CHAPTER SEVEN (Continued...)
C. The Wish-Fulfillment
The dream of the burning child (cited above) affords us
a welcome opportunity for appreciating the difficulties confronting the
theory of wish-fulfillment. That a dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment
must undoubtedly seem strange to us all- and not only because of the
contradiction offered by the anxiety-dream. Once our first analyses had
given us the enlightenment that meaning and psychic value are concealed
behind our dreams, we could hardly have expected so unitary a
determination of this meaning. According to the correct but summary
definition of Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in sleep.
Now if, during the day, our thoughts perform such a diversity of psychic
acts- judgments, conclusions, the answering of objections, expectations,
intentions, etc.- why should they be forced at night to confine themselves
to the production of wishes only? Are there not, on the contrary, many
dreams that present an altogether different psychic act in dream-form- for
example, anxious care- and is not the father's unusually transparent dream
of the burning child such a dream? From the gleam of light that falls upon
his eyes while he is asleep the father draws the apprehensive conclusion
that a candle has fallen over and may be burning the body; he transforms
this conclusion into a dream by embodying it in an obvious situation
enacted in the present tense. What part is played in this dream by the
wish-fulfillment? And how can we possibly mistake the predominance of the
thought continued from the waking state or evoked by the new sensory
impression?
All these considerations are justified, and force us to
look more closely into the role of the wish-fulfillment in dreams, and the
significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
It is precisely the wish-fulfillment that has already
caused us to divide all dreams into two groups. We have found dreams which
were plainly wish-fulfillments; and others in which the wish- fulfillment
was unrecognizable and was often concealed by every available means. In
this latter class of dreams we recognized the influence of the
dream-censorship. The undisguised wish-dreams were found chiefly in
children; short, frank wish-dreams seemed (I purposely emphasize this
word) to occur also in adults.
We may now ask whence in each case does the wish that
is realized in the dream originate? But to what opposition or to what
diversity do we relate this whence? I think to the opposition between
conscious daily life and an unconscious psychic activity which is able to
make itself perceptible only at night. I thus, find a threefold
possibility for the origin of a wish. Firstly, it may have been excited
during the day, and owing to external circumstances may have remained
unsatisfied; there is thus left for the night an acknowledged and
unsatisfied wish. Secondly, it may have emerged during the day, only to be
rejected; there is thus left for the night an unsatisfied but suppressed
wish. Thirdly, it may have no relation to daily life, but may belong to
those wishes which awake only at night out of the suppressed material in
us. If we turn to our scheme of the psychic apparatus, we can localize a
wish of the first order in the system Pcs. We may assume that a wish of
the second order has been forced back from the Pcs system into the Ucs
system, where alone, if anywhere, can it maintain itself; as for the wish-
impulse of the third order, we believe that it is wholly incapable of
leaving the Ucs system. Now, have the wishes arising from these different
sources the same value for the dream, the same power to incite a dream?
On surveying the dreams at our disposal with a view to
answering this question, we are at once moved to add as a fourth source of
the dream-wish the actual wish-impetus which arises during the night (for
example, the stimulus of thirst, and sexual desire). It then seems to us
probable that the source of the dream-wish does not affect its capacity to
incite a dream. I have in mind the dream of the child who continued the
voyage that had been interrupted during the day, and the other children's
dreams cited in the same chapter; they are explained by an unfulfilled but
unsuppressed wish of the daytime. That wishes suppressed during the day
assert themselves in dreams is shown by a great many examples. I will
mention a very simple dream of this kind. A rather sarcastic lady, whose
younger friend has become engaged to be married, is asked in the daytime
by her acquaintances whether she knows her friend's fiancé, and what she
thinks of him. She replies with unqualified praise, imposing silence on
her own judgment, although she would have liked to tell the truth, namely,
that he is a commonplace fellow- one meets such by the dozen (Dutzendmensch).
The following night she dreams that the same question is put to her, and
that she replies with the formula: "In case of subsequent orders, it will
suffice to mention the reference number." Finally, as the result of
numerous analyses, we learn that the wish in all dreams that have been
subject to distortion has its origin in the unconscious, and could not
become perceptible by day. At first sight, then, it seems that in respect
of dream-formation all wishes are of equal value and equal power.
I cannot prove here that this is not really the true
state of affairs, but I am strongly inclined to assume a stricter
determination of the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave us in no doubt
that a wish unfulfilled during the day may instigate a dream. But we must
not forget that this is, after all, the wish of a child; that it is a
wish-impulse of the strength peculiar to childhood. I very much doubt
whether a wish unfulfilled in the daytime would suffice to create a dream
in an adult. It would rather seem that, as we learn to control our
instinctual life by intellection, we more and more renounce as
unprofitable the formation or retention of such intense wishes as are
natural to childhood. In this, indeed, there may be individual variations;
some retain the infantile type of the psychic processes longer than
others; just as we find such differences in the gradual decline of the
originally vivid visual imagination. In general, however, I am of the
opinion that unfulfilled wishes of the day are insufficient to produce a
dream in adults. I will readily admit that the wish-impulses originating
in consciousness contribute to the instigation of dreams, but they
probably do no more. The dream would not occur if the preconscious wish
were not reinforced from another source.
That source is the unconscious. I believe that the
conscious wish becomes effective in exciting a dream only when it succeeds
in arousing a similar unconscious wish which reinforces it. From the
indications obtained in the psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that
these unconscious wishes are always active and ready to express themselves
whenever they find an opportunity of allying themselves with an impulse
from consciousness, and transferring their own greater intensity to the
lesser intensity of the latter. * It must, therefore, seem that the
conscious wish alone has been realized in the dream; but a slight
peculiarity in the form of the dream will put us on the track of the
powerful ally from the unconscious. These ever-active and, as it were,
immortal wishes of our unconscious recall the legendary Titans who, from
time immemorial, have been buried under the mountains which were once
hurled upon them by the victorious gods, and even now quiver from time to
time at the convulsions of their mighty limbs. These wishes, existing in
repression, are themselves of infantile origin, as we learn from the
psychological investigation of the neuroses. Let me, therefore, set aside
the view previously expressed, that it matters little whence the
dream-wish originates, and replace it by another, namely: the wish
manifested in the dream must be an infantile wish. In the adult it
originates in the Ucs, while in the child, in whom no division and
censorship exist as yet between the Pcs and Ucs, or in whom these are only
in process of formation, it is an unfulfilled and unrepressed wish from
the waking state. I am aware that this conception cannot be generally
demonstrated, but I maintain that it can often be demonstrated even where
one would not have suspected it, and that it cannot be generally refuted.
-
* They share this character of indestructibility with
all other psychic acts that are really unconscious- that is, with psychic
acts belonging solely to the system Ucs. These paths are opened once and
for all; they never fall into disease; they conduct the excitation process
to discharge as often as they are charged again with unconscious
excitation. To speak metaphorically, they suffer no other form of
annihilation than did the shades of the lower regions in the Odyssey, who
awoke to new life the moment they drank blood. The processes depending on
the preconscious system are destructible in quite another sense. The
psychotherapy of the neuroses is based on this difference.
In dream-formation, the wish-impulses which are left
over from the conscious waking life are, therefore, to be relegated to the
background. I cannot admit that they play any part except that attributed
to the material of actual sensations during sleep in relation to the
dream-content. If I now take into account those other psychic instigations
left over from the waking life of the day, which are not wishes, I shall
merely be adhering to the course mapped out for me by this line of
thought. We may succeed in provisionally disposing of the energetic
cathexis of our waking thoughts by deciding to go to sleep. He is a good
sleeper who can do this; Napoleon I is reputed to have been a model of
this kind. But we do not always succeed in doing it, or in doing it
completely. Unsolved problems, harassing cares, overwhelming impressions,
continue the activity of our thought even during sleep, maintaining
psychic processes in the system which we have termed the preconscious. The
thought-impulses continued into sleep may be divided into the following
groups:
1. Those which have not been completed during the day,
owing to some accidental cause.
2. Those which have been left uncompleted because our
mental powers have failed us, i.e., unsolved problems.
3. Those which have been turned back and suppressed
during the day. This is reinforced by a powerful fourth group:
4. Those which have been excited in our Ucs during the
day by the workings of the Pcs; and finally we may add a fifth, consisting
of:
5. The indifferent impressions of the day, which have
therefore been left unsettled.
We need not underrate the psychic intensities
introduced into sleep by these residues of the day's waking life,
especially those emanating from the group of the unsolved issues. It is
certain that these excitations continue to strive for expression during
the night, and we may assume with equal certainty that the state of sleep
renders impossible the usual continuance of the process of excitation in
the preconscious and its termination in becoming conscious. In so far as
we can become conscious of our mental processes in the ordinary way, even
during the night, to that extent we are simply not asleep. I cannot say
what change is produced in the Pcs system by the state of sleep, * but
there is no doubt that the psychological characteristics of sleep are to
be sought mainly in the cathectic changes occurring just in this system,
which dominates, moreover, the approach to motility, paralyzed during
sleep. On the other hand, I have found nothing in the psychology of dreams
to warrant the assumption that sleep produces any but secondary changes in
the conditions of the Ucs system. Hence, for the nocturnal excitations in
the Pcs there remains no other path than that taken by the
wish-excitations from the Ucs; they must seek reinforcement from the Ucs,
and follow the detours of the unconscious excitations. But what is the
relation of the preconscious day-residues to the dream? There is no doubt
that they penetrate abundantly into the dream; that they utilize the
dream-content to obtrude themselves upon consciousness even during the
night; indeed, they sometimes even dominate the dream-content, and impel
it to continue the work of the day; it is also certain that the
day-residues may just as well have any other character as that of wishes.
But it is highly instructive, and for the theory of wish-fulfillment of
quite decisive importance, to see what conditions they must comply with in
order to be received into the dream.
* I have endeavored to penetrate farther into the
relations of the sleeping state and the conditions of hallucination in my
essay, "Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams," Collected
Papers, IV, p. 137.
Let us pick out one of the dreams cited above, e.g.,
the dream in which my friend Otto seems to show the symptoms of Basedow's
disease (chapter V., D). Otto's appearance gave me some concern during the
day, and this worry, like everything else relating to him, greatly
affected me. I may assume that this concern followed me into sleep. I was
probably bent on finding out what was the matter with him. During the
night my concern found expression in the dream which I have recorded. Not
only was its content senseless, but it failed to show any wish-fulfillment.
But I began to search for the source of this incongruous expression of the
solicitude felt during the day, and analysis revealed a connection. I
identified my friend Otto with a certain Baron L and myself with a
Professor R. There was only one explanation of my being impelled to select
just this substitute for the day- thought. I must always have been ready
in the Ucs to identify myself with Professor R, as this meant the
realization of one of the immortal infantile wishes, viz., the wish to
become great. Repulsive ideas respecting my friend, ideas that would
certainly have been repudiated in a waking state, took advantage of the
opportunity to creep into the dream; but the worry of the day had likewise
found some sort of expression by means of a substitute in the
dream-content. The day-thought, which was in itself not a wish, but on the
contrary a worry, had in some way to find a connection with some infantile
wish, now unconscious and suppressed, which then allowed it- duly dressed
up- to arise for consciousness. The more domineering the worry the more
forced could be the connection to be established; between the content of
the wish and that of the worry there need be no connection, nor was there
one in our example.
It would perhaps be appropriate, in dealing with this
problem, to inquire how a dream behaves when material is offered to it in
the dream-thoughts which flatly opposes a wish-fulfillment; such as
justified worries, painful reflections and distressing realizations. The
many possible results may be classified as follows: (a) The dream-work
succeeds in replacing all painful ideas by contrary ideas. and suppressing
the painful affect belonging to them. This, then, results in a pure and
simple satisfaction-dream, a palpable wish-fulfillment, concerning which
there is nothing more to be said. (b) The painful ideas find their way
into the manifest dream-content, more or less modified, but nevertheless
quite recognizable. This is the case which raises doughts about the
wish-theory of dreams, and thus calls for further investigation. Such
dreams with a painful content may either be indifferent in feeling, or
they may convey the whole painful affect, which the ideas contained in
them seem to justify, or they may even lead to the development of anxiety
to the point of waking.
Analysis then shows that even these painful dreams are
wish- fulfillments. An unconscious and repressed wish, whose fulfillment
could only be felt as painful by the dreamer's ego, has seized the
opportunity offered by the continued cathexis of painful day- residues,
has lent them its support, and has thus made them capable of being
dreamed. But whereas in case (a) the unconscious wish coincided with the
conscious one, in case (b) the discord between the unconscious and the
conscious- the repressed material and the ego- is revealed, and the
situation in the fairy-tale, of the three wishes which the fairy offers to
the married couple, is realized (see p. 534 below). The gratification in
respect of the fulfillment of the repressed wish may prove to be so great
that it balances the painful affects adhering to the day-residues; the
dream is then indifferent in its affective tone, although it is on the one
hand the fulfillment of a wish, and on the other the fulfillment of a fear.
Or it may happen that the sleeper's ego plays an even more extensive part
in the dream-formation, that it reacts with violent resentment to the
accomplished satisfaction of the repressed wish, and even goes so far as
to make an end of the dream by means of anxiety. It is thus not difficult
to recognize that dreams of pain and anxiety are, in accordance with our
theory, just as much wish-fulfillments as are the straightforward dreams of
gratification.
Painful dreams may also be punishment dreams. It must
be admitted that the recognition of these dreams adds something that is,
in a certain sense, new to the theory of dreams. What is fulfilled by them
is once more an unconscious wish- the wish for the punishment of the
dreamer for a repressed, prohibited wish- impulse. To this extent, these
dreams comply with the requirement here laid down: that the motive-power
behind the dream-formation must be furnished by a wish belonging to the
unconscious. But a finer psychological dissection allows us to recognize
the difference between this and the other wish-dreams. In the dreams of
group (b) the unconscious dream-forming wish belonged to the repressed
material. In the punishment-dreams it is likewise an unconscious wish, but
one which we must attribute not to the repressed material but to the ego.
Punishment-dreams point, therefore, to the possibility
of a still more extensive participation of the ego in dream-formation. The
mechanism of dream-formation becomes indeed in every way more transparent
if in place of the antithesis conscious and unconscious, we put the
antithesis: ego and repressed. This, however, cannot be done without
taking into account what happens in the psychoneuroses, and for this
reason it has not been done in this book. Here I need only remark that the
occurrence of punishment-dreams is not generally subject to the presence
of painful day-residues. They originate, indeed, most readily if the
contrary is true, if the thoughts which are day-residues are of a
gratifying nature, but express illicit gratifications. Of these thoughts
nothing, then, finds its way into the manifest dream except their
contrary, just as was the case in the dreams of group (a). Thus it would
be the essential characteristic of punishment-dreams that in them it is
not the unconscious wish from the repressed material (from the system Ucs)
that is responsible for dream-formation but the punitive wish reacting
against it, a wish pertaining to the ego, even though it is unconscious
(i.e., preconscious). *
* Here one may consider the idea of the super-ego which
was later recognized by psycho-analysis.
I will elucidate some of the foregoing observations by
means of a dream of my own, and above all I will try to show how the
dream- work deals with a day-residue involving painful expectation:
Indistinct beginning. I tell my wife I have some news
for her, something very special. She becomes frightened, and does not wish
to hear it. I assure her that on the contrary it is something which will
please her greatly, and I begin to tell her that our son's Officers' Corps
has sent a sum of money (5,000 k.?)... something about honorable
mention... distribution... at the same time I have gone with her into a
sitting room, like a store-room, in order to fetch something from it.
Suddenly I see my son appear; he is not in uniform but rather in a
tight-fitting sports suit (like a seal?) with a small cap. He climbs on to
a basket which stands to one side near a chest, in order to put something
on this chest. I address him; no answer. It seems to me that his face or
forehead is bandaged, he arranges something in his mouth, pushing
something into it. Also his hair shows a glint of grey. I reflect: Can he
be so exhausted? And has he false teeth? Before I can address him again I
awake without anxiety, but with palpitations. My clock points to 2.30 a.m.
To give a full analysis is once more impossible. I
shall therefore confine myself to emphasizing some decisive points.
Painful expectations of the day had given occasion for this dream; once
again there had been no news for over a week from my son, who was fighting
at the Front. It is easy to see that in the dream-content the conviction
that he has been killed or wounded finds expression. At the beginning of
the dream one can observe an energetic effort to replace the painful
thoughts by their contrary. I have to impart something very pleasing,
something about sending money, honorable mention, and distribution. (The
sum of money originates in a gratifying incident of my medical practice;
it is therefore trying to lead the dream away altogether from its theme.)
But this effort fails. The boy's mother has a presentiment of something
terrible and does not wish to listen. The disguises are too thin; the
reference to the material to be suppressed shows through everywhere. If my
son is killed, then his comrades will send back his property; I shall have
to distribute whatever he has left among his sisters, brothers and other
people. Honorable mention is frequently awarded to an officer after he
has died the "hero's death." The dream thus strives to give direct
expression to what it at first wished to deny, whilst at the same time the
wish-fulfilling tendency reveals itself by distortion. (The change of
locality in the dream is no doubt to be understood as threshold symbolism,
in line with Silberer's view.) We have indeed no idea what lends it the
requisite motive-power. But my son does not appear as failing (on the
field of battle) but climbing.- He was, in fact, a daring mountaineer.- He
is not in uniform, but in a sports suit; that is, the place of the
fatality now dreaded has been taken by an accident which happened to him
at one time when he was ski- running, when he fell and fractured his
thigh. But the nature of his costume, which makes him look like a seal,
recalls immediately a younger person, our comical little grandson; the
grey hair recalls his father, our son-in-law, who has had a bad time in
the War. What does this signify? But let us leave this: the locality, a
pantry, the chest, from which he wants to take something (in the dream, to
put something on it), are unmistakable allusions to an accident of my own,
brought upon myself when I was between two and three years of age. I
climbed on a foot-stool in the pantry, in order to get something nice
which was on a chest or table. The footstool tumbled over and its edge
struck me behind the lower jaw. I might very well have knocked all my
teeth out. At this point, an admonition presents itself: it serves you
right- like a hostile impulse against the valiant warrior. A profounder
analysis enables me to detect the hidden impulse, which would be able to
find satisfaction in the dreaded mishap to my son. It is the envy of youth
which the elderly man believes that he has thoroughly stifled in actual
life. There is no mistaking the fact that it was the very intensity of the
painful apprehension lest such a misfortune should really happen that
searched out for its alleviation such a repressed wish-fulfilment.
I can now clearly define what the unconscious wish
means for the dream. I will admit that there is a whole class of dreams in
which the incitement originates mainly or even exclusively from the
residues of the day; and returning to the dream about my friend Otto, I
believe that even my desire to become at last a professor extraordinarius
would have allowed me to sleep in peace that night, had not the day's
concern for my friend's health continued active. But this worry alone
would not have produced a dream; the motive-power needed by the dream had
to be contributed by a wish, and it was the business of my concern to find
such a wish for itself, as the motive power of the dream. To put it
figuratively, it is quite possible that a day-thought plays the part of
the entrepreneur in the dream; but the entrepreneur, who, as we say, has
the idea, and feels impelled to realize it, can do nothing without
capital; he needs a capitalist who will defray the expense, and this
capitalist, who contributes the psychic expenditure for the dream, is
invariably and indisputably, whatever the nature of the waking thoughts, a
wish from the unconscious.
In other cases the capitalist himself is the
entrepreneur; this, indeed, seems to be the more usual case. An
unconscious wish is excited by the day's work, and this now creates the
dream. And the dream-processes provide a parallel for all the other
possibilities of the economic relationship here used as an illustration.
Thus the entrepreneur may himself contribute a little of the capital, or
several entrepreneurs may seek the aid of the same capitalist, or several
capitalists may jointly supply the capital required by the entrepreneurs.
Thus there are dreams sustained by more than one dream-wish, and many
similar variations, which may be readily imagined, and which are of no
further interest to us. What is still lacking to our discussion of the
dream-wish we shall only be able to complete later on.
The tertium comparationis in the analogies here
employed, the quantitative element of which an allotted amount is placed
at the free disposal of the dream, admits of a still closer application to
the elucidation of the dream-structure. As shown in chapter VI., B., we
can recognize in most dreams a centre supplied with a special sensory
intensity. This is, as a rule, the direct representation of the wish-fulfillment;
for, if we reverse the displacements of the dream-work, we find that the
psychic intensity of the elements in the dream-thoughts is replaced by the
sensory intensity of the elements in the dream-content. The elements in
the neighborhood of the wish-fulfillment have often nothing to do with its
meaning, but prove to be the offshoots of painful thoughts which are
opposed to the wish. But owing to their connection with the central
element, often artificially established, they secure so large a share of
its intensity as to become capable of representation. Thus, the
representative energy of the wish-fulfillment diffuses itself over a
certain sphere of association, within which all elements are raised to
representation, including even those that are in themselves without
resources. In dreams containing several dynamic wishes we can easily
separate and delimit the spheres of the individual wish-fulfillments, and
we shall find that the gaps in the dream are often of the nature of
boundary-zones.
Although the foregoing remarks have restricted the
significance of the day-residues for the dream, they are none the less
deserving of some further attention. For they must be a necessary
ingredient in dream-formation, inasmuch as experience reveals the
surprising fact that every dream shows in its content a connection with a
recent waking impression, often of the most indifferent kind. So far we
have failed to understand the necessity for this addition to the
dream-mixture (chapter V., A.). This necessity becomes apparent only when
we bear in mind the part played by the unconscious wish, and seek further
information in the psychology of the neuroses. We shall then learn that an
unconscious idea, as such, is quite incapable of entering into the
preconscious, and that it can exert an influence there only by
establishing touch with a harmless idea already belonging to the
preconscious, to which it transfers its intensity, and by which it allows
itself to be screened. This is the fact of transference, which furnishes
the explanation of so many surprising occurrences in the psychic life of
neurotics. The transference may leave the idea from the preconscious
unaltered, though the latter will thus acquire an unmerited intensity, or
it may force upon this some modification derived from the content of the
transferred idea. I trust the reader will pardon my fondness for
comparisons with daily life, but I feel tempted to say that the situation
for the repressed idea is like that of the American dentist in Austria,
who may not carry on his practice unless he can get a duly installed
doctor of medicine to serve him as a signboard and legal "cover." Further,
just as it is not exactly the busiest physicians who form such alliances
with dental practitioners, so in the psychic life the choice as regards
covers for repressed ideas does not fall upon such preconscious or
conscious ideas as have themselves attracted enough of the attention
active in the preconscious. The unconscious prefers to entangle with its
connections either those impressions and ideas of the preconscious which
have remained unnoticed as being indifferent or those which have
immediately had attention withdrawn from them again (by rejection). it is
a well-known proposition of the theory of associations, confirmed by all
experience, that ideas which have formed a very intimate connection in one
direction assume a negative type of attitude towards whole groups of new
connections. I have even attempted at one time to base a theory of
hysterical paralysis on this principle.
If we assume that the same need of transference on the
part of the repressed ideas, of which we have become aware through the
analysis of the neurosis, makes itself felt in dreams also, we can at once
explain two of the problems of the dream: namely, that every
dream-analysis reveals an interweaving of a recent impression, and that
this recent element is often of the most indifferent character. We may add
what we have already learned elsewhere, that the reason why these recent
and indifferent elements so frequently find their way into the
dream-content as substitutes for the very oldest elements of the
dream-thoughts is that they have the least to fear from the resisting
censorship. But while this freedom from censorship explains only the
preference shown to the trivial elements, the constant presence of recent
elements points to the necessity for transference. Both groups of
impressions satisfy the demand of the repressed ideas for material still
free from associations, the indifferent ones because they have offered no
occasion for extensive associations, and the recent ones because they have
not had sufficient time to form such associations.
We thus see that the day-residues, among which we may
now include the indifferent impressions, not only borrow something from
the Ucs when they secure a share in dream-formation- namely, the
motive-power at the disposal of the repressed wish- but they also offer to
the unconscious something that is indispensable to it, namely, the points
of attachment necessary for transference. If we wished to penetrate more
deeply into the psychic processes, we should have to throw a clearer light
on the play of excitations between the preconscious and the unconscious,
and indeed the study of the psychoneuroses would impel us to do so; but
dreams, as it happens, give us no help in this respect.
Just one further remark as to the day-residues. There
is no doubt that it is really these that disturb our sleep, and not our
dreams which, on the contrary, strive to guard our sleep. But we shall
return to this point later.
So far we have discussed the dream-wish; we have traced
it back to the sphere of the Ucs, and have analyzed its relation to the
day-residues, which, in their turn, may be either wishes, or psychic
impulses of any other kind, or simply recent impressions. We have thus
found room for the claims that can be made for the dream-forming
significance of our waking mental activity in all its multifariousness. It
might even prove possible to explain, on the basis of our train of
thought, those extreme cases in which the dream, continuing the work of
the day, brings to a happy issue an unsolved problem of waking life. We
merely lack a suitable example to analyze, in order to uncover the
infantile or repressed source of wishes, the tapping of which has so
successfully reinforced the efforts of the preconscious activity. But we
are not a step nearer to answering the question: Why is it that the
unconscious can furnish in sleep nothing more than the motive-power for a
wish-fulfillment? The answer to this question must elucidate the psychic
nature of the state of wishing: and it will be given with the aid of the
notion of the psychic apparatus.
We do not doubt that this apparatus, too, has only
arrived at its present perfection by a long process of evolution. Let us
attempt to restore it as it existed in an earlier stage of capacity. From
postulates to be confirmed in other ways, we know that at first the
apparatus strove to keep itself as free from stimulation as possible, and
therefore, in its early structure, adopted the arrangement of a reflex
apparatus, which enabled it promptly to discharge by the motor paths any
sensory excitation reaching it from without. But this simple function was
disturbed by the exigencies of life, to which the apparatus owes the
impetus toward further development. The exigencies of life first
confronted it in the form of the great physical needs. The excitation
aroused by the inner need seeks an outlet in motility, which we may
describe as internal change or expression of the emotions. The hungry
child cries or struggles helplessly. But its situation remains unchanged;
for the excitation proceeding from the inner need has not the character of
a momentary impact, but of a continuing pressure. A change can occur only
if, in some way (in the case of the child by external assistance), there
is an experience of satisfaction, which puts an end to the internal
excitation. An essential constituent of this experience is the appearance
of a certain percept (of food in our example), the memory-image of which
is henceforth associated with the memory- trace of the excitation arising
from the need. Thanks to the established connection, there results, at the
next occurrence of this need, a psychic impulse which seeks to revive the
memory- image of the former percept, and to re-evoke the former percept
itself; that is, it actually seeks to re-establish the situation of the
first satisfaction. Such an impulse is what we call a wish; the
reappearance of the perception constitutes the wish- fulfillment, and the
full cathexis of the perception, by the excitation springing from the
need, constitutes the shortest path to the wish-fulfillment. We may assume
a primitive state of the psychic apparatus in which this path is actually
followed, i.e., in which the wish ends in hallucination. This first
psychic activity therefore aims at an identity of perception: that is, at
a repetition of that perception which is connected with the satisfaction
of the need.
This primitive mental activity must have been modified
by bitter practical experience into a secondary and more appropriate
activity. The establishment of identity of perception by the short
regressive path within the apparatus does not produce the same result in
another respect as follows upon cathexis of the same perception coming
from without. The satisfaction does not occur, and the need continues. In
order to make the internal cathexis equivalent to the external one, the
former would have to be continuously sustained, just as actually happens
in the hallucinatory psychoses and in hunger-phantasies, which exhaust
their performance in maintaining their hold on the object desired. In
order to attain to more appropriate use of the psychic energy, it becomes
necessary to suspend the full regression, so that it does not proceed
beyond the memory-image, and thence can seek other paths, leading
ultimately to the production of the desired identity from the side of the
outer world. * This inhibition, as well as the subsequent deflection of
the excitation, becomes the task of a second system, which controls
voluntary motility, i.e., a system whose activity first leads on to the
use of motility for purposes remembered in advance. But all this
complicated mental activity, which works its way from the memory-image to
the production of identity of perception via the outer world, merely
represents a roundabout way to wish-fulfillment made necessary by
experience. *(2) Thinking is indeed nothing but a substitute for the
hallucinatory wish; and if the dream is called a wish-fulfillment, this
becomes something self-evident, since nothing but a wish can impel our
psychic apparatus to activity. The dream, which fulfils its wishes by
following the short regressive path, has thereby simply preserved for us a
specimen of the primary method of operation of the psychic apparatus,
which has been abandoned as inappropriate. What once prevailed in the
waking state, when our psychic life was still young and inefficient, seems
to have been banished into our nocturnal life; just as we still find in
the nursery those discarded primitive weapons of adult humanity, the bow
and arrow. Dreaming is a fragment of the superseded psychic life of the
child. In the psychoses, those modes of operation of the psychic apparatus
which are normally suppressed in the waking state reassert themselves, and
thereupon betray their inability to satisfy our demands in the outer
world. *(3)
* In other words: the introduction of a test of reality
is recognized as necessary.
*(2) Le Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfillments of
dreams: "Sans fatigue serieuse, sans etre oblige de recourir a cette lutte
opiniatre et longue qui use et corrode les jouissances poursuivies."
[Without serious fatigue, without being obliged to have recourse to that
long and stubborn struggle which exhausts and wears away pleasures
sought.]
*(3) I have further elaborated this train of thought
elsewhere, where I have distinguished the two principles involved as the
pleasure-principle and the reality-principle. Formulations regarding the
Two Principles in Mental Functioning, in Collected Papers, Vol. iv. p. 13.
The unconscious wish-impulses evidently strive to
assert themselves even during the day, and the fact of transference, as
well as the psychoses, tells us that they endeavor to force their way
through the preconscious system to consciousness and the command of
motility. Thus, in the censorship between Ucs and Pcs, which the dream
forces us to assume, we must recognize and respect the guardian of our
psychic health. But is it not carelessness on the part of this guardian to
diminish his vigilance at night, and to allow the suppressed impulses of
the Ucs to achieve expression, thus again making possible the process of
hallucinatory regression? I think not, for when the critical guardian goes
to rest- and we have proof that his slumber is not profound- he takes care
to close the gate to motility. No matter what impulses from the usually
inhibited Ucs may bustle about the stage, there is no need to interfere
with them; they remain harmless, because they are not in a position to set
in motion the motor apparatus which alone can operate to produce any
change in the outer world. Sleep guarantees the security of the fortress
which has to be guarded. The state of affairs is less harmless when a
displacement of energies is produced, not by the decline at night in the
energy put forth by the critical censorship, but by the pathological
enfeeblement of the latter, or the pathological reinforcement of the
unconscious excitations, and this while the preconscious is cathected and
the gates of motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered; the
unconscious excitations subdue the Pcs, and from the Pcs they dominate our
speech and action, or they enforce hallucinatory regressions, thus
directing an apparatus not designed for them by virtue of the attraction
exerted by perceptions on the distribution of our psychic energy. We call
this condition psychosis.
We now find ourselves in the most favorable position
for continuing the construction of our psychological scaffolding, which we
left after inserting the two systems, Ucs and Pcs. However, we still have
reason to give further consideration to the wish as the sole psychic
motive-power in the dream. We have accepted the explanation that the
reason why the dream is in every case a wish-fulfillment is that it is a
function of the system Ucs, which knows no other aim than wish-fulfillment,
and which has at its disposal no forces other than the wish-impulses. Now
if we want to continue for a single moment longer to maintain our right to
develop such far-reaching psychological speculations from the facts of
dream-interpretation, we are in duty bound to show that they insert the
dream into a context which can also embrace other psychic structures. If
there exists a system of the Ucs- or something sufficiently analogous for
the purposes of our discussion- the dream cannot be its sole
manifestation; every dream may be a wish-fulfillment, but there must be
other forms of abnormal wish-fulfillment as well as dreams. And in fact the
theory of all psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the one proposition
that they, too, must be conceived as wish-fulfillments of the unconscious.
* Our explanation makes the dream only the first member of a series of the
greatest importance for the psychiatrist, the understanding of which means
the solution of the purely psychological part of the psychiatric problem.
*(2) But in other members of this group of wish-fulfillments- for example,
in the hysterical symptoms- I know of one essential characteristic which I
have so far failed to find in the dream. Thus, from the investigations
often alluded to in this treatise, I know that the formation of an
hysterical symptom needs a junction of both the currents of our psychic
life. The symptom is not merely the expression of a realized unconscious
wish; the latter must be joined by another wish from the preconscious,
which is fulfilled by the same symptom; so that the symptom is at least
doubly determined, once by each of the conflicting systems. Just as in
dreams, there is no limit to further over- determination. The
determination which does not derive from the Ucs is, as far as I can see,
invariably a thought-stream of reaction against the unconscious wish; for
example, a self- punishment. Hence I can say, quite generally, that an
hysterical symptom originates only where two contrary wish-fulfillments,
having their source in different psychic systems, are able to meet in a
single expression. *(3) Examples would help us but little here, as nothing
but a complete unveiling of the complications in question can carry
conviction. I will therefore content myself with the bare assertion, and
will cite one example, not because it proves anything, but simply as an
illustration. The hysterical vomiting of a female patient proved, on the
one hand, to be the fulfillment of an unconscious phantasy from the years
of puberty- namely, the wish that she might be continually pregnant, and
have a multitude of children; and this was subsequently supplemented by
the wish that she might have them by as many fathers as possible. Against
this immoderate wish there arose a powerful defensive reaction. But as by
the vomiting the patient might have spoilt her figure and her beauty, so
that she would no longer find favor in any man's eyes, the symptom was
also in keeping with the punitive trend of thought, and so, being
admissible on both sides, it was allowed to become a reality. This is the
same way of acceding to a wish-fulfillment as the queen of the Parthians
was pleased to adopt in the case of the triumvir Crassus. Believing that
he had undertaken his campaign out of greed for gold, she caused molten
gold to be poured into the throat of the corpse. "Here thou hast what thou
hast longed for!"
* Expressed more exactly: One portion of the symptom
corresponds to the unconscious wish-fulfillment, while the other
corresponds to the reaction-formation opposed to it.
*(2) Hughlings Jackson has expressed himself as
follows: "Find out all about dreams, and you will have found out all about
insanity."
*(3) Cf. my latest formulation (in Zeitschrift fur
Sexual- wissenschaft, Bd. I) of the origin of hysterical symptoms in the
treatise on "Hysterical Phantasies and their Relation to Bisexuality,"
Collected Papers, II, p. 51. This forms chapter X of Selected Papers on
Hysteria, p. 115 above.
Of the dream we know as yet only that it expresses a
wish- fulfillment of the unconscious; and apparently the dominant
preconscious system permits this fulfillment when it has compelled the wish
to undergo certain distortions. We are, moreover, not in fact in a
position to demonstrate regularly the presence of a train of thought
opposed to the dream-wish, which is realized in the dream as well as its
antagonist. Only now and then have we found in dream-analyses signs of
reaction-products as, for instance, my affection for my friend R in the
dream of my uncle (chapter IV.). But the contribution from the
preconscious which is missing here may be found in another place. The
dream can provide expression for a wish from the Ucs by means of all sorts
of distortions, once the dominant system has withdrawn itself into the
wish to sleep, and has realized this wish by producing the changes of
cathexis within the psychic apparatus which are within its power;
thereupon holding on to the wish in question for the whole duration of
sleep. *
* This idea has been borrowed from the theory of sleep
of Liebault, who revived hypnotic research in modern times (Du Sommeil
provoque, etc., Paris [1889]).
Now this persistent wish to sleep on the part of the
preconscious has a quite general facilitating effect on the formation of
dreams. Let us recall the dream of the father who, by the gleam of light
from the death-chamber, was led to conclude that his child's body might
have caught fire. We have shown that one of the psychic forces decisive in
causing the father to draw this conclusion in the dream instead of
allowing himself to be awakened by the gleam of light was the wish to
prolong the life of the child seen in the dream by one moment. Other
wishes originating in the repressed have probably escaped us, for we are
unable to analyze this dream. But as a second source of motive- power in
this dream we may add the father's desire to sleep, for, like the life of
the child, the father's sleep is prolonged for a moment by the dream. The
underlying motive is: "Let the dream go on, or I must wake up." As in this
dream, so in all others, the wish to sleep lends its support to the
unconscious wish. In chapter III. we cited dreams which were manifestly
dreams of convenience. But in truth all dreams may claim this designation.
The efficacy of the wish to go on sleeping is most easily recognized in
the awakening dreams, which so elaborate the external sensory stimulus
that it becomes compatible with the continuance of sleep; they weave it
into a dream in order to rob it of any claims it might make as a reminder
of the outer world. But this wish to go on sleeping must also play its
part in permitting all other dreams, which can only act as disturbers of
the state of sleep from within. "Don't worry; sleep on; it's only a
dream," is in many cases the suggestion of the Pcs to consciousness when
the dream gets too bad; and this describes in a quite general way the
attitude of our dominant psychic activity towards dreaming, even though
the thought remains unuttered. I must draw the conclusion that throughout
the whole of our sleep we are just as certain that we are dreaming as we
are certain that we are sleeping. It is imperative to disregard the
objection that our consciousness is never directed to the latter
knowledge, and that it is directed to the former knowledge only on special
occasions, when the censorship feels, as it were, taken by surprise. On
the contrary, there are persons in whom the retention at night of the
knowledge that they are sleeping and dreaming becomes quite manifest, and
who are thus apparently endowed with the conscious faculty of guiding
their dream-life. Such a dreamer, for example, is dissatisfied with the
turn taken by a dream; he breaks it off without waking, and begins it
afresh, in order to continue it along different lines, just like a popular
author who, upon request, gives a happier ending to his play. Or on
another occasion, when the dream places him in a sexually exciting
situation, he thinks in his sleep: "I don't want to continue this dream
and exhaust myself by an emission; I would rather save it for a real
situation."
The Marquis Hervey (Vaschide) declared that he had
gained such power over his dreams that he could accelerate their course at
will, and turn them in any direction he wished. It seems that in him the
wish to sleep had accorded a place to another, a preconscious wish, the
wish to observe his dreams and to derive pleasure from them. Sleep is just
as compatible with such a wish- resolve as it is with some proviso as a
condition of waking up (wet-nurse's sleep), We know, too, that in all
persons an interest in dreams greatly increases the number of dreams
remembered after waking.
Concerning other observations as to the guidance of
dreams, Ferenczi states: "The dream takes the thought that happens to
occupy our psychic life at the moment, and elaborates it from all sides.
It lets any given dream-picture drop when there is a danger that the wish-fulfillment
will miscarry, and attempts a new kind of solution, until it finally
succeeds in creating a wish- fulfilment that satisfies in one compromise
both instances of the psychic life." |
