but is still used to-day by four hundred million people. Don’t suppose
that I understand it at all; I only obtained some information about it
because I hoped to find in it analogies to the kinds of indefiniteness
occurring in dreams; nor was I disappointed in my expectation, for
Chinese is so full of uncertainties as positively to terrify one. As is
well known, it consists of a number of syllabic sounds which are
pronounced singly or doubled in combination. One of the chief dialects
has about four hundred of these sounds, and since the vocabulary of this
dialect is estimated at somewhere about four thousand words it is
evident that every sound has an average of ten different meanings—some
fewer, but some all the more. For this reason there are a whole series
of devices to escape ambiguity, for the context alone will not show
which of the ten possible meanings of the syllable the speaker wishes to
convey to the hearer. Amongst these devices is the combining of two
sounds into a single word and the use of four different “tones” in which
these syllables may be spoken. For purposes of our comparison a still
more interesting fact is that this language is practically without
grammar: it is impossible to say of any of the one-syllabled words
whether it is a noun, a verb or an adjective; and, further, there are no
inflections to show gender, number, case, tense or mood. The language
consists, as we may say, of the raw material only; just as our
thought-language is resolved into its raw material by the dream-work
omitting to express the relations in it. Wherever there is any
uncertainty in Chinese the decision is left to the intelligence of the
listener, who is guided by the context. I made a note of a Chinese
saying, which literally translated runs thus: “Little what see, much
what wonderful.” This is simple enough to understand. It may mean: “The
less a man has seen, the more he finds to wonder at,” or “There is much
to wonder at for the man who has seen little.” Naturally there is no
occasion to choose between these two translations which differ only in
grammatical construction. We are assured that in spite of these
uncertainties the Chinese language is a quite exceptionally good medium
of expression; so it is clear that indefiniteness does not necessarily
lead to ambiguity.
Now we must certainly admit that the position of affairs is far less
favourable in regard to the mode of expression in dreams than it is with
these ancient tongues and scripts; for these latter were originally
designed as a means of communication; that is, they were intended to be
understood, no matter what ways or means they had to employ. But just
this character is lacking to dreams: their object is not to tell anyone
anything; they are not a means of communication; on the contrary, it is
important to them not to be understood. So we ought not to be surprised
or misled if the result is that a number of the ambiguities and
uncertainties in dreams cannot be determined. The only certain piece of
knowledge gained from our comparison is that this indefiniteness (which
people would like to make use of as an argument against the accuracy of
our dream-interpretations) is rather to be recognized as a regular
characteristic of all primitive systems of expression.
Practice and experience alone can determine the extent to which dreams
can in actual fact be understood. My own opinion is that this is
possible to a very great extent; and a comparison of the results
obtained by properly-trained analysts confirms my view. It is well known
that the lay public, even in scientific circles, delights to make a
parade of superior scepticism in the face of the difficulties and
uncertainties which beset a scientific achievement; I think they are
wrong in so doing. You may possibly not at all know that the same thing
happened at the time when the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions were
being deciphered. There was a point at which public opinion was active
in declaring that the men deciphering the cuneiform writing were victims
of a chimera and that the whole business of investigation was a fraud.
But in the year 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society made a conclusive test.
They challenged four of the most distinguished men engaged in this
branch of research—Rawlinson, Hincks, Fox Talbot and Oppert—to send to
the Society in sealed envelopes independent translations of a
newly-discovered inscription, and, after comparing the four versions,
they were able to announce that there was sufficient agreement between
the four to justify belief in what had been achieved and confidence in
further progress. The mockery of the learned laity then gradually came
to an end, and certainty in the reading of cuneiform documents has
advanced enormously since then.
2. A second series of objections is closely connected with an impression
which you also have probably not escaped; namely, that a number of the
solutions achieved by our method of dream-interpretation seem strained,
specious, “dragged in,”—in other words, forced, or even comical or
joking. These criticisms are so frequent that I will take at random the
last that has come to my ears. Now listen: a head-master in
Switzerland—that free country—was recently asked to resign his post on
account of his interest in psycho-analysis. He protested and a Berne
paper published the decision of the school authorities on his case. I
shall quote a few sentences from the article which refer to
psycho-analysis: “Further, we are amazed at the far-fetched and
factitious character of many of the examples given in the said book by
Dr. Pfister of Zurich.... It is indeed a matter for surprise that the
head-master of a Training College should accept so credulously all these
assertions and such specious evidence.” These sentences purport to be
the final opinion of “One who judges calmly.” I am much more inclined to
think this “calm” factitious. Let us examine these remarks more closely
in the expectation that a certain amount of reflection and knowledge of
the subject will do no harm, even to a “calm judgement.”
It is really quite refreshing to see how swiftly and unerringly anyone
relying merely on his first impressions can arrive at an opinion on some
critical question of psychology in its more abstruse aspects. The
interpretations seem to him far-fetched and strained, and do not commend
themselves to him; consequently, they are wrong and the whole business
is rubbish. Such critics never give even a passing thought to the
possibility that there may be good reasons why the interpretations are
bound to convey this very impression—a thought which would lead to the
further question what these good reasons are.
The circumstance which calls forth this criticism is essentially related
to the effect of displacement, which you have learnt to know as the most
powerful instrument in the service of the dream-censorship. With its aid
the substitute-formations which we call allusions are created; but these
allusions are of a kind not easy to recognize as such; nor is it easy to
discover the thought proper by working back from them, for they are
connected with it by the most extraordinary and unusual extrinsic
associations. But the whole matter throughout concerns things which are
meant to be hidden, intended to be concealed: that is exactly the object
of the dream-censorship. We must not expect, though, to find something
that has been hidden by looking in the very place where it ordinarily
belongs. The frontier surveillance authorities nowadays are a good deal
more cunning in this respect than the Swiss school authorities; for they
are not content with examining portfolios and letter-cases when hunting
for documents and plans; but consider the possibility that spies and
smugglers may conceal anything compromising about their persons, in
places where it is most difficult to detect and where such things
certainly do not belong, for example, between the double soles of their
boots. If the concealed articles are found there, it is certainly true
that they have been “dragged” to light, but they are none the less a
very good “find.”
In admitting the possibility that the connection between a latent
dream-element and its manifest substitute may appear most remote and
extraordinary, sometimes even comical or joking, we are guided by our
wide experience of instances in which we did not as a rule find the
meaning ourselves. It is often impossible to arrive at such
interpretations by our own efforts: no sane person could guess the
bridge connecting the two. The dreamer either solves the riddle
straightaway by a direct association (_he_ can do it because it is in
his mind that the substitute-formation originated); or else he
provides so much material that there is no longer any need for special
penetration in order to solve it—the solution thrusts itself upon us
as inevitable. If the dreamer does not help us in either of these two
ways the manifest element in question will remain for ever
incomprehensible. Let me give you one more instance of this kind which
happened recently. A patient of mine lost her father during the course
of the treatment, after which she seized every opportunity to bring
him back to life in her dreams. In one of these her father appeared in
a certain connection otherwise not applicable and said: “_It is
quarter past eleven, it is half past eleven, it is quarter to
twelve_.” For the interpretation of this curious detail she could only
provide the association that her father was pleased when his older
children were punctual at the midday meal. This certainly fitted in
with the dream-element, but it threw no light on its origin. The
situation which had just been reached in the treatment gave good
grounds for the suspicion that a carefully-suppressed critical
antagonism to her much loved and honoured father had played a part in
this dream. Following out her further associations, apparently quite
remote from the dream, she told how she had heard a long discussion of
psychological questions on the day before and a relative had said:
“Primitive man (_Urmensch_) survives in all of us.” Now a light dawns
on us. Here was again a splendid opportunity for her to imagine that
her dead father survived, and so in the dream she made him a
“clock-man” (_Uhrmensch_), telling the quarters up to the time of the
midday meal.
The likeness to a pun in this cannot be ignored, and as a matter of fact
it has often happened that a dreamer’s pun has been ascribed to the
interpreter; there are yet other examples in which it is not at all easy
to decide whether we are dealing with a joke or a dream. But you will
remember that the same sort of doubt arose with some slips of the
tongue. A man related as a dream that he and his uncle were sitting in
the latter’s _auto_ (automobile) and his uncle kissed him. The dreamer
himself instantly volunteered the interpretation: it meant
“_auto-erotism_” (a term used in our theory of the libido, signifying
gratification obtained without any external love-object). Now was this
man allowing himself a joke at our expense and pretending that a pun
which occurred to him was part of a dream? I do not think so: he really
did dream it. But where does this bewildering resemblance between dreams
and jokes come from? At one time this question took me somewhat out of
my way, for it necessitated my making a thorough investigation into the
question of wit itself. This led to the conclusion that wit originates
as follows: a preconscious train of thought is for a moment left to a
process of unconscious elaboration, from which it emerges in the form of
a witticism. While under the influence of the unconscious it is subject
to the mechanisms there operative—to condensation and displacement; that
is to say, to the same processes as we found at work in the dream-work;
and the similarity sometimes found between dreams and wit is to be
ascribed to this character common to both. But the unintentional “dream
joke” does not amuse us as does an ordinary witticism; a deeper study of
wit may show you why this is so. The “dream joke” strikes us as a poor
form of wit; it does not make us laugh, it leaves us cold.
Now in this we are following the path of the ancient method of
dream-interpretation, which has given us, besides much that is useless,
many a valuable example of interpretation upon which we ourselves could
not improve. I will tell you a dream of historic importance which is
related in slightly different versions by Plutarch and Artemidorus of
Daldis, the dreamer being Alexander the Great. When he was laying siege
to the city of Tyre, which was putting up an obstinate resistance (B.C.
322), he dreamt one night that he saw a dancing satyr. The
dream-interpreter Aristandros, who accompanied the army on its
campaigns, interpreted this dream by dividing the word “satyros” into σὰ
Τύρος (“Tyre is thine”), and prophesied from this the king’s victory
over the city. This interpretation decided Alexander to continue the
siege and eventually the city fell. The interpretation, factitious as it
seems, was undoubtedly the right one.
3. I can well imagine that you will be especially impressed on being
told that even people who have long studied the interpretation of dreams
in the course of their work as psycho-analysts have raised objections to
our conception of dreams. It would indeed have been exceptional if so
excellent an opportunity for new mistakes had been let slip; and so
assertions have been made, due to confusion of ideas and based on
unjustifiable generalizations, which are hardly less incorrect than the
medical conception of dreams. One of these statements you know already:
that dreams deal with attempts at adaptation to the situation at the
moment and with the solution of future problems; in other words, that
they pursue a “prospective tendency” or aim (A. Maeder). We have already
demonstrated that this statement rests upon a confusion between dreams
and the latent dream-thoughts and ignores the process of dream-work. If
those who speak of this “prospective tendency” mean thereby to
characterize the unconscious mental activity to which the latent
thoughts belong, then, on the one hand, they tell us nothing new and, on
the other hand, the description is not exhaustive; for unconscious
mental activity occupies itself with many other things besides
preparation for the future. There seems to be a much worse confusion
behind the assurance that the “death clause” may be found underlying
every dream; I am not quite clear what this formula is intended to mean,
but I suspect that behind it the dream is confounded with the whole
personality of the dreamer.
An unjustifiable generalization, based on a few striking examples, is
contained in the statement that every dream admits of two kinds of
interpretation: one of the kind we have described, the so-called
“psycho-analytic” interpretation, and the other the so-called
“anagogic,” which disregards the instinctive tendencies and aims at a
representation of the higher mental functions (H. Silberer); there are
dreams of this kind, but you will seek in vain to extend this conception
to include even a majority of dreams. After all you have heard, the
statement that all dreams are to be interpreted bisexually, as a
combination of two tendencies which may be called male and female (A.
Adler), will seem to you quite incomprehensible. Here again, single
dreams of this sort do of course occur and later on you may learn that
their structure is similar to that of certain hysterical symptoms. I
mention all these discoveries of new general characteristics of dreams
in order to warn you against them, or at least to leave you in no doubt
about my own opinion of them.
4. At one time the objective value of research into dreams seemed to be
discredited by the fact that patients treated analytically appeared to
suit the content of their dreams to the favourite theories of their
doctors, one class dreaming mainly of sexual impulses, and another of
impulses for mastery, others again even of rebirth (W. Stekel). The
force of this observation is weakened by the reflection that people
dreamed dreams before there was any such thing as psycho-analytic
treatment to influence their dreams and that the patients undergoing
treatment nowadays also used to dream before they began it. The actual
fact in this supposedly new observation is soon shown to be self-evident
and of no consequence for the theory of dreams. The residue from the
previous day which gives rise to dreams is a residue from the great
interests of waking life. If the physician’s words and the stimuli which
he gives have become of importance to the patient they then enter into
whatever constitutes the residue and can act as mental stimuli for
dream-formation, just like other interests of affective value roused on
the preceding day which have not subsided; they operate in the same way
as bodily stimuli which affect the sleeper during sleep. Like these
other factors inciting dreams, the trains of thought roused by the
physician can appear in the manifest dream-content or be revealed in the
latent thoughts. We know indeed that dreams can be experimentally
produced, or, to speak more accurately, a part of the dream-material can
be thus introduced into the dream. In influencing his patients thus the
analyst plays a part no different from that of an experimenter, like
Mourly Void, who placed in certain positions the limbs of the person
upon whom he experimented.
We can often influence what a man shall dream _about_, but never _what_
he will dream; for the mechanism of the dream-work and the unconscious
dream-wish are inaccessible to external influence of any sort. We
realized, when we were considering dreams arising out of bodily stimuli,
that in the reaction to the bodily or mental stimuli brought to bear
upon the dreamer the peculiarity and independence of dream-life is
clearly seen. The criticism I have just discussed which tends to cast a
doubt upon the objectivity of dream investigation is again an assertion
based upon confounding, this time confounding dreams with—their
material.
I wanted to tell you as much as this about the problems of dreams. You
will guess that I have passed over a great deal and will have discovered
for yourselves that my treatment of nearly every point has necessarily
been incomplete; but this is due to the phenomena of dreams being so
closely connected with those of the neuroses. Our plan was to study
dreams as an introduction to the study of the neuroses and it was
certainly a better one than beginning the other way about; but since
dreams prepare us for comprehension of the neuroses, so also can a
correctly-formed estimate of dreams be acquired only after some
knowledge of neurotic manifestations has been gained.
I do not know how you may think about it, but I can assure you that I do
not regret having taken up so much of your interest and of the time at
our disposal in the consideration of problems connected with dreams. I
know no other way by which one can so speedily arrive at conviction of
the correctness of those statements by which psycho-analysis stands or
falls. It requires strenuous work for many months, and even years, to
demonstrate that the symptoms in a case of neurotic illness have a
meaning, serve a purpose, and arise from the patient’s experiences in
life. On the other hand, a few hours’ effort may be enough to show these
things in some dream which at first seemed utterly confused and
incomprehensible, and in this way to confirm all the premises upon which
psycho-analysis rests—the existence of unconscious mental processes, the
special mechanisms which they obey, and the instinctive propelling
forces which are expressed by them. And when we remember how
far-reaching is the analogy in the structure of dreams to that of
neurotic symptoms and, with that, reflect how rapid is the
transformation of a dreamer into a wide-awake, reasonable human being,
we acquire an assurance that the neuroses too depend only upon an
alteration in the balance of the forces at work in mental life.
_PART III_
GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES
SIXTEENTH LECTURE
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY
It pleases me greatly to see you here again to continue our discussions
after a year has passed. Last year the subject of my lectures was the
application of psycho-analysis to errors and to dreams; I hope this year
to lead you to some comprehension of neurotic phenomena which, as you
will soon discover, have much in common with both our former subjects. I
must tell you before I begin, however, that I cannot concede you the
same attitude towards me now as I did last year. Then I endeavoured to
make no step without being in agreement with your judgement; I debated a
great deal with you, submitted to your objections, in fact, recognized
you and your “healthy common-sense” as the deciding factor. That is no
longer possible and for a very simple reason. Errors and dreams are
phenomena which were familiar to you; one might say you had as much
experience of them as I, or could easily have obtained it. The
manifestations of neurosis, however, are an unknown region to you; those
of you who are not yourselves medical men have no access there except
through the accounts I give you; and of what use is the most excellent
judgement where there is no knowledge of the subject under debate?
However, do not receive this announcement as though I were going to give
these lectures _ex cathedra_ or to demand unconditional acceptance from
you. Any such misconception would do me a gross injustice. I do not aim
at producing conviction,—my aim is to stimulate enquiry and to destroy
prejudices. If owing to ignorance of the subject you are not in a
position to adjudicate, then you should neither believe nor reject. You
should only listen and allow what I tell you to make its own effect upon
you. Convictions are not so easily acquired, or, when they are achieved
without much trouble, they soon prove worthless and unstable. No one has
a right to conviction on these matters who has not worked at this
subject for many years, as I have, and has not himself experienced the
same new and astonishing discoveries. Then why these sudden convictions
in intellectual matters, lightning conversions, and instantaneous
repudiations? Do you not see that the _coup de foudre_, “love at first
sight,” proceeds from a very different mental sphere, from the affective
one? We do not require even our patients to bring with them any
conviction in favour of psycho-analysis or any devotion to it. It would
make us suspicious of them. Benevolent scepticism is the attitude in
them which we like best. Therefore will you also try to let
psycho-analytical conceptions develop quietly in your minds alongside
the popular or the psychiatric view, until opportunities arise for them
to influence each other and be united into a decisive opinion.