IV. DISTORTION IN DREAMS
IF I now declare that wish-fulfillment is the meaning of
every dream, so that there cannot be any dreams other than wish-dreams, I
know beforehand that I shall meet with the most emphatic contradiction. My
critics will object: "The fact that there are dreams which are to be
understood as fulfillments of wishes is not new, but has long since been
recognized by such writers as Radestock, Volkelt, Purkinje, Griesinger and
others. * That there can be no other dreams than those of wish-fulfillments
is yet one more unjustified generalization, which, fortunately, can be
easily refuted. Dreams which present the most painful content, and not the
least trace of wish-fulfillment, occur frequently enough. The pessimistic
philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, is perhaps most completely opposed to
the theory of wish-fulfillment. In his Philosophy of the Unconscious, Part
II (Stereotyped German edition, p. 344), he says: 'As regards the dream,
with it all the troubles of waking life pass over into the sleeping state;
all save the one thing which may in some degree reconcile the cultured
person with life- scientific and artistic enjoyment....' But even less
pessimistic observers have emphasized the fact that in our dreams pain and
disgust are more frequent than pleasure (Scholz, p. 33; Volkelt, p. 80, et
al.). Two ladies, Sarah Weed and Florence Hallam, have even worked out, on
the basis of their dreams, a numerical value for the preponderance of
distress and discomfort in dreams. They find that 58 per cent of dreams
are disagreeable, and only 28.6 positively pleasant. Besides those dreams
that convey into our sleep the many painful emotions of life, there are
also anxiety-dreams, in which this most terrible of all the painful
emotions torments us until we wake. Now it is precisely by these anxiety
dreams that children are so often haunted (cf. Debacker on Pavor nocturnus);
and yet it was in children that you found the wish-fulfilment dream in its
most obvious form."
* Already Plotinus, the neo-Platonist, said: "When
desire bestirs itself, then comes phantasy, and presents to us, as it
were, the object of desire" (Du Prel, p. 276).
The anxiety-dream does really seem to preclude a
generalization of the thesis deduced from the examples given in the last
chapter, that dreams are wish-fulfillments, and even to condemn it as an
absurdity.
Nevertheless, it is not difficult to parry these
apparently invincible objections. It is merely necessary to observe that
our doctrine is not based upon the estimates of the obvious dream-
content, but relates to the thought-content, which, in the course of
interpretation, is found to lie behind the dream. Let us compare and
contrast the manifest and the latent dream-content. It is true that there
are dreams the manifest content of which is of the most painful nature.
But has anyone ever tried to interpret these dreams- to discover their
latent thought-content? If not, the two objections to our doctrine are no
longer valid; for there is always the possibility that even our painful
and terrifying dreams may, upon interpretation, prove to be wish
fulfillments. *
* It is quite incredible with what obstinacy readers
and critics have excluded this consideration and disregarded the
fundamental differentiation between the manifest and the latent dream-
content. Nothing in the literature of the subject approaches so closely to
my own conception of dreams as a passage in J. Sully's essay, Dreams as a
Revelation (and it is not because I do not think it valuable that I allude
to it here for the first time): "It would seem then, after all, that
dreams are not the utter nonsense they have been said to be by such
authorities as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. The chaotic aggregations
of our night-fancy have a significance and communicate new knowledge. Like
some letter in cipher, the dream-inscription when scrutinized closely
loses its first look of balderdash and takes on the aspect of a serious,
intelligible message. Or, to vary the figure slightly, we may say that,
like some palimpsest, the dream discloses beneath its worthless
surface-characters traces of an old and precious communication" (p. 364).
In scientific research it is often advantageous, if the
solution of one problem presents difficulties, to add to it a second
problem; just as it is easier to crack two nuts together instead of
separately. Thus, we are confronted not only with the problem: How can
painful and terrifying dreams be the fulfillments of wishes? but we may add
to this a second problem which arises from the foregoing discussion of the
general problem of the dream: Why do not the dreams that show an
indifferent content, and yet turn out to be wish-fulfillments, reveal their
meaning without disguise? Take the exhaustively treated dream of Irma's
injection: it is by no means of a painful character, and it may be
recognized, upon interpretation, as a striking wish- fulfillment. But why
is an interpretation necessary at all? Why does not the dream say directly
what it means? As a matter of fact, the dream of Irma's injection does not
at first produce the impression that it represents a wish of the dreamer's
as fulfilled. The reader will not have received this impression, and even
I myself was not aware of the fact until I had undertaken the analysis. If
we call this peculiarity of dreams- namely, that they need elucidation-
the phenomenon of distortion in dreams, a second question then arises:
What is the origin of this distortion in dreams?
If one's first thoughts on this subject were consulted,
several possible solutions might suggest themselves: for example, that
during sleep one is incapable of finding an adequate expression for one's
dream-thoughts. The analysis of certain dreams, however, compels us to
offer another explanation. I shall demonstrate this by means of a second
dream of my own, which again involves numerous indiscretions, but which
compensates for this personal sacrifice by affording a thorough
elucidation of the problem.
Preliminary Statement
In the spring of 1897 I learnt that two professors of
our university had proposed me for the title of Professor Extraordinarius
(assistant professor). The news came as a surprise to me, and pleased me
considerably as an expression of appreciation on the part of two eminent
men which could not be explained by personal interest. But I told myself
immediately that I must not expect anything to come of their proposal. For
some years past the Ministry had disregarded such proposals, and several
colleagues of mine, who were my seniors and at least my equals in desert,
had been waiting in vain all this time for the appointment. I had no
reason to suppose that I should fare any better. I resolved, therefore, to
resign myself to disappointment. I am not, so far as I know, ambitious,
and I was following my profession with gratifying success even without the
recommendation of a professorial title. Whether I considered the grapes to
be sweet or sour did not matter, since they undoubtedly hung too high for
me.
One evening a friend of mine called to see me; one of
those colleagues whose fate I had regarded as a warning. As he had long
been a candidate for promotion to the professorate (which in our society
makes the doctor a demigod to his patients), and as he was less resigned
than I, he was accustomed from time to time to remind the authorities of
his claims in the hope of advancing his interests. It was after one of
these visits that he called on me. He said that this time he had driven
the exalted gentleman into a corner, and had asked him frankly whether
considerations of religious denomination were not really responsible for
the postponement of his appointment. The answer was: His Excellency had to
admit that in the present state of public opinion he was not in a
position, etc. "Now at least I know where I stand," my friend concluded
his narrative, which told me nothing new, but which was calculated to
confirm me in my resignation. For the same denominational considerations
would apply to my own case.
On the morning after my friend's visit I had the
following dream, which was notable also on account of its form. It
consisted of two thoughts and two images, so that a thought and an image
emerged alternately. But here I shall record only the first half of the
dream, since the second half has no relation to the purpose for which I
cite the dream.
I. My friend R is my uncle- I have a great affection
for him.
II. I see before me his face, somewhat altered. It
seems to be elongated; a yellow beard, which surrounds it, is seen with
peculiar distinctness.
Then follow the other two portions of the dream, again
a thought and an image, which I omit.
The interpretation of this dream was arrived at in the
following manner:
When I recollected the dream in the course of the
morning, I laughed outright and said, "The dream is nonsense." But I could
not get it out of my mind, and I was pursued by it all day, until at last,
in the evening, I reproached myself in these words: "If in the course of a
dream-interpretation one of your patients could find nothing better to say
than 'That is nonsense,' you would reprove him, and you would suspect that
behind the dream there was hidden some disagreeable affair, the exposure
of which he wanted to spare himself. Apply the same thing to your own
case; your opinion that the dream is nonsense probably signifies merely an
inner resistance to its interpretation. Don't let yourself be put off." I
then proceeded with the interpretation.
R is my uncle. What can that mean? I had only one
uncle, my uncle Joseph. * His story, to be sure, was a sad one. Once, more
than thirty years ago, hoping to make money, he allowed himself to be
involved in transactions of a kind which the law punishes severely, and
paid the penalty. My father, whose hair turned grey with grief within a
few days, used always to say that uncle Joseph had never been a bad man,
but, after all, he was a simpleton. If, then, my friend R is my uncle
Joseph, that is equivalent to saying: "R is a simpleton." Hardly credible,
and very disagreeable! But there is the face that I saw in the dream, with
its elongated features and its yellow beard. My uncle actually had such a
face- long, and framed in a handsome yellow beard. My friend R was
extremely swarthy, but when black-haired people begin to grow grey they
pay for the glory of their youth. Their black beards undergo an unpleasant
change of colour, hair by hair; first they turn a reddish brown, then a
yellowish brown, and then definitely grey. My friend R's beard is now in
this stage; so, for that matter, is my own, a fact which I note with
regret. The face that I see in my dream is at once that of my friend R and
that of my uncle. It is like one of those composite photographs of
Galton's; in order to emphasize family resemblances Galton had several
faces photographed on the same plate. No doubt is now possible; it is
really my opinion that my friend R is a simpleton- like my uncle Joseph.
* It is astonishing to see how my memory here restricts
itself- in the waking state!- for the purposes of analysis. I have known
five of my uncles and I loved and honoured one of them. But at the moment
when I overcame my resistance to the interpretation of the dream, I said
to myself: "I have only one uncle, the one who is intended in the dream."
I have still no idea for what purpose I have worked out
this relationship. It is certainly one to which I must unreservedly
object. Yet it is not very profound, for my uncle was a criminal, and my
friend R is not, except in so far as he was once fined for knocking down
an apprentice with his bicycle. Can I be thinking of this offence? That
would make the comparison ridiculous. Here I recollect another
conversation, which I had some days ago with another colleague, N; as a
matter of fact, on the same subject. I met N in the street; he, too, has
been nominated for a professorship, and having heard that I had been
similarly honored he congratulated me. I refused his congratulations,
saying: "You are the last man to jest about the matter, for you know from
your own experience what the nomination is worth." Thereupon he said,
though probably not in earnest; "You can't be sure of that. There is a
special objection in my case. Don't you know that a woman once brought a
criminal accusation against me? I need hardly assure you that the matter
was put right. It was a mean attempt at blackmail, and it was all I could
do to save the plaintiff from punishment. But it may be that the affair is
remembered against me at the Ministry. You, on the other hand, are above
reproach." Here, then, I have the criminal, and at the same time the
interpretation and tendency of my dream. My uncle Joseph represents both
of my colleagues who have not been appointed to the professorship- the one
as a simpleton, the other as a criminal. Now, too, I know for what purpose
I need this representation. If denominational considerations are a
determining factor in the postponement of my two friends' appointment,
then my own appointment is likewise in jeopardy. But if I can refer the
rejection of my two friends to other causes, which do not apply to my own
case, my hopes are unaffected. This is the procedure followed by my dream:
it makes the one friend R, a simpleton, and the other, N, a criminal. But
since I am neither one nor the other, there is nothing in common between
us. I have a right to enjoy my appointment to the title of professor, and
have avoided the distressing application to my own case of the information
which the official gave to my friend R.
I must pursue the interpretation of this dream still
farther; for I have a feeling that it is not yet satisfactorily
elucidated. I still feel disquieted by the ease with which I have degraded
two respected colleagues in order to clear my own way to the
professorship. My dissatisfaction with this procedure has, of course, been
mitigated since I have learned to estimate the testimony of dreams at its
true value. I should contradict anyone who suggested that I really
considered R a simpleton, or that I did not believe N's account of the
blackmailing incident. And of course I do not believe that Irma has been
made seriously ill by an injection of a preparation of propyl administered
by Otto. Here, as before, what the dream expresses is only my wish that
things might be so. The statement in which my wish is realized sounds less
absurd in the second dream than in the first; it is here made with a
skilful use of actual points of support in establishing something like a
plausible slander, one of which one could say that "there is something in
it." For at that time my friend R had to contend with the adverse vote of
a university professor of his own department, and my friend N had himself,
all unsuspectingly, provided me with material for the calumny.
Nevertheless, I repeat, it still seems to me that the dream requires
further elucidation.
I remember now that the dream contained yet another
portion which has hitherto been ignored by the interpretation. After it
occurred to me that my friend R was my uncle, I felt in the dream a great
affection for him. To whom is this feeling directed? For my uncle Joseph,
of course, I have never had any feelings of affection. R has for many
years been a dearly loved friend, but if I were to go to him and express
my affection for him in terms approaching the degree of affection which I
felt in the dream, he would undoubtedly be surprised. My affection, if it
was for him, seems false and exaggerated, as does my judgment of his
intellectual qualities, which I expressed by merging his personality in
that of my uncle; but exaggerated in the opposite direction. Now, however,
a new state of affairs dawns upon me. The affection in the dream does not
belong to the latent content, to the thoughts behind the dream; it stands
in opposition to this content; it is calculated to conceal the knowledge
conveyed by the interpretation. Probably this is precisely its function. I
remember with what reluctance I undertook the interpretation, how long I
tried to postpone it, and how I declared the dream to be sheer nonsense. I
know from my psycho-analytic practice how such a condemnation is to be
interpreted. It has no informative value, but merely expresses an affect.
If my little daughter does not like an apple which is offered her, she
asserts that the apple is bitter, without even tasting it. If my patients
behave thus, I know that we are dealing with an idea which they are trying
to repress. The same thing applies to my dream. I do not want to interpret
it because there is something in the interpretation to which I object.
After the interpretation of the dream is completed, I discover what it was
to which I objected; it was the assertion that R is a simpleton. I can
refer the affection which I feel for R not to the latent dream-thoughts,
but rather to this unwillingness of mine. If my dream, as compared with
its latent content, is disguised at this point, and actually misrepresents
things by producing their opposites, then the manifest affection in the
dream serves the purpose of the misrepresentation: in other words, the
distortion is here shown to be intentional- it is a means of disguise. My
dream-thoughts of R are derogatory, and so that I may not become aware of
this the very opposite of defamation- a tender affection for him- enters
into the dream.
This discovery may prove to be generally valid. As the
examples in Chapter III have demonstrated, there are, of course, dreams
which are undisguised wish-fulfillments. Wherever a wish- fulfillment is
unrecognizable and disguised there must be present a tendency to defend
oneself against this wish, and in consequence of this defense the wish is
unable to express itself save in a distorted form. I will try to find a
parallel in social life to this occurrence in the inner psychic life.
Where in social life can a similar misrepresentation be found? Only where
two persons are concerned, one of whom possesses a certain power while the
other has to act with a certain consideration on account of this power.
The second person will then distort his psychic actions: or, as we say, he
will mask himself. The politeness which I practice every day is largely a
disguise of this kind; if I interpret my dreams for the benefit of my
readers, I am forced to make misrepresentations of this kind. The poet
even complains of the necessity of such misrepresentation: Das Beste, was
du wissen kannst, darfst du den Buben doch nicht sagen: "The best that
thou canst know thou mayst not tell to boys."
The political writer who has unpleasant truths to tell
to those in power finds himself in a like position. If he tells everything
without reserve, the Government will suppress them- retrospectively in the
case of a verbal expression of opinion, preventively if they are to be
published in the Press. The writer stands in fear of the censorship; he
therefore moderates and disguises the expression of his opinions. He finds
himself compelled, in accordance with the sensibilities of the censor,
either to refrain altogether from certain forms of attack or to express
himself in allusions instead of by direct assertions; or he must conceal
his objectionable statement in an apparently innocent disguise. He may,
for instance, tell of a contretemps between two Chinese mandarins, while
he really has in mind the officials of his own country. The stricter the
domination of the censorship, the more thorough becomes the disguise, and,
often enough, the more ingenious the means employed to put the reader on
the track of the actual meaning.
The detailed correspondence between the phenomena of
censorship and the phenomena of dream-distortion justifies us in
presupposing similar conditions for both. We should then assume that in
every human being there exist, as the primary cause of dream-formation,
two psychic forces (tendencies or systems), one of which forms the wish
expressed by the dream, while the other exercises a censorship over this
dream-wish, thereby enforcing on it a distortion. The question is: What is
the nature of the authority of this second agency by virtue of which it is
able to exercise its censorship? If we remember that the latent dream-
thoughts are not conscious before analysis, but that the manifest
dream-content emerging from them is
consciously remembered, it is not a far-fetched
assumption that admittance to the consciousness is the prerogative of the
second agency. Nothing can reach the consciousness from the first system
which has not previously passed the second instance; and the second
instance lets nothing pass without exercising its rights, and forcing such
modifications as are pleasing to itself upon the candidates for admission
to consciousness. Here we arrive at a very definite conception of the
essence of consciousness; for us the state of becoming conscious is a
special psychic act, different from and independent of the process of
becoming fixed or represented, and consciousness appears to us as a
sensory organ which perceives a content proceeding from another source. It
may be shown that psycho-pathology simply cannot dispense with these
fundamental assumptions. But we shall reserve for another time a more
exhaustive examination of the subject.
If I bear in mind the notion of the two psychic
instances and their relation to the consciousness, I find in the sphere of
politics a perfectly appropriate analogy to the extraordinary affection
which I feel for my friend R, who is so disparaged in the
dream-interpretation. I refer to the political life of a State in which
the ruler, jealous of his rights, and an active public opinion are in
mutual conflict. The people, protesting against the actions of an
unpopular official, demand his dismissal. The autocrat, on the other hand,
in order to show his contempt for the popular will, may then deliberately
confer upon the official some exceptional distinction which otherwise
would not have been conferred. Similarly, my second instance, controlling
the access to my consciousness, distinguishes my friend R with a rush of
extraordinary affection, because the wish- tendencies of the first system,
in view of a particular interest on which they are just then intent, would
like to disparage him as a simpleton. *
* Such hypocritical dreams are not rare, either with me
or with others. While I have been working at a certain scientific problem,
I have been visited for several nights, at quite short intervals, by a
somewhat confusing dream which has as its content a reconciliation with a
friend dropped long ago. After three or four attempts I finally succeeded
in grasping the meaning of this dream. It was in the nature of an
encouragement to give up the remnant of consideration still surviving for
the person in question, to make myself quite free from him, but it
hypocritically disguised itself in its antithesis. I have recorded a
"hypocritical Oedipus dream" in which the hostile feelings and
death-wishes of the dream-thoughts were replaced by manifest tenderness
("Typisches Beispiel eines verkappten Oedipustraumes." Zentralblatt fur
Psychoanalyse, Vol. I, No. I-II [1910]). Another class of hypocritical
dreams will be recorded in another place (see Chap vi, "The Dream-Work").
We may now perhaps begin to suspect that
dream-interpretation is capable of yielding information concerning the
structure of our psychic apparatus which we have hitherto vainly expected
from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow up this trail, but shall
return to our original problem as soon as we have elucidated the problem
of dream-distortion. The question arose, how dreams with a disagreeable
content can be analyzed as wish- fulfillments. We see now that this is
possible where a dream- distortion has occurred, when the disagreeable
content serves only to disguise the thing wished for. With regard to our
assumptions respecting the two psychic instances, we can now also say that
disagreeable dreams contain, as a matter of fact, something which is
disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time fulfills a
wish of the first instance. They are wish-dreams in so far as every dream
emanates from the first instance, while the second instance behaves
towards the dream only in a defensive, not in a constructive manner. *
Were we to limit ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance
contributes to the dream we should never understand the dream, and all the
problems which the writers on the subject have discovered in the dream
would have to remain unsolved.
* Later on we shall become acquainted with cases in
which, on the contrary, the dream expresses a wish of this second
instance. -
That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which
proves to be a wish-fulfillment, must be proved afresh in every case by
analysis. I will therefore select a few dreams which have painful
contents, and endeavor to analyze them. Some of them are dreams of
hysterical subjects, which therefore call for a long preliminary
statement, and in some passages an examination of the psychic processes
occurring in hysteria. This, though it will complicate the presentation,
is unavoidable.
When I treat a psychoneurotic patient analytically, his
dreams regularly, as I have said, become a theme of our conversations. I
must therefore give him all the psychological explanations with whose aid
I myself have succeeded in understanding his symptoms. And here I
encounter unsparing criticism, which is perhaps no less shrewd than that
which I have to expect from my colleagues. With perfect uniformity, my
patients contradict the doctrine that dreams are the fulfillments of
wishes. Here are several examples of the sort of dream-material which is
adduced in refutation of my theory.
"You are always saying that a dream is a wish
fulfilled," begins an intelligent lady patient. "Now I shall tell you a
dream in which the content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine
is not fulfilled. How do you reconcile that with your theory? The dream
was as follows: I want to give a supper, but I have nothing available
except some smoked salmon. I think I will go shopping, but I remember that
it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I then try to ring
up a few caterers, but the telephone is out of order. Accordingly I have
to renounce my desire to give a supper."
I reply, of course, that only the analysis can decide
the meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems
sensible and coherent and looks like the opposite of a wish- fulfilment.
"But what occurrence gave rise to this dream?" I ask. "You know that the
stimulus of a dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding
day."
Analysis
The patient's husband, an honest and capable meat
salesman, had told her the day before that he was growing too fat, and
that he meant to undergo treatment for obesity. He would rise early, take
physical exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more
invitations to supper. She proceeds jestingly to relate how her husband,
at a table d'hote, had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted
upon painting his portrait, because he, the painter, had never seen such
an expressive head. But her husband had answered in his downright fashion,
that while he was much obliged, he would rather not be painted; and he was
quite convinced that a bit of a pretty girl's posterior would please the
artist better than his whole face. * She is very much in love with her
husband, and teases him a good deal. She has asked him not to give her any
caviar. What can that mean?
* To sit for the painter.
Goethe: And if he has no backside, How can the nobleman
sit?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to
eat a caviar sandwich every morning, but had grudged the expense. Of
course she could get the caviar from her husband at once if she asked for
it. But she has, on the contrary, begged him not to give her any caviar,
so that she might tease him about it a little longer.
(To me this explanation seems thin. Unconfessed motives
are wont to conceal themselves behind just such unsatisfying explanations.
We are reminded of the subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a
post-hypnotic order, and who, on being questioned as to their motives,
instead of answering: "I do not know why I did that." had to invent a
reason that was obviously inadequate. There is probably something similar
to this in the case of my patient's caviar. I see that in waking life she
is compelled to invent an unfulfilled wish. Her dream also shows her the
non- fulfillment of her wish. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish?)
The ideas elicited so far are insufficient for the
interpretation of the dream. I press for more. After a short pause, which
corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports that the day
before she had paid a visit to a friend of whom she is really jealous
because her husband is always praising this lady so highly. Fortunately
this friend is very thin and lanky, and her husband likes full figures.
Now of what did this thin friend speak? Of course, of her wish to become
rather plumper. She also asked my patient: "When are you going to invite
us again? You always have such good food."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I am able to
tell the patient: "It is just as though you had thought at the moment of
her asking you that: 'Of course, I'm to invite you so that you can eat at
my house and get fat and become still more pleasing to my husband! I would
rather give no more suppers!' The dream then tells you that you cannot
give a supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to
the rounding out of your friend's figure. Your husband's resolution to
accept no more invitations to supper in order that he may grow thin
teaches you that one grows fat on food eaten at other people's tables."
Nothing is lacking now but some sort of coincidence which will confirm the
solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced.- "How
did you come to think of salmon in your dream?"- "Smoked salmon is my
friend's favourite dish," she replied. It happens that I know the lady,
and am able to affirm that she grudges herself salmon just as my patient
grudges herself caviar.
This dream admits of yet another and more exact
interpretation- one which is actually necessitated only by a subsidiary
circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one another, but
rather dovetail into one another, and furnish an excellent example of the
usual ambiguity of dreams, as of all other psycho-pathological formations.
We have heard that at the time of her dream of a denied wish the patient
was impelled to deny herself a real wish (the wish to cat caviar
sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter,
and it would not surprise us if our patient had dreamt that this wish of
her friend's- the wish to increase in weight- was not to be fulfilled.
Instead of this, however, she dreamt that one of her own wishes was not
fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new interpretation if in the
dream she does not mean herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in
the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has identified herself with
her friend.
I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of
this identification she has created for herself in real life an
unfulfilled wish. But what is the meaning of this hysterical
identification? To elucidate this a more exhaustive exposition is
necessary. Identification is a highly important motive in the mechanism of
hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled to express in
their symptoms not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of
quite a number of other persons; they can suffer, as it were, for a whole
mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama with their own
personalities. It will here be objected that this is the well-known
hysterical imitation, the ability of hysterical subjects to imitate all
the symptoms which impress them when they occur in others, as though pity
were aroused to the point of reproduction. This, however, only indicates
the path which the psychic process follows in hysterical imitation. But
the path itself and the psychic act which follows this path are two
different matters. The act itself is slightly more complicated than we are
prone to believe the imitation of the hysterical to be; it corresponds to
an unconscious end-process, as an example will show. The physician who
has, in the same ward with other patients, a female patient suffering from
a particular kind of twitching, is not surprised if one morning he learns
that this peculiar hysterical affection has found imitators. He merely
tells himself: The others have seen her, and have imitated her; this is
psychic infection. Yes, but psychic infection occurs somewhat in the
following manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another than the
physician knows about any one of them, and they are concerned about one
another when the doctor's visit is over. One of them has an attack to-day:
at once it is known to the rest that a letter from home, a recrudescence
of lovesickness, or the like, is the cause. Their sympathy is aroused, and
although it does not emerge into consciousness they form the following
conclusion: "If it is possible to suffer such an attack from such a cause,
I too may suffer this sort of an attack, for I have the same occasion for
it." If this were a conclusion capable of becoming conscious, it would
perhaps express itself in dread of suffering a like attack; but it is
formed in another psychic region, and consequently ends in the realization
of the dreaded symptoms. Thus identification is not mere imitation, but an
assimilation based upon the same etiological claim; it expresses a just
like, and refers to some common condition which has remained in the
unconscious.
In hysteria, identification is most frequently employed
to express a sexual community. The hysterical woman identifies herself by
her symptoms most readily- though not exclusively- with persons with whom
she has had sexual relations, or who have had sexual intercourse with the
same persons as herself. Language takes cognizance of this tendency: two
lovers are said to be "one." In hysterical phantasy, as well as in dreams,
identification may ensue if one simply thinks of sexual relations; they
need not necessarily become actual. The patient is merely following the
rules of the hysterical processes of thought when she expresses her
jealousy of her friend (which, for that matter, she herself admits to be
unjustified) by putting herself in her friend's place in her dream, and
identifying herself with her by fabricating a symptom (the denied wish).
One might further elucidate the process by saying: In the dream she puts
herself in the place of her friend, because her friend has taken her own
place in relation to her husband, and because she would like to take her
friend's place in her husband's esteem. * -
* I myself regret the inclusion of such passages from
the psycho- pathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary
presentation, and because they are torn out of their context, cannot prove
to be very illuminating. If these passages are capable of throwing any
light upon the intimate relations between dream and the psycho-neurosis,
they have served the intention with which I have included them.
The contradiction of my theory of dreams on the part of
another female patient, the most intelligent of all my dreamers, was
solved in a simpler fashion, though still in accordance with the principle
that the non-fulfillment of one wish signified the fulfillment of another. I
had one day explained to her that a dream is a wish-fulfillment. On the
following day she related a dream to the effect that she was traveling
with her mother-in- law to the place in which they were both to spend the
summer. Now I knew that she had violently protested against spending the
summer in the neighborhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that she had
fortunately been able to avoid doing so, since she had recently succeeded
in renting a house in a place quite remote from that to which her
mother-in-law was going. And now the dream reversed this desired solution.
Was not this a flat contradiction of my theory of wish-fulfillment? One had
only to draw the inferences from this dream in order to arrive at its
interpretation. According to this dream, I was wrong; but it was her wish
that I should be wrong, and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled.
But the wish that I should be wrong, which was fulfilled in the theme of
the country house, referred in reality to another and more serious matter.
At that time I had inferred, from the material furnished by her analysis,
that something of significance in respect to her illness must have
occurred at a certain time in her life. She had denied this, because it
was not present in her memory. We soon came to see that I was right. Thus
her wish that I should prove to be wrong, which was transformed into the
dream that she was going into the country with her mother-in-law,
corresponded with the justifiable wish that those things which were then
only suspected had never occurred.
Without an analysis, and merely by means of an
assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a little incident in the
life of a friend, who had been my companion through eight classes at
school. He once heard a lecture of mine, delivered to a small audience, on
the novel idea that dreams are wish-fulfillments. He went home, dreamt that
he had lost all his lawsuits- he was a lawyer- and then complained to me
about it. I took refuge in the evasion: "One can't win all one's cases";
but I thought to myself: "If, for eight years, I sat as primus on the
first bench, while he moved up and down somewhere in the middle of the
class, may he not naturally have had the wish, ever since his boyhood,
that I too might for once make a fool of myself?"
Yet another dream of a more gloomy character was
offered me by a female patient in contradiction of my theory of the
wish-dream. This patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You remember
that my sister has now only one boy, Charles. She lost the elder one,
Otto, while I was still living with her. Otto was my favorite; it was I
who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but, of
course, not nearly as much as his dead brother. Now I dreamt last night
that I saw Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his little
coffin, his hands folded; there were candles all about; and, in short, it
was just as it was at the time of little Otto's death, which gave me such
a shock. Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me- am I really so bad
as to wish that my sister should lose the only child she has left? Or does
the dream mean that I wish that Charles had died rather than Otto, whom I
liked so much better?"
I assured her that this latter interpretation was
impossible. After some reflection, I was able to give her the
interpretation of the dream, which she subsequently confirmed. I was able
to do so because the whole previous history of the dreamer was known to
me.
Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had
been brought up in the home of a much older sister, and had met, among the
friends and visitors who frequented the house, a man who made a lasting
impression upon her affections. It looked for a time as though these
barely explicit relations would end in marriage, but this happy
culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives were never
completely explained. After the rupture the man whom my patient loved
avoided the house; she herself attained her independence some time after
the death of little Otto, to whom, meanwhile, her affections had turned.
But she did not succeed in freeing herself from the dependence due to her
affection for her sister's friend. Her pride bade her avoid him, but she
found it impossible to transfer her love to the other suitors who
successively presented themselves. Whenever the man she loved, who was a
member of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was
certain to be found among the audience; and she seized every other
opportunity of seeing him unobserved. I remembered that on the previous
day she had told me that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and
that she too was going, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on
the day before the dream; and the concert was to be given on the day on
which she told me the dream. I could now easily see the correct
interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any particular
event which had occurred after Otto's death. She replied immediately: "Of
course; the Professor returned then, after a long absence, and I saw him
once more beside little Otto's coffin." It was just as I had expected. I
interpreted the dream as follows: "If now the other boy were to die, the
same thing would happen again. You would spend the day with your sister;
the Professor would certainly come to offer his condolences, and you would
see him once more under the same circumstances as before. The dream
signifies nothing more than this wish of yours to see him again- a wish
against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that you have the ticket
for today's concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it
has anticipated by several hours the meeting which is to take place
to-day."
In order to disguise her wish she had obviously
selected a situation in which wishes of the sort are commonly suppressed-
a situation so sorrowful that love is not even thought of. And yet it is
entirely possible that even in the actual situation beside the coffin of
the elder, more dearly loved boy, she had not been able to suppress her
tender affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long.
A different explanation was found in the case of a
similar dream of another patient, who in earlier life had been
distinguished for her quick wit and her cheerful disposition, and who
still displayed these qualities, at all events in the free associations
which occurred to her during treatment. In the course of a longer dream,
it seemed to this lady that she saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying
dead before her in a box. She was strongly inclined to use this
dream-image as an objection to the theory of wish-fulfillment, although she
herself suspected that the detail of the box must lead to a different
conception of the dream. * For in the course of the analysis it occurred
to her that on the previous evening the conversation of the people in
whose company she found herself had turned on the English word box, and
upon the numerous translations of it into German such as Schachtel (box),
Loge (box at the theatre), Kasten (chest), Ohrfeige (box on the ear), etc.
From other components of the same dream it was now possible to add the
fact that the lady had guessed at the relationship between the English
word "box" and the German Buchse, and had then been haunted by the
recollection that Buchse is used in vulgar parlance to denote the female
genitals. It was therefore possible, treating her knowledge of
topographical anatomy with a certain indulgence, to assume that the child
in the box signified a child in the mother's womb. At this stage of the
explanation she no longer denied that the picture in the dream actually
corresponded with a wish of hers. Like so many other young women, she was
by no means happy on finding that she was pregnant, and she had confessed
to me more than once the wish that her child might die before its birth;
in a fit of anger, following a violent scene with her husband, she had
even struck her abdomen with her fists, in order to injure the child
within. The dead child was therefore, really the fulfillment of a wish, but
a wish which had been put aside for fifteen years, and it is not
surprising that the fulfillment of the wish was no longer recognized after
so long an interval. For there had been many changes in the meantime.
* As in the dream of the deferred supper and the smoked
salmon. -
The group of dreams (having as content the death of
beloved relatives) to which belong the last two mentioned will be
considered again under the head of "Typical Dreams." I shall then be able
to show by new examples that in spite of their undesirable content all
these dreams must be interpreted as wish- fulfillments. For the following
dream, which again was told me in order to deter me from a hasty
generalization of my theory, I am indebted, not to a patient, but to an
intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. "I dream," my informant tells me,
"that I am walking in front of my house with a lady on my arm. Here a
closed carriage is waiting; a man steps up to me, shows me his
authorization as a police officer, and requests me to follow him. I ask
only for time in which to arrange my affairs." The jurist then asks me:
"Can you possibly suppose that it is my wish to be arrested?"- "Of course
not," I have to admit. "Do you happen to know upon what charge you were
arrested?"- "Yes; I believe for infanticide."- "Infanticide? But you know
that only a mother can commit this crime upon her new-born child?"- "That
is true." * "And under what circumstances did you dream this? What
happened on the evening before?"- "I would rather not tell you- it is a
delicate matter."- "But I need it, otherwise we must forgo the
interpretation of the dream."- "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the
night, not at home, but in the house of a lady who means a great deal to
me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between us. Then
I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you."- "The woman is
married?"- "Yes."- "And you do not wish her to conceive?"- "No; that might
betray us."- "Then you do not practice normal coitus?"- "I take the
precaution to withdraw before ejaculation."- "Am I to assume that you took
this precaution several times during the night, and that in the morning
you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded?"- "That might be so."-
"Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By the dream you are assured
that you have not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same thing,
that you have killed the child. I can easily demonstrate the
connecting-links. Do you remember, a few days ago we were talking about
the troubles of matrimony, and about the inconsistency of permitting
coitus so long as no impregnation takes place, while at the same time any
preventive act committed after the ovum and the semen meet and a fetus is
formed is punished as a crime? In this connection we recalled the medieval
controversy about the moment of time at which the soul actually enters
into the fetus, since the concept of murder becomes admissible only from
that point onwards. Of course, too, you know the gruesome poem by Lenau,
which puts infanticide and birth-control on the same plane."- "Strangely
enough, I happened, as though by chance, to think of Lenau this morning."-
"Another echo of your dream. And now I shall show you yet another
incidental wish-fulfilment in your dream. You walk up to your house with
the lady on your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the night
at her house, as you did in reality. The fact that the wish-fulfillment,
which is the essence of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant
form, has perhaps more than one explanation. From my essay on the
etiology of anxiety neurosis, you will see that I note coitus interruptus
as one of the factors responsible for the development of neurotic fear. It
would be consistent with this if, after repeated coitus of this kind, you
were left in an uncomfortable frame of mind, which now becomes an element
of the composition of your dream. You even make use of this uncomfortable
state of mind to conceal the wish-fulfillment. At the same time, the
mention of infanticide has not yet been explained. Why does this crime,
which is peculiar to females, occur to you?"- "I will confess to you that
I was involved in such an affair years ago. I was responsible for the fact
that a girl tried to protect herself from the consequences of a liaison
with me by procuring an abortion. I had nothing to do with the carrying
out of her plan, but for a long time I was naturally worried in case the
affair might be discovered."- "I understand. This recollection furnished a
second reason why the supposition that you had performed coitus
interruptus clumsily must have been painful to you."
* It often happens that a dream is told incompletely,
and that a recollection of the omitted portions appears only in the course
of the analysis. These portions, when subsequently fitted in, invariably
furnish the key to the interpretation. Cf. Chapter VII, on forgetting of
dreams.
A young physician, who heard this dream related in my
lecture- room, must have felt that it fitted him, for he hastened to
imitate it by a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another
theme. On the previous day he had furnished a statement of his income; a
quite straightforward statement, because he had little to state. He dreamt
that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and
informed him that all the other statements had passed unquestioned, but
that his own had aroused general suspicion, with the result that he would
be punished with a heavy fine. This dream is a poorly disguised
fulfillment
of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income. It also calls
to mind the story of the young girl who was advised against accepting her
suitor because he was a man of quick temper, who would assuredly beat her
after their marriage. Her answer was: "I wish he would strike me!" Her
wish to be married was so intense that she had taken into consideration
the discomforts predicted for this marriage; she had even raised them to
the plane of a wish.
If I group together the very frequent dreams of this
sort, which seem flatly to contradict my theory, in that they embody the
denial of a wish or some occurrence obviously undesired, under the head of
counter-wish-dreams, I find that they may all be referred to two
principles, one of which has not yet been mentioned, though it plays a
large part in waking as well as dream-life. One of the motives inspiring
these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams
occur regularly in the course of treatment whenever the patient is in a
state of resistance; indeed, I can with a great degree of certainty count
on evoking such a dream once I have explained to the patient my theory
that the dream is a wish-fulfillment. * Indeed, I have reason to expect
that many of my readers will have such dreams, merely to fulfill the wish
that I may prove to be wrong. The last dream which I shall recount from
among those occurring in the course of treatment once more demonstrates
this very thing. A young girl who had struggled hard to continue my
treatment, against the will of her relatives and the authorities whom they
had consulted, dreamt the following dream: At home she is forbidden to
come to me any more. She then reminds me of the promise I made her to
treat her for nothing if necessary, and I tell her: "I can show no
consideration in money matters."
* Similar counter-wish-dreams have been repeatedly
reported to me within the last few years, by those who attend my lectures,
as their reaction to their first encounter with the wish-theory of dreams.
It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the
fulfillment of a wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second
problem, the solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does
she get the words which she puts into my mouth? Of course, I have never
told her anything of the kind; but one of her brothers, the one who has
the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark
about me. It is then the purpose of the dream to show that her brother is
right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely in the dream;
it is her purpose in life and the motive of her illness.
A dream which at first sight presents peculiar
difficulties for the theory of wish-fulfillment was dreamed by a physician
(Aug. Starcke) and interpreted by him: "I have and see on the last
phalange of my left forefinger a primary syphilitic affection."
One may perhaps be inclined to refrain from analyzing
this dream, since it seems clear and coherent, except for its unwished-for
content. However, if one takes the trouble to make an analysis, one learns
that primary affection reduces itself to prima affectio (first love), and
that the repulsive sore, in the words of Starcke, proves to be "the
representative of wish-fulfillments charged with intense emotion." *
* Zentralblatt fur Psychoanalyse, Jahrg. II, 1911-12.
The other motive for counter-wish-dreams is so clear
that there is a danger of overlooking it, as happened in my own case for a
long time. In the sexual constitution of many persons there is a
masochistic component, which has arisen through the conversion of the
aggressive, sadistic component into its opposite. Such people are called
ideal masochists if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be
inflicted upon them, but in humiliation and psychic chastisement. It is
obvious that such persons may have counter-wish-dreams and disagreeable
dreams, yet these are for them nothing more than wish-fulfillments, which
satisfy their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream: A young man,
who in earlier youth greatly tormented his elder brother, toward whom he
was homosexually inclined, but who has since undergone a complete change
of character, has the following dream, which consists of three parts: (1)
He is "teased" by his brother. (2) Two adults are caressing each other
with homosexual intentions. (3) His brother has sold the business the
management of which the young man had reserved for his own future. From
this last dream he awakens with the most unpleasant feelings; and yet it
is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated: It would serve me
right if my brother were to make that sale against my interests. It would
be my punishment for all the torments he has suffered at my hands.
I hope that the examples given above will suffice-
until some further objection appears- to make it seem credible that even
dreams with a painful content are to be analyzed as wish- fulfillments. *
Nor should it be considered a mere matter of chance that, in the course of
interpretation, one always happens upon subjects about which one does not
like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams
arouse is of course precisely identical with the antipathy which would,
and usually does, restrain us from treating or discussing such subjects-
an antipathy which must be overcome by all of us if we find ourselves
obliged to attack the problem of such dreams. But this disagreeable
feeling which recurs in our dreams does not preclude the existence of a
wish; everyone has wishes which he would not like to confess to others,
which he does not care to admit even to himself. On the other hand, we
feel justified in connecting the unpleasant character of all these dreams
with the fact of dream-distortion, and in concluding that these dreams are
distorted, and that their wish-fulfillment is disguised beyond recognition,
precisely because there is a strong revulsion against- a will to repress-
the subject-matter of the dream, or the wish created by it.
Dream-distortion, then, proves in reality to be an act of censorship. We
shall have included everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams
has brought to light if we reword our formula thus: The dream is the
(disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish. *(2)
* I will here observe that we have not yet disposed of
this theme; we shall discuss it again later.
*(2) A great contemporary poet, who, I am told, will
hear nothing of psycho-analysis and dream-interpretation, has nevertheless
derived from his own experience an almost identical formula for the nature
of the dream: "Unauthorized emergence of suppressed yearnings under false
features and names" (C. Spitteler, "Meine fruhesten Erlebnisse," in
Suddeutsche Monatshefte, October, 1913).
I will here anticipate by citing the amplification and
modification of this fundamental formula propounded by Otto Rank: "On the
basis of and with the aid of repressed infantile-sexual material, dreams
regularly represent as fulfilled current, and as a rule also erotic,
wishes in a disguised and symbolic form" (Ein Traum, der sich selbst
deutet).
Nowhere have I said that I have accepted this formula
of Rank's. The shorter version contained in the text seems to me
sufficient. But the fact that I merely mentioned Rank's modification was
enough to expose psycho-analysis to the oft-repeated reproach that it
asserts that all dreams have a sexual content. If one understands this
sentence as it is intended to be understood, it only proves how little
conscientiousness our critics are wont to display, and how ready our
opponents are to overlook statements if they do not accord with their
aggressive inclinations. Only a few pages back I mentioned the manifold
wish-fulfillments of children's dreams (to make an excursion on land and or
water, to make up for an omitted meal, etc.). Elsewhere I have mentioned
dreams excited by thirst and the desire to evacuate, and mere comfort- or
convenience-dreams. Even Rank does not make an absolute assertion. He says
"as a rule also erotic wishes," and this can be completely confirmed in
the case of most dreams of adults.
The matter has, however, a different aspect if we
employ the word sexual in the sense of Eros, as the word is understood by
psycho- analysts. But the interesting problem of whether all dreams are
not produced by libidinal motives (in opposition to destructive ones) has
hardly been considered by our opponents.
Now there still remain to be considered, as a
particular sub- order of dreams with painful content, the anxiety-dreams,
the inclusion of which among the wish-dreams will be still less acceptable
to the uninitiated. But I can here deal very cursorily with the problem of
anxiety-dreams; what they have to reveal is not a new aspect of the
dream-problem; here the problem is that of understanding neurotic anxiety
in general. The anxiety which we experience in dreams is only apparently
explained by the dream- content. If we subject that content to analysis,
we become aware that the dream-anxiety is no more justified by the
dream-content than the anxiety in a phobia is justified by the idea to
which the phobia is attached. For example, it is true that it is possible
to fall out of a window, and that a certain care should be exercised when
one is at a window, but it is not obvious why the anxiety in the
corresponding phobia is so great, and why it torments its victims more
than its cause would warrant. The same explanation which applies to the
phobia applies also to the anxiety-dream. In either case, the anxiety is
only fastened on to the idea which accompanies it, and is derived from
another source.
On account of this intimate relation of dream-anxiety
to neurotic anxiety, the discussion of the former obliges me to refer to
the latter. In a little essay on Anxiety Neurosis, * written in 1895, I
maintain that neurotic anxiety has its origin in the sexual life, and
corresponds to a libido which has been deflected from its object and has
found no employment. The accuracy of this formula has since then been
demonstrated with ever-increasing certainty. From it we may deduce the
doctrine that anxiety-dreams are dreams of sexual content, and that the
libido appertaining to this content has been transformed into anxiety.
Later on I shall have an opportunity of confirming this assertion by the
analysis of several dreams of neurotics. In my further attempts to arrive
at a theory of dreams I shall again have occasion to revert to the
conditions of anxiety-dreams and their compatibility with the theory of
wish-fulfillment.
* See [previous reference] above. |
