of _Fl. as to how much of his affairs I have mentioned to P._, give
evidence of the reproach that I am incapable of keeping anything to
myself. But it is the admixture of these recollections which transposes
the reproach for arriving too late from the present to the time when I
was living in Bruecke’s laboratory; and by replacing the second person
in the annihilation scene of the dream by a Joseph I succeed in
representing not only the first reproach that I arrive too late, but
also a second reproach, which is more rigorously suppressed, that I keep
no secrets. The condensing and replacing activity of this dream, as well
as the motives for it, are now obvious.
My anger at the injunction not to give anything away, originally quite
insignificant, receives confirmation from sources that flow far below
the surface, and so become a swollen stream of hostile feelings towards
persons who are in reality dear to me. The source which furnishes the
confirmation is to be found in childhood. I have already said that my
friendships as well as my enmities with persons of my own age go back to
my childish relations with my nephew, who was a year older than I. In
these he had the upper hand, and I early learned how to defend myself;
we lived together inseparably, loved each other, and at the same time,
as statements of older persons testify, scuffled with and accused each
other. In a certain sense all my friends are incarnations of this first
figure, “which early appeared to my blurred sight”; they are all
_revenants_. My nephew himself returned in the years of adolescence, and
then we acted Cæsar and Brutus. An intimate friend and a hated enemy
have always been indispensable requirements for my emotional life; I
have always been able to create them anew, and not infrequently my
childish ideal has been so closely approached that friend and enemy
coincided in the same person, not simultaneously, of course, nor in
repeated alterations, as had been the case in my first childhood years.
I do not here wish to trace the manner in which a recent occasion for
emotion may reach back to one in childhood—through connections like
these I have just described—in order to find a substitute for itself, in
this earlier occasion for the sake of increased emotional effect. Such
an investigation would belong to the psychology of the unconscious, and
would find its place in a psychological explanation of neuroses. Let us
assume for the purposes of dream interpretation that a childhood
recollection makes its appearance or is formed by the fancy, say to the
following effect: Two children get into a fight on account of some
object—just what we shall leave undecided, although memory or an
allusion of memory has a very definite one in mind—and each one claims
that he got to it first, and that he, therefore, has first right to it.
They come to blows, for might makes right; and, according to the
intimation of the dream, I must have known that I was in the wrong
(_noticing the error myself_), but this time I remain the stronger and
take possession of the battlefield; the defeated combatant hurries to my
father, his grandfather, and accuses me, and I defend myself with the
words which I know from my father: “_I hit him because he hit me._” Thus
this recollection, or more probably fancy, which forces itself upon my
attention in the course of the analysis—from my present knowledge I
myself do not know how—becomes an intermediary of the dream thoughts
that collects the emotional excitements obtaining in the dream thoughts,
as the bowl of a fountain collects the streams of water flowing into it.
From this point the dream thoughts flow along the following paths: “It
serves you quite right if you had to vacate your place for me; why did
you try to force me out of my place? I don’t need you; I’ll soon find
someone else to play with,” &c. Then the ways are opened through which
these thoughts again follow into the representation of the dream. For
such an “ôte-toi que je m’y mette” I once had to reproach my deceased
friend Joseph. He had been next to me in the line of promotion in
Bruecke’s laboratory, but advancement there was very slow. Neither of
the two assistants budged from his place, and youth became impatient. My
friend, who knew that his time of life was limited, and who was bound by
no tie to his superior, was a man seriously ill; the wish for his
removal permitted an objectionable interpretation—he might be moved by
something besides promotion. Several years before, the same wish for
freedom had naturally been more intense in my own case; wherever in the
world there are gradations of rank and advancement, the doors are opened
for wishes needing suppression. Shakespeare’s Prince Hal cannot get rid
of the temptation to see how the crown fits even at the bed of his sick
father. But, as may easily be understood, the dream punishes this
ruthless wish not upon me but upon him.[FG]
“As he was ambitious, I slew him.” As he could not wait for the other
man to make way for him, he himself has been put out of the way. I
harbour these thoughts immediately after attending the unveiling of the
statue to the other man at the university. A part of the satisfaction
which I feel in the dream may therefore be interpreted: Just punishment;
it served you right.
At the funeral of this friend a young man made the following remark,
which seemed out of place: “The preacher talked as though the world
couldn’t exist without this one human being.” The displeasure of the
sincere man, whose sorrow has been marred by the exaggeration, begins to
arise in him. But with this speech are connected the dream thoughts: “No
one is really irreplaceable; how many men have I already escorted to the
grave, but I am still living, I have survived them all, I claim the
field.” Such a thought at the moment when I fear that when I travel to
see him I shall find my friend no longer among the living, permits only
of the further development that I am glad I am surviving someone, that
it is not I who have died, but he—that I occupy the field as I once did
in the fancied scene in childhood. This satisfaction, coming from
sources in childhood, at the fact that I claim the field, covers the
larger part of the emotion which appears in the dream. I am glad that I
am the survivor—I express this sentiment with the naïve egotism of the
husband who says to his wife: “If one of us dies, I shall move to
Paris.” It is such a matter of course for my expectation that I am not
to be the one.
It cannot be denied that great self-control is necessary to interpret
one’s dreams and to report them. It is necessary for you to reveal
yourself as the one scoundrel among all the noble souls with whom you
share the breath of life. Thus, I consider it quite natural that
_revenants_ exist only as long as they are wanted, and that they can be
obviated by a wish. This is the thing for which my friend Joseph has
been punished. But the _revenants_ are the successive incarnations of
the friend of my childhood; I am also satisfied at the fact that I have
replaced this person for myself again and again, and a substitute will
doubtless soon be found even for the friend whom I am about to lose. No
one is irreplaceable.
But what has the dream censor been doing meanwhile? Why does it not
raise the most emphatic objection to a train of thought characterised by
such brutal selfishness, and change the satisfaction that adheres to it
into profound repugnance? I think it is because other unobjectionable
trains of thought likewise result in satisfaction and cover the emotion
coming from forbidden infantile sources with their own. In another
stratum of thought I said to myself at that festive unveiling: “I have
lost so many dear friends, some through death, some through the
dissolution of friendship—is it not beautiful that I have found
substitutes for them, that I have gained one who means more to me than
the others could, whom I shall from now on always retain, at the age
when it is not easy to form new friendships?” The satisfaction that I
have found this substitute for lost friends can be taken over into the
dream without interference, but behind it there sneaks in the inimical
satisfaction from the infantile source. Childish affection undoubtedly
assists in strengthening the justifiable affection of to-day; but
childish hatred has also found its way into the representation.
But besides this there is distinct reference in the dream to another
chain of thoughts, which may manifest itself in the form of
satisfaction. My friend had shortly before had a little daughter born,
after long waiting. I knew how much he had grieved for the sister whom
he lost at an early age, and I wrote to him that he would transfer to
this child the love he had felt for her. This little girl would at last
make him forget his irreparable loss.
Thus this chain also connects with the intermediary thoughts of the
latent dream content, from which the ways spread out in opposite
directions: No one is irreplaceable. You see, nothing but _revenants_;
all that one has lost comes back. And now the bonds of association
between the contradictory elements of the dream thoughts are more
tightly drawn by the accidental circumstance that the little daughter of
my friend bears the same name as the girl playmate of my own youth, who
was just my own age and the sister of my oldest friend and antagonist. I
have heard the name “Pauline” with _satisfaction_, and in order to
allude to this coincidence I have replaced one Joseph in the dream by
another Joseph, and have not overlooked the similarity in sound between
the names Fleischl and F. From this point a train of thought runs to the
naming of my own children. I insisted that the names should not be
chosen according to the fashion of the day but should be determined by
regard for the memory of beloved persons. The children’s names make them
“_revenants_.” And, finally, is not the having of children the only
access to immortality for us all?
I shall add only a few remarks about the emotions of the dream from
another point of view. An emotional inclination—what we call a mood—may
occur in the mind of a sleeping person as its dominating element, and
may induce a corresponding mood in the dream. This mood may be the
result of the experiences and thoughts of the day, or it may be of
somatic origin; in either case it will be accompanied by the chains of
thought that correspond to it. The fact that in the one case this
presentation content conditions the emotional inclination primarily, and
that in the other case it is brought about secondarily by a disposition
of feeling of somatic origin remains without influence upon the
formation of the dream. This formation is always subject to the
restriction that it can represent only a wish-fulfilment, and that it
may put its psychic motive force at the service only of the wish. The
mood that is actually present will receive the same treatment as the
sensation which actually comes to the surface during sleep (_cf._ p.
198), which is either neglected or reinterpreted so as to signify a
wish-fulfilment. Disagreeable moods during sleep become a motive force
of the dream by actuating energetic wishes, which the dream must fulfil.
The material to which they are attached is worked over until it finally
becomes suitable for the expression of the fulfilled wish. The more
intense and the more dominating the element of the disagreeable mood in
the dream thought, the more surely will the wish-impulses that have been
most rigorously suppressed take advantage of the opportunity to secure
representation, for they find that the difficult part of the work
necessary in securing representation has already been accomplished in
that the repugnance is already actually in existence, which they would
otherwise have had to produce by their own effort. With this discussion
we again touch upon the problem of anxiety dreams, which we may regard
as bounding the province of the dream activity.
(_h_) _Secondary Elaboration._
We may at last proceed to an exposition of the fourth of the factors
which take part in the formation of the dream.
If we continue the examination of the dream content, in the manner
already outlined—that is, by testing striking occurrences as to their
origin in the dream thoughts—we encounter elements which can be
explained only by making an entirely new assumption. I have in mind
cases where one shows astonishment, anger, or resistance in a dream, and
that, too, against a party of the dream content itself. Most of these
exercises of the critical faculty in dreams are not directed against the
dream content, but prove to be portions of dream material which have
been taken over and suitably made use of, as I have shown by fitting
examples. Some things of this sort, however, cannot be disposed of in
such a way; their correlative cannot be found in the dream material.
What, for instance, is meant by the criticism not infrequent in dreams:
“Well, it’s only a dream”? This is a genuine criticism of the dream such
as I might make if I were awake. Not at all infrequently it is the
forerunner to waking; still oftener it is preceded by a painful feeling,
which subsides when the certainty of the dream state has been
established. The thought: “But it’s only a dream,” occurring during the
dream, has the same object which is meant to be conveyed on the stage
through the mouth of the beautiful Helen von Offenbach; it wants to
minimise what has just occurred and secure indulgence for what is to
follow. Its purpose is to reassure and, so to speak, put to sleep a
certain instance which at the given moment has every reason to be active
and to forbid the continuation of the dream—or the scene. It is
pleasanter to go on sleeping and to tolerate the dream, “because it’s
only a dream anyway.” I imagine that the disparaging criticism, “But
it’s only a dream,” enters into the dream at the moment when the censor,
which has never been quite asleep, feels that it has been surprised by
the already admitted dream. It is too late to suppress the dream, and
the instance therefore carries with it that note of fear or of painful
feeling which presents itself in the dream. It is an expression of the
_esprit d’escalier_ on the part of the psychic censor.
In this example we have faultless proof that not everything which the
dream contains comes from the dream thoughts, but that a psychic
function which cannot be differentiated from our waking thoughts may
make contributions to the dream content. The question now is, does this
occur only in altogether exceptional cases, or does the psychic instance
which is usually active only as censor take a regular part in the
formation of dreams?
One must decide unhesitatingly for the latter view. It is indisputable
that the censoring instance, whose influence we have so far recognised
only in limitations and omissions in the dream content, is also
responsible for interpolations and amplifications in this content. Often
these interpolations are easily recognised; they are reported
irresolutely, prefaced by an “as if,” they are not in themselves
particularly vivid, and are regularly inserted at points where they may
serve to connect two portions of the dream content or improve the
sequence between two sections of the dream. They manifest less ability
to stick in the memory than genuine products of the dream material; if
the dream is subject to forgetting, they are the first to fall away, and
I am strongly inclined to believe that our frequent complaint that we
have dreamed so much, that we have forgotten most of this and have
remembered only fragments of it, rests on the immediate falling away of
just these cementing thoughts. In a complete analysis these
interpolations are often betrayed by the fact that no material is to be
found for them in the dream thoughts. But after careful examination I
must designate this case as a rare one; usually interpolated thoughts
can be traced to an element in the dream thoughts, which, however, can
claim a place in the dream neither on account of its own merit nor on
account of over-determination. The psychic function in dream formation,
which we are now considering, aspires to the original creations only in
the most extreme cases; whenever possible, it makes use of anything
available it can find in the dream material.
The thing which distinguishes and reveals this part of the dream
activity is its tendency. This function proceeds in a manner similar to
that which the poet spitefully attributes to the philosopher; with its
scraps and rags, it stops up the breaches in the structure of the dream.
The result of its effort is that the dream loses the appearance of
absurdity and incoherence, and approaches the pattern of an intelligible
experience. But the effort is not always crowned with complete success.
Thus dreams occur which may seem faultlessly logical and correct upon
superficial examination; they start from a possible situation, continue
it by means of consistent changes, and end up—although this is very
rare—with a not unnatural conclusion. These dreams have been subjected
to the most thorough elaboration at the hands of a psychic function
similar to our waking thought; they seem to have a meaning, but this
meaning is very far removed from the real signification of the dream. If
they are analysed, one is convinced that the secondary elaboration has
distorted the material very freely, and has preserved its proper
relations as little as possible. These are the dreams which have, so to
speak, already been interpreted before we subject them to waking
interpretation. In other dreams this purposeful elaboration has been
successful only to a certain point; up to this point consistency seems
to be dominant, then the dream becomes nonsensical or confused, and
perhaps finally it lifts itself for a second time in its course to an
appearance of rationality. In still other dreams the elaboration has
failed completely; we find ourselves helpless in the presence of a
senseless mass of fragmentary contents.
I do not wish to deny to this fourth dream-moulding power, which will
soon seem to us a familiar one—it is in reality the only one among the
four dream-moulders with which we are familiar,—I do not wish to deny
this fourth factor the capability of creatively furnishing the dream
with new contributions. But surely its influence, like that of the
others, manifests itself preponderatingly in the preferring and choosing
of already created psychic material in the dream thoughts. Now there is
a case where it is spared the work, for the most part, of building, as
it were, a façade to the dream, by the fact that such a structure,
waiting to be used, is already to be found complete in the material of
the dream thoughts. The element of the dream thoughts which I have in
mind, I am in the habit of designating as a “phantasy”; perhaps I shall
avoid misunderstanding if I immediately adduce the day dream of waking
life as an analogy.[FH] The part played by this element in our psychic
life has not yet been fully recognised and investigated by the
psychiatrists; in this study M. Benedikt has, it seems to me, made a
highly promising beginning. The significance of the day dream has not
yet escaped the unerring insight of poets; the description of the day
dreams of one of his subordinate characters which A. Daudet gives us in
_Nabab_ is universally known. A study of the psychoneuroses discloses
the astonishing fact that these phantasies or day dreams are the
immediate predecessors of hysterical symptoms—at least of a great many
of them; hysterical symptoms directly depend not upon the memories
themselves, but upon phantasies built on the basis of memories. The
frequent occurrence of conscious day phantasies brings these formations
within the scope of our knowledge; but just as there are such conscious
phantasies, so there are a great many unconscious ones, which must
remain unconscious on account of their content and on account of their
origin from repressed material. A more thorough examination into the
character of these day phantasies shows with what good reason the same
name has been given to these formations as to the products of our
nocturnal thought,—dreams. They possess an essential part of their
properties in common with nocturnal dreams; an examination of them would
really have afforded the shortest and best approach to an understanding
of night dreams.
Like dreams, they are fulfilments of wishes; like dreams a good part of
them are based upon the impressions of childish experiences; like dreams
their creations enjoy a certain amount of indulgence from the censor. If
we trace their formation, we see how the wish motive, which is active in
their production, has taken the material of which they are built, mixed
it together, rearranged it, and composed it into a new unit. They bear
the same relation to the childish memories, to which they go back, as
some of the quaint palaces of Rome bear to the ancient ruins, whose
freestones and pillars have furnished the material for the structure
built in modern form.
In the “secondary elaboration” of the dream content which we have
ascribed to our fourth dream-making factor, we again find the same
activity which in the creation of day dreams is allowed to manifest
itself unhampered by other influences. We may say without further
preliminary that this fourth factor of ours seeks to form something
_like a day dream_ from the material at hand. Where, however, such a day
dream has already been formed in connection with the dream thought, this
factor of the dream-work will preferably get control of it, and strive
to introduce it into the dream content. There are dreams which consist
merely of the repetition of such a day fancy, a fancy which has perhaps
remained unconscious—as, for instance, the dream of the boy that he is
riding with the heroes of the Trojan war in a war chariot. In my dream
“Autodidasker,” at least the second part of the dream is the faithful
repetition of a day phantasy—harmless in itself—about my dealings with
Professor N. The fact that the phantasy thus provided more often forms
only one part of the dream, or that only one part of the phantasy that
makes its way to the dream content, has its origin in the complexity of
the conditions which the dream must satisfy at its genesis. On the
whole, the phantasy is treated like any other component of the latent
material; still it is often recognisable in the dream as a whole. In my
dreams parts often occur which are emphasized by an impression different
from that of the rest. They seem to me to be in a state of flux, to be
more coherent and at the same time more transient than other pieces of
the same dream. I know that these are unconscious phantasies which get
into the dream by virtue of their association, but I have never
succeeded in registering such a phantasy. For the rest these phantasies,
like all other component parts of the dream thoughts, are jumbled
together and condensed, one covered up by another, and the like; but
there are all degrees, from the case where they may constitute the dream
content or at least the dream façade unchanged to the opposite case,
where they are represented in the dream content by only one of their
elements or by a remote allusion to such an element. The extent to which
the phantasies are able to withstand the demands of the censor and the
tendency to condensation are, of course, also decisive of their fate
among the dream thoughts.
In my choice of examples for dream analysis I have, wherever possible,
avoided those dreams in which unconscious fancies play a somewhat
important part, because the introduction of this psychic element would
have necessitated extensive discussion of the psychology of unconscious
thought. But I cannot entirely omit the “phantasy” even in this matter
of examples, because it often gets fully into the dream and still more
often distinctly pervades it. I may mention one more dream, which seems
to be composed of two distinct and opposed phantasies, overlapping each
other at certain places, of which the first is superficial, while the
second becomes, as it were, the interpreter of the first.[FI]