The contradiction expressed in these two views as to the rel

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

BY

PROF. DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION OF THIRD EDITION WITH INTRODUCTION

BY

A. A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D.

CHIEF OF THE NEUROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE BRONX HOSPITAL AND

DISPENSARY CLINICAL ASSISTANT IN NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, COLUMBIA

UNIVERSITY FORMER ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN IN THE CENTRAL ISLIP STATE

HOSPITAL AND IN THE CLINIC OF PSYCHIATRY, ZÜRICH

“_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo_”

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1913

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

In attempting a discussion of the Interpretation of Dreams, I do not

believe that I have overstepped the bounds of neuropathological

interest. For, on psychological investigation, the dream proves to be

the first link in a chain of abnormal psychic structures whose other

links, the hysterical phobia, the obsession, and the delusion must, for

practical reasons, claim the interest of the physician. The dream (as

will appear) can lay no claim to a corresponding practical significance;

its theoretical value as a paradigm is, however, all the greater, and

one who cannot explain the origin of the dream pictures will strive in

vain to understand the phobias, obsessive and delusional ideas, and

likewise their therapeutic importance.

But this relation, to which our subject owes its importance, is

responsible also for the deficiencies in the work before us. The

surfaces of fracture which will be found so frequently in this

discussion correspond to so many points of contact at which the problem

of the dream formation touches more comprehensive problems of

psychopathology, which cannot be discussed here, and which will be

subjected to future elaboration if there should be sufficient time and

energy, and if further material should be forthcoming.

Peculiarities in the material I have used to elucidate the

interpretation of dreams have rendered this publication difficult. From

the work itself it will appear why all dreams related in the literature

or collected by others had to remain useless for my purpose; for

examples I had to choose between my own dreams and those of my patients

who were under psychoanalytic treatment. I was restrained from utilising

the latter material by the fact that in it the dream processes were

subjected to an undesirable complication on account of the intermixture

of neurotic characters. On the other hand, inseparably connected with my

own dreams was the circumstance that I was obliged to expose more of the

intimacies of my psychic life than I should like and than generally

falls to the task of an author who is not a poet but an investigator of

nature. This was painful, but unavoidable; I had to put up with the

inevitable in order not to be obliged to forego altogether the

demonstration of the truth of my psychological results. To be sure, I

could not at best resist the temptation of disguising some of my

indiscretions through omissions and substitutions, and as often as this

happened it detracted materially from the value of the examples which I

employed. I can only express the hope that the reader of this work,

putting himself in my difficult position, will show forbearance, and

also that all persons who are inclined to take offence at any of the

dreams reported will concede freedom of thought at least to the dream

life.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

If there has arisen a demand for a second edition of this rather

difficult book before the end of the first decade, I owe no gratitude

to the interest of the professional circles to whom I appealed in the

preceding sentences. My colleagues in psychiatry, apparently, have

made no effort to shake off the first surprise which my new conception

of the dream evoked, and the professional philosophers, who are

accustomed to treat the problem of dream life as a part of the states

of consciousness, devoting to it a few—for the most part

identical—sentences, have apparently failed to observe that in this

field could be found all kinds of things which would inevitably lead

to a thorough transformation of our psychological theories. The

behaviour of the scientific critics could only justify the expectation

that this work of mine was destined to be buried in oblivion; and the

small troop of brave pupils who follow my leadership in the medical

application of psychoanalysis, and also follow my example in analysing

dreams in order to utilise these analyses in the treatment of

neurotics, would not have exhausted the first edition of the book. I

therefore feel indebted to that wider circle of intelligent seekers

after truth whose co-operation has procured for me the invitation to

take up anew, after nine years, the difficult and in so many respects

fundamental work.

I am glad to be able to say that I have found little to change. Here and

there I have inserted new material, added new views from my wider

experience, and attempted to revise certain points; but everything

essential concerning the dream and its interpretation, as well as the

psychological propositions derived from it, has remained unchanged: at

least, subjectively, it has stood the test of time. Those who are

acquainted with my other works on the Etiology and Mechanism of the

psychoneuroses, know that I have never offered anything unfinished as

finished, and that I have always striven to change my assertions in

accordance with my advancing views; but in the realm of the dream life I

have been able to stand by my first declarations. During the long years

of my work on the problems of the neuroses, I have been repeatedly

confronted with doubts, and have often made mistakes; but it was always

in the “interpretation of dreams” that I found my bearings. My numerous

scientific opponents, therefore, show an especially sure instinct when

they refuse to follow me into this territory of dream investigation.

Likewise, the material used in this book to illustrate the rules of

dream interpretation, drawn chiefly from dreams of my own which have

been depreciated and outstripped by events, have in the revision shown a

persistence which resisted substantial changes. For me, indeed, the book

has still another subjective meaning which I could comprehend only after

it had been completed. It proved to be for me a part of my

self-analysis, a reaction to the death of my father—that is, to the most

significant event, the deepest loss, in the life of a man. After I

recognised this I felt powerless to efface the traces of this influence.

For the reader, however, it makes no difference from what material he

learns to value and interpret dreams.

BERCHTESGADEN, Summer of 1908.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

Whereas a period of nine years elapsed between the first and second

editions of this book, the need for a third edition has appeared after

little more than a year. I have reason to be pleased with this change;

but, just as I have not considered the earlier neglect of my work on the

part of the reader as a proof of its unworthiness, I am unable to find

in the interest manifested at present a proof of its excellence.

The progress in scientific knowledge has shown its influence on the

_Interpretation of Dreams_. When I wrote it in 1899 the “Sexual

Theories” was not yet in existence, and the analysis of complicated

forms of psychoneuroses was still in its infancy. The interpretation of

dreams was destined to aid in the psychological analysis of the

neuroses, but since then the deeper understanding of the neuroses has

reacted on our conception of the dream. The study of dream

interpretation itself has continued to develop in a direction upon which

not enough stress was laid in the first edition of this book. From my

own experience, as well as from the works of W. Stekel and others, I

have since learned to attach a greater value to the extent and the

significance of symbolism in dreams (or rather in the unconscious

thinking). Thus much has accumulated in the course of this year which

requires consideration. I have endeavoured to do justice to this new

material by numerous insertions in the text and by the addition of

footnotes. If these supplements occasionally threaten to warp the

original discussion, or if, even with their aid, we have been

unsuccessful in raising the original text to the _niveau_ of our present

views, I must beg indulgence for the gaps in the book, as they are only

consequences and indications of the present rapid development of our

knowledge. I also venture to foretell in what other directions later

editions of the _Interpretation of Dreams_—in case any should be

demanded—will differ from the present one. They will have, on the one

hand, to include selections from the rich material of poetry, myth,

usage of language, and folk-lore, and, on the other hand, to treat more

profoundly the relations of the dream to the neuroses and to mental

diseases.

Mr. Otto Rank has rendered me valuable service in the selection of the

addenda and in reading the proof sheets. I am gratefully indebted to him

and to many others for their contributions and corrections.

VIENNA, Spring of 1911.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

Since the appearance of the author’s _Selected Papers on Hysteria and

other Psychoneuroses_, and _Three Contributions to the Sexual

Theory_,[A] much has been said and written about Freud’s works. Some of

our readers have made an honest endeavour to test and utilise the

author’s theories, but they have been handicapped by their inability to

read fluently very difficult German, for only two of Freud’s works have

hitherto been accessible to English readers. For them this work will be

of invaluable assistance. To be sure, numerous articles on the Freudian

psychology have of late made their appearance in our literature;[B] but

these scattered papers, read by those unacquainted with the original

work, often serve to confuse rather than enlighten. For Freud cannot be

mastered from the reading of a few pamphlets, or even one or two of his

original works. Let me repeat what I have so often said: No one is

really qualified to use or to judge Freud’s psychoanalytic method who

has not thoroughly mastered his theory of the neuroses—_The

Interpretation of Dreams_, _Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory_,

_The Psychopathology of Everyday Life_, and _Wit and its Relation to the

Unconscious_, and who has not had considerable experience in analysing

the dreams and psychopathological actions of himself and others. That

there is required also a thorough training in normal and abnormal

psychology goes without saying.

_The Interpretation of Dreams_ is the author’s greatest and most

important work; it is here that he develops his psychoanalytic

technique, a thorough knowledge of which is absolutely indispensable for

every worker in this field. The difficult task of making a translation

of this work has, therefore, been undertaken primarily for the purpose

of assisting those who are actively engaged in treating patients by

Freud’s psychoanalytic method. Considered apart from its practical aim,

the book presents much that is of interest to the psychologist and the

general reader. For, notwithstanding the fact that dreams have of late

years been the subject of investigation at the hands of many competent

observers, only few have contributed anything tangible towards their

solution; it was Freud who divested the dream of its mystery, and solved

its riddles. He not only showed us that the dream is full of meaning,

but amply demonstrated that it is intimately connected with normal and

abnormal mental life. It is in the treatment of the abnormal mental

states that we must recognise the most important value of dream

interpretation. The dream does not only reveal to us the cryptic

mechanisms of hallucinations, delusions, phobias, obsessions, and other

psychopathological conditions, but it is also the most potent instrument

in the removal of these.[C]

I take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to Professor F. C.

Prescott for reading the manuscript and for helping me overcome the

almost insurmountable difficulties in the translation.

A. A. BRILL.

NEW YORK CITY.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF THE DREAM 1

II. METHOD OF DREAM INTERPRETATION: THE ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE

DREAM 80

III. THE DREAM IS THE FULFILMENT OF A WISH 103

IV. DISTORTION IN DREAMS 113

V. THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS 138

VI. THE DREAM-WORK 260

VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE DREAM ACTIVITIES 403

VIII. LITERARY INDEX 494

INDEX 501

THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS

I

THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON THE PROBLEMS OF THE DREAM[D]

In the following pages I shall prove that there exists a psychological

technique by which dreams may be interpreted, and that upon the

application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful

psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place

in the psychic activity of the waking state. I shall furthermore

endeavour to explain the processes which give rise to the strangeness

and obscurity of the dream, and to discover through them the nature of

the psychic forces which operate, whether in combination or in

opposition, to produce the dream. This accomplished, my investigation

will terminate, as it will have reached the point where the problem of

the dream meets with broader problems, the solution of which must be

attempted through other material.

I must presuppose that the reader is acquainted with the work done by

earlier authors as well as with the present status of the dream problem

in science, since in the course of this treatise I shall not often have

occasion to return to them. For, notwithstanding the effort of several

thousand years, little progress has been made in the scientific

understanding of dreams. This has been so universally acknowledged by

the authors that it seems unnecessary to quote individual opinions. One

will find in the writings indexed at the end of this book many

stimulating observations and plenty of interesting material for our

subject, but little or nothing that concerns the true nature of the

dream or that solves definitively any of its enigmas. Still less of

course has been transmitted to the knowledge of the educated laity.

The first book in which the dream is treated as an object of psychology

seems to be that of Aristotle[1] (_Concerning Dreams and their

Interpretation_). Aristotle asserts that the dream is of demoniacal,

though not of divine nature, which indeed contains deep meaning, if it

be correctly interpreted. He was also acquainted with some of the

characteristics of dream life, _e.g._, he knew that the dream turns

slight sensations perceived during sleep into great ones (“one imagines

that one walks through fire and feels hot, if this or that part of the

body becomes slightly warmed”), which led him to conclude that dreams

might easily betray to the physician the first indications of an

incipient change in the body passing unnoticed during the day. I have

been unable to go more deeply into the Aristotelian treatise, because of

insufficient preparation and lack of skilled assistance.

As every one knows, the ancients before Aristotle did not consider the

dream a product of the dreaming mind, but a divine inspiration, and in

ancient times the two antagonistic streams, which one finds throughout

in the estimates of dream life, were already noticeable. They

distinguished between true and valuable dreams, sent to the dreamer to

warn him or to foretell the future, and vain, fraudulent, and empty

dreams, the object of which was to misguide or lead him to

destruction.[E] This pre-scientific conception of the dream among the

ancients was certainly in perfect keeping with their general view of

life, which was wont to project as reality in the outer world that which

possessed reality only within the mind. It, moreover, accounted for the

main impression made upon the waking life by the memory left from the

dream in the morning, for in this memory the dream, as compared with the

rest of the psychic content, seems something strange, coming, as it

were, from another world. It would likewise be wrong to suppose that the

theory of the supernatural origin of dreams lacks followers in our own

day; for leaving out of consideration all bigoted and mystical

authors—who are perfectly justified in adhering to the remnants of the

once extensive realm of the supernatural until they have been swept away

by scientific explanation—one meets even sagacious men averse to

anything adventurous, who go so far as to base their religious belief in

the existence and co-operation of superhuman forces on the

inexplicableness of the dream manifestations (Haffner[32]). The validity

ascribed to the dream life by some schools of philosophy, _e.g._ the

school of Schelling, is a distinct echo of the undisputed divinity of

dreams in antiquity, nor is discussion closed on the subject of the

mantic or prophetic power of dreams. This is due to the fact that the

attempted psychological explanations are too inadequate to overcome the

accumulated material, however strongly all those who devote themselves

to a scientific mode of thought may feel that such assertions should be

repudiated.

To write a history of our scientific knowledge of dream problems is so

difficult because, however valuable some parts of this knowledge may

have been, no progress in definite directions has been discernible.

There has been no construction of a foundation of assured results upon

which future investigators could continue to build, but every new author

takes up the same problems afresh and from the very beginning. Were I to

follow the authors in chronological order, and give a review of the

opinions each has held concerning the problems of the dream, I should be

prevented from drawing a clear and complete picture of the present state

of knowledge on the subject. I have therefore preferred to base the

treatment upon themes rather than upon the authors, and I shall cite for

each problem of the dream the material found in the literature for its

solution.

But as I have not succeeded in mastering the entire literature, which is

widely disseminated and interwoven with that on other subjects, I must

ask my readers to rest content provided no fundamental fact or important

viewpoint be lost in my description.

Until recently most authors have been led to treat the subjects of sleep

and dream in the same connection, and with them they have also regularly

treated analogous states of psychopathology, and other dreamlike states

like hallucinations, visions, &c. In the more recent works, on the other

hand, there has been a tendency to keep more closely to the theme, and

to take as the subject one single question of the dream life. This

change, I believe, is an expression of the conviction that enlightenment

and agreement in such obscure matters can only be brought about by a

series of detailed investigations. It is such a detailed investigation

and one of a special psychological nature, that I would offer here. I

have little occasion to study the problem of sleep, as it is essentially

a psychological problem, although the change of functional

determinations for the mental apparatus must be included in the

character of sleep. The literature of sleep will therefore not be

considered here.

A scientific interest in the phenomena of dreams as such leads to the

following in part interdependent inquiries:

(_a_) _The Relation of the Dream to the Waking State._—The naïve

judgment of a person on awakening assumes that the dream—if indeed it

does not originate in another world—at any rate has taken the dreamer

into another world. The old physiologist, Burdach,[8] to whom we are

indebted for a careful and discriminating description of the phenomena

of dreams, expressed this conviction in an often-quoted passage, p. 474:

“The waking life never repeats itself with its trials and joys, its

pleasures and pains, but, on the contrary, the dream aims to relieve us

of these. Even when our whole mind is filled with one subject, when

profound sorrow has torn our hearts or when a task has claimed the whole

power of our mentality, the dream either gives us something entirely

strange, or it takes for its combinations only a few elements from

reality, or it only enters into the strain of our mood and symbolises

reality.”

L. Strümpell[66] expresses himself to the same effect in his _Nature and

Origin of Dreams_ (p. 16), a study which is everywhere justly held in

high respect: “He who dreams turns his back upon the world of waking

consciousness” (p. 17). “In the dream the memory of the orderly content

of the waking consciousness and its normal behaviour is as good as

entirely lost” (p. 19). “The almost complete isolation of the mind in

the dream from the regular normal content and course of the waking

state....”

But the overwhelming majority of the authors have assumed a contrary

view of the relation of the dream to waking life. Thus Haffner[32] (p.

19): “First of all the dream is the continuation of the waking state.

Our dreams always unite themselves with those ideas which have shortly

before been in our consciousness. Careful examination will nearly always

find a thread by which the dream has connected itself with the

experience of the previous day.” Weygandt[75] (p. 6), flatly contradicts

the above cited statement of Burdach: “For it may often be observed,

apparently in the great majority of dreams, that they lead us directly

back into everyday life, instead of releasing us from it.” Maury[48] (p.

56), says in a concise formula: “Nous rêvons de ce que nous avons vu,

dit, désiré ou fait.” Jessen,[36] in his _Psychology_, published in 1855

(p. 530), is somewhat more explicit: “The content of dreams is more or

less determined by the individual personality, by age, sex, station in

life, education, habits, and by events and experiences of the whole past

life.”

The ancients had the same idea about the dependence of the dream content

upon life. I cite Radestock[54] (p. 139): “When Xerxes, before his march

against Greece, was dissuaded from this resolution by good counsel, but

was again and again incited by dreams to undertake it, one of the old

rational dream-interpreters of the Persians, Artabanus, told him very

appropriately that dream pictures mostly contain that of which one has

been thinking while awake.”

In the didactic poem of Lucretius, _De Rerum Natura_ (IV, v. 959),

occurs this passage:—

“Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhaeret,

aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati

atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens,

in somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire;

causidici causas agere et componere leges,

induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire,” &c., &c.

Cicero (_De Divinatione_, II) says quite similarly, as does also Maury

much later:—

“Maximeque reliquiae earum rerum moventur in animis et agitantur, de

quibus vigilantes aut cogitavimus aut egimus.”

The contradiction expressed in these two views as to the relation

between dream life and waking life seems indeed insoluble. It will

therefore not be out of place to mention the description of F. W.

Hildebrandt[35] (1875), who believes that the peculiarities of the dream

can generally be described only by calling them a “series of contrasts

which apparently shade off into contradictions” (p. 8). “The first of

these contrasts is formed on the one hand by the strict isolation or

seclusion of the dream from true and actual life, and on the other hand

by the continuous encroachment of the one upon the other, and the

constant dependency of one upon the other. The dream is something

absolutely separated from the reality experienced during the waking

state; one may call it an existence hermetically sealed up and separated

from real life by an unsurmountable chasm. It frees us from reality,

extinguishes normal recollection of reality, and places us in another

world and in a totally different life, which at bottom has nothing in

common with reality....” Hildebrandt then asserts that in falling asleep

our whole being, with all its forms of existence, disappears “as through

an invisible trap door.” In the dream one is perhaps making a voyage to

St. Helena in order to offer the imprisoned Napoleon something exquisite

in the way of Moselle wine. One is most amicably received by the

ex-emperor, and feels almost sorry when the interesting illusion is

destroyed on awakening. But let us now compare the situation of the

dream with reality. The dreamer has never been a wine merchant, and has

no desire to become one. He has never made a sea voyage, and St. Helena

is the last place he would take as destination for such a voyage. The

dreamer entertains no sympathetic feeling for Napoleon, but on the

contrary a strong patriotic hatred. And finally the dreamer was not yet

among the living when Napoleon died on the island; so that it was beyond

the reach of possibility for him to have had any personal relations with

Napoleon. The dream experience thus appears as something strange,

inserted between two perfectly harmonising and succeeding periods.

“Nevertheless,” continues Hildebrandt, “the opposite is seemingly just

as true and correct. I believe that hand in hand with this seclusion and

isolation there can still exist the most intimate relation and

connection. We may justly say that no matter what the dream offers, it

finds its material in reality and in the psychic life arrayed around

this reality. However strange the dream may seem, it can never detach

itself from reality, and its most sublime as well as its most farcical

structures must always borrow their elementary material either from what

we have seen with our eyes in the outer world, or from what has

previously found a place somewhere in our waking thoughts; in other

words, it must be taken from what we had already experienced either

objectively or subjectively.”

(_b_) _The Material of the Dream.—Memory in the Dream._—That all the

material composing the content of the dream in some way originates in

experience, that it is reproduced in the dream, or recalled,—this at

least may be taken as an indisputable truth. Yet it would be wrong to

assume that such connection between dream content and reality will be

readily disclosed as an obvious product of the instituted comparison. On

the contrary, the connection must be carefully sought, and in many cases

it succeeds in eluding discovery for a long time. The reason for this is

to be found in a number of peculiarities evinced by the memory in

dreams, which, though universally known, have hitherto entirely eluded

explanation. It will be worth while to investigate exhaustively these

characteristics.

It often happens that matter appears in the dream content which one

cannot recognise later in the waking state as belonging to one’s

knowledge and experience. One remembers well enough having dreamed about

the subject in question, but cannot recall the fact or time of the

experience. The dreamer is therefore in the dark as to the source from

which the dream has been drawing, and is even tempted to believe an

independently productive activity on the part of the dream, until, often

long afterwards, a new episode brings back to recollection a former

experience given up as lost, and thus reveals the source of the dream.

One is thus forced to admit that something has been known and remembered

in the dream that has been withdrawn from memory during the waking

state.

Delbœuf[16] narrates from his own experience an especially impressive

example of this kind. He saw in his dream the courtyard of his house

covered with snow, and found two little lizards half-frozen and buried

in the snow. Being a lover of animals, he picked them up, warmed them,

and put them back into a crevice in the wall which was reserved for

them. He also gave them some small fern leaves that had been growing on

the wall, which he knew they were fond of. In the dream he knew the name

of the plant: _Asplenium ruta muralis_. The dream then continued,

returning after a digression to the lizards, and to his astonishment

Delbœuf saw two other little animals falling upon what was left of the

ferns. On turning his eyes to the open field he saw a fifth and a sixth

lizard running into the hole in the wall, and finally the street was

covered with a procession of lizards, all wandering in the same

direction, &c.

In his waking state Delbœuf knew only a few Latin names of plants, and

nothing of the Asplenium. To his great surprise he became convinced that

a fern of this name really existed and that the correct name was

_Asplenium ruta muraria_, which the dream had slightly disfigured. An

accidental coincidence could hardly be considered, but it remained a

mystery for Delbœuf whence he got his knowledge of the name Asplenium in

the dream.

The dream occurred in 1862. Sixteen years later, while at the house of

one of his friends, the philosopher noticed a small album containing

dried plants resembling the albums that are sold as souvenirs to

visitors in many parts of Switzerland. A sudden recollection occurred to

him; he opened the herbarium, and discovered therein the Asplenium of

his dream, and recognised his own handwriting in the accompanying Latin

name. The connection could now be traced. While on her wedding trip, a

sister of this friend visited Delbœuf in 1860—two years prior to the

lizard dream. She had with her at the time this album, which was

intended for her brother, and Delbœuf took the trouble to write, at the

dictation of a botanist, under each of the dried plants the Latin name.

The favourable accident which made possible the report of this valuable

example also permitted Delbœuf to trace another portion of this dream to

its forgotten source. One day in 1877 he came upon an old volume of an

illustrated journal, in which he found pictured the whole procession of

lizards just as he had dreamed it in 1862. The volume bore the date of

1861, and Delbœuf could recall that he had subscribed to the journal

from its first appearance.

That the dream has at its disposal recollections which are inaccessible

to the waking state is such a remarkable and theoretically important

fact that I should like to urge more attention to it by reporting

several other “Hypermnesic Dreams.” Maury[48] relates that for some time

the word Mussidan used to occur to his mind during the day. He knew it

to be the name of a French city, but nothing else. One night he dreamed

of a conversation with a certain person who told him that she came from

Mussidan, and, in answer to his question where the city was, she

replied: “Mussidan is a principal country town in the Département de La

Dordogne.” On waking, Maury put no faith in the information received in

his dream; the geographical lexicon, however, showed it to be perfectly

correct. In this case the superior knowledge of the dream is confirmed,

but the forgotten source of this knowledge has not been traced.

Jessen[36] tells (p. 55) of a quite similar dream occurrence, from more

remote times. Among others we may here mention the dream of the elder

Scaliger (Hennings, _l.c._, p. 300), who wrote a poem in praise of

celebrated men of Verona, and to whom a man, named Brugnolus, appeared

in a dream, complaining that he had been neglected. Though Scaliger did

not recall ever having heard of him, he wrote some verses in his honour,

and his son later discovered at Verona that a Brugnolus had formerly

been famous there as a critic.

Myers is said to have published a whole collection of such hypermnesic

dreams in the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, which

are unfortunately inaccessible to me. I believe every one who occupies

himself with dreams will recognise as a very common phenomenon the fact

that the dream gives proof of knowing and recollecting matters unknown

to the waking person. In my psychoanalytic investigations of nervous

patients, of which I shall speak later, I am every week more than once

in position to convince my patients from their dreams that they are well

acquainted with quotations, obscene expressions, &c., and that they make

use of these in their dreams, although they have forgotten them in the

waking state. I shall cite here a simple case of dream hypermnesia

because it was easy to trace the source which made the knowledge

accessible to the dream.

A patient dreamed in a lengthy connection that he ordered a

“Kontuszówka” in a café, and after reporting this inquired what it might

mean, as he never heard the name before. I was able to answer that

Kontuszówka was a Polish liquor which he could not have invented in his

dream, as the name had long been familiar to me in advertisements. The

patient would not at first believe me, but some days later, after he had

realised his dream of the café, he noticed the name on a signboard at

the street corner, which he had been obliged to pass for months at least

twice a day.

I have learned from my own dreams how largely the discovery of the

origin of some of the dream elements depends on accident. Thus, for

years before writing this book, I was haunted by the picture of a very

simply formed church tower which I could not recall having seen. I then

suddenly recognised it with absolute certainty at a small station

between Salzburg and Reichenhall. This was in the later nineties, and I

had travelled over the road for the first time in the year 1886. In

later years, when I was already busily engaged in the study of dreams, I

was quite annoyed at the frequent recurrence of the dream picture of a

certain peculiar locality. I saw it in definite local relation to my

person—to my left, a dark space from which many grotesque sandstone

figures stood out. A glimmer of recollection, which I did not quite

credit, told me it was the entrance to a beer-cellar, but I could

explain neither the meaning nor the origin of this dream picture. In

1907 I came by chance to Padua, which, to my regret, I had been unable

to visit since 1895. My first visit to this beautiful university city

was unsatisfactory; I was unable to see Giotto’s frescoes in the church

of the Madonna dell’ Arena, and on my way there turned back on being

informed that the little church was closed on the day. On my second

visit, twelve years later, I thought of compensating myself for this,

and before everything else I started out for Madonna dell’ Arena. On the

street leading to it, on my left, probably at the place where I had

turned in 1895, I discovered the locality which I had so often seen in

the dream, with its sandstone figures. It was in fact the entrance to a

restaurant garden.

One of the sources from which the dream draws material for

reproduction—material which in part is not recalled or employed in

waking thought—is to be found in childhood. I shall merely cite some of

the authors who have observed and emphasized this.

Hildebrandt[35] (p. 23): “It has already been expressly admitted that

the dream sometimes brings back to the mind with wonderful reproductive

ability remote and even forgotten experiences from the earliest

periods.”

Strümpell[66] (p. 40): “The subject becomes more interesting when we

remember how the dream sometimes brings forth, as it were, from among

the deepest and heaviest strata which later years have piled upon the

earliest childhood experiences, the pictures of certain places, things,

and persons, quite uninjured and with their original freshness. This is

not limited merely to such impressions as have gained vivid

consciousness during their origin or have become impressed with strong

psychic validity, and then later return in the dream as actual

reminiscences, causing pleasure to the awakened consciousness. On the

contrary, the depths of the dream memory comprise also such pictures of

persons, things, places, and early experiences as either possessed but

little consciousness and no psychic value at all, or have long ago lost

both, and therefore appear totally strange and unknown both in the dream

and in the waking state, until their former origin is revealed.”

Volkelt[72] (p. 119): “It is essentially noteworthy how easily infantile

and youthful reminiscences enter into the dream. What we have long

ceased to think about, what has long since lost for us all importance,

is constantly recalled by the dream.”

The sway of the dream over the infantile material, which, as is well

known, mostly occupies the gaps in the conscious memory, causes the

origin of interesting hypermnestic dreams, a few of which I shall here

report.

Maury[48] relates (p. 92) that as a child he often went from his native

city, Meaux, to the neighbouring Trilport, where his father

superintended the construction of a bridge. On a certain night a dream

transported him to Trilport, and he was again playing in the city

streets. A man approached him wearing some sort of uniform. Maury asked

him his name, and he introduced himself, saying that his name was C——,

and that he was a bridge guard. On waking, Maury, who still doubted the

reality of the reminiscence, asked his old servant, who had been with

him in his childhood, whether she remembered a man of this name.

“Certainly,” was the answer, “he used to be watchman on the bridge which

your father was building at that time.”

Maury reports another example demonstrating just as nicely the

reliability of infantile reminiscences appearing in dreams. Mr. F——, who

had lived as a child in Montbrison, decided to visit his home and old

friends of his family after an absence of twenty-five years. The night

before his departure he dreamt that he had reached his destination, and

that he met near Montbrison a man, whom he did not know by sight, who

told him he was Mr. F., a friend of his father. The dreamer remembered

that as a child he had known a gentleman of this name, but on waking he

could no longer recall his features. Several days later, having really

arrived at Montbrison, he found the supposedly unknown locality of his

dream, and there met a man whom he at once recognised as the Mr. F. of

his dream. The real person was only older than the one in the dream

picture.

I may here relate one of my own dreams in which the remembered

impression is replaced by an association. In my dream I saw a person

whom I recognised, while dreaming, as the physician of my native town.

The features were indistinct and confused with the picture of one of my

colleague teachers, whom I still see occasionally. What association

there was between the two persons I could not discover on awakening. But

upon questioning my mother about the physician of my early childhood, I

discovered that he was a one-eyed man. My teacher, whose figure

concealed that of the physician in the dream, was also one-eyed. I have

not seen the physician for thirty-eight years, and I have not to my

knowledge thought of him in my waking state, although a scar on my chin

might have reminded me of his help.

As if to counterbalance the immense rôle ascribed to the infantile

impressions in the dream, many authors assert that the majority of

dreams show elements from the most recent time. Thus Robert[55] (p. 46)

declares that the normal dream generally occupies itself only with the

impressions of the recent days. We learn indeed that the theory of the

dream advanced by Robert imperatively demands that the old impressions

should be pushed back, and the recent ones brought to the front.

Nevertheless the fact claimed by Robert really exists; I can confirm

this from my own investigations. Nelson,[50] an American author, thinks

that the impressions most frequently found in the dream date from two or

three days before, as if the impressions of the day immediately

preceding the dream were not sufficiently weakened and remote.

Many authors who are convinced of the intimate connection between the

dream content and the waking state are impressed by the fact that

impressions which have intensely occupied the waking mind appear in the

dream only after they have been to some extent pushed aside from the

elaboration of the waking thought. Thus, as a rule, we do not dream of a

dead beloved person while we are still overwhelmed with sorrow. Still

Miss Hallam,[33] one of the latest observers, has collected examples

showing the very opposite behaviour, and claims for the point the right

of individual psychology.

The third and the most remarkable and incomprehensible peculiarity of

the memory in dreams, is shown in the selection of the reproduced

material, for stress is laid not only on the most significant, but also

on the most indifferent and superficial reminiscences. On this point I

shall quote those authors who have expressed their surprise in the most

emphatic manner.

Hildebrandt[35] (p. 11): “For it is a remarkable fact that dreams do

not, as a rule, take their elements from great and deep-rooted events or

from the powerful and urgent interests of the preceding day, but from

unimportant matters, from the most worthless fragments of recent

experience or of a more remote past. The most shocking death in our

family, the impressions of which keep us awake long into the night,

becomes obliterated from our memories, until the first moment of

awakening brings it back to us with depressing force. On the other hand,

the wart on the forehead of a passing stranger, of whom we did not think

for a second after he was out of sight, plays its part in our dreams.”

Strümpell[66] (p. 39): “... such cases where the analysis of a dream

brings to light elements which, although derived from events of the

previous day or the day before the last, yet prove to be so unimportant

and worthless for the waking state that they merge into forgetfulness

shortly after coming to light. Such occurrences may be statements of

others heard accidentally or actions superficially observed, or fleeting

perceptions of things or persons, or single phrases from books, &c.”

Havelock Ellis[23] (p. 727): “The profound emotions of waking life, the

questions and problems on which we spread our chief voluntary mental

energy, are not those which usually present themselves at once to

dream-consciousness. It is, so far as the immediate past is concerned,

mostly the trifling, the incidental, the “forgotten” impressions of

daily life which reappear in our dreams. The psychic activities that are

awake most intensely are those that sleep most profoundly.”

Binz[4] (p. 45) takes occasion from the above-mentioned characteristics

of the memory in dreams to express his dissatisfaction with explanations

of dreams which he himself has approved of: “And the normal dream raises

similar questions. Why do we not always dream of memory impressions from

the preceding days, instead of going back to the almost forgotten past

lying far behind us without any perceptible reason? Why in a dream does

consciousness so often revive the impression of indifferent memory

pictures while the cerebral cells bearing the most sensitive records of

experience remain for the most part inert and numb, unless an acute

revival during the waking state has shortly before excited them?”

We can readily understand how the strange preference of the dream memory

for the indifferent and hence the unnoticed details of daily experience

must usually lead us to overlook altogether the dependence of the dream

on the waking state, or at least make it difficult to prove this

dependence in any individual case. It thus happened that in the

statistical treatment of her own and her friend’s dreams, Miss Whiton

Calkins[12] found 11 per cent. of the entire number that showed no

relation to the waking state. Hildebrandt was certainly correct in his

assertion that all our dream pictures could be genetically explained if

we devoted enough time and material to the tracing of their origin. To

be sure, he calls this “a most tedious and thankless job.” For it would

at most lead us to ferret out all kinds of quite worthless psychic

material from the most remote corners of the memory chamber, and to

bring to light some very indifferent moments from the remote past which

were perhaps buried the next hour after their appearance. I must,

however, express my regret that this discerning author refrained from

following the road whose beginning looked so unpromising; it would have

led him directly to the centre of the dream problem.

The behaviour of the memory in dreams is surely most significant for

every theory of memory in general. It teaches us that “nothing which we

have once psychically possessed is ever entirely lost” (Scholz[59]); or

as Delbœuf puts it, “que toute impression même la plus insignifiante,

laisse une trace inaltérable, indéfiniment susceptible de reparaître au

jour,” a conclusion to which we are urged by so many of the other

pathological manifestations of the psychic life. Let us now bear in mind

this extraordinary capability of the memory in the dream, in order to

perceive vividly the contradictions which must be advanced in certain

dream theories to be mentioned later, when they endeavour to explain the

absurdities and incoherence of dreams through a partial forgetting of

what we have known during the day.

One might even think of reducing the phenomenon of dreaming to that of

memory, and of regarding the dream as the manifestation of an activity

of reproduction which does not rest even at night, and which is an end

in itself. Views like those expressed by Pilcz[51] would corroborate

this, according to which intimate relations are demonstrable between the

time of dreaming and the contents of the dream from the fact that the

impressions reproduced by the dream in sound sleep belong to the

remotest past while those reproduced towards morning are of recent

origin. But such a conception is rendered improbable from the outset by

the manner of the dream’s behaviour towards the material to be

remembered. Strümpell[66] justly calls our attention to the fact that

repetitions of experiences do not occur in the dream. To be sure the

dream makes an effort in that direction, but the next link is wanting,

or appears in changed form, or it is replaced by something entirely

novel. The dream shows only fragments of reproduction; this is so often

the rule that it admits of theoretical application. Still there are

exceptions in which the dream repeats an episode as thoroughly as our

memory would in its waking state. Delbœuf tells of one of his university

colleagues who in his dream repeated, with all its details, a dangerous

wagon ride in which he escaped accident as if by miracle. Miss

Calkins[12] mentions two dreams, the contents of which exactly

reproduced incidents from the day before, and I shall later take

occasion to report an example which came to my notice, showing a

childish experience which returned unchanged in a dream.[F]

(_c_) _Dream Stimuli and Dream Sources._—What is meant by dream stimuli

and dream sources may be explained by referring to the popular saying,

“Dreams come from the stomach.” This notion conceals a theory which

conceives the dream as a result of a disturbance of sleep. We should not

have dreamed if some disturbing element had not arisen in sleep, and the

dream is the reaction from this disturbance.

The discussion of the exciting causes of dreams takes up the most space

in the descriptions of the authors. That this problem could appear only

after the dream had become an object of biological investigation is

self-evident. The ancients who conceived the dream as a divine

inspiration had no need of looking for its exciting source; to them the

dream resulted from the will of the divine or demoniacal powers, and its

content was the product of their knowledge or intention. Science,

however, soon raised the question whether the stimulus to the dream is

always the same, or whether it might be manifold, and thus led to the

question whether the causal explanation of the dream belongs to

psychology or rather to physiology. Most authors seem to assume that the

causes of the disturbance of sleep, and hence the sources of the dream,

might be of various natures, and that physical as well as mental

irritations might assume the rôle of dream inciters. Opinions differ

greatly in preferring this or that one of the dream sources, in ranking

them, and indeed as to their importance for the origin of dreams.