content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of which under dreams of
wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can
settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they
may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in
their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which
we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained by the dream
content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis, we become
aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than
the fear in a phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia
depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a
window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window,
but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so
great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater than
is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to
the phobia applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the
anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it
and comes from another source.
On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear,
discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a little
essay on “The Anxiety Neurosis,”[AO] I maintained that neurotic fear has
its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has
been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied.
From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more
clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams
is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content has been
transformed into fear. Later on I shall have opportunity to support this
assertion by the analysis of several dreams of neurotics. I shall have
occasion to revert to the determinations in anxiety dreams and their
compatibility with the theory of wish-fulfilment when I again attempt to
approach the theory of dreams.
V
THE MATERIAL AND SOURCES OF DREAMS
After coming to realise from the analysis of the dream of Irma’s
injection that the dream is the fulfilment of a wish, our interest was
next directed to ascertaining whether we had thus discovered a universal
characteristic of the dream, and for the time being we put aside every
other question which may have been aroused in the course of that
interpretation. Now that we have reached the goal upon one of these
paths, we may turn back and select a new starting-point for our
excursions among the problems of the dream, even though we may lose
sight for a time of the theme of wish-fulfilment, which has been as yet
by no means exhaustively treated.
Now that we are able, by applying our process of interpretation, to
discover a _latent_ dream content which far surpasses the _manifest_
dream content in point of significance, we are impelled to take up the
individual dream problems afresh, in order to see whether the riddles
and contradictions which seemed, when we had only the manifest content,
beyond our reach may not be solved for us satisfactorily.
The statements of the authors concerning the relation of the dream to
waking life, as well as concerning the source of the dream material,
have been given at length in the introductory chapter. We may recall
that there are three peculiarities of recollection in the dreams, which
have been often remarked but never explained:
1. That the dream distinctly prefers impressions of the few days
preceding; (Robert,[55] Strümpell,[66] Hildebrandt,[35] also Weed-Hallam
[33]).
2. That it makes its selection according to principles other than those
of our waking memory, in that it recalls not what is essential and
important, but what is subordinate and disregarded (_cf._ p. 13).
3. That it has at its disposal the earliest impressions of our
childhood, and brings to light details from this period of life which
again seem trivial to us, and which in waking life were considered long
ago forgotten.[AP]
These peculiarities in the selection of the dream material have of
course been observed by the authors in connection with the manifest
dream content.
(_a_) _Recent and Indifferent Impressions in the Dream_
If I now consult my own experience concerning the source of the elements
which appear in the dream, I must at once express the opinion that some
reference to the experiences of _the day which has most recently passed_
is to be found in every dream. Whatever dream I take up, whether my own
or another’s, this experience is always reaffirmed. Knowing this fact, I
can usually begin the work of interpretation by trying to learn the
experience of the previous day which has stimulated the dream; for many
cases, indeed, this is the quickest way. In the case of the two dreams
which I have subjected to close analysis in the preceding chapter (of
Irma’s injection, and of my uncle with the yellow beard) the reference
to the previous day is so obvious that it needs no further elucidation.
But in order to show that this reference may be regularly demonstrated,
I shall examine a portion of my own dream chronicle. I shall report the
dreams only so far as is necessary for the discovery of the dream
stimulus in question.
1. I make a visit at a house where I am admitted only with difficulty,
&c., and meanwhile I keep a woman _waiting_ for me.
_Source._—A conversation in the evening with a female relative to the
effect that she would have to _wait_ for some aid which she demanded
until, &c.
2. I have written a _monograph_ about a certain (obscure) species of
plant.
_Source._—I have seen in the show-window of a book store a _monograph_
upon the genus cyclamen.
3. I see two women on the street, _mother and daughter_, the latter of
whom is my patient.
_Source._—A female patient who is under treatment has told me what
difficulties her _mother_ puts in the way of her continuing the
treatment.
4. At the book store of S. and R. I subscribe to a periodical which
costs _20 florins_ annually.
_Source._—During the day my wife has reminded me that I still owe her
_20 florins_ of her weekly allowance.
5. I receive a _communication_, in which I am treated as a member, from
the Social Democratic Committee.
_Source._—I have received _communications_ simultaneously from the
Liberal Committee on Elections and from the president of the
Humanitarian Society, of which I am really a member.
6. A man on _a steep rock in the middle of the ocean_, after the manner
of Boecklin.
_Source._—_Dreyfus on Devil’s Island_; at the same time news from my
relatives in _England_, &c.
The question might be raised, whether the dream is invariably connected
with the events of the previous day, or whether the reference may be
extended to impressions from a longer space of time in the immediate
past. Probably this matter cannot claim primary importance, but I should
like to decide in favour of the exclusive priority of the day before the
dream (the dream-day). As often as I thought I had found a case where an
impression of two or three days before had been the source of the dream,
I could convince myself, after careful investigation, that this
impression had been remembered the day before, that a demonstrable
reproduction had been interpolated between the day of the event and the
time of the dream, and, furthermore, I was able to point out the recent
occasion upon which the recollection of the old impression might have
occurred. On the other hand, I was unable to convince myself that a
regular interval (H. Swoboda calls the first one of this kind eighteen
hours) of biological significance occurs between the stimulating
impression of the day and its repetition in the dream.[AQ]
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the stimulus for every dream is to
be found among those experiences “upon which one has not yet slept” for
a night.
Thus the impressions of the immediate past (with the exception of the
day before the night of the dream) stand in no different relation to the
dream content from those of times which are as far removed in the past
as you please. The dream may select its material from all times of life,
provided only, that a chain of thought starting from one of the
experiences of the day of the dream (one of the “recent” impressions)
reaches back to these earlier ones.
But why this preference for recent impressions? We shall reach some
conjectures on this point if we subject one of the dreams already
mentioned to a more exact analysis. I select the dream about the
monograph.
_Content of the dream.—I have written a monograph upon a certain plant.
The book lies before me, I am just turning over a folded coloured plate.
A dried specimen of the plant is bound with every copy, as though from a
herbarium._
_Analysis._—In the forenoon I saw in the show-window of a book store a
book entitled, _The Genus Cyclamen_, apparently a monograph on this
plant.
The cyclamen is the favourite flower of my wife. I reproach myself for
so seldom thinking to bring her flowers, as she wishes. In connection
with the theme “bringing flowers,” I am reminded of a story which I
recently told in a circle of friends to prove my assertion that
forgetting is very often the purpose of the unconscious, and that in any
case it warrants a conclusion as to the secret disposition of the person
who forgets. A young woman who is accustomed to receive a bunch of
flowers from her husband on her birthday, misses this token of affection
on a festive occasion of this sort, and thereupon bursts into tears. The
husband comes up, and is unable to account for her tears until she tells
him, “To-day is my birthday.” He strikes his forehead and cries, “Why, I
had completely forgotten it,” and wants to go out to get her some
flowers. But she is not to be consoled, for she sees in the
forgetfulness of her husband a proof that she does not play the same
part in his thoughts as formerly. This Mrs. L. met my wife two days
before, and told her that she was feeling well, and asked about me. She
was under my treatment years ago.
Supplementary facts: I once actually wrote something like a monograph on
a plant, namely, an essay on the coca plant, which drew the attention of
K. Koller to the anæsthetic properties of cocaine. I had hinted at this
use of the alkaloid in my publication, but I was not sufficiently
thorough to pursue the matter further. This suggests that on the
forenoon of the day after the dream (for the interpretation of which I
did not find time until the evening) I had thought of cocaine in a kind
of day phantasy. In case I should ever be afflicted with glaucoma, I was
going to go to Berlin, and there have myself operated upon, incognito,
at the house of my Berlin friend, by a physician whom he would recommend
to me. The surgeon, who would not know upon whom he was operating, would
boast as usual how easy these operations had become since the
introduction of cocaine; I would not betray by a single sign that I had
had a share in making this discovery. With this phantasy were connected
thoughts of how difficult it really is for a doctor to claim the medical
services of a colleague for his own person. I should be able to pay the
Berlin eye specialist, who did not know me, like anyone else. Only after
recalling this day-dream do I realise that the recollection of a
definite experience is concealed behind it. Shortly after Koller’s
discovery my father had, in fact, become ill with glaucoma; he was
operated upon by my friend, the eye specialist, Dr. Koenigstein. Dr.
Koller attended to the cocaine anæsthetisation, and thereupon made the
remark that all three of the persons who had shared in the introduction
of cocaine had been brought together on one case.
I now proceed to think of the time when I was last reminded of this
affair about the cocaine. This was a few days before, when I received a
_Festschrift_, with whose publication grateful scholars had commemorated
the anniversary of their teacher and laboratory director. Among the
honours ascribed to persons connected with the laboratory, I found a
notice to the effect that the discovery of the anæsthetic properties of
cocaine had been made there by K. Koller. Now I suddenly become aware
that the dream is connected with an experience of the previous evening.
I had just accompanied Dr. Koenigstein to his home, and had spoken to
him about a matter which strongly arouses my interest whenever it is
mentioned. While I was talking with him in the vestibule, Professor
Gärtner and his young wife came up. I could not refrain from
congratulating them both upon their healthy appearance. Now Professor
Gärtner is one of the authors of the _Festschrift_ of which I have just
spoken, and may well have recalled it to me. Likewise Mrs. L., whose
birthday disappointment I have referred to, had been mentioned, in
another connection, to be sure, in the conversation with Dr.
Koenigstein.
I shall now try to explain the other determinations of the dream
content. _A dried specimen_ of the plant accompanies the monograph as
though it were a _herbarium_. A recollection of the _gymnasium_ (school)
is connected with the herbarium. The director of our _gymnasium_ once
called the scholars of the higher classes together in order to have them
inspect and clean the herbarium. Small worms had been found—bookworms.
The director did not seem to have much confidence in my help, for he
left only a few leaves for me. I know to this day that there were
crucifers on them. My interest in botany was never very great. At my
preliminary examination in botany, I was required to identify a
crucifer, and did not recognise it. I would have fared badly if my
theoretical knowledge had not helped me out. Crucifers suggest
composites. The artichoke is really a composite, and the one which I
might call my favourite flower. My wife, who is more thoughtful than I,
often brings this favourite flower of mine home from the market.
I see the monograph which I have written lying before me. This, too, is
not without its reference. The friend whom I pictured wrote to me
yesterday from Berlin: “I think a great deal about your dream book. _I
see it lying before me finished, and am turning over its leaves._” How I
envied him this prophetic power! If I could only see it lying already
finished before me!
_The folded Coloured Plate._—While I was a student of medicine, I
suffered much from a fondness for studying in _monographs_ exclusively.
In spite of my limited means, I subscribed to a number of the medical
archives, in which the coloured plates gave me much delight. I was proud
of this inclination for thoroughness. So, when I began to publish on my
own account, I had to draw the plates for my own treatises, and I
remember one of them turned out so badly that a kindly-disposed
colleague ridiculed me for it. This suggests, I don’t know exactly how,
a very early memory from my youth. My father once thought it would be a
joke to hand over a book with _coloured plates_ (_Description of a
Journey in Persia_) to me and my eldest sister for destruction. This was
hardly to be justified from an educational point of view. I was at the
time five years old, and my sister three, and the picture of our
blissfully tearing this book to pieces (like an artichoke, I must add,
leaf by leaf) is almost the only one from this time of life which has
remained fresh in my memory. When I afterwards became a student, I
developed a distinct fondness for collecting and possessing books (an
analogy to the inclination for studying from monographs, a hobby which
occurs in the dream thoughts with reference to cyclamen and artichoke).
I became a book-worm (_cf._ herbarium). I have always referred this
first passion of my life—since I am engaging in retrospect—to this
childhood impression, or rather I have recognised in this childish scene
a “concealing recollection” for my subsequent love of books.[AR] Of
course I also learned at an early age that our passions are often our
sorrows. When I was seventeen years old I had a very respectable bill at
the book store, and no means with which to pay it, and my father would
hardly accept the excuse that my inclination had not been fixed on
something worse. But the mention of this later youthful experience
immediately brings me back to my conversation that evening with my
friend Dr. Koenigstein. For the talk on the evening of the dream-day
brought up the same old reproach that I am too fond of my hobbies.
For reasons which do not belong here, I shall not continue the
interpretation of this dream, but shall simply indicate the path which
leads to it. In the course of the interpretation, I was reminded of my
conversation with Dr. Koenigstein, and indeed of more than one portion
of it. If I consider the subjects touched upon in this conversation, the
meaning of the dream becomes clear to me. All the thought associations
which have been started, about the hobbies of my wife and of myself,
about the cocaine, about the difficulty of securing medical treatment
from one’s colleagues, my preference for monographic studies, and my
neglect of certain subjects such as botany—all this continues and
connects with some branch of this widely ramified conversation. The
dream again takes on the character of a justification, of a pleading for
my rights, like the first analysed dream of Irma’s injection; it even
continues the theme which that dream started, and discusses it with the
new subject matter which has accrued in the interval between the two
dreams. Even the apparently indifferent manner of expression of the
dream receives new importance. The meaning is now: “I am indeed the man
who has written that valuable and successful treatise (on cocaine),”
just as at that time I asserted for my justification: “I am a thorough
and industrious student;” in both cases, then: “I can afford to do
that.” But I may dispense with the further interpretation of the dream,
because my only purpose in reporting it was to examine the relation of
the dream content to the experience of the previous day which arouses
it. As long as I know only the manifest content of this dream, but one
relation to a day impression becomes obvious; after I have made the
interpretation, a second source of the dream becomes evident in another
experience of the same day. The first of these impressions to which the
dream refers is an indifferent one, a subordinate circumstance. I see a
book in a shop window whose title holds me for a moment, and whose
contents could hardly interest me. The second experience has great
psychic value; I have talked earnestly with my friend, the eye
specialist, for about an hour, I have made allusions in this
conversation which must have touched both of us closely, and which
awakened memories revealing the most diverse feelings of my inner self.
Furthermore, this conversation was broken off unfinished because some
friends joined us. What, now, is the relation of these two impressions
of the day to each other and to the dream which followed during the next
night?
I find in the manifest content merely an allusion to the indifferent
impression, and may thus reaffirm that the dream preferably takes up
into its content non-essential experiences. In the dream interpretation,
on the contrary, everything converges upon an important event which is
justified in demanding attention. If I judge the dream in the only
correct way, according to the latent content which is brought to light
in the analysis, I have unawares come upon a new and important fact. I
see the notion that the dream deals only with the worthless fragments of
daily experience shattered; I am compelled also to contradict the
assertion that our waking psychic life is not continued in the dream,
and that the dream instead wastes psychic activity upon a trifling
subject matter. The opposite is true; what has occupied our minds during
the day also dominates our dream thoughts, and we take pains to dream
only of such matters as have given us food for thought during the day.
Perhaps the most obvious explanation for the fact that I dream about
some indifferent impression of the day, while the impression which is
justifiably stirring furnishes the occasion for dreaming, is that this
again is a phenomenon of the dream-disfigurement, which we have above
traced to a psychic power acting as a censor. The recollection of the
monograph on the genus cyclamen is employed as though it were an
allusion to the conversation with my friend, very much as mention of the
friend in the dream of the deferred supper is represented by the
allusion “smoked salmon.” The only question is, by what intermediate
steps does the impression of the monograph come to assume the relation
of an allusion to the conversation with the eye specialist, since such a
relation is not immediately evident. In the example of the deferred
supper, the relation is set forth at the outset; “smoked salmon,” as the
favourite dish of the friend, belongs at once to the series of
associations which the person of the friend would call up in the lady
who is dreaming. In our new example we have two separated impressions,
which seem at first glance to have nothing in common except that they
occur on the same day. The monograph catches my attention in the
forenoon; I take part in the conversation in the evening. The answer
supplied by the analysis is as follows: Such relations between the two
impressions do not at first exist, but are established subsequently
between the presentation content of the one impression and the
presentation content of the other. I have recently emphasised the
components in this relation in the course of recording the analysis.
With the notion of the monograph on cyclamen I should probably associate
the idea that cyclamen is my wife’s favourite flower only under some
outside influence, and this is perhaps the further recollection of the
bunch of flowers missed by Mrs. L. I do not believe that these
underlying thoughts would have been sufficient to call forth a dream.
“There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this,”
as we read in _Hamlet_. But behold! I am reminded in the analysis that
the name of the man who interrupted our conversation was Gärtner
(Gardener), and that I found his wife in blooming health;[AS] I even
remember now that one of my female patients, who bears the pretty name
of Flora, was for a time the main subject of our conversation. It must
have happened that I completed the connection between the two events of
the day, the indifferent and the exciting one, by means of these links
from the series of associations belonging to the idea of botany. Other
relations are then established, that of cocaine, which can with perfect
correctness form a go-between connecting the person of Dr. Koenigstein
with the botanical monograph which I have written, and strengthen the
fusion of the two series of associations into one, so that now a portion
of the first experience may be used as an allusion to the second.
I am prepared to find this explanation attacked as arbitrary or
artificial. What would have happened if Professor Gärtner and his
blooming wife had not come up, and if the patient who was talked about
had been called, not Flora, but Anna? The answer is easy, however. If
these thought-relations had not been present, others would probably have
been selected. It is so easy to establish relations of this sort, as the
joking questions and conundrums with which we amuse ourselves daily
suffice to show. The range of wit is unlimited. To go a step further: if
it had been impossible to establish interrelations of sufficient
abundance between the two impressions of the day, the dream would simply
have resulted differently; another of the indifferent impressions of the
day, such as come to us in multitudes and are forgotten, would have
taken the place of the monograph in the dream, would have secured a
connection with the content of the talk, and would have represented it
in the dream. Since it was the impression of the monograph and no other
that had this fate, this impression was probably the most suitable for
the establishment of the connection. One need not be astonished, like
Lessing’s Hänschen Schlau, because “it is the rich people of the world
who possess the most money.”