We have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work. In addition to
condensation, displacement, and definite arrangement of the psychical
matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity—one which is, indeed,
not shared by every dream. I shall not treat this position of the dream
work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readiest way to arrive
at a conception of it is to take for granted, probably unfairly, that it
_only subsequently influences the dream content which has already been
built up_. Its mode of action thus consists in so co-ordinating the
parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent whole, to a dream
composition. The dream gets a kind of façade which, it is true, does not
conceal the whole of its content. There is a sort of preliminary
explanation to be strengthened by interpolations and slight alterations.
Such elaboration of the dream content must not be too pronounced; the
misconception of the dream thoughts to which it gives rise is merely
superficial, and our first piece of work in analysing a dream is to get
rid of these early attempts at interpretation.
The motives for this part of the dream work are easily gauged.
This final elaboration of the dream is due to a _regard for
intelligibility_—a fact at once betraying the origin of an action which
behaves towards the actual dream content just as our normal psychical
action behaves towards some proffered perception that is to our liking.
The dream content is thus secured under the pretence of certain
expectations, is perceptually classified by the supposition of its
intelligibility, thereby risking its falsification, whilst, in fact, the
most extraordinary misconceptions arise if the dream can be correlated
with nothing familiar. Everyone is aware that we are unable to look at
any series of unfamiliar signs, or to listen to a discussion of unknown
words, without at once making perpetual changes through _our regard for
intelligibility_, through our falling back upon what is familiar.
We can call those dreams _properly made up_ which are the result of an
elaboration in every way analogous to the psychical action of our waking
life. In other dreams there is no such action; not even an attempt is
made to bring about order and meaning. We regard the dream as “quite
mad,” because on awaking it is with this last-named part of the dream
work, the dream elaboration, that we identify ourselves. So far,
however, as our analysis is concerned, the dream, which resembles a
medley of disconnected fragments, is of as much value as the one with a
smooth and beautifully polished surface. In the former case we are
spared, to some extent, the trouble of breaking down the
super-elaboration of the dream content.
All the same, it would be an error to see in the dream façade nothing
but the misunderstood and somewhat arbitrary elaboration of the dream
carried out at the instance of our psychical life. Wishes and phantasies
are not infrequently employed in the erection of this façade, which were
already fashioned in the dream thoughts; they are akin to those of our
waking life—“day-dreams,” as they are very properly called. These wishes
and phantasies, which analysis discloses in our dreams at night, often
present themselves as repetitions and refashionings of the scenes of
infancy. Thus the dream façade may show us directly the true core of the
dream, distorted through admixture with other matter.
Beyond these four activities there is nothing else to be discovered in
the dream work. If we keep closely to the definition that dream work
denotes the transference of dream thoughts to dream content, we are
compelled to say that the dream work is not creative; it develops no
fancies of its own, it judges nothing, decides nothing. It does nothing
but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement, and refashions
it for dramatisation, to which must be added the inconstant last-named
mechanism—that of explanatory elaboration. It is true that a good deal
is found in the dream content which might be understood as the result of
another and more intellectual performance; but analysis shows
conclusively every time that these _intellectual operations were already
present in the dream thoughts, and have only been taken over by the
dream content_. A syllogism in the dream is nothing other than the
repetition of a syllogism in the dream thoughts; it seems inoffensive if
it has been transferred to the dream without alteration; it becomes
absurd if in the dream work it has been transferred to other matter. A
calculation in the dream content simply means that there was a
calculation in the dream thoughts; whilst this is always correct, the
calculation in the dream can furnish the silliest results by the
condensation of its factors and the displacement of the same operations
to other things. Even speeches which are found in the dream content are
not new compositions; they prove to be pieced together out of speeches
which have been made or heard or read; the words are faithfully copied,
but the occasion of their utterance is quite overlooked, and their
meaning is most violently changed.
It is, perhaps, not superfluous to support these assertions by examples:
1. _A seemingly inoffensive, well-made dream of a patient. She was going
to market with her cook, who carried the basket. The butcher said to her
when she asked him for something: “That is all gone,” and wished to give
her something else, remarking: “That’s very good.” She declines, and
goes to the greengrocer, who wants to sell her a peculiar vegetable
which is bound up in bundles and of a black colour. She says: “I don’t
know that; I won’t take it.”_
The remark “That is all gone” arose from the treatment. A few days
before I said myself to the patient that the earliest reminiscences of
childhood _are all gone_ as such, but are replaced by transferences and
dreams. Thus I am the butcher.
The second remark, “_I don’t know that_,” arose in a very different
connection. The day before she had herself called out in rebuke to the
cook (who, moreover, also appears in the dream): “_Behave yourself
properly_; I don’t know _that_”—that is, “I don’t know this kind of
behaviour; I won’t have it.” The more harmless portion of this speech
was arrived at by a displacement of the dream content; in the dream
thoughts only the other portion of the speech played a part, because the
dream work changed an imaginary situation into utter irrecognisability
and complete inoffensiveness (while in a certain sense I behave in an
unseemly way to the lady). The situation resulting in this phantasy is,
however, nothing but a new edition of one that actually took place.
2. A dream apparently meaningless relates to figures. “_She wants to pay
something; her daughter takes three florins sixty-five kreuzers out of
her purse; but she says: ‘What are you doing? It only costs twenty-one
kreuzers.’_”
The dreamer was a stranger who had placed her child at school in Vienna,
and who was able to continue under my treatment so long as her daughter
remained at Vienna. The day before the dream the directress of the
school had recommended her to keep the child another year at school. In
this case she would have been able to prolong her treatment by one year.
The figures in the dream become important if it be remembered that time
is money. One year equals 365 days, or, expressed in kreuzers, 365
kreuzers, which is three florins sixty-five kreuzers. The twenty-one
kreuzers correspond with the three weeks which remained from the day of
the dream to the end of the school term, and thus to the end of the
treatment. It was obviously financial considerations which had moved the
lady to refuse the proposal of the directress, and which were answerable
for the triviality of the amount in the dream.
3. A lady, young, but already ten years married, heard that a friend of
hers, Miss Elise L——, of about the same age, had become engaged. This
gave rise to the following dream:
_She was sitting with her husband in the theatre; the one side of the
stalls was quite empty. Her husband tells her, Elise L—— and her fiancé
had intended coming, but could only get some cheap seats, three for one
florin fifty kreuzers, and these they would not take. In her opinion,
that would not have mattered very much._
The origin of the figures from the matter of the dream thoughts and the
changes the figures underwent are of interest. Whence came the one
florin fifty kreuzers? From a trifling occurrence of the previous day.
Her sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a present from her
husband, and had quickly got rid of it by buying some ornament. Note
that 150 florins is one hundred times one florin fifty kreuzers. For the
_three_ concerned with the tickets, the only link is that Elise L—— is
exactly three months younger than the dreamer. The scene in the dream is
the repetition of a little adventure for which she has often been teased
by her husband. She was once in a great hurry to get tickets in time for
a piece, and when she came to the theatre _one side of the stalls was
almost empty_. It was therefore quite unnecessary for her to have been
in _such a hurry_. Nor must we overlook the absurdity of the dream that
two persons should take three tickets for the theatre.
Now for the dream ideas. It was _stupid_ to have married so early; _I
need not_ have been _in so great a hurry_. Elise L——’s example shows me
that I should have been able to get a husband later; indeed, one a
_hundred times better_ if I had but waited. I could have bought _three_
such men with the money (dowry).