dream expresses this wish is one main characteristic of dreams. The
other equally constant feature is that the dream does not merely give
expression to a thought, but represents this wish as fulfilled, in the
form of an hallucinatory experience. “I should like to sail on the
lake,” runs the wish which gives rise to the dream; the content of the
dream itself is: “I am sailing on the lake.” So that even in these
simple dreams belonging to childhood there is still a difference between
the latent and the manifest dream, and still a distortion of the latent
dream-thought, _in the translation of the thought into an experience_.
In interpreting a dream, we must first of all undo this process of
alteration. If this is to be regarded as one of the most universal
characteristics of all dreams, we then know how to translate the
dream-fragment I quoted before: “I see my brother digging” does not mean
“my brother _is_ retrenching,” but “I wish my brother would retrench, he
_is to_ retrench.” Of the two universal characteristics here mentioned
the second is obviously more likely to be acknowledged without
opposition than the first. It is only by extensive investigations that
we can make sure that what produces the dream must always be a _wish_
and cannot sometimes be a preoccupation, a purpose, or reproach; but the
other characteristic remains unaffected, namely, that the dream does not
merely reproduce this stimulus, but, by a kind of living it through,
removes it, sets it aside, relieves it.
7. In connection with these characteristics of dreams we may take up
again our comparison between dreams and errors. In the latter we
distinguished between a disturbing tendency and one which is disturbed,
the error being a compromise between the two. Dreams fall into the same
category; the disturbed tendency can only, of course, be the tendency to
sleep, while the disturbing tendency resolves itself into the mental
stimulus which we may call the wish (clamouring for gratification),
since at present we know of no other mental stimulus disturbing sleep.
Here again the dream is the result of a compromise; we sleep, and yet we
experience the satisfaction of a wish; we gratify a wish and at the same
time continue to sleep. Each achieves part-success and part-failure.
8. You will remember that at one point we hoped to find a path to an
understanding of the problems presented by dreams in the fact that
certain very transparent phantasy-formations are called “day-dreams.”
Now these day-dreams are literally wish-fulfilments, fulfilments of
ambitious or erotic wishes, which we recognize as such; they are,
however, carried out in thought, and, however vividly imagined, they
never take the form of hallucinatory experiences. Here, therefore, the
less certain of the two main characteristics of the dream is retained,
whereas the other, to which the condition of sleep is essential and
which cannot be realized in waking life, is entirely lacking. So in
language we find a hint that a wish-fulfilment is a main characteristic
of dreams. And further, if the experience we have in dreams is only
another form of imaginative representation, a form which becomes
possible under the peculiar conditions of the sleeping state—“a
nocturnal day-dream,” as we might call it—we understand at once how it
is that the process of dream-formation can abrogate the stimulus
operating at night and can bring gratification; for day-dreaming also is
a mode of activity closely linked up with gratification, which is in
fact the only reason why people practise it.
Again, there are other linguistic expressions, besides this, which imply
the same thing. We are familiar with the proverbs: “The pig dreams of
acorns and the goose of maize.” “What do chickens dream of? Of millet.”
The proverb, you see, goes even lower in the scale than we do, beyond
the child to the animal, and asserts that the content of dreams is the
satisfaction of a want. And there are many phrases which seem to point
to the same thing: we say “as beautiful as a dream.” “I should never
have dreamt of such a thing.” “I never imagined that in my wildest
dreams.” Here colloquial speech is clearly partial in its judgement. Of
course there are also anxiety-dreams, and dreams the content of which is
painful or indifferent, but these have not given rise to any special
phrases. We do indeed speak of “bad” dreams, but by a “dream” pure and
simple common usage always understands some sort of exquisite
wish-fulfilment. Nor is there any proverb which attempts to assert that
pigs or geese dream of being slaughtered!
It is, of course, inconceivable that this wish-fulfilling character of
dreams should have escaped the notice of writers on the subject. On the
contrary, they have very often remarked upon it; but it has not occurred
to any of them to recognize this characteristic as universal, and to
take it as the key to the explanation of dreams. We can easily imagine
what may have deterred them, and later we will discuss the question.
Now see how much information we have gained, and that with hardly any
trouble, from our study of children’s dreams! We have learnt that the
function of dreams is to protect sleep; that they arise out of two
conflicting tendencies, of which the one, the desire for sleep, remains
constant, whilst the other endeavours to satisfy some mental stimulus;
that dreams are proved to be mental acts, rich in meaning; that they
have two main characteristics, i.e., they are wish-fulfilments and
hallucinatory experiences. And meanwhile we could almost have forgotten
that we were studying psycho-analysis. Apart from the connection we have
made between dreams and errors our work has not borne any specific
stamp. Any psychologist knowing nothing of the assumptions of
psycho-analysis could have given this explanation of children’s dreams.
Why has no one done so?
If only all dreams were of the infantile type the problem would be
solved and our task already achieved, and that without questioning the
dreamer, referring to the unconscious or having recourse to the process
of free association. Clearly it is in this direction that we must
continue our work. We have already repeatedly found that characteristics
alleged to be universally valid have afterwards proved to hold good only
for a certain kind and a limited number of dreams. So the question we
now have to decide is whether the common characteristics revealed by
children’s dreams are any more stable than these, and whether they hold
also for those dreams whose meaning is not obvious and in whose manifest
content we can recognize no reference to a wish remaining from the day
before. Our idea is that these other dreams have undergone a good deal
of distortion and on that account we must refrain from immediate
judgement. We suspect too that to unravel this distortion we shall need
the help of psycho-analytic technique, which we could dispense with
while learning, as we have just now done, the meaning of children’s
dreams.
There is yet one other class of dreams at least in which no distortion
is present and which, like children’s dreams, we easily recognize to be
wish-fulfilments. These are dreams which are occasioned all through life
by imperative physical needs—hunger, thirst, sexual desire—and are
wish-fulfilments in the sense of being reactions to internal somatic
stimuli. Thus I have on record the dream of a little girl, one year and
seven months old, which consisted of a kind of menu, together with her
name (Anna F ..., strawberries, bilberries, egg, pap), the dream being a
reaction to a day of fasting, enforced on account of indigestion due to
eating the fruit which appeared twice in the dream. At the same time her
grandmother—their combined ages totalled seventy—was obliged, owing to a
floating kidney, to go without food for a day and dreamt that night that
she had been invited out and had had the most tempting delicacies set
before her. Observations on prisoners who are left to go hungry, and on
people who suffer privations whilst travelling or on expeditions, show
that in these circumstances they regularly dream about the satisfaction
of their wants. Thus Otto Nordenskjöld in his book on the Antarctic
(1904) tells us of the band of men in whose company he spent the winter
(Vol. I, p. 336): “Our dreams showed very clearly the direction our
thoughts were taking. Never had we dreamt so frequently and so vividly
as at that time. Even those of our comrades who usually dreamt but
rarely had now long stories to tell in the mornings when we exchanged
our latest experiences in this realm of phantasy. All the dreams were
about that outside world now so far away, but often they included a
reference to our condition at the time ... eating and drinking were,
incidentally, the pivot on which our dreams most often turned. One of
us, who was particularly good at going out to large dinners in his
sleep, was delighted when he could tell us in the morning that he had
had a three-course dinner. Another dreamt of tobacco, whole mountains of
tobacco; another of a ship which came full sail over the water, at last
clear of ice. Yet another dream deserves mention: the postman came with
the letters and gave a long explanation of why they were so late; he
said he had made a mistake in delivering them, and had had great trouble
in getting them back again. Of course, things even more impossible
occupied our minds in sleep, but the lack of imagination in almost all
the dreams which I dreamt myself or heard the others tell was quite
striking. It would certainly be of great psychological interest if we
had a record of all these dreams. You can imagine how we longed for
sleep, when it offered each one of us all that he most eagerly desired.”
Another quotation, this time from Du Prel: “Mungo Park, when nearly
dying of thirst on a journey in Africa, dreamt continually of the
well-watered hills and valleys of his home. So Trenck, tormented with
hunger in the redoubt at Magdebourg, saw himself in his dreams
surrounded by sumptuous meals; and George Back, who took part in
Franklin’s first expedition, when on the point of dying of hunger owing
to their terrible privations, dreamt regularly of abundant food to eat.”
Anyone who has made himself thirsty at night by eating highly-seasoned
dishes at supper is likely to dream of drinking. Of course it is not
possible to relieve acute hunger or thirst by dreaming; in that case we
awake thirsty and are obliged to drink real water. The service of the
dream is here of little practical account, but it is none the less clear
that it was called up for the purpose of protecting sleep from the
stimulus impelling us to wake up and act. Where the intensity of the
desire is less, ‘satisfaction’-dreams do often answer the purpose.
In the same way, when the stimulus is that of sexual desire the dream
provides satisfaction, but of a kind which shows peculiarities worthy of
mention. Since it is a characteristic of the sexual impulse that it is a
degree less dependent on its object than are hunger and thirst, the
satisfaction in a pollution-dream can be real; and, in consequence of
certain difficulties in the relation to the object (which will be
discussed later), it particularly often happens that the real
satisfaction is yet connected with a vague or distorted dream-content.
This peculiarity of pollution-dreams makes them, as O. Rank has
observed, suitable objects for the study of dream-distortion. Moreover,
with adults, dreams of desire usually contain besides the satisfaction
something else, springing from a purely mental source and requiring
interpretation if it is to be understood.
We do not maintain, by the way, that wish-fulfilment dreams of the
infantile type occur in adults solely as reactions to the imperative
desires I have mentioned. We are equally familiar with short clear
dreams of this type, occasioned by certain dominating situations and
unquestionably produced by mental stimuli. For example, there are
‘impatience’-dreams in which someone making preparations for a journey,
for a theatrical performance in which he is specially interested, or for
a lecture or a visit, has his expectations prematurely realized in a
dream, and finds himself the night before the actual experience already
at his journey’s end, at the theatre, or talking to the friend he is
going to visit. Or again, there is the ‘comfort’-dream, rightly
so-called, in which someone who wants to go on sleeping dreams that he
has already got up, that he is washing, or is at school, while all the
time he is really continuing his sleep, meaning that he would rather
dream of getting up than do so in reality. In these dreams the desire
for sleep, which we have recognized as regularly participating in
dream-formation, expresses itself plainly and appears as their actual
originator. The need for sleep ranks itself quite rightly with the other
great physical needs.
I would refer you at this point to the reproduction of a picture by
Schwind in the Schack Gallery at Munich[30] and would ask you to notice
how correctly the artist has realized the way in which a dream arises
out of a dominating situation. The picture is called _The Prisoner’s
Dream_, and the subject of the dream must undoubtedly be his escape. It
is a happy thought that the prisoner is to escape by the window, for it
is through the window that the ray of light has entered and roused him
from sleep. The gnomes standing one above the other no doubt represent
the successive positions he would have to assume in climbing up to the
window; and, if I am not mistaken and do not attribute too much
intentional design to the artist, the features of the gnome at the top,
who is filing the grating through (the very thing the prisoner himself
would like to do), resemble the man’s own.
I have said that in all dreams, other than those of children and such as
conform to the infantile type, we encounter the obstacle of distortion.
We cannot immediately say whether they too are wish-fulfilments, as we
are inclined to suppose, nor can we guess from their manifest content in
what mental stimulus they originate, or prove that they, like the
others, endeavour to remove or relieve the stimulus. They must, in fact,
be interpreted, i.e. translated; the process of distortion must be
reversed, and the manifest content replaced by the latent thought,
before we can make any definite pronouncement whether what we have found
out about infantile dreams may claim to hold good for all dreams alike.
NINTH LECTURE
THE DREAM-CENSORSHIP
Our study of children’s dreams has taught us how dreams originate, what
their essential character is, and what their function. Dreams are the
means of removing, by hallucinatory satisfaction, mental stimuli that
disturb sleep. It is true that with the dreams of adults we have been
able to explain one group only, those which we termed dreams of the
infantile type. We do not yet know how it may be with the others,
neither do we understand them. The result we have arrived at already is
one, however, of which the significance is not to be under-estimated.
Every time that we fully understand a dream it proves to be a
wish-fulfilment; and this coincidence cannot be accidental or
unimportant.
Dreams of another type are assumed by us to be distorted substitutes for
an unknown content, which first of all has to be traced; we have various
grounds for this assumption, amongst others the analogy to our
conception of errors. Our next task is to investigate and understand
this _dream-distortion_.
It is dream-distortion which makes dreams seem strange and
incomprehensible. There are several things we want to know about it:
first, whence it comes (its dynamics), secondly, what it does, and
finally, how it does it. Further, we can say that distortion is the
production of the _dream-work_. Let us describe the dream-work and trace
out the forces in it.
Now let me tell you a dream recorded by a lady well-known in
psycho-analytical circles[31], who said that the dreamer was an elderly
woman, highly cultivated and held in great esteem. The dream was not
analysed and our informant observed that for psycho-analysts it needed
no interpreting. Nor did the dreamer herself interpret it, but she
criticized it and condemned it in such a way as though she knew what it
meant. “Imagine,” she said, “such abominable nonsense being dreamt by a
woman of fifty, whose only thought day and night is concern for her
child.”
I will now tell you the dream, which is about “love service in
war-time.”[32] ‘She went to the First Military Hospital and said to the
sentinel at the gate that she must speak to the physician-in-chief
(giving a name which she did not know), as she wished to offer herself
for service in the hospital. In saying this, she emphasized the word
service in such a way that the sergeant at once perceived that she was
speaking of “love service.” As she was an old lady, he let her pass
after some hesitation, but instead of finding the chief physician, she
came to a large gloomy room, where a number of officers and army doctors
were standing or sitting around a long table. She turned to a staff
doctor and told him her proposal; he soon understood her meaning. The
words she said in her dream were: “I and countless other women and girls
of Vienna are ready for the soldiers, officers or men, to....” This
ended in a murmur. She saw, however, by the half-embarrassed,
half-malicious expressions of the officers that all of them grasped her
meaning. The lady continued: “I know our decision sounds odd, but we are
in bitter earnest. The soldier on the battlefield is not asked whether
he wishes to die or not.” There followed a minute of painful silence;
then the staff doctor put his arm round her waist and said: “Madam,
supposing it really came to this, that ... (murmur.)” She withdrew
herself from his arm, thinking: “They are all alike,” and replied: “Good
heavens, I am an old woman and perhaps it won’t happen to me. And one
condition must be observed: age must be taken into account, so that an
old woman and a young lad may not ... (murmur); that would be horrible.”
The staff doctor said: “I quite understand”; but some of the officers,
amongst them one who as a young man had made love to her, laughed
loudly, and the lady asked to be taken to the physician-in-chief, whom
she knew, so that everything might be put straight. It then struck her,
to her great consternation, that she did not know his name. The staff
doctor, however, with the utmost respect and courtesy, showed her the
way to the second floor, up a very narrow iron spiral staircase leading
direct from the room where they were to the upper storeys. As she went
up, she heard an officer say: “That is a tremendous decision, no matter
whether she is young or old; all honour to her!” With the feeling that
she was simply doing her duty, she went up an endless staircase.’
This dream was repeated twice within a few weeks, with alterations here
and there which, as the lady remarked, were quite unimportant and
entirely meaningless.
The way in which this dream progresses corresponds to the course of a
day-dream; there are only a few places where an interruption occurs, and
many individual points in its content might have been cleared up by
enquiry: this, however, as you know, was not undertaken. But the most
striking and to us the most interesting thing about it is the occurrence
of many gaps, not in the recollection, but in the content. In three
places the latter is, as it were, blotted out; where these gaps occur
the speeches are interrupted by a _murmur_. As we did not analyse the
dream, we have, strictly speaking, no right to say anything about its
meaning; but there are certain indications from which we may draw
conclusions, e.g. the words “love service”; and, above all, the broken
speeches immediately preceding the murmurs require completion of a kind
which admits of only one construction. If we do so complete them a
phantasy results, in which the content is that the dreamer is ready at
the call of duty to offer herself to gratify the sexual needs of the
troops, irrespective of rank. This is certainly shocking, a model of a
shamelessly libidinous phantasy, but—the dream says nothing about this.
Just where the context demands this confession, there is in the manifest
dream an indistinct murmur: something has been lost or suppressed.
I hope you recognize how obvious is the inference that it is just the
shocking nature of these passages which has led to their suppression.
Now where will you find a parallel to what has taken place here? In
these times you have not far to seek. Take up any political paper and
you will find that here and there in the text something is omitted and
in its place the blank white of the paper meets your eye: you know that
this is the work of the press censor. Where these blank spaces occur,
there originally stood something of which the authorities at the
censorship disapproved and which has been deleted on that account. You
probably think it a pity, for that must have been the most interesting
part, the “cream” of the news.
On other occasions the censorship has not dealt with the sentence in its
completed form; for the writer, foreseeing which passages were likely to
be objected to by the censor, has forestalled him by softening them
down, making some slight modification or contenting himself with hints
and allusions to what he really wants to write. In this case there are
no blanks, but from the roundabout and obscure mode of expression you
can detect the fact that, at the time of writing, the author had the
censorship in mind.
Now keeping to this parallel we say that those speeches in the dream
which were omitted or disguised by a murmur have also been sacrificed to
some form of censorship. We actually use the term DREAM-CENSORSHIP, and
ascribe part of the distortion to its agency. Wherever there are gaps in
the manifest dream we know that the censorship is responsible; and
indeed we should go further and recognize that wherever, amongst other
more clearly-defined elements, one appears which is fainter, more
indefinite or more dubious in recollection, it is evidence of the work
of the censorship. It is, however, seldom that it takes a form so
undisguised, so naïve, as we might say, as it does in the case of the
dream about “love service;” far more often the censorship makes itself
felt in the second way I mentioned: by effecting modifications, hints,
and allusions in place of the true meaning.
There is a third way in which the dream-censorship works, to which the
ordinances of the Press censorship supply no parallel; but it happens
that I can demonstrate to you this particular mode of activity on the
part of the dream-censorship in the only dream hitherto analysed by us.
You will remember the dream of the “three bad theatre tickets, costing
one florin and a half.” In the latent thoughts underlying this dream,
the element “too great a hurry, too early” was in the foreground; the
meaning was: “It was folly to marry so _early_, it was foolish also to
take the tickets so _early_, it was ridiculous of the sister-in-law to
spend her money so _hurriedly_ on a piece of jewellery.” Nothing of this
central element of the dream-thoughts appeared in the manifest content,
where everything was focussed on going to the theatre and taking
tickets. By this displacement of the accent and regrouping of the
dream-elements, the manifest content was made so unlike the latent
thoughts that nobody would suspect the presence of the latter behind the
former. This _displacement of accent_ is one of the principal means
employed in distortion, and it is this which gives the dream that
character of strangeness which makes the dreamer himself reluctant to
recognize it as the product of his own mind.
Omission, modification, regrouping of material—these then are the modes
of the dream-censorship’s activity and the means employed in distortion.
The censorship itself is the originator, or one of the originators, of
distortion, the subject of our present enquiry. Modification and
alteration in arrangement are commonly included under the term
‘_displacement_.’
After these remarks on the activities of the dream-censorship, let us
turn our attention to its dynamics. I hope you are not taking the
expression “censorship” in too anthropomorphic a sense, picturing to
yourselves the censor as a stern little manikin or a spirit, who lives
in a little chamber of the brain and there discharges the duties of his
office; and neither must you localize it too exactly, so that you
imagine a “brain-centre” whence there emanates a censorial influence,
liable to cease with the injury or disappearance of that centre. For the
present we may regard it merely as a useful term by which to express a
dynamic relationship. This need not hinder us from asking what sort of
tendencies exercise this influence and is it exercised upon; and
further, we must not be surprised to discover that we have already come
across the censorship, perhaps without recognizing it.