CHAPTER SIX (Continued...)
A. Condensation
The first thing that becomes clear to the investigator
when he compares the dream-content with the dream-thoughts is that a
tremendous work of condensation has been accomplished. The dream is meagre,
paltry and laconic in comparison with the range and copiousness of the
dream-thoughts. The dream, when written down fills half a page; the
analysis, which contains the dream- thoughts, requires six, eight, twelve
times as much space. The ratio varies with different dreams; but in my
experience it is always of the same order. As a rule, the extent of the
compression which has been accomplished is under-estimated, owing to the
fact that the dream-thoughts which have been brought to light are believed
to be the whole of the material, whereas a continuation of the work of
interpretation would reveal still further thoughts hidden in the dream. We
have already found it necessary to remark that one can never be really
sure that one has interpreted a dream completely; even if the solution
seems satisfying and flawless, it is always possible that yet another
meaning has been manifested by the same dream. Thus the degree of
condensation is- strictly speaking- indeterminable. Exception may be
taken- and at first sight the objection seems perfectly plausible- to the
assertion that the disproportion between dream- content and dream-thoughts
justifies the conclusion that a considerable condensation of psychic
material occurs in the formation of dreams. For we often have the feeling
that we have been dreaming a great deal all night, and have then forgotten
most of what we have dreamed. The dream which we remember on waking would
thus appear to be merely a remnant of the dream- work, which would surely
equal the dream-thoughts in range if only we could remember it completely.
To a certain extent this is undoubtedly true; there is no getting away
from the fact that a dream is most accurately reproduced if we try to
remember it immediately after waking, and that the recollection of it
becomes more and more defective as the day goes on. On the other hand, it
has to be recognized that the impression that we have dreamed a good deal
more than we are able to reproduce is very often based on an illusion, the
origin of which we shall explain later on. Moreover, the assumption of a
condensation in the dream-work is not affected by the possibility of
forgetting a part of dreams, for it may be demonstrated by the multitude
of ideas pertaining to those individual parts of the dream which do remain
in the memory. If a large part of the dream has really escaped the memory,
we are probably deprived of access to a new series of dream-thoughts. We
have no justification for expecting that those portions of the dream which
have been lost should likewise have referred only to those thoughts which
we know from the analysis of the portions which have been preserved. *
* References to the condensation in dreams are to be
found in the works of many writers on the subject. Du Prel states in his
Philosophie der Mystik that he is absolutely certain that a
condensation-process of the succession of ideas had occurred.
In view of the very great number of ideas which
analysis elicits for each individual element of the dream-content, the
principal doubt in the minds of many readers will be whether it is
permissible to count everything that subsequently occurs to the mind
during analysis as forming part of the dream-thoughts- in other words, to
assume that all these thoughts have been active in the sleeping state, and
have taken part in the formation of the dream. Is it not more probable
that new combinations of thoughts are developed in the course of analysis,
which did not participate in the formation of the dream? To this objection
I can give only a conditional reply. It is true, of course, that separate
combinations of thoughts make their first appearance during the analysis;
but one can convince oneself every time this happens that such new
combinations have been established only between thoughts which have
already been connected in other ways in the dream-thoughts; the new
combinations are, so to speak, corollaries, short-circuits, which are made
possible by the existence of other, more fundamental modes of connection.
In respect of the great majority of the groups of thoughts revealed by
analysis, we are obliged to admit that they have already been active in
the formation of the dream, for if we work through a succession of such
thoughts, which at first sight seem to have played no part in the
formation of the dream, we suddenly come upon a thought which occurs in
the dream-content, and is indispensable to its interpretation, but which
is nevertheless inaccessible except through this chain of thoughts. The
reader may here turn to the dream of the botanical monograph, which is
obviously the result of an astonishing degree of condensation, even though
I have not given the complete analysis.
But how, then, are we to imagine the psychic condition
of the sleeper which precedes dreaming? Do all the dream-thoughts exist
side by side, or do they pursue one another, or are there several
simultaneous trains of thought, proceeding from different centres, which
subsequently meet? I do not think it is necessary at this point to form a
plastic conception of the psychic condition at the time of
dream-formation. But let us not forget that we are concerned with
unconscious thinking, and that the process may easily be different from
that which we observe in ourselves in deliberate contemplation accompanied
by consciousness.
The fact, however, is irrefutable that dream-formation
is based on a process of condensation. How, then, is this condensation
effected?
Now, if we consider that of the dream-thoughts
ascertained only the most restricted number are represented in the dream
by means of one of their conceptual elements, we might conclude that the
condensation is accomplished by means of omission, inasmuch as the dream
is not a faithful translation or projection, point by point, of the
dream-thoughts, but a very incomplete and defective reproduction of them.
This view, as we shall soon perceive, is a very inadequate one. But for
the present let us take it as a point of departure, and ask ourselves: If
only a few of the elements of the dream-thoughts make their way into the
dream- content, what are the conditions that determine their selection?
In order to solve this problem, let us turn our
attention to those elements of the dream-content which must have fulfilled
the conditions for which we are looking. The most suitable material for
this investigation will be a dream to whose formation a particularly
intense condensation has contributed. I select the dream, cited in chapter
V., of the botanical monograph.
I.
Dream-content: I have written a monograph upon a
certain (indeterminate) species of plant. The book lies before me. I am
just turning over a folded colored plate. A dried specimen of the plant
is bound up in this copy, as in a herbarium.
The most prominent element of this dream is the
botanical monograph. This is derived from the impressions of the
dream-day; I had actually seen a monograph on the genus Cyclamen in a
bookseller's window. The mention of this genus is lacking in the
dream-content; only the monograph and its relation to botany have
remained. The botanical monograph immediately reveals its relation to the
work on cocaine which I once wrote; from cocaine the train of thought
proceeds on the one hand to a Festschrift, and on the other to my friend,
the oculist, Dr. Koenigstein, who was partly responsible for the
introduction of cocaine as a local anesthetic. Moreover, Dr. Koenigstein
is connected with the recollection of an interrupted conversation I had
had with him on the previous evening, and with all sorts of ideas relating
to the remuneration of medical and surgical services among colleagues.
This conversation, then, is the actual dream-stimulus; the monograph on
cyclamen is also a real incident, but one of an indifferent nature; as I
now see, the botanical monograph of the dream proves to be a common mean
between the two experiences of the day, taken over unchanged from an
indifferent impression, and bound with the psychically significant
experience by means of the most copious associations.
Not only the combined idea of the botanical monograph,
however, but also each of its separate elements, botanical and monograph,
penetrates farther and farther, by manifold associations, into the
confused tangle of the dream-thoughts. To botanical belong the
recollections of the person of Professor Gartner (German: Gartner =
gardener), of his blooming wife, of my patient, whose name is Flora, and
of a lady concerning whom I told the story of the forgotten flowers.
Gartner, again, leads me to the laboratory and the conversation with
Koenigstein; and the allusion to the two female patients belongs to the
same conversation. From the lady with the flowers a train of thoughts
branches off to the favorite flowers of my wife, whose other branch leads
to the title of the hastily seen monograph. Further, botanical recalls an
episode at the Gymnasium, and a university examination; and a fresh
subject- that of my hobbies- which was broached in the above-mentioned
conversation, is linked up, by means of what is humorously called my
favorite flower, the artichoke, with the train of thoughts proceeding
from the forgotten flowers; behind artichoke there lies, on the one hand,
a recollection of Italy, and on the other a reminiscence of a scene of my
childhood, in which I first formed an acquaintance- which has since then
grown so intimate- with books. Botanical, then, is a veritable nucleus,
and, for the dream, the meeting-point of many trains of thought; which, I
can testify, had all really been brought into connection by the
conversation referred to. Here we find ourselves in a thought-factory, in
which, as in The Weaver's Masterpiece:
The little shuttles to and fro
Fly, and the threads unnoted flow;
One throw links up a thousand threads.
Monograph in the dream, again, touches two themes: the
one-sided nature of my studies, and the costliness of my hobbies.
The impression derived from this first investigation is
that the elements botanical and monograph were taken up into the dream-
content because they were able to offer the most numerous points of
contact with the greatest number of dream-thoughts, and thus represented
nodal points at which a great number of the dream- thoughts met together,
and because they were of manifold significance in respect of the meaning
of the dream. The fact upon which this explanation is based may be
expressed in another form: Every element of the dream-content proves to be
over- determined- that is, it appears several times over in the dream-
thoughts.
We shall learn more if we examine the other components
of the dream in respect of their occurrence in the dream-thoughts. The
colored plate refers (cf. the analysis in chapter V.) to a new subject,
the criticism passed upon my work by colleagues, and also to a subject
already represented in the dream- my hobbies- and, further, to a memory of
my childhood, in which I pull to pieces a book with colored plates; the
dried specimen of the plant relates to my experience with the herbarium at
the Gymnasium, and gives this memory particular emphasis. Thus I perceive
the nature of the relation between the dream-content and dream-thoughts:
Not only are the elements of the dream determined several times over by
the dream-thoughts, but the individual dream-thoughts are represented in
the dream by several elements. Starting from an element of the dream, the
path of the association leads to a number of dream-thoughts; and from a
single dream-thought to several elements of the dream. In the process of
dream-formation, therefore, it is not the case that a single
dream-thought, or a group of dream-thoughts, supplies the dream-content
with an abbreviation of itself as its representative, and that the next
dream-thought supplies another abbreviation as its representative (much as
representatives are elected from among the population); but rather that
the whole mass of the dream-thoughts is subjected to a certain
elaboration, in the course of which those elements that receive the
strongest and completest support stand out in relief; so that the process
might perhaps be likened to election by the scrutin du liste. Whatever
dream I may subject to such a dissection, I always find the same
fundamental principle confirmed- that the dream-elements have been formed
out of the whole mass of the dream-thoughts, and that every one of them
appears, in relation to the dream- thoughts, to have a multiple
determination.
It is certainly not superfluous to demonstrate this
relation of the dream-content to the dream-thoughts by means of a further
example, which is distinguished by a particularly artful intertwining of
reciprocal relations. The dream is that of a patient whom I am treating
for claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces). It will soon become evident
why I feel myself called upon to entitle this exceptionally clever piece
of dream- activity:
II. "A Beautiful Dream"
The dreamer is driving with a great number of
companions in X- street, where there is a modest hostelry (which is not
the case). A theatrical performance is being given in one of the rooms of
the inn. He is first spectator, then actor. Finally the company is told to
change their clothes, in order to return to the city. Some of the company
are shown into rooms on the ground floor, others to rooms on the first
floor. Then a dispute arises. The people upstairs are annoyed because
those downstairs have not yet finished changing, so that they cannot come
down. His brother is upstairs; he is downstairs; and he is angry with his
brother because they are so hurried. (This part obscure.) Besides, it was
already decided, upon their arrival, who was to go upstairs and who down.
Then he goes alone up the hill towards the city, and he walks so heavily,
and with such difficulty, that he cannot move from the spot. An elderly
gentleman joins him and talks angrily of the King of Italy. Finally,
towards the top of the hill, he is able to walk much more easily.
The difficulty experienced in climbing the hill was so
distinct that for some time after waking he was in doubt whether the
experience was a dream or the reality.
Judged by the manifest content, this dream can hardly
be eulogized. Contrary to the rules, I shall begin the interpretation with
that portion to which the dreamer referred as being the most distinct.
The difficulty dreamed of, and probably experienced
during the dream- difficulty in climbing, accompanied by dyspnoea- was one
of the symptoms which the patient had actually exhibited some years
before, and which, in conjunction with other symptoms, was at the time
attributed to tuberculosis (probably hysterically simulated). From our
study of exhibition-dreams we are already acquainted with this sensation
of being inhibited in motion, peculiar to dreams, and here again we find
it utilized as material always available for the purposes of any other
kind of representation. The part of the dream-content which represents
climbing as difficult at first, and easier at the top of the hill, made me
think, while it was being related, of the well- known masterly
introduction to Daudet's Sappho. Here a young man carries the woman he
loves upstairs; she is at first as light as a feather, but the higher he
climbs the more she weighs; and this scene is symbolic of the process of
their relation, in describing which Daudet seeks to admonish young men not
to lavish an earnest affection upon girls of humble origin and dubious
antecedents. * Although I knew that my patient had recently had a
love-affair with an actress, and had broken it off, I hardly expected to
find that the interpretation which had occurred to me was correct. The
situation in Sappho is actually the reverse of that in the dream; for in
the dream climbing was difficult at the first and easy later on; in the
novel the symbolism is pertinent only if what was at first easily carried
finally proves to be a heavy burden. To my astonishment, the patient
remarked that the interpretation fitted in very well with the plot of a
play which he had seen the previous evening. The play was called Rund um
Wien (Round about Vienna), and treated of the career of a girl who was at
first respectable, but who subsequently lapsed into the demimonde, and
formed relations with highly-placed lovers, thereby climbing, but finally
she went downhill faster and faster. This play reminded him of another,
entitled Von Stufe zu Stufe (From Step to Step), the poster advertising
which had depicted a flight of stairs. -
* In estimating the significance of this passage we may
recall the meaning of dreams of climbing stairs, as explained in the
chapter on Symbolism.
To continue the interpretation: The actress with whom
he had had his most recent and complicated affair had lived in X-street.
There is no inn in this street. However, while he was spending part of the
summer in Vienna for the sake of this lady, he had lodged (German:
abgestiegen = stopped, literally stepped off) at a small hotel in the
neighborhood. When he was leaving the hotel, he said to the cab-driver:
"I am glad at all events that I didn't get any vermin here!"
(Incidentally, the dread of vermin is one of his phobias.) Whereupon the
cab-driver answered: "How could anybody stop there! That isn't a hotel at
all, it's really nothing but a pub!"
The pub immediately reminded him of a quotation:
Of a wonderful host
I was lately a guest.
But the host in the poem by Uhland is an apple-tree.
Now a second quotation continues the train of thought:
FAUST (dancing with the young witch).
A lovely dream once came to me;
I then beheld an apple-tree,
And there two fairest apples shone:
They lured me so, I climbed thereon.
THE FAIR ONE
Apples have been desired by you,
Since first in Paradise they grew;
And I am moved with joy to know
That such within my garden grow. *
* Faust I.
There is not the slightest doubt what is meant by the
apple-tree and the apples. A beautiful bosom stood high among the charms
by which the actress had bewitched our dreamer.
Judging from the context of the analysis, we had every
reason to assume that the dream referred to an impression of the dreamer's
childhood. If this is correct, it must have referred to the wet- nurse of
the dreamer, who is now a man of nearly thirty years of age. The bosom of
the nurse is in reality an inn for the child. The nurse, as well as
Daudet's Sappho, appears as an allusion to his recently abandoned
mistress.
The (elder) brother of the patient also appears in the
dream- content; he is upstairs, while the dreamer himself is downstairs.
This again is an inversion, for the brother, as I happen to know, has lost
his social position, while my patient has retained his. In relating the
dream-content, the dreamer avoided saying that his brother was upstairs
and that he himself was downstairs. This would have been to obvious an
expression, for in Austria we say that a man is on the ground floor when
he has lost his fortune and social position, just as we say that he has
come down. Now the fact that at this point in the dream something is
represented as inverted must have a meaning; and the inversion must apply
to some other relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream- content.
There is an indication which suggests how this inversion is to be
understood. It obviously applies to the end of the dream, where the
circumstances of climbing are the reverse of those described in Sappho.
Now it is evident what inversion is meant: In Sappho the man carries the
woman who stands in a sexual relation to him; in the dream-thoughts,
conversely, there is a reference to a woman carrying a man: and, as this
could occur only in childhood, the reference is once more to the nurse who
carries the heavy child. Thus the final portion of the dream succeeds in
representing Sappho and the nurse in the same allusion.
Just as the name Sappho has not been selected by the
poet without reference to a Lesbian practice, so the portions of the dream
in which people are busy upstairs and downstairs, above and beneath, point
to fancies of a sexual content with which the dreamer is occupied, and
which, as suppressed cravings, are not unconnected with his neurosis.
Dream-interpretation itself does not show that these are fancies and not
memories of actual happenings; it only furnishes us with a set of thoughts
and leaves it to us to determine their actual value. In this case real and
imagined happenings appear at first as of equal value- and not only here,
but also in the creation of more important psychic structures than dreams.
A large company, as we already know, signifies a secret. The brother is
none other than a representative, drawn into the scenes of childhood by
fancying backwards, of all of the subsequent for women's favors. Through
the medium of an experience indifferent in itself, the episode of the
gentleman who talks angrily of the King of Italy refers to the intrusion
of people of low rank into aristocratic society. It is as though the
warning which Daudet gives to young men were to be supplemented by a
similar warning applicable to a suckling child. *
* The fantastic nature of the situation relating to the
dreamer's wet-nurse is shown by the circumstance, objectively ascertained,
that the nurse in this case was his mother. Further, I may call attention
to the regret of the young man in the anecdote related to p. 222 above
(that he had not taken better advantage of his opportunities with his
wet-nurse) as the probable source of his dream.
In the two dreams here cited I have shown by italics
where one of the elements of the dream recurs in the dream-thoughts, in
order to make the multiple relations of the former more obvious. Since,
however, the analysis of these dreams has not been carried to completion,
it will probably be worth while to consider a dream with a full analysis,
in order to demonstrate the manifold determination of the dream-content.
For this purpose I shall select the dream of Irma's injection (see chapter
II). From this example we shall readily see that the condensation-work in
the dream-formation has made use of more means than one.
The chief person in the dream-content is my patient
Irma, who is seen with the features which belong to her waking life, and
who therefore, in the first instance, represents herself. But her
attitude, as I examine her at the window, is taken from a recollection of
another person, of the lady for whom I should like to exchange my patient,
as is shown by the dream-thoughts. Inasmuch as Irma has a diphtheritic
membrane, which recalls my anxiety about my eldest daughter, she comes to
represent this child of mine, behind whom, connected with her by the
identity of their names, is concealed the person of the patient who died
from the effects of poison. In the further course of the dream the
Significance of Irma's personality changes (without the alteration of her
image as it is seen in the dream): she becomes one of the children whom we
examine in the public dispensaries for children's diseases, where my
friends display the differences in their mental capacities. The transition
was obviously effected by the idea of my little daughter. Owing to her
unwillingness to open her mouth, the same Irma constitutes an allusion to
another lady who was examined by me, and, also in the same connection, to
my wife. Further, in the morbid changes which I discover in her throat I
have summarized allusions to quite a number of other persons.
All these people whom I encounter as I follow up the
associations suggested by Irma do not appear personally in the dream; they
are concealed behind the dream-person Irma, who is thus developed into a
collective image, which, as might be expected, has contradictory features.
Irma comes to represent these other persons, who are discarded in the work
of condensation, inasmuch as I allow anything to happen to her which
reminds me of these persons, trait by trait.
For the purposes of dream-condensation I may construct
a composite person in yet another fashion, by combining the actual
features of two or more persons in a single dream-image. It is in this
fashion that the Dr. M of my dream was constructed; he bears the name of
Dr. M, and he speaks and acts as Dr. M does, but his bodily
characteristics and his malady belong to another person, my eldest
brother; a single feature, paleness, is doubly determined, owing to the
fact that it is common to both persons. Dr. R, in my dream about my uncle,
is a similar composite person. But here the dream-image is constructed in
yet another fashion. I have not united features peculiar to the one person
with the features of the other, thereby abridging by certain features the
memory-picture of each; but I have adopted the method employed by Galton
in producing family portraits; namely, I have superimposed the two images,
so that the common features stand out in stronger relief, while those
which do not coincide neutralize one another and become indistinct. In the
dream of my uncle the fair beard stands out in relief, as an emphasized
feature, from a physiognomy which belongs to two persons, and which is
consequently blurred; further, in its reference to growing grey the beard
contains an allusion to my father and to myself.
The construction of collective and composite persons is
one of the principal methods of dream-condensation. We shall presently
have occasion to deal with this in another connection.
The notion of dysentery in the dream of Irma's injection
has likewise a multiple determination; on the one hand, because of its
paraphasic assonance with diphtheria. and on the other because of its
reference to the patient whom I sent to the East, and whose hysteria had
been wrongly diagnosed.
The mention of propyls in the dream proves again to be
an interesting case of condensation. Not propyls but amyls were included
in the dream-thoughts. One might think that here a simple displacement had
occurred in the course of dream-formation. This is in fact the case, but
the displacement serves the purposes of the condensation, as is shown from
the following supplementary analysis: If I dwell for a moment upon the
word propylen (German) its assonance with the word propylaeum suggests
itself to me. But a propylaeum is to be found not only in Athens, but also
in Munich. In the latter city, a year before my dream, I had visited a
friend who was seriously ill, and the reference to him in trimethylamin,
which follows closely upon propyls, is unmistakable.
I pass over the striking circumstance that here, as
elsewhere in the analysis of dreams, associations of the most widely
differing values are employed for making thought-connections as though
they were equivalent, and I yield to the temptation to regard the
procedure by which amyls in the dream-thoughts are replaced in the
dream-content by propyls as a sort of plastic process.
On the one hand, here is the group of ideas relating to
my friend Otto, who does not understand me, thinks I am in the wrong, and
gives me the liqueur that smells of amyls; on the other hand, there is the
group of ideas- connected with the first by contrast- relating to my
Berlin friend who does understand me, who would always think that I was
right, and to whom I am indebted for so much valuable information
concerning the chemistry of sexual processes.
What elements in the Otto group are to attract my
particular attention are determined by the recent circumstances which are
responsible for the dream; amyls belong to the element so distinguished,
which are predestined to find their way into the dream-content. The large
group of ideas centering upon William is actually stimulated by the
contrast between William and Otto, and those elements in it are emphasized
which are in tune with those already stirred up in the Otto group. In the
whole of this dream I am continually recoiling from somebody who excites
my displeasure towards another person with whom I can at will confront the
first; trait by trait I appeal to the friend as against the enemy. Thus
amyls in the Otto group awakes recollections in the other group, also
belonging to the region of chemistry; trimethylamin, which receives
support from several quarters, finds its way into the dream-content.
Amyls, too, might have got into the dream-content unchanged, but it yields
to the influence of the William group, inasmuch as out of the whole range
of recollections covered by this name an element is sought out which is
able to furnish a double determination for amyls. Propyls is closely
associated with amyls; from the William group comes Munich with its
propylaeum. Both groups are united in propyls- propylaeum. As though by a
compromise, this intermediate element then makes its way into the
dream-content. Here a common mean which permits of a multiple
determination has been created. It thus becomes palpable that a multiple
determination must facilitate penetration into the dream-content. For the
purpose of this mean-formation a displacement of the attention has been
unhesitatingly effected from what is really intended to something adjacent
to it in the associations.
The study of the dream of Irma's injection has now
enabled us to obtain some insight into the process of condensation which
occurs in the formation of dreams. We perceive, as peculiarities of the
condensing process, a selection of those elements which occur several
times over in the dream-content, the formation of new unities (composite
persons, mixed images), and the production of common means. The purpose
which is served by condensation, and the means by which it is brought
about, will be investigated when we come to study in all their bearings
the psychic processes at work in the formation of dreams. Let us for the
present be content with establishing the fact of dream-condensation as a
relation between the dream-thoughts and the dream-content which deserves
attention.
The condensation-work of dreams becomes most palpable
when it takes words and means as its objects. Generally speaking, words
are often treated in dreams as things, and therefore undergo the same
combinations as the ideas of things. The results of such dreams are
comical and bizarre word-formations.
1. A colleague sent an essay of his, in which he had,
in my opinion, overestimated the value of a recent physiological
discovery, and had expressed himself, moreover, in extravagant terms. On
the following night I dreamed a sentence which obviously referred to this
essay: "That is a truly norekdal style." The solution of this
word-formation at first gave me some difficulty; it was unquestionably
formed as a parody of the superlatives colossal, pyramidal; but it was not
easy to say where it came from. At last the monster fell apart into the
two names Nora and Ekdal, from two well-known plays by Ibsen. I had
previously read a newspaper article on Ibsen by the writer whose latest
work I was now criticizing in my dream.
2. One of my female patients dreams that a man with a
fair beard and a peculiar glittering eye is pointing to a sign-board
attached to a tree which reads: uclamparia- wet. *
* Given by translator, as the author's example could
not be translated.
Analysis.- The man was rather authoritative-looking,
and his peculiar glittering eye at once recalled the church of San Paolo,
near Rome, where she had seen the mosaic portraits of the Popes. One of
the early Popes had a golden eye (this is really an optical illusion, to
which the guides usually call attention). Further associations showed that
the general physiognomy of the man corresponded with her own clergyman
(pope), and the shape of the fair beard recalled her doctor (myself),
while the stature of the man in the dream recalled her father. All these
persons stand in the same relation to her; they are all guiding and
directing the course of her life. On further questioning, the golden eye
recalled gold- money- the rather expensive psycho-analytic treatment,
which gives her a great deal of concern. Gold, moreover, recalls the gold
cure for alcoholism- Herr D, whom she would have married, if it had not
been for his clinging to the disgusting alcohol habit- she does not object
to anyone's taking an occasional drink; she herself sometimes drinks beer
and liqueurs. This again brings her back to her visit to San Paolo (fuori
la mura) and its surroundings. She remembers that in the neighboring
monastery of the Tre Fontane she drank a liqueur made of eucalyptus by the
Trappist monks of the monastery. She then relates how the monks
transformed this malarial and swampy region into a dry and wholesome
neighborhood by planting numbers of eucalyptus trees. The word uclamparia
then resolves itself into eucalyptus and malaria, and the word wet refers
to the former swampy nature of the locality. Wet also suggests dry. Dry is
actually the name of the man whom she would have married but for his
over-indulgence in alcohol. The peculiar name of Dry is of Germanic origin
(drei = three) and hence, alludes to the monastery of the Three (drei)
Fountains. In talking of Mr. Dry's habit she used the strong expression:
"He could drink a fountain." Mr. Dry jocosely refers to his habit by
saying: "You know I must drink because I am always dry" (referring to his
name). The eucalyptus refers also to her neurosis, which was at first
diagnosed as malaria. She went to Italy because her attacks of anxiety,
which were accompanied by marked rigors and shivering, were thought to be
of malarial origin. She bought some eucalyptus oil from the monks, and she
maintains that it has done her much good.
The condensation uclamparia- wet is, therefore, the
point of junction for the dream as well as for the neurosis.
3. In a rather long and confused dream of my own, the
apparent nucleus of which is a sea-voyage, it occurs to me that the next
port is Hearsing, and next after that Fliess. The latter is the name of my
friend in B, to which city I have often journeyed. But Hearsing is put
together from the names of the places in the neighborhood of Vienna,
which so frequently end in "ing": Hietzing, Liesing, Moedling (the old
Medelitz, meae deliciae, my joy; that is, my own name, the German for joy
being Freude), and the English hearsay, which points to calumny, and
establishes the relation to the indifferent dream-stimulus of the day- a
poem in Fliegende Blatter about a slanderous dwarf, Sagter Hatergesagt
(Saidhe Hashesaid). By the combination of the final syllable ing with the
name Fliess, Vlissingen is obtained, which is a real port through which my
brother passes when he comes to visit us from England. But the English for
Vlissingen is Flushing, which signifies blushing, and recalls patients
suffering from erythrophobia (fear of blushing), whom I sometimes treat,
and also a recent publication of Bechterew's, relating to this neurosis,
the reading of which angered me. *
* The same analysis and synthesis of syllables- a
veritable chemistry of syllables- serves us for many a jest in waking
life. "What is the cheapest method of obtaining silver? You go to a field
where silverberries are growing and pick them; then the berries are
eliminated and the silver remains in a free state." [Translator's
example]. The first person who read and criticized this book made the
objection- with which other readers will probably agree- that "the dreamer
often appears too witty." That is true, so long as it applies to the
dreamer; it involves a condemnation only when its application is extended
to the interpreter of the dream. In waking reality I can make very little
claim to the predicate witty; if my dreams appear witty, this is not the
fault of my individuality, but of the peculiar psychological conditions
under which the dream is fabricated, and is intimately connected with the
theory of wit and the comical. The dream becomes witty because the
shortest and most direct way to the expression of its thoughts is barred
for it: the dream is under constraint. My readers may convince themselves
that the dreams of my patients give the impression of being quite as witty
(at least, in intention), as my own, and even more so. Nevertheless, this
reproach impelled me to compare the technique of wit with the dream-work.
4. Upon another occasion I had a dream which consisted
of two separate parts. The first was the vividly remembered word
Autodidasker: the second was a faithful reproduction in the dream- content
of a short and harmless fancy which had been developed a few days earlier,
and which was to the effect that I must tell Professor N, when I next saw
him: "The patient about whose condition I last consulted you is really
suffering from a neurosis, just as you suspected." So not only must the
newly- coined Autodidasker satisfy the requirement that it should contain
or represent a compressed meaning, but this meaning must have a valid
connection with my resolve- repeated from waking life- to give Professor N
due credit for his diagnosis.
Now Autodidasker is easily separated into author
(German, Autor), autodidact, and Lasker, with whom is associated the name
Lasalle. The first of these words leads to the occasion of the dream-
which this time is significant. I had brought home to my wife several
volumes by a well-known author who is a friend of my brother's, and who,
as I have learned, comes from the same neighbourhood as myself (J. J.
David). One evening she told me how profoundly impressed she had been by
the pathetic sadness of a story in one of David's novels (a story of
wasted talents), and our conversation turned upon the signs of talent
which we perceive in our own children. Under the influence of what she had
just read, my wife expressed some concern about our children, and I
comforted her with the remark that precisely such dangers as she feared
can be averted by training. During the night my thoughts proceeded
farther, took up my wife's concern for the children, and interwove with it
all sorts of other things. Something which the novelist had said to my
brother on the subject of marriage showed my thoughts a by-path which
might lead to representation in the dream. This path led to Breslau; a
lady who was a very good friend of ours had married and gone to live
there. I found in Breslau Lasker and Lasalle, two examples to justify the
fear lest our boys should be ruined by women, examples which enabled me to
represent simultaneously two ways of influencing a man to his undoing. *
The Cherchez la femme, by which these thoughts may be summarized, leads
me, if taken in another sense, to my brother, who is still married and
whose name is Alexander. Now I see that Alex, as we abbreviate the name,
sounds almost like an inversion of Lasker, and that this fact must have
contributed to send my thoughts on a detour by way of Breslau.
* Lasker died of progressive paralysis; that is, of the
consequences of an infection caught from a woman (syphilis); Lasalle, also
a syphilitic, was killed in a duel which he fought on account of the lady
whom he had been courting.
But the playing with names and syllables in which I am
here engaged has yet another meaning. It represents the wish that my
brother may enjoy a happy family life, and this in the following manner:
In the novel of artistic life, L'OEuvre, which, by virtue of its content,
must have been in association with my dream- thoughts, the author, as is
well-known, has incidentally given a description of his own person and his
own domestic happiness, and appears under the name of Sandoz. In the
metamorphosis of his name he probably went to work as follows: Zola, when
inverted (as children are fond of inverting names) gives Aloz. But this
was still too undisguised; he therefore replaced the syllable Al, which
stands at the beginning of the name Alexander, by the third syllable of
the same name, sand, and thus arrived at Sandoz. My autodidasker
originated in a similar fashion.
My phantasy- that I am telling Professor N that the
patient whom we have both seen is suffering from a neurosis- found its way
into the dream in the following manner: Shortly before the close of my
working year, I had a patient in whose case my powers of diagnosis failed
me. A serious organic trouble- possibly some alterative degeneration of
the spinal cord- was to be assumed, but could not be conclusively
demonstrated. It would have been tempting to diagnose the trouble as a
neurosis, and this would have put an end to all my difficulties, but for
the fact that the sexual anamnesis, failing which I am unwilling to admit
a neurosis, was so energetically denied by the patient. In my
embarrassment I called to my assistance the physician whom I respect most
of all men (as others do also), and to whose authority I surrender most
completely. He listened to my doubts, told me he thought them justified,
and then said: "Keep on observing the man, it is probably a neurosis."
Since I know that he does not share my opinions concerning the etiology
of the neuroses, I refrained from contradicting him, but I did not conceal
my skepticism. A few days later I informed the patient that I did not know
what to do with him, and advised him to go to someone else. Thereupon, to
my great astonishment, he began to beg my pardon for having lied to me: he
had felt so ashamed; and now he revealed to me just that piece of sexual
etiology which I had expected, and which I found necessary for assuming
the existence of a neurosis. This was a relief to me, but at the same time
a humiliation; for I had to admit that my consultant, who was not
disconcerted by the absence of anamnesis, had judged the case more
correctly. I made up my mind to tell him, when next I saw him, that he had
been right and I had been wrong.
This is just what I do in the dream. But what sort of a
wish is fulfilled if I acknowledge that I am mistaken? This is precisely
my wish; I wish to be mistaken as regards my fears- that is to say, I wish
that my wife, whose fears I have appropriated in my dream-thoughts, may
prove to be mistaken. The subject to which the fact of being right or
wrong is related in the dream is not far removed from that which is really
of interest to the dream- thoughts. We have the same pair of alternatives,
of either organic or functional impairment caused by a woman, or actually
by the sexual life- either tabetic paralysis or a neurosis- with which
latter the nature of Lasalle's undoing is indirectly connected.
In this well-constructed (and on careful analysis quite
transparent) dream, Professor N appears not merely on account of this
analogy, and my wish to be proved mistaken, or the associated references
to Breslau and to the family of our married friend who lives there, but
also on account of the following little dialogue which followed our
consultation: After he had acquitted himself of his professional duties by
making the above- mentioned suggestion, Dr. N proceeded to discuss
personal matters. "How many children have you now?"- "Six."- A thoughtful
and respectful gesture.- "Girls, boys?"- "Three of each. They are my pride
and my riches."- "Well, you must be careful; there is no difficulty about
the girls, but the boys are a difficulty later on as regards their
upbringing." I replied that until now they had been very tractable;
obviously this prognosis of my boys' future pleased me as little as his
diagnosis of my patient, whom he believed to be suffering only from a
neurosis. These two impressions, then, are connected by their continuity,
by their being successively received; and when I incorporate the story of
the neurosis into the dream, I substitute it for the conversation on the
subject of upbringing, which is even more closely connected with the
dream-thoughts, since it touches so closely upon the anxiety subsequently
expressed by my wife. Thus, even my fear that N may prove to be right in
his remarks on the difficulties to be met with in bringing up boys is
admitted into the dream-content, inasmuch as it is concealed behind the
representation of my wish that I may be wrong to harbor such
apprehensions. The same phantasy serves without alteration to represent
both the conflicting alternatives.
Examination-dreams present the same difficulties to
interpretation that I have already described as characteristic of most
typical dreams. The associative material which the dreamer supplies only
rarely suffices for interpretation. A deeper understanding of such dreams
has to be accumulated from a considerable number of examples. Not long ago
I arrived at a conviction that reassurances like "But you already are a
doctor," and so on, not only convey a consolation but imply a reproach as
well. This would have run: "You are already so old, so far advanced in
life, and yet you still commit such follies, are guilty of such childish
behaviour." This mixture of self- criticism and consolation would
correspond with the examination- dreams. After this it is no longer
surprising that the reproaches in the last analyzed examples concerning
follies and childish behaviour should relate to repetitions of
reprehensible sexual acts.
The verbal transformations in dreams are very similar
to those which are known to occur in paranoia, and which are observed also
in hysteria and obsessions. The linguistic tricks of children, who at a
certain age actually treat words as objects, and even invent new languages
and artificial syntaxes, are a common source of such occurrences both in
dreams and in the psychoneuroses.
The analysis of nonsensical word-formations in dreams
is particularly well suited to demonstrate the degree of condensation
effected in the dream-work. From the small number of the selected examples
here considered it must not be concluded that such material is seldom
observed or is at all exceptional. It is, on the contrary, very frequent,
but, owing to the dependence of dream interpretation on psychoanalytic
treatment, very few examples are noted down and reported, and most of the
analyses which are reported are comprehensible only to the specialist in
neuropathology.
When a spoken utterance, expressly distinguished as
such from a thought, occurs in a dream, it is an invariable rule that the
dream-speech has originated from a remembered speech in the dream-
material. The wording of the speech has either been preserved in its
entirety or has been slightly altered in expression. frequently the
dream-speech is pieced together from different recollections of spoken
remarks; the wording has remained the same, but the sense has perhaps
become ambiguous, or differs from the wording. Not infrequently the
dream-speech serves merely as an allusion to an incident in connection
with which the remembered speech was made. *
* In the case of a young man who was suffering from
obsessions, but whose intellectual functions were intact and highly
developed, I recently found the only exception to this rule. The speeches
which occurred in his dreams did not originate in speeches which he had
heard had made himself, but corresponded to the undistorted verbal
expression of his obsessive thoughts, which came to his waking
consciousness only in an altered form.
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