without somewhat further elucidating the subject of their significance
for the theory of the dream in general. These dreams show us a
realisation of the very unusual case where the dream thought, which has
been created by the repressed wish, completely escapes the censor, and
is transferred to the dream without alteration. There must be present
peculiar conditions making possible such an outcome. I find
circumstances favourable to these dreams in the two following factors:
First, there is no wish which we believe further from us; we believe
such a wish “would never occur to us in a dream”; the dream censor is
therefore not prepared for this monstrosity, just as the legislation of
Solon was incapable of establishing a punishment for patricide.
Secondly, the repressed and unsuspected wish is in just this case
particularly often met by a fragment of the day’s experience in the
shape of a concern about the life of the beloved person. This concern
cannot be registered in the dream by any other means than by taking
advantage of the wish that has the same content; but it is possible for
the wish to mask itself behind the concern which has been awakened
during the day. If one is inclined to think all this a more simple
process, and that one merely continues during the night and in dreams
what one has been concerned with during the day, the dream of the death
of beloved persons is removed from all connection with dream
explanation, and an easily reducible problem is uselessly retained.
It is also instructive to trace the relation of these dreams to anxiety
dreams. In the dream of the death of dear persons the repressed wish has
found a way of avoiding the censor, and the distortion which it causes.
In this case the inevitable concomitant manifestation is that
disagreeable sensations are felt in the dream. Thus the dream of fear is
brought about only when the censor is entirely or partially overpowered,
and, on the other hand, the overpowering of the censor is made easier
when fear has already been furnished by somatic sources. Thus it becomes
obvious for what purpose the censor performs its office and practises
dream distortion; it does this _in order to prevent the development of
fear or other forms of disagreeable emotion_.
I have spoken above of the egotism of the infantile mind, and I may now
resume this subject in order to suggest that dreams preserve this
characteristic—thus showing their connection with infantile life. Every
dream is absolutely egotistical; in every dream the beloved ego appears,
even though it may be in a disguised form. The wishes that are realised
in dreams are regularly the wishes of this ego; it is only a deceptive
appearance if interest in another person is thought to have caused the
dream. I shall subject to analysis several examples which appear to
contradict this assertion.
I. A boy not yet four years old relates the following: _He saw a large
dish garnished, and upon it a large piece of roast meat, and the meat
was all of a sudden—not cut to pieces—but eaten up. He did not see the
person who ate it._[CE]
Who may this strange person be of whose luxurious repast this little
fellow dreams? The experiences of the day must give us the explanation
of this. For a few days the boy had been living on a diet of milk
according to the doctor’s prescription; but on the evening of the day
before the dream he had been naughty, and as a punishment he had been
deprived of his evening meal. He had already undergone one such
hunger-cure, and had acted very bravely. He knew that he would get
nothing to eat, but he did not dare to indicate by a word that he was
hungry. Education was beginning to have its influence upon him; this is
expressed even in the dream which shows the beginnings of dream
disfigurement. There is no doubt that he himself is the person whose
wishes are directed toward this abundant meal, and a meal of roast meat
at that. But since he knows that this is forbidden him, he does not
dare, as children do in the dream (_cf._ the dream about strawberries of
my little Anna, p. 110), to sit down to the meal himself. The person
remains anonymous.
II. Once I dream that I see on the show-table of a book store a new
number in the Book-lovers’ Collection—the collection which I am in the
habit of buying (art monographs, monographs on the history of the world,
famous art centres, &c.). _The new collection is called Famous Orators
(or Orations), and the first number bears the name of Doctor Lecher._
In the course of analysis it appears improbable that the fame of Dr.
Lecher, the long-winded orator of the German Opposition, should occupy
my thoughts while I am dreaming. The fact is that, a few days before, I
undertook the psychic cure of some new patients, and was now forced to
talk for from ten to twelve hours a day. Thus I myself am the
long-winded orator.
III. Upon another occasion I dream that a teacher of my acquaintance at
the university says: _My son, the Myopic_. Then there follows a dialogue
consisting of short speeches and replies. A third portion of the dream
follows in which I and my sons appear, and as far as the latent dream
content is concerned, father, son, and Professor M. are alike only lay
figures to represent me and my eldest son. I shall consider this dream
again further on because of another peculiarity.
IV. The following dream gives an example of really base egotistical
feelings, which are concealed behind affectionate concern:
_My friend Otto looks ill, his face is brown and his eyes bulge._
Otto is my family physician, to whom I owe a debt greater than I can
ever hope to repay, since he has guarded the health of my children for
years. He has treated them successfully when they were taken sick, and
besides that he has given them presents on all occasions which gave him
any excuse for doing so. He came for a visit on the day of the dream,
and my wife noticed that he looked tired and exhausted. Then comes my
dream at night, and attributes to him a few of the symptoms of Basedow’s
disease. Any one disregarding my rules for dream interpretation would
understand this dream to mean that I am concerned about the health of my
friend, and that this concern is realised in the dream. It would thus be
a contradiction not only of the assertion that the dream is a
wish-fulfilment, but also of the assertion that it is accessible only to
egotistic impulses. But let the person who interprets the dream in this
manner explain to me why I fear that Otto has Basedow’s disease, for
which diagnosis his appearance does not give the slightest
justification? As opposed to this, my analysis furnishes the following
material, taken from an occurrence which happened six years ago. A small
party of us, including Professor R., were driving in profound darkness
through the forest of N., which is several hours distant from our
country home. The coachman, who was not quite sober, threw us and the
wagon down a bank, and it was only by a lucky accident that we all
escaped unhurt. But we were forced to spend the night at the nearest
inn, where the news of our accident awakened great sympathy. A
gentleman, who showed unmistakable signs of the morbus Basedowii—nothing
but a brownish colour of the skin of the face and bulging eyes, no
goitre—placed himself entirely at our disposal and asked what he could
do for us. Professor R. answered in his decided way: “Nothing but lend
me a night-shirt.” Whereupon our generous friend replied: “I am sorry
but I cannot do that,” and went away.
In continuing the analysis, it occurs to me that Basedow is the name not
only of a physician, but also of a famous educator. (Now that I am awake
I do not feel quite sure of this fact.) My friend Otto is the person
whom I have asked to take charge of the physical education of my
children—especially during the age of puberty (hence the night-shirt)—in
case anything should happen to me. By seeing Otto in the dream with the
morbid symptoms of our above-mentioned generous benefactor, I apparently
mean to say, “If anything happens to me, just as little is to be
expected for my children from him as was to be expected then from Baron
L., in spite of his well-meaning offers.” The egotistical turn of this
dream ought now to be clear.[CF]
But where is the wish-fulfilment to be found? It is not in the vengeance
secured upon my friend Otto, whose fate it seems to be to receive
ill-treatment in my dreams, but in the following circumstances: In
representing Otto in the dream as Baron L., I have at the same time
identified myself with some one else, that is to say, with Professor R.,
for I have asked something of Otto, just as R. asked something of Baron
L. at the time of the occurrence which has been mentioned. And that is
the point. For Professor R. has pursued his way independently outside
the schools, somewhat as I have done, and has only in later years
received the title which he earned long ago. I am therefore again
wishing to be a professor! The very phrase “in later years” is the
fulfilment of wish, for it signifies that I shall live long enough to
pilot my boy through the age of puberty myself.
I gave only a brief account of the other forms of typical dreams in the
first edition of this book, because an insufficient amount of good
material was at my disposal. My experience, which has since been
increased, now makes it possible for me to divide these dreams into two
broad classes—first, those which really have the same meaning every
time, and secondly, those which must be subjected to the most widely
different interpretations in spite of their identical or similar
content. Among the typical dreams of the first sort I shall closely
consider the examination dream and the so-called dream of dental
irritation.
Every one who has received his degree after having passed the final
college examination, complains of the ruthlessness with which he is
pursued by the anxiety dream that he will fail, that he must repeat his
work, &c. For the holder of the university degree this typical dream is
replaced by another, which represents to him that he has to pass the
examination for the doctor’s degree, and against which he vainly raises
the objection in his sleep that he has already been practising for
years—that he is already a university instructor or the head of a law
firm. These are the ineradicable memories of the punishments which we
suffered when we were children for misdeeds which we had
committed—memories which were revived in us on that _dies irae, dies
illa_ of the severe examination at the two critical junctures in our
studies. The “examination-phobia” of neurotics is also strengthened by
this childish fear. After we have ceased to be schoolboys it is no
longer our parents and guardians as at first, or our teachers as later
on, who see to our punishment; the inexorable chain of causes and
effects in life has taken over our further education. Now we dream of
examinations for graduation or for the doctor’s degree—and who has not
been faint-hearted in these tests, even though he belonged to the
righteous?—whenever we fear that an outcome will punish us because we
have not done something, or because we have not accomplished something
as we should—in short whenever we feel the weight of responsibility.
I owe the actual explanation of examination dreams to a remark made by a
well-informed colleague, who once asserted in a scientific discussion
that in his experience the examination dream occurs only to persons who
have passed the examination, never to those who have gone to pieces on
it. The anxiety dream of the examination, which occurs, as is being more
and more corroborated, when the dreamer is looking forward to a
responsible action on his part the next day and the possibility of
disgrace, has therefore probably selected an occasion in the past where
the great anxiety has shown itself to have been without justification
and has been contradicted by the result. This would be a very striking
example of a misconception of the dream content on the part of the
waking instance. The objection to the dream, which is conceived as the
indignant protest, “But I am already a doctor,” &c., would be in reality
a consolation which the dreams offer, and which would therefore be to
the following effect: “Do not be afraid of the morrow; think of the fear
which you had before the final examination, and yet nothing came of it.
You are a doctor this minute,” &c. The fear, however, which we attribute
to the dream, originates in the remnants of daily experience.
The tests of this explanation which I was able to make in my own case
and in that of others, although they were not sufficiently numerous,
have been altogether successful. I failed, for example, in the
examination for the doctor’s degree in legal medicine; never once have I
been concerned about this matter in my dreams, while I have often enough
been examined in botany, zoology, or chemistry, in which subjects I took
the examinations with well-founded anxiety, but escaped punishment
through the clemency of fortune or of the examiner. In my dreams of
college examination, I am regularly examined in history, a subject which
I passed brilliantly at the time, but only, I must admit, because my
good-natured professor—my one-eyed benefactor in another dream (_cf._ p.
12)—did not overlook the fact that on the list of questions I had
crossed out the second of three questions as an indication that he
should not insist on it. One of my patients, who withdrew before the
final college examinations and made them up later, but who failed in the
officer’s examination and did not become an officer, tells me that he
dreams about the former examination often enough, but never about the
latter.
The above-mentioned colleague (Dr. Stekel of Vienna) calls attention to
the double meaning of the word “Matura” (_Matura_—examination for
college degree: mature, ripe), and claims that he has observed that
examination dreams occur very frequently when a sexual test is set for
the following day, in which, therefore, the disgrace which is feared
might consist in the manifestation of slight potency. A German colleague
takes exception to this, as it appears, justly, on the ground that this
examination is denominated in Germany the Abiturium and hence lacks this
double meaning.
On account of their similar affective impression dreams of missing a
train deserve to be placed next to examination dreams. Their explanation
also justifies this relationship. They are consolation dreams directed
against another feeling of fear perceived in the dream, the fear of
dying. “To depart” is one of the most frequent and one of the most
easily reached symbols of death. The dream thus says consolingly:
“Compose yourself, you are not going to die (to depart),” just as the
examination dream calms us by saying “Fear not, nothing will happen to
you even this time.” The difficulty in understanding both kinds of
dreams is due to the fact that the feeling of anxiety is directly
connected with the expression of consolation. Stekel treats fully the
symbolisms of death in his recently published book _Die Sprache des
Traumes_.
The meaning of the “dreams of dental irritation,” which I have had to
analyse often enough with my patients, escaped me for a long time,
because, much to my astonishment, resistances that were altogether too
great obstructed their interpretation.
At last overwhelming evidence convinced me that, in the case of men,
nothing else than cravings for masturbation from the time of puberty
furnishes the motive power for these dreams. I shall analyse two such
dreams, one of which is likewise “a dream of flight.” The two dreams are
of the same person—a young man with a strong homosexuality, which,
however, has been repressed in life.
_He is witnessing a performance of_ Fidelio _from the parquette of the
opera house; he is sitting next to L., whose personality is congenial to
him, and whose friendship he would like to have. He suddenly flies
diagonally clear across the parquette; he then puts his hand in his
mouth and draws out two of his teeth._
He himself describes the flight by saying it was as if he were “thrown”
into the air. As it was a performance of _Fidelio_ he recalls the poet’s
words:
“He who a charming wife acquired——”
But even the acquisition of a charming wife is not among the wishes of
the dreamer. Two other verses would be more appropriate:
_“He who succeeds in the lucky (big) throw,
A friend of a friend to be....”_
The dream thus contains the “lucky (big) throw,” which is not, however,
a wish-fulfilment only. It also conceals the painful reflection that in
his striving after friendship he has often had the misfortune to be
“thrown down,” and the fear lest this fate may be repeated in the case
of the young man next whom he has enjoyed the performance of _Fidelio_.
This is now followed by a confession which quite puts this refined
dreamer to shame, to the effect that once, after such a rejection on the
part of a friend, out of burning desire he merged into sexual excitement
and masturbated twice in succession.
The other dream is as follows: _Two professors of the university who are
known to him are treating him in my stead. One of them does something
with his penis; he fears an operation. The other one thrusts an iron bar
at his mouth so that he loses two teeth. He is bound with four silken
cloths._
The sexual significance of this dream can hardly be doubted. The silken
cloths are equivalent to an identification with a homosexual of his
acquaintance. The dreamer, who has never achieved coition, but who has
never actually sought sexual intercourse with men, conceives sexual
intercourse after the model of the masturbation which he was once taught
during the time of puberty.
I believe that the frequent modifications of the typical dream of dental
irritation—that, for example, of another person drawing the tooth from
the dreamer’s mouth, are made intelligible by means of the same
explanation. It may, however, be difficult to see how “dental
irritation” can come to have this significance. I may then call
attention to a transference from below to above which occurs very
frequently. This transference is at the service of sexual repression,
and by means of it all kinds of sensations and intentions occurring in
hysteria which ought to be enacted in the genitals can be realised upon
less objectionable parts of the body. It is also a case of such
transference when the genitals are replaced by the face in the symbolism
of unconscious thought. This is assisted by the fact that the buttocks
resemble the cheeks, and also by the usage of language which calls the
nymphæ “lips,” as resembling those that enclose the opening of the
mouth. The nose is compared to the penis in numerous allusions, and in
one place as in the other the presence of hair completes the
resemblance. Only one part of the anatomy—the teeth—are beyond all
possibility of being compared with anything, and it is just this
coincidence of agreement and disagreement which makes the teeth suitable
for representation under pressure of sexual repression.
I do not wish to claim that the interpretation of the dream of dental
irritation as a dream of masturbation, the justification of which I
cannot doubt, has been freed of all obscurity.[CG] I carry the
explanation as far as I am able, and must leave the rest unsolved. But I
must also refer to another connection revealed by an idiomatic
expression. In our country there is in use an indelicate designation for
the act of masturbation, namely: To pull one out, or to pull one
down.[CH] I am unable to say whence these colloquialisms originate, and
on what symbolisms they are based, but the teeth would well fit in with
the first of the two.[CI]
Dreams in which one is flying or hovering, falling, swimming, or the
like, belong to the second group of typical dreams. What do these dreams
signify? A general statement on this point cannot be made. They signify
something different in each case, as we shall hear: only the sensational
material which they contain always comes from the same source.
It is necessary to conclude, from the material obtained in
psychoanalysis, that these dreams repeat impressions from childhood—that
is, that they refer to the movement games which have such extraordinary
attractions for the child. What uncle has never made a child fly by
running across the room with it with arms outstretched, or has never
played falling with it by rocking it on his knee and then suddenly
stretching out his leg, or by lifting it up high and then pretending to
withdraw support. At this the children shout with joy, and demand more
untiringly, especially if there is a little fright and dizziness
attached to it; in after years they create a repetition of this in the
dream, but in the dream they omit the hands which have held them, so
that they now freely float and fall. The fondness of all small children
for games like rocking and see-sawing is well known; and if they see
gymnastic tricks at the circus their recollection of this rocking is
refreshed. With some boys the hysterical attack consists simply in the
reproduction of such tricks, which they accomplish with great skill. Not
infrequently sexual sensations are excited by these movement games,
harmless as they are in themselves.[CJ] To express the idea by a word
which is current among us, and which covers all of these matters: It is
the wild playing (“Hetzen”) of childhood which dreams about flying,
falling, vertigo, and the like repeat, and the voluptuous feelings of
which have now been turned into fear. But as every mother knows, the
wild playing of children has often enough culminated in quarrelling and
tears.
I therefore have good reason for rejecting the explanation that the
condition of our dermal sensations during sleep, the sensations caused
by the movements of the lungs, and the like, give rise to dreams of
flying and falling. I see that these very sensations have been
reproduced from the memory with which the dream is concerned—that they
are, therefore, a part of the dream content and not of the dream
sources.
This material, similar in its character and origin consisting of
sensations of motion, is now used for the representation of the most
manifold dream thoughts. Dreams of flying, for the most part
characterised by delight, require the most widely different
interpretations—altogether special interpretations in the case of some
persons, and even interpretations of a typical nature in that of others.
One of my patients was in the habit of dreaming very often that she was
suspended above the street at a certain height, without touching the
ground. She had grown only to a very small stature, and shunned every
kind of contamination which accompanies intercourse with human beings.
Her dream of suspension fulfilled both of her wishes, by raising her
feet from the ground and by allowing her head to tower in the upper
regions. In the case of other female dreamers the dream of flying had
the significance of a longing: If I were a little bird; others thus
become angels at night because they have missed being called that by
day. The intimate connection between flying and the idea of a bird makes
it comprehensible that the dream of flying in the case of men usually
has a significance of coarse sensuality.[CK] We shall also not be
surprised to hear that this or that dreamer is always very proud of his
ability to fly.
Dr. Paul Federn (Vienna) has propounded the fascinating theory that a
great many flying dreams are erection dreams, since the remarkable
phenomena of erection which so constantly occupy the human phantasy must
strongly impress upon it a notion of the suspension of gravity (_cf._
the winged phalli of the ancients).
Dreams of falling are most frequently characterised by fear. Their
interpretation, when they occur in women, is subject to no difficulty
because women always accept the symbolic sense of falling, which is a
circumlocution for the indulgence of an erotic temptation. We have not
yet exhausted the infantile sources of the dream of falling; nearly all
children have fallen occasionally, and then been picked up and fondled;
if they fell out of bed at night, they were picked up by their nurse and
taken into her bed.
People who dream often of swimming, of cleaving the waves, with great
enjoyment, &c., have usually been persons who wetted their beds, and
they now repeat in the dream a pleasure which they have long since
learned to forgo. We shall soon learn from one example or another to
what representation the dreams of swimming easily lend themselves.