can be extended. It is clearly immaterial through what cause the sleep
was disturbed and the psyche incited to dream. If the sensory stimulus
is not always externally induced, it may be instead a stimulus
proceeding from the internal organs, a so-called somatic stimulus. This
conjecture is obvious, and it corresponds to the most popular conception
of the origin of dreams. Dreams come from the stomach, one often hears
it said. Unfortunately it may be assumed here again that the cases are
frequent in which the somatic stimulus which operated during the night
can no longer be traced after waking, and has thus become unverifiable.
But let us not overlook the fact that many recognized experiences
testify to the derivation of dreams from the somatic stimulus. It is in
general indubitable that the condition of the internal organs can
influence the dream. The relation of many a dream content to a
distention of the bladder or to an excited condition of the genital
organs, is so clear that it cannot be mistaken. From these transparent
cases one can proceed to others in which, from the content of the dream,
at least a justifiable conjecture may be made that such somatic stimuli
have been operative, inasmuch as there is something in this content
which may be conceived as elaboration, representation, interpretation
of the stimuli. The dream investigator Schirmer (1861) insisted with
particular emphasis on the derivation of the dream from organic stimuli,
and cited several splendid examples in proof. For example, in a dream he
sees "two rows of beautiful boys with blonde hair and delicate
complexions stand opposite each other in preparation for a fight, fall
upon each other, seize each other, take up the old position again, and
repeat the whole performance;" here the interpretation of these rows of
boys as teeth is plausible in itself, and it seems to become convincing
when after this scene the dreamer "pulls a long tooth out of his jaws."
The interpretation of "long, narrow, winding corridors" as intestinal
stimuli, seems sound and confirms Schirmer's assertion that the dream
above all seeks to represent the stimulus-producing organ by means of
objects resembling it.
Thus we must be prepared to admit that the internal stimuli may play the
same role in the dream as the external. Unfortunately, their evaluation
is subject to the same difficulties as those we have already
encountered. In a large number of cases the interpretation of the
stimuli as somatic remains uncertain and undemonstrable. Not all dreams,
but only a certain portion of them, arouse the suspicion that an
internal organic stimulus was concerned in their causation. And finally,
the internal stimuli will be as little able as the external sensory
stimuli to explain any more of the dream than pertains to the direct
reaction to the stimuli. The origin, therefore, of the rest of the dream
remains obscure.
Let us, however, notice a peculiarity of dream life which becomes
apparent in the study of these effects of stimuli. The dream does not
simply reproduce the stimulus, but it elaborates it, it plays upon it,
places it in a sequence of relationships, replaces it with something
else. That is a side of dream activity which must interest us because it
may lead us closer to the nature of the dream. If one does something
under stimulation, then this stimulation need not exhaust the act.
Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, for example, is a drama created on the occasion
of the coronation of the King who for the first time wore upon his head
the crown symbolizing the union of three countries. But does this
historical occasion cover the content of the drama, does it explain its
greatness and its riddle? Perhaps the external and internal stimuli,
acting upon the sleeper, are only the incitors of the dream, of whose
nature nothing is betrayed to us from our knowledge of that fact.
The other element common to dreams, their psychic peculiarity, is on the
one hand hard to comprehend, and on the other hand offers no point for
further investigation. In dreams we perceive a thing for the most part
in visual forms. Can the stimuli furnish a solution for this fact? Is it
actually the stimulus which we experience? Why, then, is the experience
visual when optic stimulation incited the dream only in the rarest
cases? Or can it be proved, when we dream speeches, that during sleep a
conversation or sounds resembling it reached our ear? This possibility I
venture decisively to reject.
If, from the common elements of dreams, we get no further, then let us
see what we can do with their differences. Dreams are often senseless,
blurred, absurd; but there are some that are meaningful, sober,
sensible. Let us see if the latter, the sensible dreams, can give some
information concerning the senseless ones. I will give you the most
recent sensible dream which was told me, the dream of a young man: "I
was promenading in Kaertner Street, met Mr. X. there, whom I accompanied
for a bit, and then I went to a restaurant. Two ladies and a gentleman
seated themselves at my table. I was annoyed at this at first, and would
not look at them. Then I did look, and found that they were quite
pretty." The dreamer adds that the evening before the dream he had
really been in Kaertner Street, which is his usual route, and that he had
met Mr. X. there. The other portion of the dream is no direct
reminiscence, but bears a certain resemblance to a previous experience.
Or another meaningful dream, that of a lady. "Her husband asks, 'Doesn't
the piano need tuning?' She: 'It is not worth while; it has to be newly
lined.'" This dream reproduces without much alteration a conversation
which took place the day before between herself and her husband. What
can we learn from these two sober dreams? Nothing but that you find them
to be reproductions of daily life or ideas connected therewith. This
would at least be something if it could be stated of all dreams. There
is no question, however, that this applies to only a minority of dreams.
In most dreams there is no sign of any connection with the previous day,
and no light is thereby cast on the senseless and absurd dream. We know
only that we have struck a new problem. We wish to know not only what it
is that the dream says, but when, as in our examples, the dream speaks
plainly, we also wish to know why and wherefore this recent experience
is repeated in the dream.
I believe you are as tired as I am of continuing attempts like these. We
see, after all, that the greatest interest in a problem is inadequate if
one does not know a path which will lead to a solution. Up to this point
we have not found this path. Experimental psychology gave us nothing but
a few very valuable pieces of information concerning the meaning of
stimuli as dream incitors. We need expect nothing from philosophy except
that lately it has taken haughtily to pointing out to us the
intellectual inferiority of our object. Let us not apply to the occult
sciences for help. History and popular tradition tell us that the dream
is meaningful and significant; it sees into the future. Yet that is hard
to accept and surely not demonstrable. Thus our first efforts end in
entire helplessness.
Unexpectedly we get a hint from a quarter toward which we have not yet
looked. Colloquial usage--which after all is not an accidental thing but
the remnant of ancient knowledge, though it should not be made use of
without caution--our speech, that is to say, recognizes something which
curiously enough it calls "day dreaming." Day dreams are phantasies.
They are very common phenomena, again observable in the normal as well
as in the sick, and access to their study is open to everyone in his own
person. The most conspicuous feature about these phantastic productions
is that they have received the name "day dreams," for they share neither
of the two common elements of dreams. Their name contradicts the
relation to the sleeping condition, and as regards the second common
element, one does not experience or hallucinate anything, one only
imagines it. One knows that it is a phantasy, that one is not seeing but
thinking the thing. These day dreams appear in the period before
puberty, often as early as the last years of childhood, continue into
the years of maturity, are then either given up or retained through
life. The content of these phantasies is dominated by very transparent
motives. They are scenes and events in which the egoistic, ambitious and
power-seeking desires of the individual find satisfaction. With young
men the ambition phantasies generally prevail; in women, the erotic,
since they have banked their ambition on success in love. But often
enough the erotic desire appears in the background with men too; all the
heroic deeds and incidents are after all meant only to win the
admiration and favor of women. Otherwise these day dreams are very
manifold and undergo changing fates. They are either, each in turn,
abandoned after a short time and replaced by a new one, or they are
retained, spun out into long stories, and adapted to changes in daily
circumstances. They move with the time, so to speak, and receive from it
a "time mark" which testifies to the influence of the new situation.
They are the raw material of poetic production, for out of his day
dreams the poet, with certain transformations, disguises and omissions,
makes the situations which he puts into his novels, romances and dramas.
The hero of the day dreams, however, is always the individual himself,
either directly or by means of a transparent identification with
another.
Perhaps day dreams bear this name because of the similarity of their
relation to reality, in order to indicate that their content is as
little to be taken for real as that of dreams. Perhaps, however, this
identity of names does nevertheless rest on a characteristic of the
dream which is still unknown to us, perhaps even one of those
characteristics which we are seeking. It is possible, on the other hand,
that we are wrong in trying to read a meaning into this similarity of
designation. Yet that can only be cleared up later.
SIXTH LECTURE
THE DREAM
_Hypothesis and Technique of Interpretation_
We must find a new path, a new method, in order to proceed with the
investigation of the dream. I shall now make an obvious suggestion. Let
us assume as a hypothesis for everything which follows, that _the dream
is not a somatic but a psychic phenomenon_. You appreciate the
significance of that statement, but what justification have we for
making it? None; but that alone need not deter us from making it. The
matter stands thus: If the dream is a somatic phenomenon, it does not
concern us. It can be of interest to us only on the supposition that it
is a _psychic_ phenomenon. Let us therefore work upon that assumption in
order to see what comes of it. The result of our labor will determine
whether we are to hold to this assumption and whether we may, in fact,
consider it in turn a result. What is it that we really wish to achieve,
to what end are we working? It is what one usually seeks to attain in
the sciences, an understanding of phenomena, the creation of
relationships between them, and ultimately, if possible, the extension
of our control over them.
Let us then proceed with the work on the assumption that the dream is a
psychic phenomenon. This makes it an achievement and expression of the
dreamer, but one that tells us nothing, one that we do not understand.
What do you do when I make a statement you do not understand? You ask
for an explanation, do you not? Why may we not do the same thing here,
_ask the dreamer to give us the meaning of his dream_?
If you will remember, we were in this same situation once before. It was
when we were investigating errors, a case of a slip of the tongue.
Someone said: "_Da sind dinge zum vorschwein gekommen_," whereupon we
asked--no, luckily, not we, but others, persons in no way associated
with psychoanalysis--these persons asked him what he meant by this
unintelligible talk. He immediately answered that he had intended to say
"_Das waren schweinereien_," but that he had suppressed this intention,
in favor of the other, more gentle "_Da sind dinge zum vorschein
gekommen_."[23] I explained to you at the time that this inquiry was
typical of every psychoanalytical investigation, and now you understand
that psychoanalysis follows the technique, as far as possible, of having
the subjects themselves discover the solutions of their riddles. The
dreamer himself, then, is to tell us the meaning of his dream.
It is common knowledge, however, that this is not such an easy matter
with dreams. In the case of slips, our method worked in a number of
cases, but we encountered some where the subject did not wish to say
anything--in fact, indignantly rejected the answer that we suggested.
Instances of the first method are entirely lacking in the case of
dreams; the dreamer always says he knows nothing. He cannot deny our
interpretation, for we have none. Shall we then give up the attempt?
Since he knows nothing and we know nothing and a third person surely
knows nothing, it looks as though there were no possibility of
discovering anything. If you wish, discontinue the investigation. But if
you are of another mind, you can accompany me on the way. For I assure
you, it is very possible, in fact, probable, that the dreamer does know
what his dream means, but does _not know that he knows, and therefore
believes he does not know_.
You will point out to me that I am again making an assumption, the
second in this short discourse, and that I am greatly reducing the
credibility of my claim. On the assumption that the dream is a psychic
phenomenon, on the further assumption that there are unconscious things
in man which he knows without knowing that he knows, etc.--we need only
realize clearly the intrinsic improbability of each of these two
assumptions, and we shall calmly turn our attention from the conclusions
to be derived from such premises.
Yet, ladies and gentlemen, I have not invited you here to delude you or
to conceal anything from you. I did, indeed, announce a _General
Introduction to Psychoanalysis_, but I did not intend the title to
convey that I was an oracle, who would show you a finished product with
all the difficulties carefully concealed, all the gaps filled in and all
the doubts glossed over, so that you might peacefully believe you had
learned something new. No, precisely because you are beginners, I wanted
to show you our science as it is, with all its hills and pitfalls,
demands and considerations. For I know that it is the same in all
sciences, and must be so in their beginnings particularly. I know, too,
that teaching as a rule endeavors to hide these difficulties and these
incompletely developed phases from the student. But that will not do in
psychoanalysis. I have, as a matter of fact, made two assumptions, one
within the other, and he who finds the whole too troublesome and too
uncertain or is accustomed to greater security or more elegant
derivations, need go no further with us. What I mean is, he should leave
psychological problems entirely alone, for it must be apprehended that
he will not find the sure and safe way he is prepared to go,
traversable. Then, too, it is superfluous for a science that has
something to offer to plead for auditors and adherents. Its results must
create its atmosphere, and it must then bide its time until these have
attracted attention to themselves.
I would warn those of you, however, who care to continue, that my two
assumptions are not of equal worth. The first, that the dream is a
psychic phenomenon, is the assumption we wish to prove by the results of
our work. The other has already been proved in another field, and I take
the liberty only of transferring it from that field to our problem.
Where, in what field of observation shall we seek the proof that there
is in man a knowledge of which he is not conscious, as we here wish to
assume in the case of the dreamer? That would be a remarkable, a
surprising fact, one which would change our understanding of the psychic
life, and which would have no need to hide itself. To name it would be
to destroy it, and yet it pretends to be something real, a contradiction
in terms. Nor does it hide itself. It is no result of the fact itself
that we are ignorant of its existence and have not troubled sufficiently
about it. That is just as little our fault as the fact that all these
psychological problems are condemned by persons who have kept away from
all observations and experiments which are decisive in this respect.
The proof appeared in the field of hypnotic phenomena. When, in the year
1889, I was a witness to the extraordinarily enlightening demonstrations
of Siebault and Bernheim in Nancy, I witnessed also the following
experiment: If one placed a man in the somnambulistic state, allowed him
to have all manner of hallucinatory experience, and then woke him up, it
appeared in the first instance that he knew nothing about what had
happened during his hypnotic sleep. Bernheim then directly invited him
to relate what had happened to him during the hypnosis. He maintained he
was unable to recall anything. But Bernheim insisted, he persisted, he
assured him he did know, that he must recall, and, incredible though it
may seem, the man wavered, began to rack his memory, recalled in a
shadowy way first one of the suggested experiences, then another; the
recollection became more and more complete and finally was brought forth
without a gap. The fact that he had this knowledge finally, and that he
had had no experiences from any other source in the meantime, permits
the conclusion that he knew of these recollections in the beginning.
They were merely inaccessible, he did not know that he knew them; he
believed he did not know them. This is exactly what we suspect in the
dreamer.
I trust you are taken by surprise by the establishment of this fact, and
that you will ask me why I did not refer to this proof before in the
case of the slips, where we credited the man who made a mistake in
speech with intentions he knew nothing about and which he denied. "If a
person believes he knows nothing concerning experiences, the memory of
which, however, he retains," you might say, "it is no longer so
improbable that there are also other psychic experiences within him of
whose existence he is ignorant. This argument would have impressed us
and advanced us in the understanding of errors." To be sure, I might
then have referred to this but I reserved it for another place, where it
was more necessary. Errors have in a measure explained themselves, have,
in part, furnished us with the warning that we must assume the existence
of psychic processes of which we know nothing, for the sake of the
connection of the phenomena. In dreams we are compelled to look to other
sources for explanations; and besides, I count on the fact that you will
permit the inference I draw from hypnotism more readily in this
instance. The condition in which we make mistakes most seem to you to
be the normal one. It has no similarity to the hypnotic. On the other
hand, there is a clear relationship between the hypnotic state and
sleep, which is the essential condition of dreams. Hypnotism is known as
artificial sleep; we say to the person whom we hypnotize, "Sleep," and
the suggestions which we throw out are comparable to the dreams of
natural sleep. The psychical conditions are in both cases really
analogous. In natural sleep we withdraw our attention from the entire
outside world; in the hypnotic, on the other hand, from the whole world
with the exception of the one person who has hypnotized us, with whom we
remain in touch. Furthermore, the so-called nurse's sleep in which the
nurse remains in touch with the child, and can be waked only by him, is
a normal counterpart of hypnotism. The transference of one of the
conditions of hypnotism to natural sleep does not appear to be such a
daring proceeding. The inferential assumption that there is also present
in the case of the dreamer a knowledge of his dream, a knowledge which
is so inaccessible that he does not believe it himself, does not seem to
be made out of whole cloth. Let us note that at this point there appears
a third approach to the study of the dream; from the sleep-disturbing
stimuli, from the day-dreams, and now in addition, from the suggested
dreams of the hypnotic state.
Now we return, perhaps with increased faith, to our problem. Apparently
it is very probable that the dreamer knows of his dream; the question
is, how to make it possible for him to discover this knowledge, and to
impart it to us? We do not demand that he give us the meaning of his
dream at once, but he will be able to discover its origin, the thought
and sphere of interest from which it springs. In the case of the errors,
you will remember, the man was asked how he happened to use the wrong
word, "_vorschwein_," and his next idea gave us the explanation. Our
dream technique is very simple, an imitation of this example. We again
ask how the subject happened to have the dream, and his next statement
is again to be taken as an explanation. We disregard the distinction
whether the dreamer believes or does not believe he knows, and treat
both cases in the same way.
This technique is very simple indeed, but I am afraid it will arouse
your sharpest opposition. You will say, "a new assumption. The third!
And the most improbable of all! If I ask the dreamer what he considers
the explanation of his dream to be, his very next association is to be
the desired explanation? But it may be he thinks of nothing at all, or
his next thought may be anything at all. We cannot understand upon what
we can base such anticipation. This, really, is putting too much faith
in a situation where a slightly more critical attitude would be more
suitable. Furthermore, a dream is not an isolated error, but consists of
many elements. To which idea should we pin our faith?"
You are right in all the non-essentials. A dream must indeed be
distinguished from a word slip, even in the number of its elements. The
technique is compelled to consider this very carefully. Let me suggest
that we separate the dream into its elements, and carry on the
investigation of each element separately; then the analogy to the
word-slip is again set up. You are also correct when you say that in
answer to the separate dream elements no association may occur to the
dreamer. There are cases in which we accept this answer, and later you
will hear what those cases are. They are, oddly enough, cases in which
we ourselves may have certain associations. But in general we shall
contradict the dreamer when he maintains he has no associations. We
shall insist that he must have some association and--we shall be
justified. He will bring forth some association, any one, it makes no
difference to us. He will be especially facile with certain information
which might be designated as historical. He will say, "that is something
that happened yesterday" (as in the two "prosaic" dreams with which we
are acquainted); or, "that reminds me of something that happened
recently," and in this manner we shall notice that the act of
associating the dreams with recent impressions is much more frequent
than we had at first supposed. Finally, the dreamer will remember
occurrences more remote from the dream, and ultimately even events in
the far past.
But in the essential matters you are mistaken. If you believe that we
assume arbitrarily that the dreamer's next association will disclose
just what we are seeking, or must lead to it, that on the contrary the
association is just as likely to be entirely inconsequential, and
without any connection with what we are seeking, and that it is an
example of my unbounded optimism to expect anything else, then you are
greatly mistaken. I have already taken the liberty of pointing out that
in each one of you there is a deep-rooted belief in psychic freedom and
volition, a belief which is absolutely unscientific, and which must
capitulate before the claims of a determinism that controls even the
psychic life. I beg of you to accept it as a fact that only this one
association will occur to the person questioned. But I do not put one
belief in opposition to another. It can be proved that the association,
which the subject produces, is not voluntary, is not indeterminable, not
unconnected with what we seek. Indeed, I discovered long ago--without,
however, laying too much stress on the discovery--that even experimental
psychology has brought forth this evidence.