We are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also
taken place in intricate dreams, though we do not know whether it has
encountered any possible desire. The dream instanced at the
commencement, which we analysed somewhat thoroughly, did give us
occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis
brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table, and that I
did not like it; in the dream itself _exactly the opposite_ occurs, for
the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention. But
can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than
that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dream has it?
The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have never had anything for
nothing, is similarly connected with the woman’s remark in the dream:
“You have always had such beautiful eyes.” Some portion of the
opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be
therefore derived from the realisation of a wish.
Another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have
in common is still more noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the
number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dream, if
written down, with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis, and of which
but a trace can be refound in the dream itself. There can be no doubt
that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or
_condensation_. It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the
extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis,
the more deeply you are impressed by it. There will be found no factor
in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or
more directions, no scene which has not been pieced together out of two
or more impressions and events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind
of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions;
at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the
bathers as if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one, made up
out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two
pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream. The two
pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind’s Cycle of the
Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and a picture of The
Flood, by an Italian master. The little incident was that I once
witnessed a lady, who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men’s
hour, being helped out of the water by the swimming-master. The scene in
the dream which was selected for analysis led to a whole group of
reminiscences, each one of which had contributed to the dream content.
First of all came the little episode from the time of my courting, of
which I have already spoken; the pressure of a hand under the table gave
rise in the dream to the “under the table,” which I had subsequently to
find a place for in my recollection. There was, of course, at the time
not a word about “undivided attention.” Analysis taught me that this
factor is the realisation of a desire through its contradictory and
related to the behaviour of my wife at the table d’hôte. An exactly
similar and much more important episode of our courtship, one which
separated us for an entire day, lies hidden behind this recent
recollection. The intimacy, the hand resting upon the knee, refers to a
quite different connection and to quite other persons. This element in
the dream becomes again the starting-point of two distinct series of
reminiscences, and so on.
The stuff of the dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the
formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application.
There must be one or more common factors. The dream work proceeds like
Francis Galton with his family photographs. The different elements are
put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture
stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other. This process
of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar
vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of
dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses _uncertainty_ as to
_either_—_or_ read _and_, taking each section of the apparent
alternatives as a separate outlet for a series of impressions.
When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream
work takes the trouble to create a something, in order to make a common
presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two
dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making
such a change in the actual expression of one idea as will meet a slight
responsive recasting in the form of the other idea. The process is
analogous to that of rhyme, when consonance supplies the desired common
factor. A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those
frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary
from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts
which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give
rise to them. In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like
case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree
with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I
struck upon the thought: _I should like to have something for nothing_.
But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced
by another one: “I should like to enjoy something free of cost.”[1] The
word “kost” (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table
d’hôte; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the
dream. At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their
mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a “Just taste it.” That the
dream work should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is
certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the
occurrence is quite usual.
Footnote 1:
“Ich möchte gerne etwas geniessen ohne ‘Kosten’ zu haben.” A pun upon
the word “kosten,” which has two meanings—“taste” and “cost.” In “Die
Traumdeutung,” third edition, p. 71 footnote, Professor Freud remarks
that “the finest example of dream interpretation left us by the
ancients is based upon a pun” (from “The Interpretation of Dreams,” by
Artemidorus Daldianus). “Moreover, dreams are so intimately bound up
with language that Ferenczi truly points out that every tongue has its
own language of dreams. A dream is as a rule untranslatable into other
languages.”—TRANSLATOR.
Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its
content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and
which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and
mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable
with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment’s thought
and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever
formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion. Everyone knows such images in
his own dreams; manifold are their origins. I can build up a person by
borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by giving
to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can also visualise
one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to another.
There is a meaning in all these cases when different persons are
amalgamated into one substitute. Such cases denote an “and,” a “just
like,” a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view,
a comparison which can be also realised in the dream itself. As a rule,
however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by
analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of
the “combined” person.
The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rules for its
solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents,
examples of which I need scarcely adduce. Their strangeness quite
disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects
of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they
represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary
detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination.
Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says
simply: _All these things have an “x” in common._ The decomposition of
these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an
interpretation of the dream. Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with
one of my former university tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a
rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a combination
of lecture-room and moving staircase. I will not pursue the further
result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on
my lap an object in shape like a top-hat, which, however, was made of
transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: “He
who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land.” By a
slight turn the _glass hat_ reminded me of _Auer’s light_, and I knew
that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and
independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of
Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaining in
Vienna. In the dream I was travelling with my invention, with the, it is
true, rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is peculiarly adept
at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed
image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall
flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is
her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms
resembling camellias (contrast with chastity: La dame aux Camelias).
A great deal of what we have called “dream condensation” can be thus
formulated. Each one of the elements of the dream content is
_overdetermined_ by the matter of the dream thoughts; it is not derived
from one element of these thoughts, but from a whole series. These are
not necessarily interconnected in any way, but may belong to the most
diverse spheres of thought. The dream element truly represents all this
disparate matter in the dream content. Analysis, moreover, discloses
another side of the relationship between dream content and dream
thoughts. Just as one element of the dream leads to associations with
several dream thoughts, so, as a rule, the _one dream thought represents
more than one dream element_. The threads of the association do not
simply converge from the dream thoughts to the dream content, but on the
way they overlap and interweave in every way.
Next to the transformation of one thought in the scene (its
“dramatisation”), condensation is the most important and most
characteristic feature of the dream work. We have as yet no clue as to
the motive calling for such compression of the content.