their black beards undergo an
unpleasant change of colour, hair by hair; first they turn a reddish
brown, then a yellowish brown, and then definitely grey. My friend R's
beard is now in this stage; so, for that matter, is my own, a fact which
I note with regret. The face that I see in my dream is at once that of
my friend R and that of my uncle. It is like one of those composite
photographs of Galton's; in order to emphasize family resemblances
Galton had several faces photographed on the same plate. No doubt is now
possible; it is really my opinion that my friend R is a simpleton- like
my uncle Joseph.
I have still no idea for what purpose I have worked out this
relationship. It is certainly one to which I must unreservedly object.
Yet it is not very profound, for my uncle was a criminal, and my friend
R is not, except in so far as he was once fined for knocking down an
apprentice with his bicycle. Can I be thinking of this offence? That
would make the comparison ridiculous. Here I recollect another
conversation, which I had some days ago with another colleague, N; as a
matter of fact, on the same subject. I met N in the street; he, too, has
been nominated for a professorship, and having heard that I had been
similarly honoured he congratulated me. I refused his congratulations,
saying: "You are the last man to jest about the matter, for you know
from your own experience what the nomination is worth." Thereupon he
said, though probably not in earnest; "You can't be sure of that. There
is a special objection in my case. Don't you know that a woman once
brought a criminal accusation against me? I need hardly assure you that
the matter was put right. It was a mean attempt at blackmail, and it was
all I could do to save the plaintiff from punishment. But it may be that
the affair is remembered against me at the Ministry. You, on the other
hand, are above reproach." Here, then, I have the criminal, and at the
same time the interpretation and tendency of my dream. My uncle Joseph
represents both of my colleagues who have not been appointed to the
professorship- the one as a simpleton, the other as a criminal. Now,
too, I know for what purpose I need this representation. If
denominational considerations are a determining factor in the
postponement of my two friends' appointment, then my own appointment is
likewise in jeopardy. But if I can refer the rejection of my two friends
to other causes, which do not apply to my own case, my hopes are
unaffected. This is the procedure followed by my dream: it makes the one
friend R, a simpleton, and the other, N, a criminal. But since I am
neither one nor the other, there is nothing in common between us. I have
a right to enjoy my appointment to the title of professor, and have
avoided the distressing application to my own case of the information
which the official gave to my friend R.
I must pursue the interpretation of this dream still farther; for I
have a feeling that it is not yet satisfactorily elucidated. I still
feel disquieted by the ease with which I have degraded two respected
colleagues in order to clear my own way to the professorship. My
dissatisfaction with this procedure has, of course, been mitigated since
I have learned to estimate the testimony of dreams at its true value. I
should contradict anyone who suggested that I really considered R a
simpleton, or that I did not believe N's account of the blackmailing
incident. And of course I do not believe that Irma has been made
seriously ill by an injection of a preparation of propyl administered by
Otto. Here, as before, what the dream expresses is only my wish that
things might be so. The statement in which my wish is realized sounds
less absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is here made with
a skilful use of actual points of support in establishing something like
a plausible slander, one of which one could say that "there is something
in it." For at that time my friend R had to contend with the adverse
vote of a university professor of his own department, and my friend N
had himself, all unsuspectingly, provided me with material for the
calumny. Nevertheless, I repeat, it still seems to me that the dream
requires further elucidation.
I remember now that the dream contained yet another portion which has
hitherto been ignored by the interpretation. After it occurred to me
that my friend R was my uncle, I felt in the dream a great affection for
him. To whom is this feeling directed? For my uncle Joseph, of course, I
have never had any feelings of affection. R has for many years been a
dearly loved friend, but if I were to go to him and express my affection
for him in terms approaching the degree of affection which I felt in the
dream, he would undoubtedly be surprised. My affection, if it was for
him, seems false and exaggerated, as does my judgment of his
intellectual qualities, which I expressed by merging his personality in
that of my uncle; but exaggerated in the opposite direction. Now,
however, a new state of affairs dawns upon me. The affection in the
dream does not belong to the latent content, to the thoughts behind the
dream; it stands in opposition to this content; it is calculated to
conceal the knowledge conveyed by the interpretation. Probably this is
precisely its function. I remember with what reluctance I undertook the
interpretation, how long I tried to postpone it, and how I declared the
dream to be sheer nonsense. I know from my psycho-analytic practice how
such a condemnation is to be interpreted. It has no informative value,
but merely expresses an affect. If my little daughter does not like an
apple which is offered her, she asserts that the apple is bitter,
without even tasting it. If my patients behave thus, I know that we are
dealing with an idea which they are trying to repress. The same thing
applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret it because there is
something in the interpretation to which I object. After the
interpretation of the dream is completed, I discover what it was to
which I objected; it was the assertion that R is a simpleton. I can
refer the affection which I feel for R not to the latent dream-thoughts,
but rather to this unwillingness of mine. If my dream, as compared with
its latent content, is disguised at this point, and actually
misrepresents things by producing their opposites, then the manifest
affection in the dream serves the purpose of the misrepresentation: in
other words, the distortion is here shown to be intentional- it is a
means of disguise. My dream-thoughts of R are derogatory, and so that I
may not become aware of this the very opposite of defamation- a tender
affection for him- enters into the dream.
This discovery may prove to be generally valid. As the examples in
Chapter III have demonstrated, there are, of course, dreams which are
undisguised wish-fulfilments. Wherever a wish-fulfilment is
unrecognizable and disguised there must be present a tendency to defend
oneself against this wish, and in consequence of this defence the wish
is unable to express itself save in a distorted form. I will try to find
a parallel in social life to this occurrence in the inner psychic life.
Where in social life can a similar misrepresentation be found? Only
where two persons are concerned, one of whom possesses a certain power
while the other has to act with a certain consideration on account of
this power. The second person will then distort his psychic actions: or,
as we say, he will mask himself. The politeness which I practise every
day is largely a disguise of this kind; if I interpret my dreams for the
benefit of my readers, I am forced to make misrepresentations of this
kind. The poet even complains of the necessity of such
misrepresentation: Das Beste, was du wissen kannst, darfst du den Buben
doch nicht sagen: "The best that thou canst know thou mayst not tell to
boys."
The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell to those in
power finds himself in a like position. If he tells everything without
reserve, the Government will suppress them- retrospectively in the case
of a verbal expression of opinion, preventively if they are to be
published in the Press. The writer stands in fear of the censorship; he
therefore moderates and disguises the expression of his opinions. He
finds himself compelled, in accordance with the sensibilities of the
censor, either to refrain altogether from certain forms of attack or to
express himself in allusions instead of by direct assertions; or he must
conceal his objectionable statement in an apparently innocent disguise.
He may, for instance, tell of a contretemps between two Chinese
mandarins, while he really has in mind the officials of his own country.
The stricter the domination of the censorship, the more thorough becomes
the disguise, and, often enough, the more ingenious the means employed
to put the reader on the track of the actual meaning.
The detailed correspondence between the phenomena of censorship and
the phenomena of dream-distortion justifies us in presupposing similar
conditions for both. We should then assume that in every human being
there exist, as the primary cause of dream-formation, two psychic forces
(tendencies or systems), one of which forms the wish expressed by the
dream, while the other exercises a censorship over this dream-wish,
thereby enforcing on it a distortion. The question is: What is the
nature of the authority of this second agency by virtue of which it is
able to exercise its censorship? If we remember that the latent dream-
thoughts are not conscious before analysis, but that the manifest
dream-content emerging from them is
consciously remembered, it is not a far-fetched assumption that
admittance to the consciousness is the prerogative of the second agency.
Nothing can reach the consciousness from the first system which has not
previously passed the second instance; and the second instance lets
nothing pass without exercising its rights, and forcing such
modifications as are pleasing to itself upon the candidates for
admission to consciousness. Here we arrive at a very definite conception
of the essence of consciousness; for us the state of becoming conscious
is a special psychic act, different from and independent of the process
of becoming fixed or represented, and consciousness appears to us as a
sensory organ which perceives a content proceeding from another source.
It may be shown that psycho-pathology simply cannot dispense with these
fundamental assumptions. But we shall reserve for another time a more
exhaustive examination of the subject.
If I bear in mind the notion of the two psychic instances and their
relation to the consciousness, I find in the sphere of politics a
perfectly appropriate analogy to the extraordinary affection which I
feel for my friend R, who is so disparaged in the dream-interpretation.
I refer to the political life of a State in which the ruler, jealous of
his rights, and an active public opinion are in mutual conflict. The
people, protesting against the actions of an unpopular official, demand
his dismissal. The autocrat, on the other hand, in order to show his
contempt for the popular will, may then deliberately confer upon the
official some exceptional distinction which otherwise would not have
been conferred. Similarly, my second instance, controlling the access to
my consciousness, distinguishes my friend R with a rush of extraordinary
affection, because the wish- tendencies of the first system, in view of
a particular interest on which they are just then intent, would like to
disparage him as a simpleton.[4]
We may now perhaps begin to suspect that dream-interpretation is
capable of yielding information concerning the structure of our psychic
apparatus which we have hitherto vainly expected from philosophy. We
shall not, however, follow up this trail, but shall return to our
original problem as soon as we have elucidated the problem of
dream-distortion. The question arose, how dreams with a disagreeable
content can be analysed as wish- fulfillments. We see now that this is
possible where a dream- distortion has occurred, when the disagreeable
content serves only to disguise the thing wished for. With regard to our
assumptions respecting the two psychic instances, we can now also say
that disagreeable dreams contain, as a matter of fact, something which
is disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time
fulfills a wish of the first instance. They are wish-dreams in so far as
every dream emanates from the first instance, while the second instance
behaves towards the dream only in a defensive, not in a constructive
manner.[5] Were we to limit ourselves to a consideration of what the
second instance contributes to the dream we should never understand the
dream, and all the problems which the writers on the subject have
discovered in the dream would have to remain unsolved.
That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which proves to be a
wish-fulfillment, must be proved afresh in every case by analysis. I
will therefore select a few dreams which have painful contents, and
endeavour to analyse them. Some of them are dreams of hysterical
subjects, which therefore call for a long preliminary statement, and in
some passages an examination of the psychic processes occurring in
hysteria. This, though it will complicate the presentation, is
unavoidable.
When I treat a psychoneurotic patient analytically, his dreams
regularly, as I have said, become a theme of our conversations. I must
therefore give him all the psychological explanations with whose aid I
myself have succeeded in understanding his symptoms. And here I
encounter unsparing criticism, which is perhaps no less shrewd than that
which I have to expect from my colleagues. With perfect uniformity, my
patients contradict the doctrine that dreams are the fulfillments of
wishes. Here are several examples of the sort of dream-material which is
adduced in refutation of my theory.
"You are always saying that a dream is a wish fulfilled," begins an
intelligent lady patient. "Now I shall tell you a dream in which the
content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is not fulfilled.
How do you reconcile that with your theory? The dream was as follows: I
want to give a supper, but I have nothing available except some smoked
salmon. I think I will go shopping, but I remember that it is Sunday
afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I then try to ring up a few
caterers, but the telephone is out of order. Accordingly I have to
renounce my desire to give a supper."
I reply, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of
this dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems sensible and
coherent and looks like the opposite of a wish- fulfilment. "But what
occurrence gave rise to this dream?" I ask. "You know that the stimulus
of a dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding day."
Analysis
The patient's husband, an honest and capable meat salesman, had told her
the day before that he was growing too fat, and that he meant to undergo
treatment for obesity. He would rise early, take physical exercise, keep
to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to supper.
She proceeds jestingly to relate how her husband, at a table d'hote, had
made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon painting his
portrait, because he, the painter, had never seen such an expressive
head. But her husband had answered in his downright fashion, that while
he was much obliged, he would rather not be painted; and he was quite
convinced that a bit of a pretty girl's posterior would please the
artist better than his whole face.[6] She is very much in love with her
husband, and teases him a good deal. She has asked him not to give her
any caviar. What can that mean?
Goethe: And if he has no backside, How can the nobleman sit?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviar
sandwich every morning, but had grudged the expense. Of course she could
get the caviar from her husband at once if she asked for it. But she
has, on the contrary, begged him not to give her any caviar, so that she
might tease him about it a little longer.
(To me this explanation seems thin. Unconfessed motives are wont to
conceal themselves behind just such unsatisfying explanations. We are
reminded of the subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a
post-hypnotic order, and who, on being questioned as to their motives,
instead of answering: "I do not know why I did that." had to invent a
reason that was obviously inadequate. There is probably something
similar to this in the case of my patient's caviar. I see that in waking
life she is compelled to invent an unfulfilled wish. Her dream also
shows her the non- fulfillment of her wish. But why does she need an
unfulfilled wish?)
The ideas elicited so far are insufficient for the interpretation of
the dream. I press for more. After a short pause, which corresponds to
the overcoming of a resistance, she reports that the day before she had
paid a visit to a friend of whom she is really jealous because her
husband is always praising this lady so highly. Fortunately this friend
is very thin and lanky, and her husband likes full figures. Now of what
did this thin friend speak? Of course, of her wish to become rather
plumper. She also asked my patient: "When are you going to invite us
again? You always have such good food."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I am able to tell the patient:
"It is just as though you had thought at the moment of her asking you
that: 'Of course, I'm to invite you so that you can eat at my house and
get fat and become still more pleasing to my husband! I would rather
give no more suppers!' The dream then tells you that you cannot give a
supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the
rounding out of your friend's figure. Your husband's resolution to
accept no more invitations to supper in order that he may grow thin
teaches you that one grows fat on food eaten at other people's tables."
Nothing is lacking now but some sort of coincidence which will confirm
the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced.-
"How did you come to think of salmon in your dream?"- "Smoked salmon is
my friend's favourite dish," she replied. It happens that I know the
lady, and am able to affirm that she grudges herself salmon just as my
patient grudges herself caviar.
This dream admits of yet another and more exact interpretation- one
which is actually necessitated only by a subsidiary circumstance. The
two interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather dovetail
into one another, and furnish an excellent example of the usual
ambiguity of dreams, as of all other psycho-pathological formations. We
have heard that at the time of her dream of a denied wish the patient
was impelled to deny herself a real wish (the wish to cat caviar
sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get
fatter, and it would not surprise us if our patient had dreamt that this
wish of her friend's- the wish to increase in weight- was not to be
fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreamt that one of her own
wishes was not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new
interpretation if in the dream she does not mean herself, but her
friend, if she has put herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may
say, has identified herself with her friend.
I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this
identification she has created for herself in real life an unfulfilled
wish. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To
elucidate this a more exhaustive exposition is necessary. Identification
is a highly important motive in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by
this means patients are enabled to express in their symptoms not merely
their own experiences, but the experiences of quite a number of other
persons; they can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and
fill all the parts of a drama with their own personalities. It will here
be objected that this is the well-known hysterical imitation, the
ability of hysterical subjects to imitate all the symptoms which impress
them when they occur in others, as though pity were aroused to the point
of reproduction. This, however, only indicates the path which the
psychic process follows in hysterical imitation. But the path itself and
the psychic act which follows this path are two different matters. The
act itself is slightly more complicated than we are prone to believe the
imitation of the hysterical to be; it corresponds to an unconscious
end-process, as an example will show. The physician who has, in the same
ward with other patients, a female patient suffering from a particular
kind of twitching, is not surprised if one morning he learns that this
peculiar hysterical affection has found imitators. He merely tells
himself: The others have seen her, and have imitated her; this is
psychic infection. Yes, but psychic infection occurs somewhat in the
following manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another than
the physician knows about any one of them, and they are concerned about
one another when the doctor's visit is over. One of them has an attack
to-day: at once it is known to the rest that a letter from home, a
recrudescence of lovesickness, or the like, is the cause. Their sympathy
is aroused, and although it does not emerge into consciousness they form
the following conclusion: "If it is possible to suffer such an attack
from such a cause, I too may suffer this sort of an attack, for I have
the same occasion for it." If this were a conclusion capable of becoming
conscious, it would perhaps express itself in dread of suffering a like
attack; but it is formed in another psychic region, and consequently
ends in the realization of the dreaded symptoms. Thus identification is
not mere imitation, but an assimilation based upon the same aetiological
claim; it expresses a just like, and refers to some common condition
which has remained in the unconscious.
In hysteria, identification is most frequently employed to express a
sexual community. The hysterical woman identifies herself by her
symptoms most readily- though not exclusively- with persons with whom
she has had sexual relations, or who have had sexual intercourse with
the same persons as herself. Language takes cognizance of this tendency:
two lovers are said to be "one." In hysterical phantasy, as well as in
dreams, identification may ensue if one simply thinks of sexual
relations; they need not necessarily become actual. The patient is
merely following the rules of the hysterical processes of thought when
she expresses her jealousy of her friend (which, for that matter, she
herself admits to be unjustified) by putting herself in her friend's
place in her dream, and identifying herself with her by fabricating a
symptom (the denied wish). One might further elucidate the process by
saying: In the dream she puts herself in the place of her friend,
because her friend has taken her own place in relation to her husband,
and because she would like to take her friend's place in her husband's
esteem.[7] -
The contradiction of my theory of dreams on the part of another
female patient, the most intelligent of all my dreamers, was solved in a
simpler fashion, though still in accordance with the principle that the
non-fulfilment of one wish signified the fulfilment of another. I had
one day explained to her that a dream is a wish-fulfilment. On the
following day she related a dream to the effect that she was travelling
with her mother-in- law to the place in which they were both to spend
the summer. Now I knew that she had violently protested against spending
the summer in the neighbourhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that
she had fortunately been able to avoid doing so, since she had recently
succeeded in renting a house in a place quite remote from that to which
her mother-in-law was going. And now the dream reversed this desired
solution. Was not this a flat contradiction of my theory of
wish-fulfilment? One had only to draw the inferences from this dream in
order to arrive at its interpretation. According to this dream, I was
wrong; but it was her wish that I should be wrong, and this wish the
dream showed her as fulfilled. But the wish that I should be wrong,
which was fulfilled in the theme of the country house, referred in
reality to another and more serious matter. At that time I had inferred,
from the material furnished by her analysis, that something of
significance in respect to her illness must have occurred at a certain
time in her life. She had denied this, because it was not present in her
memory. We soon came to see that I was right. Thus her wish that I
should prove to be wrong, which was transformed into the dream that she
was going into the country with her mother-in-law, corresponded with the
justifiable wish that those things which were then only suspected had
never occurred.
Without an analysis, and merely by means of an assumption, I took the
liberty of interpreting a little incident in the life of a friend, who
had been my companion through eight classes at school. He once heard a
lecture of mine, delivered to a small audience, on the novel idea that
dreams are wish-fulfilments. He went home, dreamt that he had lost all
his lawsuits- he was a lawyer- and then complained to me about it. I
took refuge in the evasion: "One can't win all one's cases"; but I
thought to myself: "If, for eight years, I sat as primus on the first
bench, while he moved up and down somewhere in the middle of the class,
may he not naturally have had the wish, ever since his boyhood, that I
too might for once make a fool of myself?"
Yet another dream of a more gloomy character was offered me by a
female patient in contradiction of my theory of the wish-dream. This
patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You remember that my sister
has now only one boy, Charles. She lost the elder one, Otto, while I was
still living with her. Otto was my favourite; it was I who really
brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but, of course, not
nearly as much as his dead brother. Now I dreamt last night that I saw
Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his little coffin, his
hands folded; there were candles all about; and, in short, it was just
as it was at the time of little Otto's death, which gave me such a
shock. Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me- am I really so bad
as to wish that my sister should lose the only child she has left? Or
does the dream mean that I wish that Charles had died rather than Otto,
whom I liked so much better?"
I assured her that this latter interpretation was impossible. After
some reflection, I was able to give her the interpretation of the dream,
which she subsequently confirmed. I was able to do so because the whole
previous history of the dreamer was known to me.
Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been brought up
in the home of a much older sister, and had met, among the friends and
visitors who frequented the house, a man who made a lasting impression
upon her affections. It looked for a time as though these barely
explicit relations would end in marriage, but this happy culmination was
frustrated by the sister, whose motives were never completely explained.
After the rupture the man whom my patient loved avoided the house; she
herself attained her independence some time after the death of little
Otto, to whom, meanwhile, her affections had turned. But she did not
succeed in freeing herself from the dependence due to her affection for
her sister's friend. Her pride bade her avoid him, but she found it
impossible to transfer her love to the other suitors who successively
presented themselves. Whenever the man she loved, who was a member of
the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was certain
to be found among the audience; and she seized every other opportunity
of seeing him unobserved. I remembered that on the previous day she had
told me that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and that she
too was going, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on the day
before the dream; and the concert was to be given on the day on which
she told me the dream. I could now easily see the correct
interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any
particular event which had occurred after Otto's death. She replied
immediately: "Of course; the Professor returned then, after a long
absence, and I saw him once more beside little Otto's coffin." It was
just as I had expected. I interpreted the dream as follows: "If now the
other boy were to die, the same thing would happen again. You would
spend the day with your sister; the Professor would certainly come to
offer his condolences, and you would see him once more under the same
circumstances as before. The dream signifies nothing more than this wish
of yours to see him again- a wish against which you are fighting
inwardly. I know that you have the ticket for today's concert in your
bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated by several
hours the meeting which is to take place to-day."
In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a situation
in which wishes of the sort are commonly suppressed- a situation so
sorrowful that love is not even thought of. And yet it is entirely
possible that even in the actual situation beside the coffin of the
elder, more dearly loved boy, she had not been able to suppress her
tender affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long.
A different explanation was found in the case of a similar dream of
another patient, who in earlier life had been distinguished for her
quick wit and her cheerful disposition, and who still displayed these
qualities, at all events in the free associations which occurred to her
during treatment. In the course of a longer dream, it seemed to this
lady that she saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her in
a box. She was strongly inclined to use this dream-image as an objection
to the theory of wish-fulfilment, although she herself suspected that
the detail of the box must lead to a different conception of the
dream.[8] For in the course of the analysis it occurred to her that on
the previous evening the conversation of the people in whose company she
found herself had turned on the English word box, and upon the numerous
translations of it into German such as Schachtel (box), Loge (box at the
theatre), Kasten (chest), Ohrfeige (box on the ear), etc. From other
components of the same dream it was now possible to add the fact that
the lady had guessed at the relationship between the English word "box"
and the German Buchse, and had then been haunted by the recollection
that Buchse is used in vulgar parlance to denote the female genitals. It
was therefore possible, treating her knowledge of topographical anatomy
with a certain indulgence, to assume that the child in the box signified
a child in the mother's womb. At this stage of the explanation she no
longer denied that the picture in the dream actually corresponded with a
wish of hers. Like so many other young women, she was by no means happy
on finding that she was pregnant, and she had confessed to me more than
once the wish that her child might die before its birth; in a fit of
anger, following a violent scene with her husband, she had even struck
her abdomen with her fists, in order to injure the child within. The
dead child was therefore, really the fulfilment of a wish, but a wish
which had been put aside for fifteen years, and it is not surprising
that the fulfilment of the wish was no longer recognized after so long
an interval. For there had been many changes in the meantime.
The group of dreams (having as content the death of beloved
relatives) to which belong the last two mentioned will be considered
again under the head of "Typical Dreams." I shall then be able to show
by new examples that in spite of their undesirable content all these
dreams must be interpreted as wish- fulfilments. For the following
dream, which again was told me in order to deter me from a hasty
generalization of my theory, I am indebted, not to a patient, but to an
intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. "I dream," my informant tells me,
"that I am walking in front of my house with a lady on my arm. Here a
closed carriage is waiting; a man steps up to me, shows me his
authorization as a police officer, and requests me to follow him. I ask
only for time in which to arrange my affairs." The jurist then asks me:
"Can you possibly suppose that it is my wish to be arrested?"- "Of
course not," I have to admit. "Do you happen to know upon what charge
you were arrested?"- "Yes; I believe for infanticide."- "Infanticide?
But you know that only a mother can commit this crime upon her new-born
child?"- "That is true."[9] "And under what circumstances did you dream
this? What happened on the evening before?"- "I would rather not tell
you- it is a delicate matter."- "But I need it, otherwise we must forgo
the interpretation of the dream."- "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent
the night, not at home, but in the house of a lady who means a great
deal to me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between
us. Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you."- "The
woman is married?"- "Yes."- "And you do not wish her to conceive?"- "No;
that might betray us."- "Then you do not practice normal coitus?"- "I
take the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation."- "Am I to assume
that you took this precaution several times during the night, and that
in the morning you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded?"-
"That might be so."- "Then your dream is the fulfilment of a wish. By
the dream you are assured that you have not begotten a child, or, what
amounts to the same thing, that you have killed the child. I can easily
demonstrate the connecting-links. Do you remember, a few days ago we
were talking about the troubles of matrimony, and about the
inconsistency of permitting coitus so long as no impregnation takes
place, while at the same time any preventive act committed after the
ovum and the semen meet and a foetus is formed is punished as a crime?
In this connection we recalled the medieval controversy about the moment
of time at which the soul actually enters into the foetus, since the
concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point onwards. Of
course, too, you know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts infanticide
and birth-control on the same plane."- "Strangely enough, I happened, as
though by chance, to think of Lenau this morning."- "Another echo of
your dream. And now I shall show you yet another incidental
wish-fulfilment in your dream. You walk up to your house with the lady
on your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the night at her
house, as you did in reality. The fact that the wish-fulfilment, which
is the essence of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant
form, has perhaps more than one explanation. From my essay on the
aetiology of anxiety neurosis, you will see that I note coitus
interruptus as one of the factors responsible for the development of
neurotic fear. It would be consistent with this if, after repeated
coitus of this kind, you were left in an uncomfortable frame of mind,
which now becomes an element of the composition of your dream. You even
make use of this uncomfortable state of mind to conceal the
wish-fulfilment. At the same time, the mention of infanticide has not
yet been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to females,
occur to you?"- "I will confess to you that I was involved in such an
affair years ago. I was responsible for the fact that a girl tried to
protect herself from the consequences of a liaison with me by procuring
an abortion. I had nothing to do with the carrying out of her plan, but
for a long time I was naturally worried in case the affair might be
discovered."- "I understand. This recollection furnished a second reason
why the supposition that you had performed coitus interruptus clumsily
must have been painful to you."
A young physician, who heard this dream related in my lecture- room,
must have felt that it fitted him, for he hastened to imitate it by a
dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another theme. On the
previous day he had furnished a statement of his income; a quite
straightforward statement, because he had little to state. He dreamt
that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission
and informed him that all the other statements had passed unquestioned,
but that his own had aroused general suspicion, with the result that he
would be punished with a heavy fine. This dream is a poorly disguised
fulfilment of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income.
It also calls to mind the story of the young girl who was advised
against accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper, who
would assuredly beat her after their marriage. Her answer was: "I wish
he would strike me!" Her wish to be married was so intense that she had
taken into consideration the discomforts predicted for this marriage;
she had even raised them to the plane of a wish.
If I group together the very frequent dreams of this sort, which seem
flatly to contradict my theory, in that they embody the denial of a wish
or some occurrence obviously undesired, under the head of
counter-wish-dreams, I find that they may all be referred to two
principles, one of which has not yet been mentioned, though it plays a
large part in waking as well as dream-life. One of the motives inspiring
these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams
occur regularly in the course of treatment whenever the patient is in a
state of resistance; indeed, I can with a great degree of certainty
count on evoking such a dream once I have explained to the patient my
theory that the dream is a wish-fulfilment.[10] Indeed, I have reason to
expect that many of my readers will have such dreams, merely to fulfil
the wish that I may prove to be wrong. The last dream which I shall
recount from among those occurring in the course of treatment once more
demonstrates this very thing. A young girl who had struggled hard to
continue my treatment, against the will of her relatives and the
authorities whom they had consulted, dreamt the following dream: At home
she is forbidden to come to me any more. She then reminds me of the
promise I made her to treat her for nothing if necessary, and I tell
her: "I can show no consideration in money matters."
It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfilment of a
wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem, the
solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the
words which she puts into my mouth? Of course, I have never told her
anything of the kind; but one of her brothers, the one who has the
greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark
about me. It is then the purpose of the dream to show that her brother
is right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely in the
dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive of her illness.
A dream which at first sight presents peculiar difficulties for the
theory of wish-fulfilment was dreamed by a physician (Aug. Starcke) and
interpreted by him: "I have and see on the last phalange of my left
forefinger a primary syphilitic affection."
One may perhaps be inclined to refrain from analysing this dream,
since it seems clear and coherent, except for its unwished-for content.
However, if one takes the trouble to make an analysis, one learns that
primary affection reduces itself to prima affectio (first love), and
that the repulsive sore, in the words of Starcke, proves to be "the
representative of wish-fulfilments charged with intense emotion."[11]
The other motive for counter-wish-dreams is so clear that there is a
danger of overlooking it, as happened in my own case for a long time. In
the sexual constitution of many persons there is a masochistic
component, which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive,
sadistic component into its opposite. Such people are called ideal
masochists if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be
inflicted upon them, but in humiliation and psychic chastisement. It is
obvious that such persons may have counter-wish-dreams and disagreeable
dreams, yet these are for them nothing more than wish-fulfilments, which
satisfy their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream: A young
man, who in earlier youth greatly tormented his elder brother, toward
whom he was homosexually inclined, but who has since undergone a
complete change of character, has the following dream, which consists of
three parts: (1) He is "teased" by his brother. (2) Two adults are
caressing each other with homosexual intentions. (3) His brother has
sold the business the management of which the young man had reserved for
his own future. From this last dream he awakens with the most unpleasant
feelings; and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be
translated: It would serve me right if my brother were to make that sale
against my interests. It would be my punishment for all the torments he
has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the examples given above will suffice- until some further
objection appears- to make it seem credible that even dreams with a
painful content are to be analysed as wish- fulfilments.[12] Nor should
it be considered a mere matter of chance that, in the course of
interpretation, one always happens upon subjects about which one does
not like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams
arouse is of course precisely identical with the antipathy which would,
and usually does, restrain us from treating or discussing such subjects-
an antipathy which must be overcome by all of us if we find ourselves
obliged to attack the problem of such dreams. But this disagreeable
feeling which recurs in our dreams does not preclude the existence of a
wish; everyone has wishes which he would not like to confess to others,
which he does not care to admit even to himself. On the other hand, we
feel justified in connecting the unpleasant character of all these
dreams with the fact of dream-distortion, and in concluding that these
dreams are distorted, and that their wish-fulfilment is disguised beyond
recognition, precisely because there is a strong revulsion against- a
will to repress- the subject-matter of the dream, or the wish created by
it. Dream-distortion, then, proves in reality to be an act of
censorship. We shall have included everything which the analysis of
disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we reword our formula thus:
The dream is the (disguised) fulfilment of a (suppressed, repressed)
wish.[13]
I will here anticipate by citing the amplification and modification
of this fundamental formula propounded by Otto Rank: "On the basis of
and with the aid of repressed infantile-sexual material, dreams
regularly represent as fulfilled current, and as a rule also erotic,
wishes in a disguised and symbolic form" (Ein Traum, der sich selbst
deutet).
Nowhere have I said that I have accepted this formula of Rank's. The
shorter version contained in the text seems to me sufficient. But the
fact that I merely mentioned Rank's modification was enough to expose
psycho-analysis to the oft-repeated reproach that it asserts that all
dreams have a sexual content. If one understands this sentence as it is
intended to be understood, it only proves how little conscientiousness
our critics are wont to display, and how ready our opponents are to
overlook statements if they do not accord with their aggressive
inclinations. Only a few pages back I mentioned the manifold
wish-fulfilments of children's dreams (to make an excursion on land and
or water, to make up for an omitted meal, etc.). Elsewhere I have
mentioned dreams excited by thirst and the desire to evacuate, and mere
comfort- or convenience-dreams. Even Rank does not make an absolute
assertion. He says "as a rule also erotic wishes," and this can be
completely confirmed in the case of most dreams of adults.
The matter has, however, a different aspect if we employ the word
sexual in the sense of Eros, as the word is understood by psycho-
analysts. But the interesting problem of whether all dreams are not
produced by libidinal motives (in opposition to destructive ones) has
hardly been considered by our opponents.
Now there still remain to be considered, as a particular sub- order
of dreams with painful content, the anxiety-dreams, the inclusion of
which among the wish-dreams will be still less acceptable to the
uninitiated. But I can here deal very cursorily with the problem of
anxiety-dreams; what they have to reveal is not a new aspect of the
dream-problem; here the problem is that of understanding neurotic
anxiety in general. The anxiety which we experience in dreams is only
apparently explained by the dream- content. If we subject that content
to analysis, we become aware that the dream-anxiety is no more justified
by the dream-content than the anxiety in a phobia is justified by the
idea to which the phobia is attached. For example, it is true that it is
possible to fall out of a window, and that a certain care should be
exercised when one is at a window, but it is not obvious why the anxiety
in the corresponding phobia is so great, and why it torments its victims
more than its cause would warrant. The same explanation which applies to
the phobia applies also to the anxiety-dream. In either case, the
anxiety is only fastened on to the idea which accompanies it, and is
derived from another source.
On account of this intimate relation of dream-anxiety to neurotic
anxiety, the discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter.
In a little essay on Anxiety Neurosis,[14] written in 1895, I maintain
that neurotic anxiety has its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds
to a libido which has been deflected from its object and has found no
employment. The accuracy of this formula has since then been
demonstrated with ever-increasing certainty. From it we may deduce the
doctrine that anxiety-dreams are dreams of sexual content, and that the
libido appertaining to this content has been transformed into anxiety.
Later on I shall have an opportunity of confirming this assertion by the
analysis of several dreams of neurotics. In my further attempts to
arrive at a theory of dreams I shall again have occasion to revert to
the conditions of anxiety-dreams and their compatibility with the theory
of wish-fulfilment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
[1] Already Plotinus, the neo-Platonist, said: "When desire bestirs
itself, then comes phantasy, and presents to us, as it were, the object
of desire" (Du Prel, p. 276).
[2] It is quite incredible with what obstinacy readers and critics
have excluded this consideration and disregarded the fundamental
differentiation between the manifest and the latent dream- content.
Nothing in the literature of the subject approaches so closely to my own
conception of dreams as a passage in J. Sully's essay, Dreams as a
Revelation (and it is not because I do not think it valuable that I
allude to it here for the first time): "It would seem then, after all,
that dreams are not the utter nonsense they have been said to be by such
authorities as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. The chaotic
aggregations of our night-fancy have a significance and communicate new
knowledge. Like some letter in cipher, the dream-inscription when
scrutinized closely loses its first look of balderdash and takes on the
aspect of a serious, intelligible message. Or, to vary the figure
slightly, we may say that, like some palimpsest, the dream discloses
beneath its worthless surface-characters traces of an old and precious
communication" (p. 364).
[3] It is astonishing to see how my memory here restricts itself- in
the waking state!- for the purposes of analysis. I have known five of my
uncles and I loved and honoured one of them. But at the moment when I
overcame my resistance to the interpretation of the dream, I said to
myself: "I have only one uncle, the one who is intended in the dream."
[4] Such hypocritical dreams are not rare, either with me or with
others. While I have been working at a certain scientific problem, I
have been visited for several nights, at quite short intervals, by a
somewhat confusing dream which has as its content a reconciliation with
a friend dropped long ago. After three or four attempts I finally
succeeded in grasping the meaning of this dream. It was in the nature of
an encouragment to give up the remnant of consideration still surviving
for the person in question, to make myself quite free from him, but it
hypocritically disguised itself in its antithesis. I have recorded a
"hypocritical Oedipus dream" in which the hostile feelings and
death-wishes of the dream-thoughts were replaced by manifest tenderness
("Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Oedipustraumes." Zentralblatt fur
Psychoanalyse, Vol. I, No. I-II [1910]). Another class of hypocritical
dreams will be recorded in another place (see Chap vi, "The
Dream-Work").
[5] Later on we shall become acquainted with cases in which, on the
contrary, the dream expresses a wish of this second instance. -
[6] To sit for the painter.
[7] I myself regret the inclusion of such passages from the psycho-
pathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary presentation,
and because they are torn out of their context, cannot prove to be very
illuminating. If these passages are capable of throwing any light upon
the intimate relations between dream and the psycho-neurosis, they have
served the intention with which I have included them.
[8] As in the dream of the deferred supper and the smoked salmon. -
[9] It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a
recollection of the omitted portions appears only in the course of the
analysis. These portions, when subsequently fitted in, invariably
furnish the key to the interpretation. Cf. Chapter VII, on forgetting of
dreams.
[10] Similar counter-wish-dreams have been repeatedly reported to me
within the last few years, by those who attend my lectures, as their
reaction to their first encounter with the wish-theory of dreams.
[11] Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse, Jahrg. II, 1911-12.
[12] I will here observe that we have not yet disposed of this theme;
we shall discuss it again later.
[13] A great contemporary poet, who, I am told, will hear nothing of
psycho-analysis and dream-interpretation, has nevertheless derived from
his own experience an almost identical formula for the nature of the
dream: "Unauthorized emergence of suppressed yearnings under false
features and names" (C. Spitteler, "Meine fruhesten Erlebnisse," in
Suddeutsche Monatshefte, October, 1913).
[14] See [previous reference] above.
