such Mem-systems, in which the same excitement propagated by the
P-elements experiences a diversified fixation. The first of these
Mem-systems will contain in any case the fixation of the association
through simultaneity, while in those lying further away the same
exciting material will be arranged according to other forms of
concurrence; so that relationships of similarity, &c., might perhaps be
represented through these later systems. It would naturally be idle to
attempt to report in words the psychic significance of such a system.
Its characteristic would lie in the intimacy of its relations to
elements of raw memory material—that is, if we wish to point to a
profounder theory in the gradations of the resistances to conduction
toward these elements.
We may insert here an observation of a general nature which points
perhaps to something of importance. The P-system, which possesses no
capability of preserving changes and hence no memory, furnishes for our
consciousness the entire manifoldness of the sensible qualities. Our
memories, on the other hand, are unconscious in themselves; those that
are most deeply impressed form no exception. They can be made conscious,
but there can be no doubt that they develop all their influences in the
unconscious state. What we term our character is based, to be sure, on
the memory traces of our impressions, and indeed on these impressions
that have affected us most strongly, those of our early youth—those that
almost never become conscious. But when memories become conscious again
they show no sensible quality or a very slight one in comparison to the
perceptions. If, now, it can be confirmed _that memory and quality
exclude each other, as far as consciousness in the Ψ-systems is
concerned_, a most promising insight reveals itself to us in the
determinations of the neuron excitement.
What we have so far assumed concerning the composition of the psychic
apparatus at the sensible end follows regardless of the dream and the
psychological explanations derived from it. The dream, however, serves
as a source of proof for the knowledge of another part of the apparatus.
We have seen that it became impossible to explain the dream formation
unless we ventured to assume two psychic instances, one of which
subjected the activity of the other to a critique as a consequence of
which the exclusion from consciousness resulted.
We have seen that the criticising instance entertains closer relations
with consciousness than the criticised. The former stands between the
latter and consciousness like a screen. We have, moreover, found
essential reasons for identifying the criticising instance with that
which directs our waking life and determines our voluntary conscious
actions. If we now replace these instances in the development of our
theory by systems, the criticising system is then to be ascribed to the
motor end because of the fact just mentioned. We now enter both systems
in our scheme, and express by the names given them their relation to
consciousness.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
The last of the systems at the motor end we call the foreconscious in
order to denote that exciting processes in this system can reach
consciousness without any further detention provided certain other
conditions be fulfilled, _e.g._, the attainment of a certain intensity,
a certain distribution of that function which must be called attention,
and the like. This is at the same time the system which possesses the
keys to voluntary motility. The system behind it we call the unconscious
because it has no access to consciousness except through the
foreconscious, in the passage through which its excitement must submit
to certain changes.
In which of these systems, now, do we localise the impulse to the dream
formation? For the Sake of simplicity, let us say in the system Unc. To
be sure we shall find in later discussions that this is not quite
correct, that the dream formation is forced to connect with dream
thoughts which belong to the system of the foreconscious. But we shall
learn later, when we come to deal with the dream-wish, that the motive
power for the dream is furnished by the Unc., and, owing to this latter
movement, we shall assume the unconscious system as the starting-point
of the dream formation. This dream impulse, like all other thought
structures, will now strive to continue itself in the foreconscious, and
thence to gain admission to consciousness.
Experience teaches us that the road leading from the foreconscious to
consciousness is closed to the dream thoughts during the day by the
resistance of the censor. At night the dream thoughts gain admission to
consciousness, but the question arises, in what way and because of what
change. If this admission was rendered possible to the dream thoughts
through the fact that the resistance watching on the boundary between
the unconscious and foreconscious sinks at night, we should then get
dreams in the material of our presentations which did not show the
hallucinatory character which just now interests us.
The sinking of the censor between the two systems, Unc. and Forec., can
explain to us only such dreams as “Autodidasker,” but not dreams like
the one of the burning child, which we have taken as a problem at the
outset in these present investigations.
What takes place in the hallucinatory dream we can describe in no other
way than by saying that the excitement takes a retrogressive course. It
takes its station, not at the motor end of the apparatus, but at the
sensible end, and finally reaches the system of the perceptions. If we
call the direction towards which the psychic process continues from the
unconscious into the waking state the progressive, we may then speak of
the dream as having a regressive character.
This regression is surely one of the most important peculiarities of the
dream process; but we must not forget that it does not belong to the
dream alone. The intentional recollection and other processes of our
normal thinking also require a retrogression in the psychic apparatus
from any complex presentation act to the raw material of the memory
traces lying at its basis. But during the waking state this turning
backward does not reach beyond the memory pictures; it is unable to
produce the hallucinatory vividness of the perception pictures. Why is
this different in the dream? When we spoke of the condensation work of
the dream we could not avoid the assumption that the intensities
adhering to the presentations are fully transferred from one to another
through the dream-work. It is probably this modification of the former
psychic process which makes possible the occupation of the system of P
to its full sensual vividness in the opposite direction from thought.
I hope that we are far from deluding ourselves about the importance of
this present discussion. We have done nothing more than give a name to
an inexplicable phenomenon. We call it regression if the presentation in
the dream is changed back to the perceptible image from which it once
originated. But even this step demands justification. Why this naming,
if it does not teach us anything new? I believe, however, that the name
“Regression” will serve us to the extent of connecting a fact familiar
to us with a scheme of the psychic apparatus which is supplied with a
direction. At this point, for the first time, it is worth the trouble to
construct such a scheme. For, with the help of this scheme, any other
peculiarity of the dream formation will become clear to us without
further reflection. If we look upon the dream as a process of regression
in the assumed psychic apparatus, we can readily understand the
empirically proven fact that all mental relation of the dream thoughts
either is lost in the dream-work or can come to expression only with
difficulty. According to our scheme, these mental relations are
contained not in the first Mem-systems, but in those lying further to
the front, and in the regression they must forfeit their expression in
favour of the perception pictures. _The structure of the dream thoughts
is in the regression broken up into its raw material._
But what change renders possible this regression which is impossible
during the day? Let us here be content with assumption. There must
evidently be some alterations in the charge of energy belonging to the
single systems causing the latter to become accessible or inaccessible
to the discharge of the excitement; but in any such apparatus the same
effect upon the course of excitement might be brought about through more
than one form of such changes. This naturally reminds us of the state of
sleep and of the many changes of energy this state produces at the
sensible end of the apparatus. During the day there is a continuous
coursing stream from the Ψ-system of the P toward the motility; this
current ceases at night, and no longer hinders a streaming of the
current of excitement in the opposite direction. This would appear to be
that “seclusion from the outer world” which according to the theory of
some authors is supposed to explain the psychological character of the
dream (_vide_ p. 30). In the explanation of the regression of the dream
we shall, however, have to consider those other regressions which
originate during morbid waking states. In these other forms the
explanation just given plainly leaves us in the lurch. Regression takes
place in spite of the uninterrupted sensible current in a progressive
direction.
The hallucinations of hysteria and paranoia, as well as the visions of
mentally normal persons, I can explain as actually corresponding to
regressions, being in fact thoughts transformed into images; and only
such thoughts are subjected to this transformation as are in intimate
connection with suppressed or unconscious recollections. As an example I
shall cite one of my youngest hysterical patients—a boy, twelve years
old, who was prevented from falling asleep by “_green faces with red
eyes_,” which terrified him. The source of this manifestation was the
suppressed, but once conscious, memory of a boy whom he had often seen
during four years, and who offered him a deterring example of many
childish bad habits, including onanism, which now formed the subject of
his own reproach. His mother had noticed at the time that the complexion
of the ill-bred boy was greenish and that he had _red_ (_i.e. red
bordered_) _eyes_. Hence the terrible vision which constantly served to
remind him of his mother’s warning that such boys become demented, that
they are unable to make progress at school, and are doomed to an early
death. A part of this prediction came true in the case of the little
patient; he could not successfully pursue his high school studies, and,
as appeared on examination of his involuntary fancies, he stood in great
dread of the remainder of the prophecy. However, after a brief period of
successful treatment, his sleep was restored, he lost his fears, and
finished his scholastic year with an excellent record.
I may also add here the interpretation of a vision related to me by an
hysteric forty years of age, as having occurred in her normal life. On
opening her eyes one morning she beheld in the room her brother, whom
she knew to be confined in an insane asylum. Her little son was asleep
by her side. Lest the child should be frightened on seeing his uncle,
and fall into convulsions, she pulled the sheet over the little one;
this done, the phantom disappeared. This vision is the re-casting of one
of her infantile reminiscences which, although conscious, is most
intimately connected with all the unconscious material in her mind. Her
nursemaid told her that her mother, who had died young (the patient was
then only a year and a half old), had suffered from epileptic or
hysterical convulsions, which dated back to a fright caused by her
brother (the patient’s uncle), who appeared to her disguised as a
spectre with a sheet over his head. The vision contains the same
elements as the reminiscence, viz. the appearance of the brother, the
sheet, the fright, and its effect. These elements, however, are ranged
in different relations, and are transferred to other persons. The
obvious motive of the vision, which replaces the idea, is her solicitude
lest her little son, who bore a striking resemblance to his uncle,
should share the latter’s fate. Both examples here cited are not
entirely unrelated to sleep, and may therefore be unsuitable as proof
for my assertion. I may therefore refer to my analysis of an
hallucinatory paranoia,[FP] and to the results of my hitherto
unpublished studies on the psychology of the psychoneuroses in order to
emphasize the fact that in these cases of regressive thought
transformation one must not overlook the influence of a suppressed or
unconscious reminiscence, this being in most cases of an infantile
character. This recollection, so to speak, draws into the regression the
thought with which it is connected, which is prevented from expression
by the censor—that is, into that form of representation in which the
recollection itself exists psychically. I may here mention as a result
of my studies in hysteria that if we succeed in restoring infantile
scenes to consciousness (whether recollections or fancies) they are seen
as hallucinations, and are divested of this character only after
reproduction. It is also known that the earliest infantile memories
retain the character of perceptible vividness until late in life, even
in persons who are otherwise not visual in memory.
If, now, we keep in mind what part is played in the dream thoughts by
the infantile reminiscences or the phantasies based upon them, how often
fragments of these reminiscences emerge in the dream content, and how
often they even give origin to dream wishes, we cannot deny the
probability that in the dream, too, the transformation of thoughts into
visual images may be the result of the attraction exerted by the
visually represented reminiscences, striving for reanimation, upon the
thoughts severed from consciousness and struggling for expression.
Following this conception, we may further describe the dream as a
modified substitute for the infantile scene produced by transference to
recent material. The infantile cannot enforce its renewal, and must
therefore be satisfied to return as a dream.
This reference to the significance of the infantile scenes (or of their
phantastic repetitions), as in a manner furnishing the pattern for the
dream content, renders superfluous the assumption made by Scherner and
his pupils, of an inner source of excitement. Scherner assumes a state
of “visual excitation” of internal excitement in the organ of sight when
the dreams manifest a particular vividness or a special abundance of
visual elements. We need not object to this assumption, but may be
satisfied with establishing such state of excitation for the psychic
perceptive system of the organs of vision only; we shall, however,
assert that this state of excitation is formed through the memory, and
is merely a refreshing of the former actual visual excitation. I cannot,
from my own experience, give a good example showing such an influence of
infantile reminiscence; my own dreams are surely less rich in
perceptible elements than I must fancy those of others; but in my most
beautiful and most vivid dream of late years I can easily trace the
hallucinatory distinctness of the dream contents to the sensuous nature
of recently received impressions. On page 368 I mentioned a dream in
which the dark blue colour of the water, the brown colour of the smoke
issuing from the ship’s funnels, and the sombre brown and red of the
buildings which I had seen made a profound and lasting impression on my
mind. This dream, if any, must be attributed to visual excitation. But
what has brought my visual organ into this excitable state? It was a
recent impression uniting itself with a series of former ones. The
colours I beheld were those of the toy blocks with which my children
erected a grand structure for my admiration on the day preceding the
dream. The same sombre red colour covered the large blocks and the same
blue and brown the small ones. Connected with these were the colour
impression of my last journey in Italy, the charming blue of the Isonzo
and the Lagoon, the brown hue of the Alpine region. The beautiful
colours seen in the dream were but a repetition of those seen in the
memory.
Let us review what we have learned about this peculiarity which the
dream has of transforming its content of ideas into plastic images. We
have neither explained this character of the dream-work nor traced it to
known laws of psychology, but we have singled it out as pointing to
unknown connections, and designated it by the name of the “regredient”
character. Wherever this regression has occurred, we have regarded it as
an effect of the resistance which opposes the progress of the thought on
its normal way to consciousness, as well as a result of the simultaneous
attraction exerted upon it by the vivid memories present. Regression is
perhaps facilitated in the dream by the cessation of the progressive
stream running from the sense organs during the day. For this auxiliary
moment there must be compensation in the other forms of regression
through a fortifying of the other motives of regression. We must also
bear in mind that in pathological cases of regression, as in the dream,
the process of transference of energy must be different from that of the
regressions of normal psychic life, as it renders possible a full
hallucinatory occupation of the perception systems. What we have
described in the analysis of the dream-work as “Regard for Dramatic
Fitness” may be referred to the selective attraction of visually
recollected scenes, touched by the dream thoughts.
It is quite possible that this first part of our psychological
utilisation of the dream does not entirely satisfy even us. We must,
however, console ourselves with the fact that we are compelled to build
in the dark. If we have not altogether strayed from the right path, we
shall be sure to reach about the same ground from another
starting-point, and thereafter perhaps be better able to see our way.
(_c_) _The Wish-Fulfilment._
The dream of the burning child cited above affords us a welcome
opportunity for appreciating the difficulties confronting the theory of
wish-fulfilment. That the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfilment
surely seemed strange to us all—and that not alone because of the
contradictions offered by the anxiety dream.
After learning from the first analytical explanations that the dream
conceals sense and psychic validity, we could hardly expect so simple a
determination of this sense. According to the correct but concise
definition of Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in
sleep (in so far as one sleeps). Considering that during the day our
thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts—judgments,
conclusions, contradictions, expectations, intentions, &c.—why should
our sleeping thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the production
of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary, many dreams that present a
different psychic act in dream form, _e.g._, a solicitude, and is not
the very transparent father’s dream mentioned above of just such a
nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the
father draws the solicitous conclusion that a candle has been upset and
may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms this conclusion into a
dream by investing it with a senseful situation enacted in the present
tense. What part is played in this dream by the wish-fulfilment, and
which are we to suspect—the predominance of the thought continued from
the waking state or of the thought incited by the new sensory
impression?
All these considerations are just, and force us to enter more deeply
into the part played by the wish-fulfilment in the dream, and into the
significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
It is in fact the wish-fulfilment that has already induced us to
separate dreams into two groups. We have found some dreams that were
plainly wish-fulfilments; and others in which wish-fulfilment could not
be recognised, and was frequently concealed by every available means. In
this latter class of dreams we recognised the influence of the dream
censor. The undisguised wish dreams were chiefly found in children, yet
fleeting open-hearted wish dreams _seemed_ (I purposely emphasize this
word) to occur also in adults.
We may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the dream originates. But to
what opposition or to what diversity do we refer this “whence”? I think
it is to the opposition between conscious daily life and a psychic
activity remaining unconscious which can only make itself noticeable
during the night. I thus find a threefold possibility for the origin of
a wish. Firstly, it may have been incited during the day, and owing to
external circumstances failed to find gratification, there is thus left
for the night an acknowledged but unfulfilled wish. Secondly, it may
come to the surface during the day but be rejected, leaving an
unfulfilled but suppressed wish. Or, thirdly, it may have no relation to
daily life, and belong to those wishes that originate during the night
from the suppression. If we now follow our scheme of the psychic
apparatus, we can localise a wish of the first order in the system
Forec. We may assume that a wish of the second order has been forced
back from the Forec. system into the Unc. system, where alone, if
anywhere, it can maintain itself; while a wish-feeling of the third
order we consider altogether incapable of leaving the Unc. system. This
brings up the question whether wishes arising from these different
sources possess the same value for the dream, and whether they have the
same power to incite a dream.
On reviewing the dreams which we have at our disposal for answering this
question, we are at once moved to add as a fourth source of the
dream-wish the actual wish incitements arising during the night, such as
thirst and sexual desire. It then becomes evident that the source of the
dream-wish does not affect its capacity to incite a dream. This view is
supported by the dream of the little girl who continued the sea trip
interrupted during the day, and by the other children’s dreams referred
to; they are explained by an unfulfilled but not suppressed wish from
the day-time. That a wish suppressed during the day asserts itself in
the dream can be shown by a great many examples. I shall mention a very
simple example of this class. A somewhat sarcastic young lady, whose
younger friend has become engaged to be married, is asked throughout the
day by her acquaintances whether she knows and what she thinks of the
fiancé. She answers with unqualified praise, thereby silencing her own
judgment, as she would prefer to tell the truth, namely, that he is an
ordinary person (Dutzendmensch).[FQ] The following night she dreams that
the same question is put to her, and that she replies with the formula:
“In case of subsequent orders it will suffice to mention the number.”
Finally, we have learned from numerous analyses that the wish in all
dreams that have been subject to distortion has been derived from the
unconscious, and has been unable to come to perception in the waking
state. Thus it would appear that all wishes are of the same value and
force for the dream formation.