only one of the logical relations. This relation is that of similarity,
correspondence, contiguity, “as though,” which is capable of being
represented in the dream as no other can be, by the most varied
expedients. The correspondences occurring in the dream, or cases of “as
though,” are the chief points of support for the formation of dreams,
and no inconsiderable part of the dream activity consists in creating
new correspondences of this sort in cases where those which are already
at hand are prevented by the censor of resistance from getting into the
dream. The effort towards condensation shown by the dream activity
assists in the representation of the relation of similarity.
_Similarity_, _agreement_, _community_, are quite generally expressed in
the dream by concentration into a _unity_, which is either already found
in the dream material or is newly created. The first case may be
referred to as _identification_, the second as _composition_.
Identification is used where the dream is concerned with persons,
composition where things are the objects of unification; but
compositions are also made from persons. Localities are often treated as
persons.
Identification consists in giving representation in the dream content to
only one of a number of persons who are connected by some common
feature, while the second or the other persons seem to be suppressed as
far as the dream is concerned. This one representative person in the
dream enters into all the relations and situations which belong to
itself or to the persons who are covered by it. In cases of composition,
however, when this has to do with persons, there are already present in
the dream image features which are characteristic of, but not common to,
the persons in question, so that a new unity, a composite person,
appears as the result of the union of these features. The composition
itself may be brought about in various ways. Either the dream person
bears the name of one of the persons to whom it refers—and then we know,
in a manner which is quite analogous to knowledge in waking life, that
this or that person is the one who is meant—while the visual features
belong to another person; or the dream image itself is composed of
visual features which in reality are shared by both. Instead of visual
features, also, the part played by the second person may be represented
by the mannerisms which are usually ascribed to him, the words which he
usually speaks, or the situations in which he is usually imagined. In
the latter method of characterisation the sharp distinction between
identification and composition of persons begins to disappear. But it
may also happen that the formation of such a mixed personality is
unsuccessful. The situation of the dream is then attributed to one
person, and the other—as a rule the more important one—is introduced as
an inactive and unconcerned spectator. The dreamer relates something
like “My mother was also there” (Stekel).
The common feature which justifies the union of the two persons—that is
to say, which is the occasion for it—may either be represented in the
dream or be absent. As a rule, identification or composition of persons
simply serves the purpose of dispensing with the representation of this
common feature. Instead of repeating: “A is ill disposed towards me, and
B is also,” I make a composite person of A and B in the dream, or I
conceive A as doing an unaccustomed action which usually characterises
B. The dream person obtained in this way appears in the dream in some
new connection, and the fact that it signifies both A and B justifies me
in inserting that which is common to both—their hostility towards me—at
the proper place in the interpretation of the dream. In this manner I
often achieve a very extraordinary degree of condensation of the dream
content; I can save myself the direct representation of very complicated
relations belonging to a person, if I can find a second person who has
an equal claim to a part of these relations. It is also obvious to what
extent this representation by means of identification can circumvent the
resisting censor, which makes the dream activity conform to such harsh
conditions. That which offends the censor may lie in those very ideas
which are connected in the dream material with the one person; I now
find a second person, who likewise has relation to the objectionable
material, but only to a part of it. The contact in that one point which
offends the censor now justified me in forming a composite person, which
is characterised on either hand by indifferent features. This person
resulting from composition or identification, who is unobjectionable to
the censor, is now suited for incorporation in the dream content, and by
the application of dream condensation I have satisfied the demands of
the dream censor.
In dreams where a common feature of two persons is represented, this is
usually a hint to look for another concealed common feature, the
representation of which is made impossible by the censor. A displacement
of the common feature has here taken place partly in order to facilitate
representation. From the circumstance that the composite person appears
to me with an indifferent common feature, I must infer that another
common feature which is by no means indifferent exists in the dream
thoughts.
According to what has been said, identification or composition of
persons serves various purposes in the dream; in the first place, to
represent a feature common to the two persons; secondly, to represent a
displaced common feature; and thirdly, even to give expression to a
community of features that is merely _wished for_. As the wish for a
community between two persons frequently coincides with the exchanging
of these persons, this relation in the dream is also expressed through
identification. In the dream of Irma’s injection I wish to exchange this
patient for another—that is to say, I wish the latter to be my patient
as the former has been; the dream takes account of this wish by showing
me a person who is called Irma, but who is examined in a position such
as I have had the opportunity of seeing only when occupied with the
other person in question. In the dream about my uncle this substitution
is made the centre of the dream; I identify myself with the minister by
judging and treating my colleague as shabbily as he does.
It has been my experience—and to this I have found no exception—that
every dream treats of one’s own person. Dreams are absolutely egotistic.
In cases where not my ego, but only a strange person occurs in the dream
content, I may safely assume that my ego is concealed behind that person
by means of identification. I am permitted to supplement my ego. On
other occasions when my ego appears in the dream, I am given to
understand by the situation in which it is placed that another person is
concealing himself behind the ego. In this case the dream is intended to
give me notice that in the interpretation I must transfer something
which is connected with this person—the hidden common feature—to myself.
There are also dreams in which my ego occurs along with other persons
which the resolution of the identification again shows to be my ego. By
means of this identification I am instructed to unite in my ego certain
ideas to whose acceptance the censor has objected. I may also give my
ego manifold representation in the dream, now directly, now by means of
identification with strangers. An extraordinary amount of thought
material may be condensed by means of a few such identifications.[DV]
The resolution of the identification of localities designated under
their own names is even less difficult than that of persons, because
here the disturbing influence of the ego, which is all-powerful in the
dream, is lacking. In one of my dreams about Rome (p. 164) the name of
the place in which I find myself is Rome; I am surprised, however, at
the great number of German placards at a street corner. The latter is a
wish-fulfilment, which immediately suggests Prague; the wish itself
probably originated at a period in my youth when I was imbued with a
German nationalistic spirit which is suppressed to-day. At the time of
my dream I was looking forward to meeting a friend in Prague; the
identification of Rome and Prague is thus to be explained by means of a
desired common feature; I would rather meet my friend in Rome than in
Prague, I should like to exchange Prague for Rome for the purpose of
this meeting.
The possibility of creating compositions is one of the chief causes of
the phantastic character so common in dreams, in that it introduces into
the dream elements which could never have been the objects of
perception. The psychic process which occurs in the formation of
compositions is obviously the same which we employ in conceiving or
fashioning a centaur or a dragon in waking life. The only difference is
that in the phantastic creations occurring in waking life the intended
impression to be made by the new creation is itself the deciding factor,
while the composition of the dream is determined by an influence—the
common feature in the dream thoughts—which is independent of the form of
the image. The composition of the dream may be accomplished in a great
many different ways. In the most artless method of execution the
properties of the one thing are represented, and this representation is
accompanied by the knowledge that they also belong to another object. A
more careful technique unites the features of one object with those of
the other in a new image, while it makes skilful use of resemblance
between the two objects which exist in reality. The new creation may
turn out altogether absurd or only phantastically ingenious, according
to the subject-matter and the wit operative in the work of composition.
If the objects to be condensed into a unity are too incongruous, the
dream activity is content with creating a composition with a
comparatively distinct nucleus, to which are attached less distinct
modifications. The unification into one image has here been
unsuccessful, as it were; the two representations overlap and give rise
to something like a contest between visual images. If attempt were made
to construct an idea out of individual images of perception, similar
representations might be obtained in a drawing.
Dreams naturally abound in such compositions; several examples of these
I have given in the dreams already analysed; I shall add more. In the
dream on p. 296, which describes the career of my patient “in flowery
language,” the dream ego carries a blossoming twig in her hand, which,
as we have seen, signifies at once innocence and sexual transgression.
Moreover, the twig recalls cherry-blossoms on account of the manner in
which the blossoms are clustered; the blossoms themselves, separately
considered, are camelias, and finally the whole thing also gives the
impression of an _exotic_ plant. The common feature in the elements of
this composition is shown by the dream thoughts. The blossoming twig is
made up of allusions to presents by which she was induced or should have
been induced to show herself agreeable. So it was with the cherries in
her childhood and with the stem of camelias in her later years; the
exotic feature is an illusion to a much-travelled naturalist, who sought
to win her favour by means of a drawing of a flower. Another female
patient creates a middle element out of bath-houses at a bathing resort,
rural outside water-closets, and the garrets of our city dwellings. The
reference to human nakedness and exposure is common to the two first
elements; and we may infer from their connection with the third element
that (in her childhood) the garret was likewise the scene of exposure. A
dreamer of the male sex makes a composite locality out of two places in
which “treatment” is given—my office and the public hall in which he
first became acquainted with his wife. Another female patient, after her
elder brother has promised to regale her with caviare, dreams that his
legs are covered thick with black caviare pearls. The two elements,
“contagion” in a moral sense and the recollection of a cutaneous
eruption in childhood which made her legs look as though studded over
with red dots instead of black ones, have here been united with the
caviare pearls to form a new idea—the idea of “what she has inherited
from her brother.” In this dream parts of the human body are treated as
objects, as is usually the case in dreams. In one of the dreams reported
by Ferenczi[87] there occurred a composition made up of the person of a
physician and a horse, over which was spread a night-shirt. The common
feature in these three components was shown in the analysis after the
night-shirt had been recognised as an allusion to the father of the
dreamer in an infantile scene. In each of the three cases there was some
object of her sexual inquisitiveness. As a child she had often been
taken by her nurse to the military breeding station, where she had the
amplest opportunity to satisfy her curiosity, which was at that time
uninhibited.
I have already asserted that the dream has no means for expressing the
relation of contradiction, of contrast, of negation. I am about to
contradict this assertion for the first time. A part of the cases, which
may be summed up under the word “contrast,” finds representation, as we
have seen, simply by means of identification—that is, when an
interchange or replacement can be connected with the contrast. We have
given repeated examples of this. Another part of the contrasts in the
dream thoughts, which perhaps falls into the category “turned into the
opposite,” is represented in the dream in the following remarkable
manner, which may almost be designated as witty. The “_inversion_” does
not itself get into the dream content, but manifests its presence there
by means of the fact that a part of the already formed dream
content which lies at hand for other reasons, is—as it were
subsequently—inverted. It is easier to illustrate this process than to
describe it. In the beautiful “Up and Down” dream (p. 267) the
representation of ascending is an inversion of a prototype in the dream
thoughts, that is to say, of the introductory scene of Daudet’s
_Sappho_; in the dream climbing is difficult at first, and easy later
on, while in the actual scene it is easy at first, and later becomes
more and more difficult. Likewise “above” and “below” in relation to the
dreamer’s brother are inverted in the dream. This points to a relation
of contraries or contrasts as obtaining between two parts of the
subject-matter of the dream thoughts and the relation we have found in
the fact that in the childish fancy of the dreamer he is carried by his
nurse, while in the novel, on the contrary, the hero carries his
beloved. My dream about Goethe’s attack upon Mr. M. (p. 345) also
contains an “inversion” of this sort, which must first be set right
before the interpretation of the dream can be accomplished. In the dream
Goethe attacks a young man, Mr. M.; in reality, according to the dream
thoughts, an eminent man, my friend, has been attacked by an unknown
young author. In the dream I reckon time from the date of Goethe’s
death; in reality the reckoning was made from the year in which the
paralytic was born. The thought determining the dream material is shown
to be an objection to the treatment of Goethe as a lunatic. “The other
way around,” says the dream; “if you cannot understand the book, it is
you who are dull-witted, not the author.” Furthermore, all these dreams
of inversion seem to contain a reference to the contemptuous phrase, “to
turn one’s back upon a person” (German: “einen die Kehrseite zeigen”;
_cf._ the inversion in respect to the dreamer’s brother in the _Sappho_
dream). It is also remarkable how frequently inversion becomes necessary
in dreams which are inspired by repressed homosexual feelings.
Moreover, inversion or transformation into an opposite is one of the
favourite methods of representation, and one of the methods most capable
of varied application which the dream activity possesses. Its first
function is to create the fulfilment of a wish with reference to a
definite element of the dream-thoughts. “If it were only just the other
way!” is often the best expression of the relation of the ego to a
disagreeable recollection. But inversion becomes extraordinarily useful
for the purposes of the censor, for it brings about in the material
represented a degree of disfiguration which all but paralyses our
understanding of the dream. For this reason it is always permissible, in
cases where the dream stubbornly refuses to yield its meaning, to try
the inversion of definite portions of its manifest content, whereupon
not infrequently everything becomes clear.
Besides this inversion, the subject-matter inversion in temporal
relation is not to be overlooked. A frequent device of dream
disfigurement consists in presenting the final issue of an occurrence or
the conclusion of an argument at the beginning of the dream, or in
supplying the premises of a conclusion or the causes of an effect at the
end of it. Any one who has not considered this technical method of dream
disfigurement stands helpless before the problem of dream
interpretation.[DW]
Indeed in some cases we can obtain the sense of the dream only by
subjecting the dream content to manifold inversion in different
directions. For example, in the dream of a young patient suffering from
a compulsion neurosis, the memory of an infantile death-wish against a
dreaded father was hidden behind the following words: _His father
upbraids him because he arrives so late._ But the context in the
psychoanalytic treatment and the thoughts of the dreamer alike go to
show that the sentence must read as follows: _He is angry at his
father_, and, further, that his father is always coming home _too early_
(_i.e._ too soon). He would have preferred that his father should not
come home at all, which is identical with the wish (see page 219) that
his father should die. As a little boy the dreamer was guilty of sexual
aggression against another person while his father was away, and he was
threatened with punishment in the words: “Just wait until father comes
home.”
If we attempt to trace the relations between dream content and dream
thoughts further, we shall do this best by making the dream itself our
starting-point and by asking ourselves the question: What do certain
formal characteristics of dream representation signify with reference to
the dream thoughts? The formal characteristics which must attract our
attention in the dream primarily include variations in the distinctness
of individual parts of the dream or of whole dreams in relation to one
another. The variations in the intensity of individual dream images
include a whole scale of degrees ranging from a distinctness of
depiction which one is inclined to rate as higher—without warrant, to be
sure—than that of reality, to a provoking indistinctness which is
declared to be characteristic of the dream, because it cannot altogether
be compared to any degree of indistinctness which we ever see in real
objects. Moreover, we usually designate the impression which we get from
an indistinct object in the dream as “fleeting,” while we think of the
more distinct dream images as remaining intact for a longer period of
perception. We must now ask ourselves by what conditions in the dream
material these differences in the vividness of the different parts of
the dream content are brought about.
There are certain expectations which will inevitably arise at this point
and which must be met. Owing to the fact that real sensations during
sleep may form part of the material of the dream, it will probably be
assumed that these sensations or the dream elements resulting from them
are emphasized by peculiar intensity, or conversely, that what turns out
to be particularly vivid in the dream is probably traceable to such real
sensations during sleep. My experience has never confirmed this. It is
incorrect to say that those elements of the dream which are the
derivatives of impressions occurring in sleep (nervous excitements) are
distinguished by their vividness from others which are based on
recollections. The factor of reality is of no account in determining the
intensity of dream images.
Furthermore, the expectation will be cherished that the sensory
intensity (vividness) of individual dream images has a relation to the
psychic intensity of the elements corresponding to them in the
dream-thoughts. In the latter intensity is identical with psychic value;
the most intense elements are in fact the most significant, and these
are the central point of the dream. We know, however, that it is just
these elements which are usually not accepted in the dream content owing
to the censor. But still it might be possible that the elements
immediately following these and representing them might show a higher
degree of intensity, without, however, for that reason constituting the
centre of the dream representation. This expectation is also destroyed
by a comparison of the dream and the dream material. The intensity of
the elements in the one has nothing to do with the intensity of the
elements in the other; a complete “transvaluation of all psychic values”
takes place between the dream-material and the dream. The very element
which is transient and hazy and which is pushed into the background by
more vigorous images is often the single and only element in which may
be traced any direct derivative from the subject which entirely
dominated the dream-thoughts.
The intensity of the elements of the dream shows itself to be determined
in a different manner—that is, by two factors which are independent of
each other. It is easy to see at the outset that those elements by means
of which the wish-fulfilment is expressed are most distinctly
represented. But then analysis also teaches us that from the most vivid
elements of the dream, the greatest number of trains of thought start,
and that the most vivid are at the same time those which are best
determined. No change of sense is involved if we express the latter
empirical thesis in the following form: the greatest intensity is shown
by those elements of the dream for which the most abundant condensation
activity was required. We may therefore expect that this condition and
the others imposed by the wish-fulfilment can be expressed in a single
formula.