this method of substitution the dream is generally doing nothing
original. For the attainment of its purpose, which in this case is the
possibility of dramatisation without interference from the censor, it
simply follows the paths which it finds already marked out in
unconscious thought, and gives preference to those transformations of
the suppressed material which may become conscious also in the form of
wit and allusion, and with which all the fancies of neurotics are
filled. Here all at once we come to understand Scherner’s method of
dream interpretation, the essential truth of which I have defended
elsewhere. The occupation of one’s fancy with one’s own body is by no
means peculiar to, or characteristic of the dream alone. My analyses
have shown me that this is a regular occurrence in the unconscious
thought of neurotics, and goes back to sexual curiosity, the object of
which for the adolescent youth or maiden is found in the genitals of the
opposite sex, or even of the same sex. But, as Scherner and Volkelt very
appropriately declare, the house is not the only group of ideas which is
used for the symbolisation of the body—either in the dream or in the
unconscious fancies of the neurosis. I know some patients, to be sure,
who have steadily adhered to an architectural symbolism for the body and
the genitals (sexual interest certainly extends far beyond the region of
the external genital organs), to whom posts and pillars signify legs (as
in the “Song of Songs”), to whom every gate suggests a bodily opening
(“hole”), and every water-main a urinary apparatus, and the like. But
the group of associations belonging to plant life and to the kitchen is
just as eagerly chosen to conceal sexual images; in the first case the
usage of speech, the result of phantastic comparisons dating from the
most ancient times, has made abundant preparation (the “vineyard” of the
Lord, the “seeds,” the “garden” of the girl in the “Song of Songs”). The
ugliest as well as the most intimate details of sexual life may be
dreamed about in apparently harmless allusions to culinary operations,
and the symptoms of hysteria become practically unintelligible if we
forget that sexual symbolism can conceal itself behind the most
commonplace and most inconspicuous matters, as its best hiding-place.
The fact that some neurotic children cannot look at blood and raw meat,
that they vomit at the sight of eggs and noodles, and that the dread of
snakes, which is natural to mankind, is monstrously exaggerated in
neurotics, all of this has a definite sexual meaning. Wherever the
neurosis employs a disguise of this sort, it treads the paths once
trodden by the whole of humanity in the early ages of civilisation—paths
of whose existence customs of speech, superstitions, and morals still
give testimony to this day.
I here insert the promised flower dream of a lady patient, in which I
have italicised everything which is to be sexually interpreted. This
beautiful dream seemed to lose its entire charm for the dreamer after it
had been interpreted.
(_a_) Preliminary dream: _She goes to the two maids in the kitchen and
scolds them for taking so long to prepare “a little bite of food.” She
also sees a great many coarse dishes standing in the kitchen inverted so
that the water may drip off them, and heaped up in a pile._ Later
addition: _The two maids go to fetch water, and must, as it were, step
into a river which reaches up into the house or into the yard._[EB]
(_b_) Main dream[EC]: _She is descending from a high place[ED] over
balustrades that are curiously fashioned or fences which are united into
big squares and consist of a conglomeration of little squares.[EE] It is
really not intended for climbing upon; she is worried about finding a
place for her foot, and she is glad her dress doesn’t get caught
anywhere, and that she remains so respectable while she is going.[EF]
She is also carrying a large bough in her hand,[EG] really a bough of a
tree, which is thickly studded with red blossoms; it has many branches,
and spreads out.[EH] With this is connected the idea of cherry blossoms,
but they look like full-bloom camelias, which of course do not grow on
trees. While she is descending, she first has one, then suddenly two,
and later again only one.[EI] When she arrives at the bottom of the
lower blossoms they have already fallen off to a considerable extent.
Now that she is at the bottom, she sees a porter who is combing—as she
would like to express it—just such a tree—that is, who is plucking thick
bunches of hair from it, which hang from it like moss. Other workmen
have chopped off such boughs in a garden, and have thrown them upon the
street, where they lie about, so that many people take some of them. But
she asks whether that is right, whether anybody may take one.[EJ] In the
garden there stands a young man_ (having a personality with which she is
acquainted, not a member of her family) _up to whom she goes in order to
ask him how it is possible to transplant such boughs into her own
garden.[EK] He embraces her, whereat she resists and asks him what he
means, whether it is permissible to embrace her in such a manner. He
says that there is no wrong in it, that it is permitted.[EL] He then
declares himself willing to go with her into the other garden, in order
to show her the transplanting, and he says something to her which she
does not correctly understand: “Besides this three metres_—(later on she
says: square metres) _or three fathoms of ground are lacking.” It seems
as though the man were trying to ask her something in return for his
affability, as though he had the intention of indemnifying himself in
her garden, as though he wanted to evade some law or other, to derive
some advantage from it without causing her an injury. She does not know
whether or not he really shows her anything._[EM]
I must mention still another series of associations which often serves
the purpose of concealing sexual meaning both in dreams and in the
neurosis,—I refer to the change of residence series. To change one’s
residence is readily replaced by “to remove,” an ambiguous expression
which may have reference to clothing. If the dream also contains a
“lift” (elevator), one may think of the verb “to lift,” hence of lifting
up the clothing.
I have naturally an abundance of such material, but a report of it would
carry us too far into the discussion of neurotic conditions. Everything
leads to the same conclusion, that no special symbolising activity of
the mind in the formation of dreams need be assumed; that, on the
contrary, the dream makes use of such symbolisations as are to be found
ready-made in unconscious thought, because these better satisfy the
requirements of dream formation, on account of their dramatic fitness,
and particularly on account of their exemption from the censor.
(_e_) _Examples—Arithmetic Speeches in the Dream_
Before I proceed to assign to its proper place the fourth of the factors
which control the formation of the dream, I shall cite several examples
from my collection of dreams for the purpose partly of illustrating the
co-operation of the three factors with which we are acquainted, and
partly of supplying proof for assertions which have been made without
demonstration or of drawing irrefutable inferences from them. For it has
been very difficult for me in the foregoing account of the dream
activity to demonstrate my conclusions by means of examples. Examples
for the individual thesis are convincing only when considered in
connection with a dream interpretation; when they are torn from their
context they lose their significance, and, furthermore, a dream
interpretation, though not at all profound, soon becomes so extensive
that it obscures the thread of the discussion which it is intended to
illustrate. This technical motive may excuse me for now mixing together
all sorts of things which have nothing in common but their relation to
the text of the foregoing chapter.
We shall first consider a few examples of very peculiar or unusual
methods of representation in the dream. The dream of a lady is as
follows: _A servant girl is standing on a ladder as though to clean the
windows, and has with her a chimpanzee and a gorilla cat_ (later
corrected—angora cat). _She throws the animals at the dreamer; the
chimpanzee cuddles up to her, and this is disgusting to her._ This dream
has accomplished its purpose by the simplest possible means, namely by
taking a mere mode of speech literally and representing it according to
the meaning of its words. “Ape,” like the names of animals in general,
is an epithet of opprobrium, and the situation of the dream means
nothing but “_to hurl invectives_.” This same collection will soon
furnish us with further examples of the use of this simple artifice.
Another dream proceeds in a very similar manner: _A woman with a child
that has a conspicuously deformed cranium; the dreamer has heard that
the child got into this condition owing to its position in its mother’s
womb. The doctor says that the cranium might be given a better shape by
means of compression, but that would harm the brain. She thinks that
because it is a boy it won’t suffer so much from deformity._ This dream
contains a plastic representation of the concept: “_Childish
impressions_,” which the dreamer has heard of in the course of
explanations concerning the treatment.
In the following example, the dream activity enters upon a different
path. The dream contains a recollection of an excursion to the
Hilmteich, near Graz: _There is a terrible storm outside; a miserable
hotel—the water is dripping from the walls, and the beds are damp._ (The
latter part of the content is less directly expressed than I give it.)
The dream signifies “_superfluous_.” The abstract idea occurring in the
dream thoughts is first made equivocal by a certain straining of
language; it has, perhaps, been replaced by “overflowing” or by “fluid”
and “super-fluid (-fluous)” and has then been given representation by an
accumulation of like impressions. Water within, water without, water in
the beds in the form of dampness—everything fluid and “super” fluid.
That, for the purposes of the dream representation, the spelling is much
less regarded than the sound of words ought not surprise us when we
remember that rhyme exercises similar privileges.
The fact that language has at its disposal a great number of words which
were originally intended in a picturesque and concrete sense but are at
present used in a faded abstract sense has in other cases made it very
easy for the dream to represent its thoughts. The dream need only
restore to these words their full significance, or follow the evolution
of their meaning a little way back. For example, a man dreams that his
friend, who is struggling to get out of a very tight place, calls upon
him to help him. The analysis shows that the tight place is a hole, and
that the dream uses symbolically his very words to his friend, “Be
careful, or you’ll get yourself into a hole.”[EN] Another dreamer climbs
upon a mountain from which he sees a very extraordinary broad view. He
identifies himself with his brother who is editing a “review” which
deals with relations to the Farthest East.
It would be a separate undertaking to collect such methods of
representation and to arrange them according to the principles upon
which they are based. Some of the representations are quite witty. They
give the impression that they would have never been divined if the
dreamer himself had not reported them.
1. A man dreams that he is asked for a name, which, however, he cannot
recall. He himself explains that this means: _It does not occur to me in
the dream._
2. A female patient relates a dream in which all the persons concerned
were especially big. “That means,” she adds, “that it must deal with an
episode of my early childhood, for at that time all grown up people
naturally seemed to me immensely big.”
The transference into childhood is also expressed differently in other
dreams by translating time into space. One sees the persons and scenes
in question as if at a great distance, at the end of a long road, or as
if looked at through the wrong end of the opera-glass.
3. A man, who in waking life shows an inclination to abstract and
indefinite expressions, but who is otherwise endowed with wit enough,
dreams in a certain connection that he is at a railroad station while a
train is coming in. But then the station platform approaches the train,
which stands still; hence an absurd inversion of the real state of
affairs. This detail is again nothing but an index to remind one that
something else in the dream should be turned about. The analysis of the
same dream brings back the recollection of a picture-book in which men
are represented standing on their heads and walking on their hands.
4. The same dreamer on another occasion relates a short dream which
almost recalls the technique of a rebus. His uncle gives him a kiss in
an automobile. He immediately adds the interpretation, which I should
never have found: it means _Autoerotism_. This might have been made as a
joke in the waking state.
The dream work often succeeds in representing very awkward material,
such as proper names, by means of the forced utilisation of very
far-fetched references. In one of my dreams the elder Bruecke _has given
me a task. I compound a preparation, and skim something from it which
looks like crumpled tinfoil._ (More of this later on.) The notion
corresponding to this, which was not easy to find, is “stanniol,” and
now I know that I have in mind the name of the author Stannius, which
was borne by a treatise on the nervous system of fishes, which I
regarded with awe in my youthful years. The first scientific task which
my teacher gave me was actually concerned with the nervous system of a
fish—the _Ammocœtes_. Obviously the latter name could never have been
used in a picture puzzle.
I shall not omit here to insert a dream having a curious content, which
is also remarkable as a child’s dream, and which is very easily
explained by the analysis. A lady relates: “I can remember that when I
was a child I repeatedly dreamed, that the _dear Lord had a pointed
paper hat on his head_. They used to make me wear such a hat at table
very often, so that I might not be able to look at the plates of the
other children and see how much they had received of a particular dish.
Since I have learned that God is omniscient, the dream signifies that I
know everything in spite of the hat which I am made to wear.”
Wherein the dream work consists, and how it manages its material, the
dream thoughts, can be shown in a very instructive manner from the
numbers and calculations which occur in dreams. Moreover, numbers in
dreams are regarded as of especial significance by superstition. I shall
therefore give a few more examples of this kind from my own collection.
1. The following is taken from the dream of a lady shortly before the
close of her treatment:
She wants to pay for something or other; her daughter takes 3 florins
and 65 kreuzer from her pocket-book; but the mother says: “What are you
doing? It only costs 21 kreuzer.” This bit of dream was immediately
intelligible to me without further explanation from my knowledge of the
dreamer’s circumstances. The lady was a foreigner who had provided for
her daughter in an educational institution in Vienna, and who could
continue my treatment as long as her daughter stayed in the city. In
three weeks the daughter’s school year was to end, and with that the
treatment also stopped. On the day before the dream the principal of the
institute had urged her to make up her mind to allow her child to remain
with her for another year. She had then obviously worked out this
suggestion to the conclusion that in this case she would be able to
continue the treatment for one year more. Now, this is what the dream
refers to, for a year is equal to 365 days; the three weeks that remain
before the close of the school year and of the treatment are equivalent
to 21 days (though the hours of treatment are not as many as that). The
numerals, which in the dream thoughts referred to time, are given money
values in the dream, not without also giving expression to a deeper
meaning for “time is money.” 365 kreuzer, to be sure, are _3 florins and
65 kreuzer_. The smallness of the sums which appear in the dream is a
self-evident wish-fulfilment; the wish has reduced the cost of both the
treatment and the year’s instruction at the institution.
II. The numerals in another dream involve more complicated relations. A
young lady, who, however, has already been married a number of years,
learns that an acquaintance of hers of about her own age, Elsie L., has
just become engaged. Thereupon she dreams: _She is sitting in the
theatre with her husband, and one side of the orchestra is quite
unoccupied. Her husband tells her that Elsie L. and her husband had also
wanted to go, but that they had been able to get nothing but poor seats,
three for 1 florin and 50 kreuzer, and of course they could not take
those. She thinks that they didn’t lose much either._
Where do the _1 florin and 50 kreuzer_ come from? From an occurrence of
the previous day which is really indifferent. The dreamer’s
sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a present from her husband,
and had quickly got rid of them by buying some jewelry. Let us note that
150 florins is 100 times more than 1 florin and 50 kreuzer. Whence the 3
which stands before the theatre seats? There is only one association for
this, namely, that the bride is that many months—three—younger than
herself. Information concerning the significance of the feature that one
side of the orchestra remains empty leads to the solution of the dream.
This feature is an undisguised allusion to a little occurrence which has
given her husband good cause for teasing her. She had decided to go to
the theatre during the week, and had been careful to get tickets a few
days before, for which she had to pay the pre-emption charge. When they
got to the theatre they found that one side of the house was almost
empty; she certainly did not need _to be in such a hurry_.
I shall now substitute the dream thoughts for the dream: “It surely was
nonsense to marry so early; there was _no need for my being in such a
hurry_. From the case of Elsie L., I see that I should have got a
husband just the same—and one who is a _hundred times_ better (husband,
sweetheart, treasure)—if I had only _waited_ (antithesis to the haste of
her sister-in-law). I could have bought _three_ such men for the money
(the dowry!). Our attention is drawn to the fact that the numerals in
this dream have changed their meanings and relations to a much greater
extent than in the one previously considered. The transforming and
disfiguring activity of the dream has in this case been greater, a fact
which we interpret as meaning that these dream thoughts had to overcome
a particularly great amount of inner psychic resistance up to the point
of their representation. We must also not overlook the circumstance that
the dream contains an absurd element, namely, that _two_ persons take
_three_ seats. We digress to the interpretation of the absurdity of
dreams when we remark that this absurd detail of the dream content is
intended to represent the most strongly emphasized detail of the dream
thoughts: “It was _nonsense_ to marry so early.” The figure 3 belonging
to a quite subordinate relation of the two compared persons (three
months’ difference in age) has thus been skilfully used to produce the
nonsense demanded by the dream. The reduction of the actual 150 florins
to 1 florin and 50 kreuzer corresponds to her disdain of her husband in
the suppressed thoughts of the dreamer.”
III. Another example displays the arithmetical powers of the dream,
which have brought it into such disrepute. A man dreams: _He is sitting
at B——’s_ (a family of his earlier acquaintance) _and says, “It was
nonsense for you not to give me Amy in marriage.” Thereupon he asks the
girl, “How old are you?” Answer: “I was born in 1882.” “Ah, then you are
28 years old.”_
Since the dream occurs in the year 1898, this is obviously poor
arithmetic, and the inability of the dreamer to calculate may be
compared to that of the paralytic, if there is no other way of
explaining it. My patient was one of those persons who are always
thinking about every woman they see. The person who followed him in my
office, regularly for several months, was a young lady, whom he used to
meet, about whom he used to ask frequently, and to whom he was very
anxious to be polite. This was the lady whose age he estimated at 28
years. So much for explaining the result of the apparent calculation.
But 1882 was the year in which he had married. He had been unable to
refrain from engaging in conversation with the two females whom he met
at my house—two girls, by no means youthful, who alternately opened the
door for him, and as he did not find them very responsive, he had given
himself the explanation that they probably considered him an elderly
“settled” gentleman.
IV. For another number dream with its interpretation,—a
dream distinguished by its obvious determination, or rather
over-determination, I am indebted to B. Dattner:
My host, a policeman in the municipal service, dreamed that he was
standing at his post in the street, which was a wish-realisation. The
inspector then came over to him, having on his gorget the numbers 22 and
62 or 26—at all events there were many two’s on it. Division of the
number 2262 in the reproduction of the dream at once points to the fact
that the components have separate meanings. It occurs to him that the
day before, while on duty, they were discussing the duration of their
time of service. The occasion for this was furnished by an inspector who
had been pensioned at 62 years. The dreamer had only completed 22 years
of service, and still needed 2 years and 2 months to make him eligible
for a 90 per cent. pension. The dream first shows him the fulfilment of
a long wished for wish, the rank of inspector. The superior with 2262 on
his collar is himself; he takes care to do his duty on the street, which
is another preferred wish; he has served his 2 years and 2 months, and
can now be retired from the service with full pension, like the
62–year-old inspector.
If we keep in mind these examples and similar ones (to follow), we may
say: Dream activity does not calculate at all, whether correctly or
incorrectly; it joins together in the form of a calculation numerals
which occur in the dream thoughts, and which may serve as allusions to
material which is incapable of being represented. It thus utilises
numerals as material for the expression of its purposes in the same
manner as it does names and speeches known as word presentations.
For the dream activity cannot compose a new speech. No matter how many
speeches and answers may occur in dreams, which may be sensible or
absurd in themselves, analysis always shows in such cases that the dream
has only taken from the dream thoughts fragments of speeches which have
been delivered or heard, and dealt with them in a most arbitrary manner.
It has not only torn them from their context and mutilated them, taken
up one piece and rejected another, but it has also joined them together
in a new way, so that the speech which seems coherent in the dream falls
into three or four sections in the course of analysis. In this new
utilisation of the words, the dream has often put aside the meaning
which they had in the dream thoughts, and has derived an entirely new
meaning from them.[EO] Upon closer inspection the more distinct and
compact constituents of the dream speech may be distinguished from
others which serve as connectives and have probably been supplied, just
as we supply omitted letters and syllables in reading. The dream speech
thus has the structure of breccia stones, in which larger pieces of
different material are held together by a solidified cohesive mass.