has long ceased to impress us as a contradiction. We may explain this
occurrence by the fact that the wish belongs to one system (the Unc.),
while by the other system (the Forec.), this wish has been rejected and
suppressed. The subjection of the Unc. by the Forec. is not complete
even in perfect psychic health; the amount of this suppression shows the
degree of our psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms show that there is a
conflict between the two systems; the symptoms are the results of a
compromise of this conflict, and they temporarily put an end to it. On
the one hand, they afford the Unc. an outlet for the discharge of its
excitement, and serve it as a sally port, while, on the other hand, they
give the Forec. the capability of dominating the Unc. to some extent. It
is highly instructive to consider, _e.g._, the significance of any
hysterical phobia or of an agoraphobia. Suppose a neurotic incapable of
crossing the street alone, which we would justly call a “symptom.” We
attempt to remove this symptom by urging him to the action which he
deems himself incapable of. The result will be an attack of anxiety,
just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often been the cause of
establishing an agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has been
constituted in order to guard against the outbreak of the anxiety. The
phobia is thrown before the anxiety like a fortress on the frontier.
Unless we enter into the part played by the affects in these processes,
which can be done here only imperfectly, we cannot continue our
discussion. Let us therefore advance the proposition that the reason why
the suppression of the unconscious becomes absolutely necessary is
because, if the discharge of presentation should be left to itself, it
would develop an affect in the Unc. which originally bore the character
of pleasure, but which, since the appearance of the repression, bears
the character of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of the
suppression is to stop the development of this pain. The suppression
extends over the unconscious ideation, because the liberation of pain
might emanate from the ideation. The foundation is here laid for a very
definite assumption concerning the nature of the affective development.
It is regarded as a motor or secondary activity, the key to the
innervation of which is located in the presentations of the Unc. Through
the domination of the Forec. these presentations become, as it were,
throttled and inhibited at the exit of the emotion-developing impulses.
The danger, which is due to the fact that the Forec. ceases to occupy
the energy, therefore consists in the fact that the unconscious
excitations liberate such an affect as—in consequence of the repression
that has previously taken place—can only be perceived as pain or
anxiety.
This danger is released through the full sway of the dream process. The
determinations for its realisation consist in the fact that repressions
have taken place, and that the suppressed emotional wishes shall become
sufficiently strong. They thus stand entirely without the psychological
realm of the dream structure. Were it not for the fact that our subject
is connected through just one factor, namely, the freeing of the Unc.
during sleep, with the subject of the development of anxiety, I could
dispense with discussion of the anxiety dream, and thus avoid all
obscurities connected with it.
As I have often repeated, the theory of the anxiety belongs to the
psychology of the neuroses. I would say that the anxiety in the dream is
an anxiety problem and not a dream problem. We have nothing further to
do with it after having once demonstrated its point of contact with the
subject of the dream process. There is only one thing left for me to do.
As I have asserted that the neurotic anxiety originates from sexual
sources, I can subject anxiety dreams to analysis in order to
demonstrate the sexual material in their dream thoughts.
For good reasons I refrain from citing here any of the numerous examples
placed at my disposal by neurotic patients, but prefer to give anxiety
dreams from young persons.
Personally, I have had no real anxiety dream for decades, but I recall
one from my seventh or eighth year which I subjected to interpretation
about thirty years later. The dream was very vivid, and showed me _my
beloved mother, with peculiarly calm sleeping countenance, carried into
the room and laid on the bed by two (or three) persons with bird’s
beaks_. I awoke crying and screaming, and disturbed my parents. The very
tall figures—draped in a peculiar manner—with beaks, I had taken from
the illustrations of Philippson’s bible; I believe they represented
deities with heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb relief. The
analysis also introduced the reminiscence of a naughty janitor’s boy,
who used to play with us children on the meadow in front of the house; I
would add that his name was Philip. I feel that I first heard from this
boy the vulgar word signifying sexual intercourse, which is replaced
among the educated by the Latin “coitus,” but to which the dream
distinctly alludes by the selection of the bird’s heads.[FU] I must have
suspected the sexual significance of the word from the facial expression
of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother’s features in the dream were
copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few
days before his death snoring in the state of coma. The interpretation
of the secondary elaboration in the dream must therefore have been that
my mother was dying; the tomb relief, too, agrees with this. In this
anxiety I awoke, and could not calm myself until I had awakened my
parents. I remember that I suddenly became calm on coming face to face
with my mother, as if I needed the assurance that my mother was not
dead. But this secondary interpretation of the dream had been effected
only under the influence of the developed anxiety. I was not frightened
because I dreamed that my mother was dying, but I interpreted the dream
in this manner in the foreconscious elaboration because I was already
under the domination of the anxiety. The latter, however, could be
traced by means of the repression to an obscure obviously sexual desire,
which had found its satisfying expression in the visual content of the
dream.
A man twenty-seven years old who had been severely ill for a year had
had many terrifying dreams between the ages of eleven and thirteen. He
thought that a man with an axe was running after him; he wished to run,
but felt paralysed and could not move from the spot. This may be taken
as a good example of a very common, and apparently sexually indifferent,
anxiety dream. In the analysis the dreamer first thought of a story told
him by his uncle, which chronologically was later than the dream, viz.
that he was attacked at night by a suspicious-looking individual. This
occurrence led him to believe that he himself might have already heard
of a similar episode at the time of the dream. In connection with the
axe he recalled that during that period of his life he once hurt his
hand with an axe while chopping wood. This immediately led to his
relations with his younger brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock
down. In particular, he recalled an occasion when he struck his brother
on the head with his boot until he bled, whereupon his mother remarked:
“I fear he will kill him some day.” While he was seemingly thinking of
the subject of violence, a reminiscence from his ninth year suddenly
occurred to him. His parents came home late and went to bed while he was
feigning sleep. He soon heard panting and other noises that appeared
strange to him, and he could also make out the position of his parents
in bed. His further associations showed that he had established an
analogy between this relation between his parents and his own relation
toward his younger brother. He subsumed what occurred between his
parents under the conception “violence and wrestling,” and thus reached
a sadistic conception of the coitus act, as often happens among
children. The fact that he often noticed blood on his mother’s bed
corroborated his conception.
That the sexual intercourse of adults appears strange to children who
observe it, and arouses fear in them, I dare say is a fact of daily
experience. I have explained this fear by the fact that sexual
excitement is not mastered by their understanding, and is probably also
inacceptable to them because their parents are involved in it. For the
same reason this excitement is converted into fear. At a still earlier
period of life sexual emotion directed toward the parent of opposite sex
does not meet with repression but finds free expression, as we have seen
above (pp. 209–215).
For the night terrors with hallucinations (_pavor nocturnus_) frequently
found in children, I would unhesitatingly give the same explanation.
Here, too, we are certainly dealing with the incomprehensible and
rejected sexual feelings, which, if noted, would probably show a
temporal periodicity, for an enhancement of the sexual _libido_ may just
as well be produced accidentally through emotional impressions as
through the spontaneous and gradual processes of development.
I lack the necessary material to sustain these explanations from
observation. On the other hand, the pediatrists seem to lack the point
of view which alone makes comprehensible the whole series of phenomena,
on the somatic as well as on the psychic side. To illustrate by a
comical example how one wearing the blinders of medical mythology may
miss the understanding of such cases, I will relate a case which I found
in a thesis on _pavor nocturnus_ by _Debacker_,[17] 1881 (p. 66). A
thirteen-year-old boy of delicate health began to become anxious and
dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once a week it was
interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with hallucinations. The
memory of these dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related
that the _devil_ shouted at him: “Now we have you, now we have you,” and
this was followed by an odour of sulphur; the fire burned his skin. This
dream aroused him, terror-stricken. He was unable to scream at first;
then his voice returned, and he was heard to say distinctly: “No, no,
not me; why, I have done nothing,” or, “Please don’t, I shall never do
it again.” Occasionally, also, he said: “Albert has not done that.”
Later he avoided undressing, because, as he said, the fire attacked him
only when he was undressed. From amid these evil dreams, which menaced
his health, he was sent into the country, where he recovered within a
year and a half, but at the age of fifteen he once confessed: “Je
n’osais pas l’avouer, mais j’éprouvais continuellement des picotements
et des surexcitations aux _parties_;[FV] à la fin, cela m’énervait tant
que plusieurs fois, j’ai pensé me jeter par la fenêtre au dortoir.”
It is certainly not difficult to suspect: 1, that the boy had practised
masturbation in former years, that he probably denied it, and was
threatened with severe punishment for his wrongdoing (his confession: Je
ne le ferai plus; his denial: Albert n’a jamais fait ça). 2, That under
the pressure of puberty the temptation to self-abuse through the
tickling of the genitals was reawakened. 3, That now, however, a
struggle of repression arose in him, suppressing the _libido_ and
changing it into fear, which subsequently took the form of the
punishments with which he was then threatened.
Let us, however, quote the conclusions drawn by our author (p. 69). This
observation shows: 1, That the influence of puberty may produce in a boy
of delicate health a condition of extreme weakness, and that it may lead
to a _very marked cerebral anæmia_.[FW]
2. This cerebral anæmia produces a transformation of character,
demonomaniacal hallucinations, and very violent nocturnal, perhaps also
diurnal, states of anxiety.
3. Demonomania and the self-reproaches of the day can be traced to the
influences of religious education which the subject underwent as a
child.
4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of a lengthy sojourn in
the country, bodily exercise, and the return of physical strength after
the termination of the period of puberty.
5. A predisposing influence for the origin of the cerebral condition of
the boy may be attributed to heredity and to the father’s chronic
syphilitic state.
The concluding remarks of the author read: “Nous avons fait entrer cette
observation dans le cadre des délires apyrétiques d’inanition, car c’est
à l’ischémie cérébrale que nous rattachons cet état particulier.”
(_e_) _The Primary and Secondary Processes—Regression._
In venturing to attempt to penetrate more deeply into the psychology of
the dream processes, I have undertaken a difficult task, to which,
indeed, my power of description is hardly equal. To reproduce in
description by a succession of words the simultaneousness of so complex
a chain of events, and in doing so to appear unbiassed throughout the
exposition, goes fairly beyond my powers. I have now to atone for the
fact that I have been unable in my description of the dream psychology
to follow the historic development of my views. The view-points for my
conception of the dream were reached through earlier investigations in
the psychology of the neuroses, to which I am not supposed to refer
here, but to which I am repeatedly forced to refer, whereas I should
prefer to proceed in the opposite direction, and, starting from the
dream, to establish a connection with the psychology of the neuroses. I
am well aware of all the inconveniences arising for the reader from this
difficulty, but I know of no way to avoid them.
As I am dissatisfied with this state of affairs, I am glad to dwell upon
another viewpoint which seems to raise the value of my efforts. As has
been shown in the introduction to the first chapter, I found myself
confronted with a theme which had been marked by the sharpest
contradictions on the part of the authorities. After our elaboration of
the dream problems we found room for most of these contradictions. We
have been forced, however, to take decided exception to two of the views
pronounced, viz. that the dream is a senseless and that it is a somatic
process; apart from these cases we have had to accept all the
contradictory views in one place or another of the complicated argument,
and we have been able to demonstrate that they had discovered something
that was correct. That the dream continues the impulses and interests of
the waking state has been quite generally confirmed through the
discovery of the latent thoughts of the dream. These thoughts concern
themselves only with things that seem important and of momentous
interest to us. The dream never occupies itself with trifles. But we
have also concurred with the contrary view, viz. that the dream gathers
up the indifferent remnants from the day, and that not until it has in
some measure withdrawn itself from the waking activity can an important
event of the day be taken up by the dream. We found this holding true
for the dream content, which gives the dream thought its changed
expression by means of disfigurement. We have said that from the nature
of the association mechanism the dream process more easily takes
possession of recent or indifferent material which has not yet been
seized by the waking mental activity; and by reason of the censor it
transfers the psychic intensity from the important but also disagreeable
to the indifferent material. The hypermnesia of the dream and the resort
to infantile material have become main supports in our theory. In our
theory of the dream we have attributed to the wish originating from the
infantile the part of an indispensable motor for the formation of the
dream. We naturally could not think of doubting the experimentally
demonstrated significance of the objective sensory stimuli during sleep;
but we have brought this material into the same relation to the
dream-wish as the thought remnants from the waking activity. There was
no need of disputing the fact that the dream interprets the objective
sensory stimuli after the manner of an illusion; but we have supplied
the motive for this interpretation which has been left undecided by the
authorities. The interpretation follows in such a manner that the
perceived object is rendered harmless as a sleep disturber and becomes
available for the wish-fulfilment. Though we do not admit as special
sources of the dream the subjective state of excitement of the sensory
organs during sleep, which seems to have been demonstrated by Trumbull
Ladd,[40] we are nevertheless able to explain this excitement through
the regressive revival of active memories behind the dream. A modest
part in our conception has also been assigned to the inner organic
sensations which are wont to be taken as the cardinal point in the
explanation of the dream. These—the sensation of falling, flying, or
inhibition—stand as an ever ready material to be used by the dream-work
to express the dream thought as often as need arises.
That the dream process is a rapid and momentary one seems to be true for
the perception through consciousness of the already prepared dream
content; the preceding parts of the dream process probably take a slow,
fluctuating course. We have solved the riddle of the superabundant dream
content compressed within the briefest moment by explaining that this is
due to the appropriation of almost fully formed structures from the
psychic life. That the dream is disfigured and distorted by memory we
found to be correct, but not troublesome, as this is only the last
manifest operation in the work of disfigurement which has been active
from the beginning of the dream-work. In the bitter and seemingly
irreconcilable controversy as to whether the psychic life sleeps at
night or can make the same use of all its capabilities as during the
day, we have been able to agree with both sides, though not fully with
either. We have found proof that the dream thoughts represent a most
complicated intellectual activity, employing almost every means
furnished by the psychic apparatus; still it cannot be denied that these
dream thoughts have originated during the day, and it is indispensable
to assume that there is a sleeping state of the psychic life. Thus, even
the theory of partial sleep has come into play; but the characteristics
of the sleeping state have been found not in the dilapidation of the
psychic connections but in the cessation of the psychic system
dominating the day, arising from its desire to sleep. The withdrawal
from the outer world retains its significance also for our conception;
though not the only factor, it nevertheless helps the regression to make
possible the representation of the dream. That we should reject the
voluntary guidance of the presentation course is uncontestable; but the
psychic life does not thereby become aimless, for we have seen that
after the abandonment of the desired end-presentation undesired ones
gain the mastery. The loose associative connection in the dream we have
not only recognised, but we have placed under its control a far greater
territory than could have been supposed; we have, however, found it
merely the feigned substitute for another correct and senseful one. To
be sure we, too, have called the dream absurd; but we have been able to
learn from examples how wise the dream really is when it simulates
absurdity. We do not deny any of the functions that have been attributed
to the dream. That the dream relieves the mind like a valve, and that,
according to Robert’s assertion, all kinds of harmful material are
rendered harmless through representation in the dream, not only exactly
coincides with our theory of the two-fold wish-fulfilment in the dream,
but, in his own wording, becomes even more comprehensible for us than
for Robert himself. The free indulgence of the psychic in the play of
its faculties finds expression with us in the non-interference with the
dream on the part of the foreconscious activity. The “return to the
embryonal state of psychic life in the dream” and the observation of
Havelock Ellis,[23] “an archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect
thoughts,” appear to us as happy anticipations of our deductions to the
effect that _primitive_ modes of work suppressed during the day
participate in the formation of the dream; and with us, as with
Delage,[15] the _suppressed_ material becomes the mainspring of the
dreaming.
We have fully recognised the rôle which Scherner ascribes to the dream
phantasy, and even his interpretation; but we have been obliged, so to
speak, to conduct them to another department in the problem. It is not
the dream that produces the phantasy but the unconscious phantasy that
takes the greatest part in the formation of the dream thoughts. We are
indebted to Scherner for his clue to the source of the dream thoughts,
but almost everything that he ascribes to the dream-work is attributable
to the activity of the unconscious, which is at work during the day, and
which supplies incitements not only for dreams but for neurotic symptoms
as well. We have had to separate the dream-work from this activity as
being something entirely different and far more restricted. Finally, we
have by no means abandoned the relation of the dream to mental
disturbances, but, on the contrary, we have given it a more solid
foundation on new ground.
Thus held together by the new material of our theory as by a superior
unity, we find the most varied and most contradictory conclusions of the
authorities fitting into our structure; some of them are differently
disposed, only a few of them are entirely rejected. But our own
structure is still unfinished. For, disregarding the many obscurities
which we have necessarily encountered in our advance into the darkness
of psychology, we are now apparently embarrassed by a new contradiction.
On the one hand, we have allowed the dream thoughts to proceed from
perfectly normal mental operations, while, on the other hand, we have
found among the dream thoughts a number of entirely abnormal mental
processes which extend likewise to the dream contents. These,
consequently, we have repeated in the interpretation of the dream. All
that we have termed the “dream-work” seems so remote from the psychic
processes recognised by us as correct, that the severest judgments of
the authors as to the low psychic activity of dreaming seem to us well
founded.
Perhaps only through still further advance can enlightenment and
improvement be brought about. I shall pick out one of the constellations
leading to the formation of dreams.