from a therapeutic point of view. They follow in the analysis without
offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that
point on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed
himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my genital, the captive balloon in
front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried." We must,
however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which
is regularly associated by the child with the genital, the smaller front
structure is the scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what this is
all for--that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the
genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs should be
turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a
questioning on the side of the father has never taken place in reality,
we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally,
as follows: "If I had only asked my father for sexual enlightenment."
The continuation of this thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived
symbolically in the first instance, but originates from his father's
place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for
another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing
anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered
his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the
questionable practices upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the
continuation of the above dream thought ("if I had only asked him")
would be: "He would have deceived me just as he does his customers." For
the pulling off, which serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the
dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This is not
only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that
the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its opposite ("Why one can do it
quite openly"). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that
the onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the
questioning in the first scene of the dream. The shaft he at once
interprets as the vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the
walls. That the act of coition in the vagina is described as a going
down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found true
in other instances[2].
The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer
platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. He
had for some time consorted with women sexually, but had then given it
up because of inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again
with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct
toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident
that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject
has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and his
dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so
that one might think of a reference to the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman,
reported by B. Dattner.)
... Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a
policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a
church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there
was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was
furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who
went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins
sack-like aprons.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This
road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became
thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it
spread out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.)
For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the
same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream.
"I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl,
whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the
bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman?)
I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find
myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the
child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my
genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very
distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways.
During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if
in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a
green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the
painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday
present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that
cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very
indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the
stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the
pollution."
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of
the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some
pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the
dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly
took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however,
was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian
servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child "was made on the
stairs." The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual
occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the
home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for sexual
relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In
witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers,
the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar steps."
These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream
content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily
reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also
utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had
spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first
become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among
other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to
become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very
rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he
hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down,"
as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the
beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual
excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer
used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he
satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in
the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus,
the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is
shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual
excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this
is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the
sadistic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing,
indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous
excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in
the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the
middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of
pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream
interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured
undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous
excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole
stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for coitus. Freud lays
stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons
for the sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream
especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express
assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most
pronounced feature in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from
their real significance, also have the value of "Weibsbilder" (literally
_woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by
the fact that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as
the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That
cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prostitution
complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the
thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent
complex (to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the
staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into
childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its
prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy
was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs
accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation
would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence
provoked the following dream:
"His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and
for not practicing the _Etudes_ of Moscheles and Clementi's _Gradus ad
Parnassum_." In relation to this he remarked that the _Gradus_ is only a
stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a
scale.
It is correct to say that there is no series of associations which
cannot be adapted to the representation of sexual facts. I conclude with
the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his
habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
_Preliminary statement._--On the day before the dream he had given a
student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium
is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic
influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the
course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his
hand.
Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus
with particular clearness, but he has substituted himself for the
magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude. He keeps repeating
to himself, "This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are
beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting soft." Then he reaches
down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he
takes his legs out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself,
"That cannot be.... Yes, it must be so, it has been done correctly."
Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he
wants to tell it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the analysis of the
dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats
continually, "Phenyl, phenyl."_
II. _He is in ... ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is
to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous with a certain lady, but he
does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too
late now; when you get there it will be half-past twelve." The next
instant he sees the whole family gathered about the table--his mother
and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness.
Then he says to himself, "Well, if we are eating already, I certainly
can't get away."_
Analysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference
to the lady whom he is to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed
during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he
gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to
the chemist: "That isn't right," because the magnesium was still
unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything
about it: "It certainly isn't right." He himself must be this student;
he is as indifferent towards his analysis as the student is towards his
synthesis; the _He_ in the dream, however, who accomplishes the
operation, is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me with his
indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the analysis (synthesis) is
made. For it is a question of the success of the treatment. The legs in
the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at
a dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so
closely that she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing against
her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs
as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In
this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is
at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards
the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work.
Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers
to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day....
The rendezvous had actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to
oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects (that is, with
masturbation) corresponds with his resistance.
[1] It is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of
fancies and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain
the explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being
buried alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the
belief in a life after death which represents nothing but a projection
into the future of this mysterious life before birth. _The act of birth,
moreover, is the first experience with fear, and is thus the source and
model of the emotion of fear._
[2] Cf. _Zentralblatt für psychoanalyse_, I.
[3] Or chapel--vagina.
[4] Symbol of coitus.
[5] Mons veneris.
[6] Crines pubis.
[7] Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of
a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature.
[8] The two halves of the scrotum.
[9] See _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vol. i., p. 2.
VI
THE WISH IN DREAMS
That the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment surely seemed
strange to us all--and that not alone because of the contradictions
offered by the anxiety dream.
After learning from the first analytical explanations that the dream
conceals sense and psychic validity, we could hardly expect so simple a
determination of this sense. According to the correct but concise
definition of Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in
sleep (in so far as one sleeps). Considering that during the day our
thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts--judgments,
conclusions, contradictions, expectations, intentions, &c.--why should
our sleeping thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the production
of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary, many dreams that present a
different psychic act in dream form, _e.g._, a solicitude, and is not
the very transparent father's dream mentioned above of just such a
nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the
father draws the solicitous conclusion that a candle has been upset and
may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms this conclusion into a
dream by investing it with a senseful situation enacted in the present
tense. What part is played in this dream by the wish-fulfillment, and
which are we to suspect--the predominance of the thought continued from,
the waking state or of the thought incited by the new sensory
impression?
All these considerations are just, and force us to enter more deeply
into the part played by the wish-fulfillment in the dream, and into the
significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
It is in fact the wish-fulfillment that has already induced us to
separate dreams into two groups. We have found some dreams that were
plainly wish-fulfillments; and others in which wish-fulfillment could
not be recognized, and was frequently concealed by every available
means. In this latter class of dreams we recognized the influence of the
dream censor. The undisguised wish dreams were chiefly found in
children, yet fleeting open-hearted wish dreams _seemed_ (I purposely
emphasize this word) to occur also in adults.
We may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the dream originates. But to
what opposition or to what diversity do we refer this "whence"? I think
it is to the opposition between conscious daily life and a psychic
activity remaining unconscious which can only make itself noticeable
during the night. I thus find a threefold possibility for the origin of
a wish. Firstly, it may have been incited during the day, and owing to
external circumstances failed to find gratification, there is thus left
for the night an acknowledged but unfulfilled wish. Secondly, it may
come to the surface during the day but be rejected, leaving an
unfulfilled but suppressed wish. Or, thirdly, it may have no relation to
daily life, and belong to those wishes that originate during the night
from the suppression. If we now follow our scheme of the psychic
apparatus, we can localize a wish of the first order in the system
Forec. We may assume that a wish of the second order has been forced
back from the Forec. system into the Unc. system, where alone, if
anywhere, it can maintain itself; while a wish-feeling of the third
order we consider altogether incapable of leaving the Unc. system. This
brings up the question whether wishes arising from these different
sources possess the same value for the dream, and whether they have the
same power to incite a dream.
On reviewing the dreams which we have at our disposal for answering this
question, we are at once moved to add as a fourth source of the
dream-wish the actual wish incitements arising during the night, such
as thirst and sexual desire. It then becomes evident that the source of
the dream-wish does not affect its capacity to incite a dream. That a
wish suppressed during the day asserts itself in the dream can be shown
by a great many examples. I shall mention a very simple example of this
class. A somewhat sarcastic young lady, whose younger friend has become
engaged to be married, is asked throughout the day by her acquaintances
whether she knows and what she thinks of the fiancé. She answers with
unqualified praise, thereby silencing her own judgment, as she would
prefer to tell the truth, namely, that he is an ordinary person. The
following night she dreams that the same question is put to her, and
that she replies with the formula: "In case of subsequent orders it will
suffice to mention the number." Finally, we have learned from numerous
analyses that the wish in all dreams that have been subject to
distortion has been derived from the unconscious, and has been unable to
come to perception in the waking state. Thus it would appear that all
wishes are of the same value and force for the dream formation.
I am at present unable to prove that the state of affairs is really
different, but I am strongly inclined to assume a more stringent
determination of the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave no doubt that
an unfulfilled wish of the day may be the instigator of the dream. But
we must not forget that it is, after all, the wish of a child, that it
is a wish-feeling of infantile strength only. I have a strong doubt
whether an unfulfilled wish from the day would suffice to create a dream
in an adult. It would rather seem that as we learn to control our
impulses by intellectual activity, we more and more reject as vain the
formation or retention of such intense wishes as are natural to
childhood. In this, indeed, there may be individual variations; some
retain the infantile type of psychic processes longer than others. The
differences are here the same as those found in the gradual decline of
the originally distinct visual imagination.
In general, however, I am of the opinion that unfulfilled wishes of the
day are insufficient to produce a dream in adults. I readily admit that
the wish instigators originating in conscious like contribute towards
the incitement of dreams, but that is probably all. The dream would not
originate if the foreconscious wish were not reinforced from another
source.
That source is the unconscious. I believe that _the conscious wish is a
dream inciter only if it succeeds in arousing a similar unconscious wish
which reinforces it_. Following the suggestions obtained through the
psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes
are always active and ready for expression whenever they find an
opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life, and
that they transfer their greater intensity to the lesser intensity of
the latter.[1] It may therefore seem that the conscious wish alone has
been realized in a dream; but a slight peculiarity in the formation of
this dream will put us on the track of the powerful helper from the
unconscious. These ever active and, as it were, immortal wishes from the
unconscious recall the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have
borne the ponderous mountains which were once rolled upon them by the
victorious gods, and which even now quiver from time to time from the
convulsions of their mighty limbs; I say that these wishes found in the
repression are of themselves of an infantile origin, as we have learned
from the psychological investigation of the neuroses. I should like,
therefore, to withdraw the opinion previously expressed that it is
unimportant whence the dream-wish originates, and replace it by another,
as follows: _The wish manifested in the dream must be an infantile one_.
In the adult it originates in the Unc., while in the child, where no
separation and censor as yet exist between Forec. and Unc., or where
these are only in the process of formation, it is an unfulfilled and
unrepressed wish from the waking state. I am aware that this conception
cannot be generally demonstrated, but I maintain nevertheless that it
can be frequently demonstrated, even when it was not suspected, and that
it cannot be generally refuted.
The wish-feelings which remain from the conscious waking state are,
therefore, relegated to the background in the dream formation. In the
dream content I shall attribute to them only the part attributed to the
material of actual sensations during sleep. If I now take into account
those other psychic instigations remaining from the waking state which
are not wishes, I shall only adhere to the line mapped out for me by
this train of thought. We may succeed in provisionally terminating the
sum of energy of our waking thoughts by deciding to go to sleep. He is a
good sleeper who can do this; Napoleon I. is reputed to have been a
model of this sort. But we do not always succeed in accomplishing it, or
in accomplishing it perfectly. Unsolved problems, harassing cares,
overwhelming impressions continue the thinking activity even during
sleep, maintaining psychic processes in the system which we have termed
the foreconscious. These mental processes continuing into sleep may be
divided into the following groups: 1, That which has not been terminated
during the day owing to casual prevention; 2, that which has been left
unfinished by temporary paralysis of our mental power, _i.e._ the
unsolved; 3, that which has been rejected and suppressed during the day.
This unites with a powerful group (4) formed by that which has been
excited in our Unc. during the day by the work of the foreconscious.
Finally, we may add group (5) consisting of the indifferent and hence
unsettled impressions of the day.