DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOANALYSIS

FOR

BEGINNERS

BY

PROF. DR, SIGMUND FREUD

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ANDRE TRIDON
Author of "Easy Lesson in Psychoanalysis"
"Psychoanalysis, its History, Theory and
Practice, "Psychoanalysis and
Behavior" and "Psychoanalysis, Sleep and
Dreams"

NEW YORK

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY
1921

Copyright Introduction, 1921, by
THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A

INTRODUCTION
T H E medical profession is justly conservative.
Human life should not be considered as the proper
material for wild experiments.
Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome
excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to
fast changing conditions.
Remember the scornful reception which first was
accorded to Freud's discoveries in the domain of the
unconscious.
When after years of patient observations, he
finally decided to appear before medical bodies to
tell them modestly of some facts which always recurred in his dream and his patients' dreams, he
was first laughed at and then avoided as a crank.
The words "dream interpretation" were and still
are indeed fraught with unpleasant, unscientific
associations. They remind one of all sorts of childish, superstitious notions, which make up the thread
and woof of dream books, read by none but the
ignorant and the primtive.
The wealth of detail, the infinite care never to let
anything pass unexplained, with which he presented
iii

iv

INTRODUCTION

to the public the result of his investigations, are
impressing more and more serious-minded scientists,
but the examination of his evidential data demands
arduous work and presupposes an absolutely open
mind.
This is why we still encounter men, totally unfamiliar with Freud's writings, men who were not
even interested enough in the subject to attempt an
interpretation of their dreams or their patients 5
dreams, deriding Freud's theories and combatting
them with the help of statements which he never
made.
Some of them, like Professor Boris, Sidis, reach at
times conclusions which are strangely similar to
Freud's, but in their ignorance of psychoanalytic
literature, they fail to credit Freud for observations
antedating theirs.
Besides those who sneer at dream study, because
they have never looked into the subject, there are
those who do not dare to face the facts revealed by
dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant
biological truth about ourselves and only very free
minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception is
a plant which withers fast in the pellucid atmosphere
of dream investigation.
The weakling and the neurotic attached to his
neurosis are not anxious to turn such a powerful

INTRODUCTION

v

searchlight upon the dark corners of their psychology.
Freud's theories are anything but theoretical.
H e was moved by the fact that there always
seemed to be a close connection between his patients'
dreams and their mental abnormalities, to collect
thousands of dreams and to compare them with the
case histories in his possession.
H e did not start out with a preconceived bias,
hoping to find evidence which might support his
views. H e looked at facts a thousand times "until
they began to tell him something."
His attitude toward dream study was, in other
words, that of a statistician who does not know, and
has no means of foreseeing, what conclusions will be
forced on him by the information he is gathering,
but who is fully prepared to accept those unavoidable conclusions.
This was indeed a novel way in psychology.
Psychologists had always been wont to build, in
what Bleuler calls "autistic ways," that is through
methods in no wise supported by evidence, some attractive hypothesis, which sprung from their brain,
like Minerva from Jove's brain, fully armed.
After which, they would stretch upon that unyielding frame the hide of a reality which they had
previously killed.

vi

INTRODUCTION

I t is only to minds suffering from the same distortions, to minds also autistically inclined, that
those empty, artificial structures appear acceptable
molds for philosophic thinking.
The pragmatic view that "truth is what works"
had not been as yet expressed when Freud published
his revolutionary views on the psychology of dreams.
Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious
to the world by his interpretation of dreams.
First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some
detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are
purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading nowhere.
Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's
life and modes of thought, after noting down all
his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant
details of his conduct which reveal his secret
thoughts, came to the conclusion that there was in
every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious.
Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream
visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider
them as absurd and unintelligible; th)e universality

INTRODUCTION

vii

of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained observer.
Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play
an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which
puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to minimize,
if not to ignore entirely.
Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic
visions of our sleep and the symbolic actions of the
mentally deranged.
There were, of course, many other observations
which Freud made while dissecting the dreams of his
patients, but not all of them present as much interest as the foregoing nor were they as revolutionary
or likely to wield as much influence on modern
psychiatry.
Other explorers have struck the path blazed by
Freud and leading into man's unconscious. J u n g
of Zurich, Adler of Vienna and Kempf of Washington, D . C , have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions which have brought that
study into fields which Freud himself never dreamt
of invading.
One fact which cannot be too emphatically stated,
however, is that but for Freud's wishfulfillment
theory of dreams, neither Jung's "energic theory,"
nor Adler's theory of "organ inferiority and com-

viii

INTRODUCTION

pensation/' nor Kempf's "dynamic mechanism"
might have been formulated.
Freud is the father of modern abnormal psychology and he established the psychoanalytical point of
view* No one who is not well grounded in Freudian lore can hope to achieve any work of value in
the field of psychoanalysis.
On the other hand, let no one repeat the absurd
assertion that Freudism is a sort of religion bounded
with dogmas and requiring an act of faith. Freudism as such was merely a stage in the development
of psychoanalysis, a stage out of which all but a
few bigoted camp followers, totally lacking in originality, have evolved. Thousands of stones have
been added to the structure erected by the Viennese
physician and many more will be added in the course
of time.
But the new additions to that structure would collapse like a house of cards but for the original foundations which are as indestructible as Harvey's
statement as to the circulation of the blood.
Regardless of whatever additions or changes have
been made to the original structure, the analytic
point of view remains unchanged.
That point of view is not only revolutionising all
the methods of diagnosis and treatment of mental
derangements, but compelling the intelligent, up-to-

INTRODUCTION

ix

date physician to revise entirely his attitude to almost every kind of disease.
The insane are no longer absurd and pitiable people, to be herded in asylums till nature either cures
them or relieves them, through death, of their misery. The insane who have not been made so by
actual injury to their brain or nervous system, are
the victims of unconscious forces which cause them
to do abnormally things which they might be helped
to do normally.
Insight into one's psychology is replacing victoriously sedatives and rest cures.
Physicians dealing with "purely" physical cases
have begun to take into serious consideration the
"mental" factors which have predisposed a patient
to certain ailments.
Freud's views have also made a revision of all
ethical and social values unavoidable and have
thrown an unexpected flood of light upon literary
and artistic accomplishment.
But the Freudian point of view, or more broadly
speaking, the psychoanalytic point of view, shall
ever remain a puzzle to those who, from laziness or
indifference, refuse to survey with the great Viennese the field over which he carefully groped his
way. W e shall never be convinced until we repeat
under his guidance all his laboratory experiments.

x

INTRODUCTION

We must follow him through the thickets of the
unconscious, through the land which had never been
charted because academic philosophers, following
the line of least effort, had decided a priori that it
could not be charted.
Ancient geographers, when exhausting their store
of information about distant lands, yielded to an
unscientific craving for romance and, without any
evidence to support their day dreams, filled the
blank spaces left on their maps by unexplored tracts
with amusing inserts such as "Here there are lions."
Thanks to Freud's interpretation of dreams the
"royal road" into the unconscious is now open to all
explorers. They shall not find lions, they shall find
man himself, and the record of all his life and of his
struggle with reality.
And it is only after seeing man as his unconscious,
revealed by his dreams, presents him to us that we
shall understand him fully. For as Freud said to
Putnam: "We are what we are because we have
been wrhat we have been."
Not a few serious-minded students, however, have
been discouraged from attempting a study of
Freud's dream psychology.
The book in which he originally offered to the
world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a legal record to be pondered over by

INTRODUCTION

xi

scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a
few hours by the average alert reader. In those
days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely
to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to sift data.
Freud himself, however, realized the magnitude
of the task which the reading of his magnum,
opus imposed upon those who have not been
prepared for it by long psychological and scientific
training and he abstracted from that gigantic work
the parts which constitute the essential of his discoveries.
The publishers of the present book deserve credit
for presenting to the reading pubic the gist of
Freud's psychology in the master's own words, and
in a form which shall neither discourage beginners,
nor appear too elementary to those who are more
advanced in psychoanalytic study.
Dream psychology is the key to Freud's works
and to all modern psychology. With a simple,
compact manual such as Dream Psychology there
shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the
most revolutionary psychological system of modern
times.
ANDRE TRIDON.

121 Madison Avenue, New York.
November, 1920.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
II

PAGE

DREAMS H A V E A M E A N I N G

1

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

24

III

W H Y THE DREAM DISGUISES T H E DESIRES .

IV

D R E A M ANALYSIS

V
VI
VII
VIII
IX

.

.

.

<

. 5 7
7S

S E X I N DREAMS

104

T H E W I S H I N DREAMS

135

T H E F U N C T I O N OF T H E D R E A M
T H E PRIMARY
GRESSION

AND

SECONDARY

164
PROCESS—-RE-

T H E UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS — REALITY

186
220

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY
I
DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

I N what we may term "presoientific days" people
were in no uncertainty about the interpretation of
dreams. When they were recalled after awakening they were regarded as either the friendly or
hostile manifestation of some higher powers, demoniacal and Divine. With the rise of scientific
thought the whole of this expressive mythology was
transferred to psychology; to-day there is but a
small minority among educated persons who doubt
that the dream is the dreamer's own psychical act.
But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The conditions of its origin; its relationship
to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of disturbances which, during the state
of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they
engender; then the dream's evanescence, the way in
1

2

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside
as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it—all these and many other
problems have for many hundred years demanded
answers which up till now could never have been
satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to
the meaning of the dream, a question which is in
itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical
significance of the dream, its position with regard
to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological
function; secondly, has the dream a meaning—can
sense be made of each single dream as of other
mental syntheses?
Three tendencies can be observed in the estimation of dreams. Many philosophers have given
currency to one of these tendencies, one which at
the same time preserves something of the dream's
former over-valuation. The foundation of dream
life is for them a peculiar state of psychical activity,
which they even celebrate as elevation to some
higher state, Schubert, for instance, claims:
''The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the
pressure of external nature, a detachment of the
soul from the fetters of matter." Not all go so
far as this, but many maintain that dreams have
their origin in real spiritual excitations, and are the
outward manifestations of spiritual powers whose

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

3

free movements have been hampered during the day
("Dream Phantasies," Schemer, Volkelt). A
large number of observers acknowledge that dream
life is capable of extraordinary achievements—at
any rate, in certain fields ("Memory").
Iii striking contradiction with this the majority
of medical writers hardly admit that the dream is a
psychical phenomenon at all. According to them
dreams are provoked and initiated exclusively by
stimuli proceeding from the senses or the body,
which either reach the sleeper from without or are
accidental disturbances of his internal organs. The
dream has no greater claim to meamng and importance than the sound Called forth by the ten
fingers of a person quite unacquainted with music
running his fingers over the keys of an instrument.
The dream is to be regarded, says Binz, "as a physical process always useless, frequently morbid."
All the peculiarities of dream life are explicable as
the incoherent effort, due to some physiological
stimulus, of certain organs, or of the cortical elements of a brain otherwise asleep.
But slightly affected by scientific opinion and
untroubled as to the origin of dreams, the popular
view holds firmly to the belief that dreams really
have got a meaning, in some way they do foretell
the future, whilst the meaning can be unravelled:

4

D R E A M PSYCHOLOGY

in some way or other from its oft bizarre and enigmatical content. The reading of dreams consists
in replacing the events of the dream, so far as remembered, by other events. This is done either
scene by scene, according to some rigid hey, or the
dream as a whole is replaced by something else of
which it was a symbol. Serious-minded persons
laugh at these efforts—"Dreams are but seafoam!"
One day I discovered to my amazement that the
popular view grounded in superstition, and not the
medical one, comes nearer to the truth about dreams.
I arrived at new conclusions about dreams by the
use of a new method of psychological investigation,
one which had rendered me good service in the investigation of phobias, obsessions, illusions, and the
like, and which, under the name "psycho-analysis,"
had found acceptance by a whole school of investigators. The manifold analogies of dream life with
the most diverse conditions of psychical disease in
the waking state have been rightly insisted upon by
a number of medical observers. I t seemed, therefore, a priori, hopeful to apply to the interpretation
of dreams methods of investigation which had been
tested in psychopathological processes. Obsessions
and those peculiar sensations of haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as do

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

5

dreams to our waking consciousness; their origin is
as unknown to consciousness as is that of dreams.
I t was practical ends that impelled us, in these diseases, to fathom their origin and formation. Experience had shown us that a cure and a consequent
mastery of the obsessing ideas did result when once
those thoughts, the connecting links between the
morbid ideas and the rest of the psychical content,
were revealed which were heretofore veiled from
consciousness. The procedure I employed for the
interpretation of dreams thus arose from psychotherapy.
This procedure is readily described, although its
practice demands instruction and experience.
Suppose the patient is suffering from intense morbid dread. H e is requested to direct his attention
to the idea in question, without, however, as he has
so frequently done, meditating upon it. Every impression about it, without any exception, which occurs to him should be imparted to the doctor. The
statement which will be perhaps then made, that
he cannot concentrate his attention upon anything
at all, is to be countered by assuring him most positively that such a blank state of mind is utterly impossible. As a matter of fact, a great number of
impressions will soon occur, with which others will
associate themselves. These will be invariably ac-

6

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

companied by the expression of the observer's opinion that they have no meaning or are unimportant.
I t will be at once noticed that it is this self-criticism
which prevented the patient from imparting the
ideas, which had indeed already excluded them from
consciousness. If the patient can be induced to
abandon this self-criticism and to pursue the trains
of thought which are yielded by concentrating the
attention^ most significant matter will be obtained,
matter which will be presently seen to be clearly
linked to the morbid idea in question. Its connection with other ideas will be manifest, and later on
will permit the replacement of the morbid idea by
a fresh one, which is perfectly adapted to psychical
continuity.
This is not the place to examine thoroughly the
hypothesis upon which this experiment rests, or the
deductions which follow from its invariable success.
I t must suffice to state that we obtain matter enough
for the resolution of every morbid idea if we especially direct our attention to the unbidden associations which disturb our thoughts—those which
are otherwise put aside by the critic as worthless
refuse. If the procedure is exercised on oneself,
the best plan of helping the experiment is to write
down at once all one's first indistinct fancies.
I will now point out where this method leads when

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

7

I apply it to the examination of dreams. Any
dream could be made use of in this way. From
certain motives 1, however, choose a dream of my
own, which appears confused and meaningless to
my memory, and one which has the advantage of
brevity. Probably my dream of last night satisfies
the requirements. Its content, fixed immediately
after awakening, runs as follows:
"Company; at table or table d'hote. . . . Spinach is served. Mrs. E. L., sitting next to me, gives
me her undivided attention, and places her hand
familiarly upon my knee. In defence I remove her
hand. Then she says: c But you have always had
such beautiful eyes! . . . J then distinctly see
something like two eyes as a sketch or as the contour of a spectacle lens. . . ."
This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that
I can remember. I t appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd.
Mrs, E . L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on
visiting lerms, nor to my knowledge have I ever
desired any ^nore cordial relationship. I have not
seen her for a long time, and do not think there was
any mention of her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process.
Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a
bit clearer to my mind. I will now, however, pre-

8

D R E A M PSYCHOLOGY]

sent tHe ideas, without premeditation and without
criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an advantage to break up the dream
into its elements, and to search out the ideas which
link themselves to each fragment.
Company; at table or table d'hote. The recollection of the slight event with which the evening
of yesterday ended is at once called up. I left a
small party in the company of a friend, who offered
to drive me home in his cab. " I prefer a taxi," he
said; "that gives one such a pleasant occupation;
there is always something to look at." When we
were in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc
so that the first sixty hellers were visible, I continued the jest, "We have hardly got in and we
already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table d'hote. I t makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me of
my debt. I t seems to me to mount up too quickly,
and I am always afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at table d'hote the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must
look after myself." I n far-fetched connection with
this I quote:
" T o earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
T o guilt ye let us heedless go."

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

9

Another idea about the table d'hote. A few
weeks ago I was very cross with my dear wife at
the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort, because she was not sufficiently reserved with some
neighbors with whom I wished to have absolutely
nothing to do. I begged her to occupy herself
rather with me than with the strangers. That is
just as if I had been at a disadvantage at the table
d'hote. The contrast between the behavior of my
wife at the table and that of Mrs. E . L. in the
dream now strikes me: "Addresses herself entirely
to me"
Further, I now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was scretly courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer to a wooer's passionate letter.
I n the dream, however, my wife is replaced by the
unfamiliar E . L.
Mrs. E . L. is the daughter of a man to whom I
owed money! I cann'ot help noticing1 that here
there is revealed an unsuspected connection between
the dream content and my thoughts. If the chain
of associations be followed up which proceeds from
one element of the dream one is soon led back to
another of its elements. The thoughts evoked by

10

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

the dream stir up associations which were not noticeable in the dream itself.
Is it not customary, when some one expects
others to look after his interests without any advantage to themselves, to ask the innocent question
satirically: "Do you think this will be done for
the sake of your beautiful eyes?" Hence Mrs. E .
L.'s speech in the dream. "You have always had
such beautiful eyes/' means nothing but "people
always do everything to you for love of you: you
have had everything for nothing/9 The contrary
is, of course, the truth; I have always paid dearly
for whatever kindness others have shown me. Still,
the fact that I had, a ride for nothing yesterday
when my friend drove me home in his cab must have
made an impression upon me.
I n any case, the friend whose guests we were
yesterday has often made me his debtor. Recently
I allowed an opportunity of requiting him to go
by. H e has had only one present from me, an antique shawl, upon which eyes are painted all round,
a so-called Occhiale, as a charm against the Malocchio. Moreover, he is an eye specialist. That
same evening I had asked him after a patient whom
I had sent to him for glasses.
As I remarked, nearly all parts of the dream have
been brought into this new connection. I still

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

11

might ask why m the dream it was spinach that was
served up. Because spinach called up a little scene
which recently occurred at our table. A Xihild,
whose beautiful eyes are really deserving of praise,
refused to eat spinach. As a child I was just the
same; for a long time I loathed spinach, until in
later life my tastes altered, and it became one of my
favorite dishes. The mention of this dish brings
my own childhood and that of my child's near together. "You should be glad that you have some
spinach/ 5 his mother had said to the little gourmet.
"Some children would be very glad to get spinach."
Thus I am reminded of the parents' duties towards
their children, Goethe's words—
" T o earth, this weary earth, ye bring us,
T o guilt ye let us heedless go"—

take on another meaning in this connection.
Here I will stop in order that I may recapitulate
the results of the analysis of the dream. By following the associations which were linked to the
single elements of the dream torn from their context, I have been led to a series of thoughts and
reminiscences where I am bound to recognize inter*
esting expressions of my psychical life. The matter yielded by an analysis of the dream stands in
intimate relationship with the dream content, but

12

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

this relationship is so special that I should never
have been able to have inferred the new discoveries
directly from the dream itself. The dream was
passionless, disconnected, and unintelligible. During the time that I am unfolding the thoughts at
the back of the dream I feel intense and wellgrounded emotions. The thoughts themselves fit
beautifully together into chains logically bound together with certain central ideas which ever repeat
themselves. Such ideas not represented in the
dream itself are in this instance the antitheses selfish,, unselfish; to be indebted, to work for nothing.
I could draw closer the threads of the web which
analysis has disclosed, and would then be able to
show how they all run together into a single knot;
I am debarred from making this work public by
considerations of a private, not of a scientific, nature. After having cleared up many things which
I do not willingly acknowledge as mine, I should
have much to reveal which had better remain my
secret. Why, then, do not I choose another dream
whose analysis would be more suitable for publication, so that I could awaken a fairer conviction of
the sense and cohesion of the results disclosed by
analysis? The answer is, because every dream
which I investigate leads to the same difficulties
and places me under the same need of discretion;

BBEAMS HAVE A MEANING

18

nor should I forgo this difficulty any the more were
I to analyze the dream of some one else. That
could only be done when opportunity allowed all
concealment to be dropped without injury to those
who trusted me.
The conclusion which is now forced upon me is
that the dream is a sort of substitution for those
emotional and intellectual trains of thought which
I attained after complete analysis. I do not yet
know the process by which the dream arose from
those thoughts, but I perceive that it is wrong to
regard the dream as psychically unimportant, a
purely physical process which has arisen from the
activity of isolated cortical elements awakened out
of sleep.
I must further remark that the dream is far
shorter than the thoughts which I hold it replaces;
whilst analysis discovered that the dream was provoked by an unimportant occurrence the evening before the dream.
Naturally* I would not draw such far-reaching
conclusions if only one analysis were known to me.
Experience has shown me that when the associations
pi any dream are honestly followed such a chain of
thought is revealed, the constituent parts of the
dream reappear correctly and sensibly linked together; the slight suspicion that this concatenation

14

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

was merely an accident of a single first observation
must, therefore, be absolutely relinquished. I regard it, therefore, as my right to establish this new
view by a proper nomenclature. I contrast the
dream which my memory evokes with the dream
and other added matter revealed by analysis: the
former I call the dream's manifest content; the latter, without at first further subdivision, its latent
content. I arrive at two new problems hitherto
unformulated: (l) What is tjfie psychical process
which has transformed the latent content of the
dream into its manifest content? (2) What is the
motive or the motives which have made such transformation exigent? The process by which the
change from latent to manifest content is executed
I name the dream-work. I n contrast with this is
the work of analysis, which produces the reverse
transformation. The other problems of the dream
—the inquiry as to its stimuli, as to the source of its
materials, as to its possible purpose, the function of
dreaming, the forgetting of dreams—these I will
discuss in connection with the latent dream-content.
I shall take every care to avoid a confusion between the manifest and the latent content, for I
ascribe all the contradictory as well as the incorrect accounts of dream-life to the ignorance of this

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

15

latent content, now first laid bare through analysis.
The conversion of the latent dream thoughts into
those manifest deserves our close study as the first
known example af the transformation of psychical
stuff from one mode of expression into another.
From a mode of expression which, moreover, is
readily intelligible into another which we can only
penetrate by effort and with guidance, although this
new mode must be equally reckoned as an effort of
our own psychical activity From the standpoint
of the relationship of latent to manifest dream-content, dreams can be divided into three classes. W e
can, in the first place, distinguish those dreams
which have a meaning and are, at the same time,
intelligible, which allow us to penetrate into our
psychical life without further ado. Such dreams
are numerous; they are usually short, and, as a general rule, do not seem very noticeable, because
everything remarkable or exciting surprise is absent. Their occurrence is, moreover, a strong argument against the doctrine which derives the dream
from the isolated activity of certain cortical elements. All signs of a lowered or subdivided psjrchical activity are wanting. Yet we never raise
any objection to characterizing them as dreams, nor
do we confound them with the products of our waking life.

16

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

A second group is formed by those dreams which
are indeed self-coherent and have a distinct meaning, but appear strange because we are unable to
reconcile their meaning with our mental life. That
is the case when we dream, for instance, that some
dear relative has died of plague when we know of
no ground for expecting, apprehending, or assuming anything of the sort; we can only ask ourself
wonderingly: "What brought that into my head ?"
To the third group those dreams belong which are
void of both meaning and intelligibility; they are
incoherent, complicated^ and meaningless. The
overwhelming number of our dreams partake of
this character, and this has given rise to the contemptuous attitude towards dreams and the medical
theory of their limited psychical activity. I t is especially in the longer and more complicated dreamplots that signs of incoherence are seldom missing.
The contrast between manifest and latent dreamcontent is clearly only of value for the dreams of
the second and more especially for those of the third
class. Here are problems which are only solved
when the manifest dream is replaced by its latent
content; it was an example of this kind, a complicated and unintelligible dream, that we subjected to
analysis. Against our expectation we, however,
struck upon reasons which prevented a complete

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

17

cognizance of the latent dream thought. On the
repetition of this same experience we were forced
to the supposition that there is an intimate bond,
with laws of its own, between the unintelligible and
complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties
attending communication of the thoughts connected
with the dream. Before investigating the nature
of this bond, it will be advantageous to turn our
attention to the more readily intelligible dreams of
the first class where, the manifest and latent content being identical, the dream work seems to be
omitted.
The investigation of these dreams is also advisable from another standpoint. The dreams of children are of this nature; they have a meaning, and
are not bizarre. This, by the way, is a further objection to reducing dreams to a dissociation of cerebral activity in sleep, for why should such a lowering of psychical functions belong to the nature of
sleep in adults, but not in children? We are, however, fully justified in expecting that the explanation of psychical processes in children, essentially
simplified as they may be, should serve as an indispensable preparation towards the psychology of the
adult.
I shall therefore cite some examples of dreams
which I have gathered from children. A girl of

18

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

nineteen months was made to go without food for
a day because she had been sick in the morning,
and, according to nurse, had made herself ill
through eating strawberries. During the night,
after her day of fasting, she was heard calling out
her name during sleep, and adding: "Tcwoherry,
eggs, pap"
She is dreaming that she is eating,
and selects out of her menu exactly what she supposes she will not get much of just now.
The same kind of dream about a forbidden dish
was that of a little boy of twenty-two months. The
day before he was told to offer his uncle a present
of a small basket of cherries, of which the child
was, of course, only allowed one to taste. H e
woke up with the joyful news: "Hermann eaten
up all the cherries."
A girl of three and a half years had made during
the day a sea trip which was too short for her, and
she cried when she had to get out of the boat. The
next morning her story was that during the night
she had been on the sea, thus continu&ig the interrupted trip.
A boy of five and a half years was not at all
pleased with his party during a walk in the Dachstein region. Whenever a new peak came into
sight he asked if that were the Dachstein, and, finally, refused to accompany the party to the water-

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

19

fall. His behavior was ascribed to fatigue; but a
better explanation was forthcoming when the next
morning he told his dream: he had ascended the
Dachstein. Obviously he expected the ascent of
the Dachstein to be the object of the excursion, and
was vexed by not getting a glimpse of the mountain. The dream gave him what the day had withheld. The dream of a girl of six was similar; her
father had cut short the walk before reaching the
promised objective on account of the lateness of the
hour. On the way back she noticed a signpost giving the name of another place for excursions; her
father promised to take her there also some other
day. She greeted her father next day with the
news that she had dreamt that her father had been
with her to both places.
What is common in all these dreams is obvious.
They completely satisfy wishes excited during the
day which remain unrealized. Thej^ are simply
and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.
The following child-dream, not quite understandable at first sight, is nothing else than a wish realized. On account of poliomyelitis «i girl, not
quite four years of age, was brought from the country into town, and remained over night with a childless aunt in a big—for her, naturally, huge—bed.
The next morning she stated that she had dreamt

20

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

that the bed was much too small for her, so that she
could find no place in it. To explain this dream as
a wish is easy when we remember that to be "big"
is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The
bigness of the bed reminded Miss Little-Wouldbe-Big only too forcibly of her smallness. This
nasty situation became righted in her dream, and
she grew so big that the bed now became too small
for her.
Even when children's dreams are complicated
and polished, their comprehension as a realization
of desire is fairly evident. A boy of eight dreamt
that he was being driven with Achilles in a warchariot, guided by Diomedes. The day before he
was assiduously reading about great heroes. I t is
easy to show that he took these heroes as his models,
and regretted that he was not living in those days.
From this short collection of further characteristic of the dreams of children is manifest—-their
connection with the life of the day. The desires
which are realized in these dreams are left over
from the day or, as a rule, the day previous, and
the feeling has become intently emphasized and
fixed during the day thoughts. Accidental and indifferent matters, or what must appear so to the
child, find no acceptance in the contents of the
dream.

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

21

Innumerable instances of such dreams of the infantile type can be found among adults also, but,
as mentioned, these are mostly exactly like the manifest content. Thus, a random selection of persons will generally respond to thirst at night-time
with a dream about drinking, thus striving to get
rid of the sensation and to let sleep continue.
Many persons frequently have these comforting
dreams before waking, just when they are called.
They then dream that they are already up, that they
are washing, or already in school, at the office, etc.,
where they ought to be at a given time. The night
before an intended journey one not infrequently
dreams that one has already arrived at the destination; before going to a play or to a party the dream
not infrequently anticipates, in impatience, as it
were, the expected pleasure. A t other times the
dream expresses the realization of the desire somewhat indirectly; some connection, some sequel must
be known—the first step towards recognizing the
desire. Thus, when a husband related to me the
dream of his young wife, that her monthly period
had begun, I had to bethink myself that the young
wife would have expected a pregnancy if the period
had been absent. The dream is then a sign of
pregnancy. Its meaning is that it shows the wish
realized that pregnancy should not occur just yet.

22

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

Under unusual and extreme circumstances, these
dreams of the infantile type become very frequent.
The leader of a polar expedition tells us, for instance, that during the wintering amid the ice the
crew, with their monotonous diet and slight rations,
dreamt regularly, like children, of fine meals, of
mountains of tobacco, and of home.
I t is not uncommon that out of some long, complicated and intricate dream one specially lucid part
stands out containing unmistakably the realization
of a desire, but bound up with much unintelligible
matter. On more frequently analyzing the seemingly more transparent dreams of adults, it is astonishing to discover that these are rarely as simple
as the dreams of children, and that they cover another meaning beyond that of the realization of a
wish.
I t would certainty be a simple and convenient
solution of the riddle if the work of analysis made
it at all possible for us to trace the meaningless and
intricate dreams of adults back to the infantile type,
to the realization of some intensely experienced desire of the day. But there is no warrant for such
an expectation. Their dreams are generally full
of the most indifferent and bizarre matter, and no
trace of the realization of the wish is to be found in
their content.

DREAMS HAVE A MEANING

23

Before leaving these infantile dreams, which are
obviously unrealized desires, we must not fail to
mention another chief characteristic of dreams, one
that has been long noticed, and one which stands
out most clearly in this class. I can replace any of
these dreams by a phrase expressing a desire. If
the sea trip had only lasted longer; if I were only
washed and dressed; if I had only been allowed to
keep the cherries instead of giving them to my uncle.
But the (Jream gives something more than the
choice, for here the desire is already realized; its
realization is real and actual. The dream presentations consist chiefly, if not wholly, of scenes and
mainly of visual sense images. Hence a kind of
transformation is not entirely absent in this class of
dreams, and this may be fairly designated as the
dream work. An idea merely eooisting in the region
of possibility is replaced by a vision of its accomplishment.

II
THE DREAM MECHANISM

W E are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also taken place in intricate
dreams, though we do not know whether it has encountered any possible desire. The dream instanced at the commencement, which we analyzed
somewhat thoroughly, did give us occasion in two
places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis
brought out that my wife was occupied with others
at table, and that I did not like it; in the dream itself exactly the opposite occurs, for the person who
replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention.
But can one wish for anything pleasanter after a
disagreeable incident than that the exact contrary
should have occurred, just as the dream has it?
The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have
never had anything for nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream:
"You have always had such beautiful eyes." Some
portion of the opposition between the latent and
manifest content of the dream must be therefore
derived from the realization of a wish.
24

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

25

Another manifestation of the dream work which
all incoherent dreams have in common is still more
noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the
number of separate elements in it, or the extent of
the dream, if written down, with the dream thoughts
yielded by analysis, and of which but a trace can
be refound in the dream itself. There can be no
doubt that the dream* working has resulted in an
extraordinary compression or condensation. I t is
not at first easy to form an opinion as to the extent
of the condensation; the more deeply you go into
the analysis, the more deeply you are impressed by
it. There will be found no factor in the dream
whence the chains of associations do not lead in two
or more directions, no scene which has not been
pieced together out of two or more impressions and
events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind
of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions; at one place on the edge a
person stood bending towards one of the bathers as
if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one,
made up out of an event that occurred at the time
of puberty, and of two pictures, one of which I had
seen just shortly before the dream. The two pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from
Schwind's Cycle of the Melusine (note the bathers
suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an

26

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

Italian master. The little incident was that I
once witnessed a lady, who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men's hour, being helped out
of the water by the swimming-master. The scene
in the dream which was selected for analysis led to
a whole group of reminiscences, each one of which
had contributed to the dream content. First of all
came the little episode from the time of my courting, of which I have already spoken; the pressure
of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to
the "under the table," which I had subsequently to
find a place for in my recollection. There was, of
course, at the time not a word about "undivided attention." Analysis taught me that this factor is
the realization of a desire through its contradictory
and related to the behavior of my wife at the table
d'hote. An exactly similar and much more important episode of our courtship, one which separated us for an entire day, lies hidden behind this
recent recollection. The intimacy, the hand resting upon the knee, refers to a quite different connection and to quite other persons. This element
in the dream becomes again the starting-point of
two distinct series of reminiscences, and so on.
The stuff of the dream thoughts which has been
accumulated for the formation of the dream scene
must be naturally fit for this application. There

THE DREAM MECHANISM

27

must be one or more common factors. The dream
work proceeds like' Francis Galton with his family
photographs. The different elements are put one
on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other. This process of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements,
of a peculiar vagueness, in so many elements of the
dream. For the interpretation of dreams this rule
holds good: When analysis discloses uncertainty.
as to either—or read and, taking each section of
the apparent alternatives as a separate outlet for a
series of impressions,,
When there is nothing in common between the
dream thoughts, the dream work takes the trouble
to create a something, in order to make a common
presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest
way to approximate two dream thoughts, which
have as yet nothing in common, consists in making
such a change in the actual expression of one idea
as will meet a .slight responsive recasting in the form
of the other idea. The process is analogous to that
of rhyme, when consonance supplies the desir-ed
common factor. A good deal of the dream work
consists in the creation of those frequently very
witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These
vary from the common presentation in the dream

28

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

content to dream thoughts which are as varied as
are* the causes in form and essence which give rise
to them. In the analysis of our example of a
dream, I find a like case of the transformation of a
thought in order that it might agree with another
essentially foreign one. I n following out the analysis I struck upon the thought: I should like to
have something for nothing. But this formula is
not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced
by another one: " I should like to enjoy something
free of cost." * The word "kost" (taste), with its
double meaning, is appropriate to a table d'hote; it,
moreover, is in place through the special sense in the
dream. At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "Just taste it." That the dream work
should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of
the word is certainly remarkable; ample experience
has shown, however, tha/t the occurrence is quite
usual.
Through condensation of the dream certain coni "Ich" mochte gerne etwas geniessen ohne 'Kosten' zu haben." A
a pun upon the word "kosten," which has two meanings—"taste" and
"cost." In "Die Traumdeutung," third edition, p. 71 footnote, Professor Freud remarks that "the finest example of dream interpretation left us by the ancients is based upon a pun" (from "The Interpretation of Dreams," by Artemidorus D'aldianus).
"Moreover,
dreams are so intimately bound up with language that Ferenczi truly
points out that every tongue has its own language of dreams. A
dream is as a rule untranslatable into other languages."—TRANSLATOR.

THE DREAM MECHANISM

29

stituent parts of its content are explicable which
are peculiar to the dream life alone, and which are
not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed
figures, creations comparable with the fantastic
animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's
thought and these are reduced to unity, whilst the
fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an
inexhaustible 'profusion. Every one knows such
images in his own dreams; manifold are their origins. I can build up a person by borrowing one
feature from one person and one from another, or
by giving to the form of one the name of another in
my dream. I can also visualize one person, but
place him in a position which has occurred to another. There is a meaning in all these cases when
different persons arfe amalgamated into one substitute. Such cases denote an "and," a "just like," a
comparison of the original person from a certain
point of view, a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule, however, the
identity of the blended persons is only discoverable
by analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the "combined" person.
The same diversity in their ways of formation
and the same rules for its solution hold good also
for the innumerable medley of dream contents-, ex-

30

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

amples »of which I need scarcely adduce. Their
strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not
to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember
that they represent the art of dream condensation
by an exclusion of unnecessary detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination. Analysis must also generally supply the
common features. The dream says simply: All
these things have an "oc" in common. The decomposition of these mixed images by analysis is often
the quickest way to an interpretation of the dream.
Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with one of
my former university tutors on a bench, which was
undergoing a rapid continuous movement amidst
other benches. This was a combination of lectureroom and moving staircase. I will not pursue the
further result of the thought. Another time I was
sitting in a carriage, and on my lap an object in
shape like a top-hat, which, however, was made of
transparent glass. The scene at once brought to
my mind the proverb: " H e who keeps his hat in
his hand will travel safely through the land." By
a slight turn the glass hat reminded me of Auefs
light, and I knew that I was aJbout to invent something which was to make me as rich and independent
as his invention had made my countryman, Dr.

T H E DRJEAM- M E C H A N I S M

81

Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel
instead of remaining in Vienna. In the dream I
was traveling with my invention, with the, it is true,
rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is
peculiarly adept at representing two contradictory
conceptions by means of the same mixed image.
Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself
carrying a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of the
Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name),
but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms resembling camellias (contrast with chastity:
La dame aux Camelias).
A great deal of what we have called "dream condensation" can be thus formulated. Each one of
the elements of the dream content is ovefdetermined by the matter of the dream thoughts; it is not
derived from one element of these thoughts, but
from a whole series. These are not necessarily interconnected in any way, but may belong to the
most diverse spheres of thought. The dream element truly represents all this disparate matter in
the dream content. Analysis, moreover, discloses
another side of the relationship between dream content and dream thoughts. Just as one element of
the dream leads to associations with several dream
thoughts, so, as a rule, the one dream thought represents more than one dream element. The threads

32

D R E A M PSYCHOLOGY.

of the association do not simply converge from the
dream thoughts to the dream content, but on the
way they overlap and interweave in every way.
Next to the transformation of one thought in the
scene (its "dramatization"), condensation is the
most important and most characteristic feature of
the dream work. W e have as yet no clue as to
the motive calling for such compression of the content.
In the complicated and intricate dreams with
which we are now concerned, condensation and
dramatization do not wholly account for the difference between dream contents and dream thoughts.
There is evidence of a third factor, which deserves
careful consideration.
When I have arrived at an understanding of the
dream thoughts by my analysis I notice, above all,
that the matter of the manifest is very different
from that of the latent dream content. That is, I
admit, only an apparent difference which vanishes
on closer investigation, for in the end I find the
whole dream content carried out in the dream
thoughts, nearly all the dream thoughts again represented in the dream content. Nevertheless, there
does remain a certain amount of difference.
The essential content which stood out clearly and
broadly in the dream must, after analysis, rest satis-

THE DREAM MECHANISM

33

fied with a very subordinate role among the dream
thoughts. These very dream thoughts which, going by my feelings, have a claim to the greatest
importance are either not present at all in the dream
content, or are represented by some remote allusion
in some obscure region of the dream. I can thus
describe these phenomena: During the dream
work the psychical intensity of those thoughts and
conceptions to which it properly pertains flows to
others which, in my judgment, have no claim to
such emphasis. There is no other process which
contributes so much to concealment of the dream's
meaning and to make the connection between the
dream content and dream ideas irrecognizable.
During this process, which I will call the dream
displacement, I notice also the psychical intensity,
significance, or emotional nature of the thoughts
become transposed in sensory vividness. What
was clearest in the dream seems to me, without further consideration, the most important; but often
in some obscure element of the dream I can recognize the most direct offspring of the principal
dream thought.
I could only designate this dream displacement
as the transvaluation of psychical values. The
phenomena will not have been considered in all its
bearings unless I add that this displacement or

84

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

transvaluation is shared by different dreams in extremely varying degrees. There are dreams which
take place almost without any displacement.
These have the same time, meaning, and intelligibility as we found in the dreams which recorded a
desire. In other dreams not a bit of the dream
idea has retained its own psychical value, or everything essential in these dream ideas has been replaced by unessentials, whilst every kind of transition between these conditions can be found. The
more obscure and intricate a dream is, the greater
is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of displacement in its formation.
The example that we chose for analysis shows, at
least, this much of displacement—that its content
has a different center of interest from that of the
dream ideas. I n the forefront of the dream content the main scene appears as if a woman wished
to make advances to me; in the dream idea the chief
interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested
love which shall "cost nothing"; this idea lies at the
back of the talk about the beautiful eyes and the
far-fetched allusion to "spinach."
If we abolish the dream displacement, we attain
through analysis quite certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most disputed—as to what provokes a dream at all, and as

THE DREAM MECHANISM

35

to the connection of the dream with our waking life.
There are dreams which at once expose their links
with the events of the day; in others no trace of
such a connection can be found. By the aid of analysis it can be shown that every dream, without
any exception, is linked up with our impression of
the day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say
of the day previous to the dream. The impressions
which have incited the dream may be so important
that we are not surprised at our being occupied
with them whilst awake; in this case we are right in
saying that the dream carries on the chief interest
of our waking life. More usually, however, when
the dream contains anything relating to the impressions of the day, it is so trivial, unimportant, and so
deserving of oblivion, that we can only recall it with
an effort. The dream content appears, then, even
when coherent and intelligible, to be concerned with
those indifferent trifles of thought undeserving of
our waking interest. The depreciation of dreams
is largely due to the predominance of the indifferent
and the worthless in their content.
Analysis destroys the appearance upon which this
derogatory judgment is based. When the dream
content discloses nothing but some indifferent impression as instigating the dream, analysis ever indicates some significant event, which has been re-

36

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

placed by something indifferent with which it has
entered into abundant associations. Where the
dream is concerned with uninteresting and unimportant conceptions, analysis reveals the numerous
associative paths which connect the trivial with the
momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual. It is only the action of displacement if
what is indifferent obtains recognition in the dream
content instead of those impressions which are
really the stimulus, or instead of the things of real
interest. I n answering the question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the dream,
in the daily troubles, we must say, in terms of the
insight given us by replacing the manifest latent
dream content: The dream does never trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our
concern during the day, and trivialities which do not
trouble us during the day have no power to pursue
us whilst asleep.
What provoked the dream in the example which
we have analyzed? The really unimportant event,
that a friend invited me to a free ride in his cab.
The table d'hote scene in the dream contains an
allusion to this indifferent motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi parallel with the table
d'hote. But I can indicate the important event
which has as its substitute the trivial one. A few

THE DREAM MECHANISM

37

days before I had disbursed a large sum of money
for a member of my family who is very dear to
me. Small wonder, says the dream thought, if this
person is grateful to me for this—this love is not
cost-free. But love that shall cost nothing is one
of the prime thoughts of the dream. The fact that
shortly before this I had had several drives with
the relative in question puts the one drive with my
friend in a position to recall the connection with the
other person. The indifferent impression which,
by such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another condition which is not true of
the real source of the dream—the impression must
be a recent one, everything arising from the day of
the dream.
I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the consideration of a remarkable
process in the formation of dreams in which condensation and displacement work together towards
one end. In condensation we have already considered the case where two conceptions in the dream
having something in common, some point of contact, are replaced in the dream content by a mixed
image, where the distinct germ corresponds to what
is common, and the indistinct secondary modifications to what is distinotive. If displacement is
added to condensation, there is no formation of a

38

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

mixed image, but a common mean which bears the
same relationship to the individual elements as does
the resultant in the parallelogram of forces to its
components. In one of my dreams, for instance,
there is talk of an injection with propyl. On first
analysis I discovered an indifferent but true incident where amyl played a part as the excitant of
the dream. I cannot yet vindicate the exchange
of amyl for propyl. To the round of ideas of the
same dream, however, there belongs the recollection
of my first visit to Munich, when the Propylcea
struck me. The attendant circumstances of the
analysis render it admissible that the influence of
this second group of conceptions caused the displacement of amyl to propyl. Propyl is, so to say,
the mean idea between amyl and propylcea; it got
into the dream as a kind of compromise by simultaneous condensation and displacement.
The need of discovering some motive for this bewildering work of the dream is even more called for
in the case of displacement than in condensation.
Although the work of displacement must be held
mainly responsible if the dream thoughts are not
refound or recognized in the dream content (unless
the motive of the changes be guessed), it is another
and milder kind of transformation which will be
considered with the dream thoughts which leads to

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

89

the discovery of a new but readily understood act
of the dream work. The first dream thoughts
which are unravelled by analysis frequently strike
one by their unusual wording. They do not appear to be expressed in the sober form which our
thinking prefers; rather are they expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative language of the poets. I t is not difficult
to find the motives for this degree of constraint in
the expression of dream ideas. The dream- content
consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream
ideas must, in the first place, be prepared to make
use of these forms of presentation. Conceive that
a political leader's or a barrister's address had to be
transposed into pantomime, and it will be easy to
understand the transformations to which the dream
work is constrained by regard for this dramatization
of the dream content.
Around the psychical stuff of dream thoughts
there are ever found reminiscences of impressions,
not infrequently of early childhood—scenes which,
as a rule, have been visually grasped. Whenever
possible, this portion of the dream ideas exercises
a definite influence upon the modelling of the dream
content; it works like a center of crystallization, by
attracting and rearranging the stuff of the dream
thoughts. The scene of the dream is not infre-

40

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

quently nothing but a modified repetition, complicated by interpolations of events that have left such
an impression; the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate and unmixed reproductions of real
scenes.
The dream content does not, however, consist
exclusively of scenes, but it also includes scattered
fragments of visual images, conversations, and even
bits of unchanged thoughts. I t will be perhaps to
the point if we instance in the briefest way the
means of dramatization which are at the disposal
of the dream work for the repetition of the dream
thoughts in the peculiar language of the dream.
The dream thoughts which we learn from the
analysis exhibit themselves as a psychical complex
of the most complicated superstructure. Their
parts stand in the most diverse relationship to each
other; they form backgrounds and foregrounds,
stipulations, digressions, illustrations, demonstrations, and protestations. I t may be said to be almost the rule that one train of thought is 'followed
by its contradictory. No feature known to our
reason whilst awake is absent. If a dream is to
grow out of all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which condenses it extremely,
to an inner shrinking and displacement, creating at
the same time fresh surfaces, to a selective inter-

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

41

weaving among the constituents best adapted for
the construction of these scenes. Having regard
to the origin of this stuff, the term regression can be
fairly applied to this process. The logical chains
which hitherto held the psychical stuff together become lost in this transformation to the dream content. The dream w^ork takes on, as it were, only
the essential content of the dream thoughts for
elaboration. I t is left to analysis to restore the
connection which the dream work has destroyed.
The dream's means of expression must therefore
be regarded as meager in comparison with those of
our imagination, though the dream does not renounce all claims to the restitution of logical relation to the dream thoughts. I t rather succeeds
with tolerable frequency in replacing these by
formal characters of its own.
By reason of the undoubted connection existing
between all the parts of dream thoughts, the dream
is able to embody this matter into a single scene. I t
upholds a logical connection as approximation in
time and space, just as the painter, who groups all
the poets for his picture of Parnassus who, though
they have never been all together on a mountain
peak, yet form ideally a community. The dream
continues this method of presentation in individual
dreams, and often when it displays two elements

42

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

close together in the dream content it warrants
some special inner connection between what they
represent in the dream, thoughts. I t should be,
moreover, observed that all the dreams of one night
prove on analysis to originate from the same sphere
of thought.
The causal connection between two ideas is either
left without presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other.
This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the
beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its
end the hypothesis. The direct transformation of
one thing into another in the dream seems to serve
the relationship of cause and effect.
The dream never utters the alternative
"either-or" but accepts both as having equal rights
in the same connection. When "either-or" is used
in the reproduction of dreams, it is, as I have already mentioned, to be replaced by "and"
Conceptions which stand in opposition to one another are preferably expressed in dreams by the
same element.1 There seems no "not" in dreams.
i I t is worthy of remark that eminent philologists maintain that
the oldest languages used the same word for expressing quite general
antitheses. In C. Abel's essay, "Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworter"
(1884, the following examples of such words in England are given:
"gleam—gloom"; "to lock—loch"; "down—The Downs"; "to step—
to stop." In his essay on "The Origin of Language" ("Linguistic
Essays," p . 240), Abel says: "When the Englishman says 'without,' is

THE DREAM MECHANISM

43

Opposition between two ideas, the relation of conversion, is represented in dreams in a very remarkable way. I t is expressed by the reversal of another part of the dream content just as if by way
of appendix. W e shall later on deal with another
form of expressing disagreement. The common
dream sensation of movement checked serves the
purpose of representing disagreement of impulses
—a conflict of the will.
Only one of the logical relationships—that of
similarity, identity, agreement—is found highly developed in the mechanism of dream formation.
Dream work makes use of these cases as a startingpoint for condensation, drawing together everything which shows such agreement to a fresh unity.
These short, crude observations naturally do not
suffice as an estimate of the abundance of the
dream's formal means of presenting the logical relationships of the dream thoughts. I n this respect,
individual dreams are worked up more nicely or
more carelessly, our text will have been followed
more or less closely, auxiliaries of the dream work
not his judgment based upon the comparative juxtaposition of two
opposites, 'with' and 'out'; 'with' itself originally meant 'without,'
as may still be seen in 'withdraw.' 'Bid' includes the opposite sense
of giving and of proffering." Abel, "The English Verbs of Command/' "Linguistic Essays," p. 104; see also Freud, "Ueber den
Gegensinn der Urworte"; Jakrbuch filr Psychoanalytische
und Psychopathologische Forschimgen, Band ii., p a r t i., p. 1T9).—TRANSLATOR.

U

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

will have been taken more or less into consideration.
In the latter case they appear obscure, intricate,
incoherent. When the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its
content, it is so of purpose. Through its apparent
disregard of all logical claims, it expresses a part
of the intellectual content of the dream ideas. Absurdity in the dream denotes disagreement, scorn,
disdain in the dream thoughts. As this explanation
is in entire disagreement with the view that the
dream owes its origin to dissociated, uncritical cerebral activity, I will emphasize my view by an example :
"One of my acquaintances, Mr. M——, has been
attacked by no less a person than Goethe in an essay
with, we all maintain, unwarrantable violence.
Mr. M
has naturally been ruined by this attach. He complains very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for Goethe has not diminished through this personal experience. I now attempt to clear up the chronological relations which
strike me as improbable. Goethe died in 1832.
As his attack upon Mr. M
must, of course, have
taken place before, Mr. M
must have been then
a very young man. It seems to me plausible that
he was eighteen. I am not certain, however, what
year we are actually in, and the whole calculation

THE DREAM MECHANISM

45

falls into obscurity. The attack was, moreover,
contained in Goethe's well-known essay on 'Nature/ "
The absurdity of the dream becomes the more
glaring when I state that Mr. M
is a young
business man without any poetical or literary interests. My analysis of the dream will show what
method there is in this madness. The dream has
derived its material from three sources:
1. Mr. M
, to whom I was introduced at a
dinner-party, begged me one day to examine his
elder brother, who showed signs of mental trouble.
In conversation with the patient, an unpleasant
episode occurred. Without the slightest occasion
he disclosed one of his brother's youthful escapades.
I had asked the patient the year of his birth {year
of death in dream), and led him to various calculations which might show up his want of memory.
2. A medical journal which displayed my name
among others on the cover had published a ruinous
review of a book by my friend F
of Berlin,
from the pen of a very juvenile reviewer. I communicated with the editor, who, indeed, expressed
his regret, but would not promise any redress.
Thereupon I broke off my connection with the paper; in my letter of resignation I expressed the
hope that our personal relations would not suffer

46

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

from this. Here is the real source of the dream.
The derogatory reception of my friend's work had
made a deep impression upon me. I n my judgment, it contained a fundamental biological discovery which only now, several years later, commences
to find favor among the professors.
3. A little while before, a patient gave me the
medical history of her brother, who, exclaiming
"Nature,, Nature!" had gone out of his mind. The
doctors considered that the exclamation arose from
a study of Goethe's beautiful essay, and indicated
that the patient had been overworking. I expressed the opinion that it seemed more plausible
to me that the exclamation "Nature!" was to be
taken in that sexual meaning known also to the less
educated in our country. I t seemed to me that this
view had something in it, because the unfortunate
youth afterwards mutilated his genital organs.
The patient was eighteen years old when the attack
occurred.
The first person in the dream-thoughts behind the
ego was my friend who had been so scandalously
treated. "I now attempted to clear up the chronological relation" My friend's book deals with the
chronological relations of life, and, amongst other
things, correlates Goethe's duration of life with a
number of days in many ways important to biology.

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

47

The ego is, however, represented as a general paralytic ("I am not certain what year we are actually
in"). The dream exhibits my friend as behaving
like a general paralytic, and thus riots in absurdity.
But the dream thoughts run ironically. "Of course
he is a madman, a fool, and you are the genius who
understands all about it. But shouldn't it be the
other way round?' This inversion obviously took
place in the dream when Goethe attacked the young
man, which is absurd, whilst any one, however
young, can to-day easily attack the great Goethe.
I am prepared to maintain that no dream is inspired by other than egoistic emotions- The ego in
the dream does not, indeed, represent only my
friend, but stands for myself also. I identify myself with him because the fate of his discovery appears to me typical of the acceptance of my own.
If I were to publish my own theory, which gives
sexuality predominance in the aetiology of psychoneurotic disorders (see the allusion to the eighteenyear-old patient—"Nature, Nature!"), the same
criticism would be leveled at me, and it would even
now meet with the same contempt.
When I follow out the dream thoughts closely, I
ever find only scorn and contempt as correlated with
the d,ream*s absurdity. I t is well known that the
discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the Lido in

48

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

Venice gave Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the skull. My friend plumes himself on having as a student raised a hubbub for the
resignation of an aged professor who had done good
work (including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy), but who, on account of decrejntude, had become quite incapable of teaching. The
agitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the German Universities an age limit is not
demanded for academic work. Age is no protection against folly. In the hospital here I had for
years the honor to serve under a chief who, long
fossilized, was for decades notoriously feebleminded, and was yet permitted to continue in his
responsible office. A trait, after the manner of the
find in the Lido, forces itself upon me here. I t was
to this man that some youthful colleagues in the
h'ospital adapted the then popular slang of that day:
"No Goethe has written that," "N,o Schiller composed that," etc.
W e have not exhausted our valuation of the
dream work. In addition to condensation, displacement, and definite arrangement of the psychical matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity
*—one which is, indeed, not shared by every dream.
I shall not treat this position of the dream work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readies?

THE DREAM MECHANISM

49

way to arrive at a conception of it is to take for
granted, probably unfairly, that it only subsequently influences the dream content which has already been built up. Its mode of action thus consists in so coordinating the parts of the dream that
these coalesce to a coherent whole, to a dream composition. The dream gets a kind of fa£ade which,
it is true, does not conceal the whole of its content.
There is a sort of preliminary explanation to be
strengthened by interpolations and slight alterations. Such elaboration of the dream content must
not be too pronounced; the misconception of the
dream thoughts to which it gives rise is merely superficial, and our first piece of work in analyzing
a dream is to get rid of these early attempts at interpretation.
The motives for this part of the dream work are
easily gauged. This final elaboration of the dream
is due to a regard for intelligibility—& fact at once
betraying the origin of an action which behaves towards the actual dream content just as our normal
psychical action behaves towards some proffered
perception that is to our liking. The dream content is thus secured under the pretense of certain
expectations, is perceptually classified by the supposition of its intelligibility, thereby risking its
falsification, whilst, in fact, the most extraordinary

50

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

misconceptions arise if the dream can be correlated
with nothing familiar. Every one is aware that we
are unable to look at any series of unfamiliar signs,
or to listen to a discussion of unknown words, without at once making perpetual changes through our
regard for intelligibility, through our falling back
upon what is familiar.
W e can call those dreams properly mqde up
which are the result of an elaboration in every way
analogous to the psychical action of our waking life.
In other dreams there is no such action; not even an
attempt is made to bring about order and meaning.
We regard the dream as "quite mad," because on
awaking it is with this last-named part of the dream
work, the dream elaboration, that we identify ourselves. So far, however, as our analysis is concerned, the dream, which resembles a medley of disconnected fragments, is of as much value as the one
with a smooth and beautifully polished surface. In
the former case we are spared, to some extent, the
trouble of breaking down the super-elaboration of
the dream content.
All the same, it would be an error to see in the
dream fa9ade nothing but the misunderstood and
somewhat arbitrary elaboration of the dream carried out at the instance of our psychical life.
Wishes and phantasies are not infrequently em-

THE DREAM MECHANISM

51

ployed in the erection of this fa9ade, which were
already fashioned in the dream thoughts; they are
akin to those of our waking life—"day-dreams/' as
they are very properly called. These wishes and
phantasies, which analysis discloses in our dreams
at night, often present themselves as repetitions
and refashionings of the scenes of infancy. Thus
the dream facade may show us directly the true core
of the dream, distorted through admixture with
other matter.
Beyond these four activities there is nothing else
to be discovered in the dream work. If we keep
closely to the definition that dream work denotes
the transference of dream thoughts to dream content, we are compelled to say that the dream work
is not creative; it develops no fancies of its own, it
judges nothing, decides nothing. I t does nothing
but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement, and refashions it for dramatization, to
which must be added the inconstant last-named
mechanism—that of explanatory elaboration. It
is true that a good deal is found in the dream content which might be understood as the result of another and more intellectual performance; but analysis shows conclusively every time that these intellectual operations were already present in %ihe
dream thoughts, and have only been taken over by

52

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

the dream content. A syllogism in the dream is
nothing other than the repetition of a syllogism in
the dream thoughts; it seems inoffensive if it has
been transferred to the dream without alteration; it
becomes absurd if in the dream work it has been
transferred to other matter. A calculation in the
dream content simply means that there was a calculation in the dream thoughts; whilst this is always
correct, the calculation in the dream can furnish the
silliest results by the condensation of its factors and
the displacement of the same operations to other
things. Even speeches which are found in the
dream content are not new compositions; they prove
to be pieced together out of speeches which have
been made or heard or read; the words are faithfully copied, but the occasion of their utterance is
quite overlooked, and their meaning is most violently changed.
I t is, perhaps, not superfluous to support these
assertions by examples:
1. A seemingly inoffensive, well-mdde dream of
a patient. She was going to market with her cook,
who carried the basket. The butcher said to her
when she asked him for something: "That is all
gone," and wished to give her something else, remarking: "That's very good." She declines, and
goes to the greengrocer, who wants to sell her a

T H E DREAM MECHANISM

53

peculiar vegetable which is bound up in bundles and
of a black color. She says: "I don't know that; I
won't take it."
The remark "That is all gone" arose from the
treatment. A few days before I said myself to the
patient that the earliest reminiscences of childhood
are all gone as such, but are replaced by transferences and dreams. Thus I am the butcher.
The second remark, "I don't know that," arose
in a very different connection. The day before she
had herself called out in rebuke to the cook (who,
moreover, also appears in the dream): "Behave
yourself properly; I don't know that"—that is, " I
don't know this kind of behavior; I won't have it."
The more harmless portion of this speech was arrived at by a displacement of the dream content; in
the dream thoughts only the other portion of the
speech played a part, because the dream work
changed an imaginary situation into utter irrecognizability and complete inoffensiveness (while in
a certain sense I behave in an unseemly way to the
lady). The situation resulting in this phantasy is,
however, nothing but a new edition of one that
actually took place.
2. A dream apparently meaningless relates to
figures. "She wants to pay something; her daughter takes three florins siwty-five kreuzers out of her

54

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

purse; but she says: 'What are you doing? It
only cost twenty-one kreuzers/ "
The dreamer was a stranger who had placed her
child at school in Vienna, and who was able to continue under my treatment so long as her daughter
remained at Vienna. The day before the dream
the directress of the school had recommended her
to keep the child another year at school. I n this
case she would have been able to prolong her treatment by one year. The figures in the dream become important if it be remembered that time is
money. One year equals 365 days, or, expressed
in kreuzers, 3(>5 kreuzers, which is three florins
sixty-five kreuzers. The twenty-one kreuzers correspond with the three weeks which remained from
the day of the dream to the end of the school term,
and thus to the end of the treatment. I t was obviously financial considerations which had moved
the lady to refuse the proposal of the directress,
and which were answerable for the triviality of the
amount in the dream.
3. A lady, young, but already ten years married,
heard that a friend of hers, Miss Elise L
, of
about the same age, had become engaged. This
gave rise to the following dream:
She was sitting with her husband in the theater;
the one side of the stalls was quite empty.
Her

THE DREAM MECHANISM

55

husband tells her, Elise L—— and her fiance had
intended coming, but could only get some cheap
seats, three for one florin fifty kreuzers, and these
they would not take. In her opinion, that woulU
not have mattered very much.
The origin of the figures from the matter of the
dream thoughts and the changes the figures underwent are of interest. Whence came the one florin
fifty kreuzers? From a trifling occurrence of the
previous day. H e r sister-in-law had received 150
florins as a present from her husband, and had
quickly got rid of it by buying some ornament.
Note that 150 florins is one hundred times one florin
fifty kreuzers. For the three concerned with the
tickets, the only link is that Elise L
is exactly
three months younger than the dreamer. The
scene in the dream is the repetition of a ^little adventure for which she has often been teased by her
husband. She was once in a great hurry to get
tickets in time for a piece, and when she came to the
theater one side of the stalls was almost empty.
I t was therefore quite unnecessary for her to have
been in such a hurry. Nor must we overlook the
absurdity of the dream that two persons should take
three tickets for the theater.
Now for the dream ideas. I t was stupid to have
married so early; I need not have been in so great a

56

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

hurry. Elise L
's example shows me that I
should have been able to get a husband later; indeed,
one a hundred times better if I had but waited. I
could have bought three such men with the money
(dowry).

Ill
WHY THE DREAM DISGUISES THE DESIRES

I N the foregoing exposition we have now learnt
something of the dream work; we must regard it as
a quite special psychical process, which, so far as
we are aware, resembles nothing else. To the
dream work has been transferred that bewilderment
which its product, the dream, has aroused in us.
I n truth, the dream work is only the first recognition of a group of psychical processes to which must
be referred the origin of hysterical symptoms, the
ideas of morbid dread, obsession, and illusion.
Condensation, and especially displacement, are
never-failing features in these other processes.
The regard for appearance remains, on the other'
hand, peculiar to the dream work. If this explanation brings the dream into line with the formation
of ps)^chical disease, it becomes the more important
to fathom the essential conditions of processes like
dream building. I t will be probably a surprise to
hear that neither the state of sleep nor illness is
among the indispensable conditions. A whole
number of phenomena of the everyday life of
57

58

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

healthy persons, forgetfulness, slips in speaking
and in holding things, together with a certain class
of mistakes, are due to a psychical mechanism analogous to that of the dream and the other members of this group.
Displacement is the core of the problem, and the
most striking of all the dream performances. A
thorough investigation of the subject shows that the
essential condition of displacement is purely psychological ; it is in the nature of a motive. We get
on the track by thrashing out experiences which one
cannot avoid in the analysis of dreams. I had to
break off the relations of my dream thoughts in the
analysis of my dream on p. 8 because I found some
experiences which I do not wish strangers to know,
and which I could not relate without serious damage
to important considerations. I added, it would be
no use were I to select another instead of that particular dream; in every dream where the content is
obscure or intricate, I should hit upon dream
thoughts which call for secrecy. If, however, I continue the analysis for myself, without regard to
those others, for whom, indeed, so personal an event
as my dream cannot matter, I arrive finally at ideas
which surprise me, which I have not known to be
mine, which not only appear foreign to me, but
which are unpleasant, and which I would like to

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

59

oppose vehemently, whilst the chain of ideas running through the analysis intrudes upon me inexorably. I can only take these circumstances into
account by admitting that these thoughts are actually part of my psychical life, possessing a certain
psychical intensity or energy. However, by virtue of a particular psychological condition, the
thoughts could not become conscious to me. I call
this particular condition "Repression." I t is therefore impossible for me not to recognize some casual
relationship between the obscurity of the dream content and this state of repression—this incapacity of
consciousness. Whence I conclude that the cause
of the obscurity is the desire to conceal these
thoughts. Thus I arrive at the conception of the
dream distortion as the deed of the dream work,
and of displacement serving to disguise this object.
I will test this in my own dream, and ask myself,
What is the thought which, quite innocuous in its
distorted form, provokes my liveliest opposition in
its real form? I remember that the free drive reminded me of the last expensive drive with a member of my family, the interpretation of the dream
being: I should for once like to experience affection for which I should not have to pay, and that
shortly before the dream I had to make a heavy
disbursement for this very person. In this connec-

60

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

tion, I cannot get away from the thought that I regret this disbursement
I t is only when I acknowledge this feeling that there is any sense in my wishing in the dream for an affection that should entail
no outlay. And yet I can state on my honor that
I did not hesitate for a moment when it became necessary to expend that sum. The regret, the counter-current, was unconscious to me. Why it was
unconscious is quite another question which would
lead us far away from the answer which, though
within my knowledge, belongs elsewhere.
If I subject the dream of another person instead
of one of my own to analysis, the result is the same;
the motives for convincing others is, however,
changed. In the dream of a healthy person the
only way for me to enable him to accept this repressed idea is the coherence of the dream thoughts.
H e is at liberty to reject this explanation. But if
we are dealing with a person suffering from any
neurosis—say from hysteria—the recognition of
these repressed ideas is compulsory by reason of
their connection with the symptoms of his illness
and of the improvement resulting from exchanging
the symptoms for the repressed ideas. Take the
patient from whom I got the last dream about the
three tickets for one florin fifty kreuzers. Analysis
shows that she does not think highly of her husband,

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

61

that she regrets having married him, that she would
be glad to change him for some one else. I t is true
that she maintains that she loves her husband* that
her emotional life knows nothing about this depreciation (a hundred times better!), but all her symptoms lead to the same conclusion as this dream.
When her repressed memories had rewakened a
certain period when she was conscious that she did
not love her husband, her symptoms disappeared,
and therewith disappeared her resistance to the interpretation of the dream.
This conception of repression once fixed, together
with the distortion of the dream in relation to repressed psychical matter, we are in a position to
give a general exposition of the principal results
which the analysis of dreams supplies. W e learnt
that the most intelligible and meaningful dreams
are unrealized desires; the desires they pictured as
realized are known to consciousness, have been held
over from the daytime, and are of absorbing interest. The analysis of obscure and intricate dreams
discloses something very similar; the dream scene
again pictures as realized some desire which regularly proceeds from the dream ideas, but the picture is unrecognizable, and is only cleared up in the
analysis. The desire itself is either one repressed,
foreign to consciousness, or it is closely bound up

62

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

with repressed ideas. The formula for these
dreams may be thus stated: They are concealed
realizations of repressed desires. I t is interesting
to note that they are right who regard the dream as
foretelling the future. Although the future which
the dream shows us is not that which will occur, but
that which we would like to occur. Folk psychology proceeds here according to its wont; it believes
what it wishes to believe.
Dreams can be divided into three classes according to their relation towards the realization of desire. Firstly come those which exhibit a non-repressed, non-concealed desire; these are dreams of
the infantile type, becoming ever rarer among
adults. Secondly, dreams which express in veiled
form some repressed desire; these constitute by far
the larger number of our dreams, and they require
analysis for their understanding. Thirdly, these
dreams where repression exists, but without or with
but slight concealment. These dreams are invariably accompanied by a feeling of dread which brings
the dream to an end. This feeling of dread here
replaces dream displacement; I regarded the dream
work as having prevented this in the dream of the
second class. I t is not very difficult to prove that
what is now present as intense dread in the dream

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

63

was once desire, and is now secondary to the repression,,
There are also definite dreams with a painful content, without the presence of any anxiety in the
dream. These cannot be reckoned among dreams
of dread; they have, however, always been used to
prove the unimportance and the psychical futility
of dreams. An analysis of such an example will
show that it belongs to our second class of dreams
—a perfectly concealed realization of repressed desires. Analysis will demonstrate at the same time
how excellently adapted is the work of displacement
to the concealment of desires.
A girl dreamt that she saw lying dead before her
the only surviving child of her sister amid the same
surroundings as a few years before she saw the first
child lying dead. She was not sensible of any pain,
but naturally combatted the view that the scene represented a desire of hers. Nor was that view necessary. Years ago.it was at the funeral of the child
that she had last seen and spoken to the man she
loved. Were the second child to die, she would be
sure to meet this man again in her sister's house.
She is longing to meet him, but struggles against
this feeling. The day of the dream she had taken a
ticket for a lecture, which announced the presence

64

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

of the man she always loved. The dream is simply
a dream of impatience common to those which happen before a journey, theater, or simply anticipated
pleasures. The longing is concealed by the shifting
of the scene to the occasion when any joyous feeling
were out of place, and yet where it did once exist.
Note, further, that the emotional behavior in the
dream is adapted, not to the displaced, but to the
real but suppressed dream ideas. The scene anticipates the long-hoped-for meeting; there is here
no call for painful emotions.
There has hitherto been no occasion for philosophers to bestir themselves with a psychology of repression. W e must be allowed to construct some
clear conception as to the origin of dreams as the
first steps in this unknown territory. The scheme
which we have formulated not only from a study of
dreams is, it is true, already somewhat complicated,
but we cannot find any simpler one that will suffice.
We hold that our psychical apparatus contains two
procedures for the construction of thoughts. The
second one has the advantage that its products find
an open path to consciousness, whilst the activity
of the first procedure is unknown to itself, and can
only arrive at consciousness through the second one.
A t the borderland of these two procedures, where
tite first passes over into the second, a censorship

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

65

is established which only passes what pleases it,
keeping back everything else. That which is rejected by the censorship is, according to our definition, in a state of repression. Under certain conditions, one of which is the sleeping state, the balance of power between the two procedures is so
changed that what is repressed can no longer be
kept back. In the sleeping state this may possibly
occur through the negligence of the censor; what
has been hitherto repressed will now succeed in
finding its way to consciousness. But as the censorship is never absent, but merely off guard, certain alterations must be conceded so as to placate
it. It is a compromise which becomes conscious in
this case—a compromise between what one procedure has in view and the demands of the other.
Repression, laxity of the censor, compromise-—this
is the foundation for the origin of many another
psychological process, just as it is for the dream.
I n such compromises we can observe the processes
of condensation, of displacement, the acceptance of
superficial associations, which we have found in the
dream work.
I t is not for us to deny the demonic element
which has played a part in constructing our explanation of dream work. The impression left is
that the formation of obscure dreams proceeds as

66

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

if a person had something to say which must be disagreeable for another person upon whom he is dependent to hear. I t is by the use of this image
that we figure to ourselves the conception of the
dream distortion and of the censorship, and ventured to crystallize our impression in a rather crude,
but at least definite, psychological theory. Whatever explanation the future may offer of these first
and second procedures, we shall expect a confirmation of our correlate that the second procedure commands the entrance to consciousness, and can exclude the first from consciousness.
Once the sleeping state overcome, the censorship
resumes complete sway, and is now able to revoke
that which was granted in a moment of weakness.
That the forgetting of dreams explains this in part,
at least, we are convinced by our experience, confirmed again and again. During the relation of a
dream, or during analysis of one, it not infrequently
happens that some fragment of the dream is suddenly forgotten. This fragment so forgotten invariably contains the best and readiest approach to
an understanding of the dream. Probably that is
why it sinks into oblivion—Le.3 into a renewed suppression.
Viewing the dream content as the representation
of a realized desire, and referring its vagueness to

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

67

the changes made by the censor in the repressed
matter, it is no longer difficult to grasp the function of dreams. I n fundamental contrast with
those saws which assume that sleep is disturbed by
dreams, we hold the dream as the guardian of sleep.
So far as children's dreams are concerned, our view
should find ready acceptance.
The sleeping state or the psychical change to
sleep, whatsoever it be, is brought about by the
child being sent to sleep or compelled thereto by
fatigue, only assisted by the removal of all stimuli
which might open other objects to the psychical apparatus. The means which serve to keep external
stimuli distant are known; but what are the means
we can employ to depress the internal psychical
stimuli which frustrate sleep? Look at a mother
getting her child to sleep. The child is full of beseeching; he wants another kiss; he wants to play
yet awhile. His requirements are in part met, in
part drastically put off till the following day.
Clearly these desires and needs, which agitate him,
are hindrances to sleep. Every one knows the
charming story of the bad boy (Baldwin Groller's)
who awoke at night bellowing out, "I want the
rhinoceros/' A really good boy, instead of bellowing, would have dreamt that he was playing with
the rhinoceros. Because the dream which realizes

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

his desire is believed during sleep, it removes the desire and makes sleep possible. I t cannot be denied
that this belief accords with the dream image, because it is arrayed in the psychical appearance of
probability; the child is without the capacity which
it will acquire later to distinguish hallucinations or
phantasies from reality.
The adult has learnt this differentiation; he has
also learnt the futility of desire, and by continuous
practice manages to postpone his aspirations,
until they can be granted in some roundabout
method by a change in the external world. For
this reason it is rare for him to have his wishes
realized during sleep in the short psychical way.
I t is even possible that this never happens, and that
everything which appears to us like a child's dream
demands a much more elaborate explanation.
Thus it is that for adults—for every sane person
without exception—a differentiation of the psychical matter has been fashioned which the child
knew not. A psychical procedure has been reached
which, informed by the experience of life, exercises
with jealous power a dominating and restraining
influence upon psychical emotions; by its relation
to consciousness, and by its spontaneous mobility,
it is endowed with the greatest means of psychical
power. A portion of the infantile emotions has

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

69

been withheld from this procedure as useless to life,
and all the thoughts which flow from these are
found in the state of repression.
Whilst the procedure in which we recognize our
normal ego reposes upon the desire for sleep, it appears compelled by the psycho-physiological conditions of sleep to abandon some of the energy with
which it was wont during the day to keep down
what was repressed. This neglect is really harmless ; however much the emotions of the child's spirit
may be stirred, they find the approach to consciousness rendered difficult, and that to movement
blocked in consequence of the state of sleep. The
danger of their disturbing sleep must, however, be
avoided. Moreover, we must admit that even in
deep sleep some amount of free attention is exerted
as a protection against sense-stimuli which might,
perchance, make an awakening seem wiser than the
continuance of sleep. Otherwise we could not explain the fact of our being always awakened by
stimuli of certain quality. As the old physiologist
Burdach pointed out, the mother is awakened by
the whimpering of her child, the miller by the cessation of his mill, most people by gently calling out
their names. This attention, thus on the alert,
makes use of the internal stimuli arising from repressed desires, and fuses them into the dream,

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

which as a compromise satisfies both procedures at
the same time. The dream creates a form of psychical release for the wish which is either suppressed
or formed by the aid of repression, inasmuch as it
presents it as realized. The other procedure is also
satisfied, since the continuance of the sleep is assured. Our ego here gladly behaves like a child;
ft makes the dream pictures believable, saying, as it
were, "Quite right, but let me sleep." The contempt which, once awakened, we bear the dream,
and which rests upon the absurdity and apparent
illogicality of the dream, is probably nothing but
the reasoning of our sleeping ego on the feelings
about what was repressed; with greater right it
should rest upon the incompetency of this disturber of our sleep. I n sleep we are now and then
aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the censorship rather'too much, we think,
"It's only a dream," and sleep on.
I t is no objection to this view if there are borderlines for the dream where its function, to preserve
sleep from interruption, can no longer be maintained—as in the dreams of impending dread. I t
is here changed for another function—to suspend
the sleep at the proper time. I t acts like a conscientious night-watchman, who first does his duty
by quelling disturbances so as not to waken the

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

71

citizen, but equally does his duty quite properly
when he awakens the street should the causes of
the trouble seem to him serious and himself unable to cope with them alone.
This function of dreams becomes especially well
marked when there arises some incentive for the
sense perception. That the senses aroused during
sleep influence the dream is well known, and can
be experimentally verified; it is one of the certain
but much overestimated results of the medical investigation of dreams. Hitherto there has been
an insoluble riddle connected with this discovery.
The stimulus to the sense by which the investigator
affects the sleeper is not properly recognized in the
dream, but is intermingled with a number of indefinite interpretations, whose determination appears left to psychical free-will. There is, of
course, no such psychical free-will. To an external
sense-stimulus the sleeper can react in many ways.
Either he awakens or he succeeds in sleeping on.
In the latter case he can make use of the dream to
dismiss the external stimulus, and this, again, in
more ways than one. For instance, he can stay
the stimulus by dreaming of a scene which is absolutely intolerable to him. This was the means used
by one who was troubled by a painful perineal abscess. H e dreamt that he was on horseback, and

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

made use of the poultice, which was intended to
alleviate his pain, as a saddle, and thus got away
from the cause of the trouble. Or, as is more frequently the case, the external stimulus undergoes
a new rendering, which leads him to connect it
with a repressed desire seeking its realization, and
robs him of its reality, and is treated as if it were a
part of the psychical matter. Thus, some one
dreamt that he had written a comedy which embodied a definite motif; it was being performed;
the first act was over amid enthusiastic applause;
there was great clapping. At this moment the
dreamer must have succeeded in prolonging his
sleep despite the disturbance, for when he woke he
no longer heard the noise; he concluded rightly that
some one must have been beating a carpet or bed.
The dreams which come with a loud noise just
before waking have all attempted to cover the stimulus to waking by some other explanation, and thus
to prolong the sleep for a little while.
Whosoever has firmly accepted this censorship as
the chief motive for the distortion of dreams will
not be surprised to learn as the result of dream interpretation that most of the dreams of adults are
traced by analysis to erotic desires. This assertion
is not drawn from dreams obviously of a sexual
nature, which are known to all dreamers from their

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

73

own experience, and are the only ones usually described as "sexual dreams." These dreams are ever
sufficiently mysterious by reason of the choice of
persons who are made the objects of sex, the removal of all the barriers which cry halt to the
dreamer's sexual needs in his waking state, the
many strange reminders as to details of what are
called perversions. But analysis discovers that, in
many other dreams in whose manifest content nothing erotic can be found, the work of interpretation
shows them up as, in reality, realization of sexual
desires; whilst, on the other hand, that much of the
thought-making when awake, the thoughts saved
us as surplus from the day only, reaches presentation in dreams with the help of repressed erotic desires.
Towards the explanation of this statement, which
is no theoretical postulate, it must be remembered
that no other class of instincts has required so vast
a suppression at the behest of civilization as the
sexual, whilst their mastery by the highest psychical processes are in most persons soonest of all
relinquished. Since we have learnt to understand
infantile sexuality, often so vague in its expression,
so invariably overlooked and misunderstood, we are
justified in saying that nearly every civilized person
has retained at some point or other the infantile

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

type of sex life; thus we understand that repressed
infantile sex desires furnish the most frequent and
most powerful impulses for the formation of
dreams.1
If the dream, which is the expression of some
erotic desire, succeeds in making its manifest content appear innocently asexual, it is only possible
in one way. The matter of these sexual presentations cannot be exhibited as such, but must be replaced by allusions, suggestions, and similar indirect means; differing from other cases of indirect
presentation, those used in dreams must be deprived
of direct understanding. The means of presentation which answer these requirements are commonly
termed "symbols." A special interest has been directed towards these, since it has been observed that
the dreamers of the same language use the like symbols—indeed, that in certain cases community of
symbol is greater than community of speech.
Since the dreamers do not themselves know the
meaning of the symbols they use, it remains a puzzle whence arises their relationship with what they
replace and denote. The fact itself is undoubted,
and becomes of importance for the technique of the
i Freud, "Three Contributions to Sexual Theory," translated by
A. A. Brill {Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing
Company, New York).

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

75

interpretation of dreams, since by the aid of a
knowledge of this symbolism it is possible to understand the meaning of the elements of a dream, or
parts of a dream, occasionally even the whole
dream itself, without having to question the
dreamer as to his own ideas. W e thus come near
to the popular idea of an interpretation of dreams,
and, on the other hand, possess again the technique
of the ancients, among whom the interpretation of
dreams was identical with their explanation through
symbolism.
Though the study of dream symbolism is far removed from finality, we now possess a series of general statements and of particular observations
which are quite certain. There are symbols which
practically always have the same meaning: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) always
mean the parents; room, a woman,1 and so on.
The sexes are represented by a great variety of
symbols, many of which would be at first quite incomprehensible had not the clews to the meaning
been often obtained through other channels.
There are symbols of universal circulation, found
in all dreamers, of one range of speech and culture;
i T h e words from "and" to "channels" in the next sentence is a
short summary of the passage in the original. As this book will be
read by other than professional people the passage has not been
translated, in deference to English opinion.—TRANSLATOR.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

there are others of the narrowest individual significance which an individual has built up out of his
own material. In the first class those can be differentiated whose claim can be at once recognized by
the replacement of sexual things in common speech
(those, for instance, arising from agriculture, as
reproduction, seed) from others whose sexual references appear to reach back to the earliest times
and to the obscurest depths of our image-building.
The power of building symbols in both these special
forms of symbols has not died out. Recently discovered things, like the airship, are at once brought
into universal use as sex symbols.
I t would be quite an error to suppose that a profounder knowledge of dream symbolism (the "Language of Dreams") would make us independent of
questioning the dreamer regarding his impressions
about the dream, and would give us back the whole
technique of ancient dream interpreters. Apart
from individual symbols and the variations in the
use of what is general, one never knows whether
an element in the dream is to be understood symbolically or in its proper meaning; the whole content of the dream is certainly not to be interpreted
symbolically. The knowledge of dream symbols
will only help us in understanding portions of the
dream content, and does not render the use of the

DREAM DISGUISES DESIRES

77

technical rules previously given at all superfluous.
But it must be of the greatest service in interpreting a dream just when the impressions of the
dreamer are withheld or are insufficient.
Dream symbolism proves also indispensable for
understanding the so-called "typical" dreams and
the dreams that "repeat themselves.'5 Dream symbolism leads us far beyond the dream; it does not
belong only to dreams, but is likewise dominant in
legend, myth, and saga, in wit and in folklore. I t
compels us to pursue the inner meaning of the
dream in these productions. But we must acknowledge that symbolism is not a result of the
dream work, but is a peculiarity probably of our
unconscious thinking, which furnishes to the dream
work the matter for condensation, displacement,
and dramatization.

IV
DREAM ANALYSIS

we shall now begin to suspect that dream
interpretation is capable of giving us hints about
the structure of our psychic apparatus which we
have thus far expected in vain from philosophy.
We shall not, however, follow this track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have
cleared up the subject of dream-disfigurement.
The question has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be analyzed as the fulfillment of
wishes. W e see now that this is possible in case
dream-disfigurement has taken place, in case the
disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for
what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions
in regard to the two psychic instances, we may now
proceed to say: disagreeable dreams, as a matter of
fact, contain something which is disagreeable to the
second instance, but which at the same time fulfills
a wish of the first instance. They are wish dreams
in the sense that every dream originates in the first
instance, while the second instance acts towards the
dream only in repelling, not in a creative manner,
PERHAPS

78

DREAM ANALYSIS

79

If we limit ourselves to a consideration of what the
second instance contributes to the dream, we can
never understand the dream. If we do so, all the
riddles which the authors have found in the dream
remain unsolved.
That the dream actually has a secret meaning,
which turns out to be the fulfillment of a wish, must
be proved afresh for every case by means of an
analysis. I therefore select several dreams which
have painful contents and attempt an analysis of
them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects, which require long preliminary statements,
and now and then also an examination of the
psychic processes which occur in hysteria. I cannot, however, avoid this added difficulty in the exposition.
When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical
treatment, dreams are always, as I have said, the
subject of our discussion. I t must, therefore, give
him all the psychological explanations through
whose aid I myself have come to an understanding
of his symptoms, and here I undergo an unsparing
criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I
must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction
of the thesis that all dreams are the fulfillments of
wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

material which is offered me to refute this position.
"You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled,'5 begins a clever lady patient. "Now I shall
tell you a dream in which the content is quite the
opposite, in which a wish of mine is not fulfilled.
How do you reconcile that with your theory? The
dream is as follows:—
"I want to give a supper, but having nothing at
hand eoccept some smoked salmon, I think of going
marketing, but I remember that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I next try to
telephone to some caterers, but the telephone is out
of order... Thus I must resign my wish to give a
supper"
I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit
that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent,
and looks like the opposite of a wish-fulfillment.
"But what occurrence has given rise to this dream?"
I ask. "You know that the stimulus for a dream
always lies among the experiences of the preceding
day."
Analysis.—The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious wholesale butcher, had told
her the day before that he is growing too fat, and
that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity.
H e was going to get up early, take exercise, keep

DREAM ANALYSIS

81

to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to relate how her husband at an inn table had made the
acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because he, the painter, had never
found such an expressive head. But her husband
had answered in his rough way, that he was very
thankful for the honor, but that he was quite convinced that a portion of the backside of a pretty
young girl would please the artist better than his
whole face.1 She said that she was at the time very
much in love with her husband, and teased him a
good deal. She had also asked him not to send
her any caviare. What does that mean?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long
time to eat a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but
had grudged herself the expense. Of course, she
would at once get the caviare from her husband, as
soon as she asked him for it. But she had begged
him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare,
in order that she might tease him about it longer.
This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the habit of hiding behind
such unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who
1T0 sit for the painter. Goethe: "And if he has no backside, how
can the nobleman sit?"

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

carried out a posthypnotic order, and who, upon
being asked for their motives, instead of answering: " I do not know why I did that," had to invent a reason that was obviously inadequate.
Something similar is probably the case with the
caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled
to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream
also shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled
wish?
The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the
interpretation of the dream. I beg for more.
After a short pause, which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the
day before she had made a visit to a friend, of
whom she is really jealous, because her husband is
always praising this woman so much. Fortunately,
this friend is very lean and thin, and her husband
likes well-rounded figures. Now of what did this
lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient: "When are you going to invite us again?
You always have such a good table."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may
say to the patient: "It is just as though you had
thought at the time of the request: 'Of course,
I'll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat -at my

DREAM ANALYSIS

83

house and become still more pleasing to my husband, I would rather give no more suppers.'
The dream then tells you that you cannot give a
supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your
friend's figure. The resolution of your husband to
refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting
thin teaches you that one grows fat on the things
served in company." Now only some conversation
is necessary to confirm the solution. The smoked
salmon in the dream has not yet been traced.
"How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur
to you?" "Smoked salmon is the favorite dish of
this friend," she answered. I happen to know the
lady, and may corroborate this by saying that she
grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself the caviare.
The dream admits of still another and more exact
interpretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circumstance. The two interpretations do
not contradict one another, but rather cover each
other and furnish a neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations. W e have seen that at the
same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish,
the patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare sandwiches)- H e r

84

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get
fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had
dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being
fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her
friend's—for increase in weight—should not be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreams that
one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. t The dream
becomes capable of a new interpretation, if in the
dream she does not intend herself, but her friend,
if she, has put herself in the place of her friend,
or, as we may say, has identified herself with her
friend.
I think she Has actually done this, and as a sign
of this identification she has created an unfulfilled
wish in reality. But what is the meaning of this
hysterical identification? To clear this up a
thorough exposition is necessary. Identification is
a highly important factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely
their own experiences, but the experiences of a
great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it
were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the
parts of a drama by means of their own personalities alone. I t will here be objected that this is
well-known hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all the symptoms which im-

DREAM ANALYSIS

85

press them when they occur in others, as though
their pity were stimulated to the point of reproduction. But this only indicates the way in which
the psychic process is discharged in hysterical imitation ; the way in which a psychic act proceeds and
the act itself are two different things. The latter
is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it
corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as
an example will show. The physician who has a
female patient with a particular kind of twitching,
lodged in the company of other patients in the same
room of the hospital, is not surprised when some
morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. H e simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection. Yes, but psychic
infection proceeds in somewhat the following manner: As a rule, patients know more about one
another than the physician knows about each of
them, and they are concerned about each other when
the visit of the doctor is over. Some of them have
an attack to-day: soon it is known among the rest
that a letter from home, a return of lovesickness or
the like, is the cause of it. Their sympathy is
aroused, and the following syllogism, which does
not reach consciousness, is completed in them: "If

86

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

it is possible to have this kind of an attack from
such causes, 1 too may have this kind of an attack,
for I have the same reasons." If this were a cycle
capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps
express itself in fear of getting the same attack;
but it takes place in another psychic sphere, and,
therefore, ends in the realization of the dreaded
symptom. Identification is therefore not a simple
imitation, but a sympathy based upon the same
etiological claim; it expresses an "as though," and
refers to some common quality which has remained
in the unconscious.
Identification is most often used in hysteria to
express sexual community. An hysterical woman
identifies herself most readily—although not exclusively—with persons with whom she has had sexual
relations, or who have sexual intercourse with the
same persons as herself. Language takes such a
conception into consideration: two lovers are "one."
In the hysterical phantasy, as well as in the dream,
it is sufficient for the identification if one thinks of
sexual relations, whether or not they become real.
The patient, then, only follows the rules of the hysterical thought processes when she gives expression
to her jealousy of her friend (which, moreover, she
herself admits to be unjustified, in that she puts
herself in her place and identifies herself with her

DREAM ANALYSIS

87

by creating a symptom—the denied wish), I
might further clarify the process specifically as follows : She puts herself in the place of her friend in
the dream, because her friend has taken her own
place relation to her husband, and because she
would like to take her friend's place in the esteem
of her husband. 1
The contradiction to my theory of dreams in the
case of another female patient, the most witty
among all my dreamers, was solved in a simpler
manner, although according to the scheme that the
non-fulfillment of one wish signifies the fulfillment of another. I had one day explained to
her that the dream is a wish of fulfillment. The
next day she brought me a dream to the effect that she was traveling with her mother-in lawr to their common summer resort. Now I
knew that she had struggled violently against
spending the summer in the neighborhood of her
mother-in-law. I also knew that she had luckily
avoided her mother-in-law by renting an estate in a far-distant country resort. Now the
1 1 myself regret the introduction pf such passages from the psychopathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary representation and of being torn from all connection with the subject, cannot have a very enlightening influence. If these passages are capable
of throwing light upon the intimate relations between the dream and
the psychoneuroses, they have served the purpose for which I have
taken them up.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

dream reversed this wished-for solution; was not
this in the flattest contradiction to my theory of
wish-fulfillment in the dream? Certainly, it was
only necessary to draw the inferences from this
dream in order to get at its interpretation. According to this dream, I was in the wrong. It was
thus her wish that I should be in the wrong, and
this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled. But
the wish that I should be in the wrong, which was
fulfilled in the theme of the country home, referred
to a more serious matter. At that time I had made
up my mind, from the material furnished by her
analysis, that something of significance for her illness must have occurred at a certain time in her life.
She had denied it because it was not present in her
memory. W e soon came to see that I was in the
right. Her wish that I should be in the wrong,
which is transformed into the dream, thus corresponded to the justifiable wish that those things,
which at the time had only been suspected, had never
occurred at all.
Without an analysis, and merely by means of an
assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a
little occurrence in the case of a friend, who had
been my colleague through the eight classes of the
Gymnasium. H e once heard a lecture of mine de-

DREAM ANALYSIS

89

livered to a small assemblage, on the novel subject
of the dream as the fulfillment of a wish. H e went
home, dreamt that he had lost all his suits—he was
a lawyer—and then complained to me about it. I
took refuge in the evasion: "One can't win all
one's suits," but I thought to myself: "If for eight
years I sat as Primus on the first bench, while he
moved around somewhere in the middle of the class,
may he not naturally have had a wish from his boyhood days that I, too, might for once completely
disgrace myself?"
I n the same way another dream of a more gloomy
character was offered me by a female patient as a
contradiction to my theory of the wish-dream. The
patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You remember that my sister has now only one boy,
Charles: she lost the elder one, Otto, while I was
still at her house. Otto was my favorite; it was I
who really brought him up. I like the other little
fellow, too, but of course not nearly as much as the
dead one. Now I dreamt last night that I saw
Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his
little coffinj his hands folded: there were candles all
about, and, in short, it was just like the time of little
Otto's death, which shocked me so profoundly.
Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me:

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

am I really bad enough to wish my sister to lose the
only child she has left? Or does the dream mean
that I wish Charles to be dead rather than Otto,
whom I like so much better?"
I assured her that this interpretation was impossible. After some reflection I was able to give her
the interpretation of the dream, which I subsequently made her confirm.
Having become an orphan at an early age, the
girl had been brought up in the house of a much
older sister, and had met among the friends and
visitors who came to the house, a man who made a
lasting impression upon her heart. It looked foria
time as though these barely expressed relations
were to end in marriage, but this happy culmination
was frustrated by the sister, whose motives have
never found a complete explanation. After the
break, the man who was loved by our patient
avoided the house: she herself became independent
some time after little Otto's death, to whom her
affection had now turned. But she did not succeed
in freeing herself from the inclination for her sister's
friend in which she had become involved. Her
pride commanded her to avoid him; but it was impossible for her to transfer her love to the other
suitors who presented themselves in order. Whenever the man whom she loved, who was a member

DREAM ANALYSIS

91

of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was sure to be found in the audience; she
also seized every other opportunity to see him from
a distance unobserved by him. I remembered that
on the day before she had told me that the Professor
was going to a certain concert, and that she was also
going there, in order to enjoy the sight of him.
This was on the day of the dream; and the concert
was to take place on the day on which she told me
the dream. I could now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her whether she could
think of any event which had happened after the
death of little Otto. She answered immediately:
"Certainly; at that time the Professor returned
after a long absence, and I saw him once more beside the coffin of little Otto." I t was exactly as I
had expected. I interpreted the dream in the following manner: If now the other boy were to die,
the same thing would be repeated. You would
spend the day with your sister, the Professor would
surely come in order to offer condolence, and you
would see him again under the same circumstances
as at that time. The dream signifies nothing but
this wish of yours to see him again, against which
you are fighting inwardly. I know that you are
carrying the ticket for to-day's concert in your bag.
Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has antici-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

pated the meeting which is to take place to-day by
several hours."
I n order to disguise her wish she had obviously
selected a situation in which wishes of that sort are
commonly suppressed—a situation which is so filled
with sorrow that love is not thought of. And yet,
it is very easily probable that even in the actual
situation at the bier of the second, more dearly loved
boy, which the dream copied faithfully, she had not
been able to suppress her feelings of affection for
the visitor whom she had missed for so long a time.
A different explanation was found in the case of
a similar dream of another female patient, who was
distinguished in her earlier years by her quick wit
and her cheerful demeanors and who still showed
these qualities at least in the notion, which occurred
to her in the course of treatment. In connection
with a longer dream, it seemed to this lady that she
saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her in a box. She was strongly inclined to
convert this dream-image into an objection to the
theory of wish-fulfillment, but herself suspected
that the detail of the box must lead to a different
conception of the dream.1 In the course of the
analysis it occurred to her that on the evening bei Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred
supper.

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98

fore, the conversation of the company had turned
upon the English word "box," and upon the numerous translations of it into German, such as box,
theater box, chest, box on the ear, &c. From other
components of the same dream it is now possible
to add that the lady had guessed the relationship
between the English word "box" and the German
Biichse, and had then been haunted by the memory
that Buckse (as well as "box") is used in vulgar
speech to designate the female genital organ. I t
was therefore possible, making a certain allowance
for her notions on the subject of topographical anatomy, to assume that the child in the box signified
a child in the womb of the mother. At this stage
of the explanation she no longer denied that the
picture of the dream really corresponded to one of
her wishes. Like so many other young women,
she was by no means happy when she became pregnant, and admitted to me more than once the wish
that her child might die before its birth; in a fit of
anger following a violent scene with her husband
she had even struck her abdomen with her fists in
order to hit the child within. The dead child was,
therefore, really the fulfillment of a wish, but a
wish which had been put aside for fifteen years, and
it is not surprising that the fulfillment of the wish
was no longer recognized after so long an interval.

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For there had been many changes meanwhile.
The group of dreams to which the two last mentioned belong, having as content the death of beloved relatives, will be considered again under the
head of "Typical Dreams." I shall there be able
to show by new examples that in spite of their undesirable content, all these dreams must be interpreted as wish-fulfillments. For the following
dream, which again was told me in order to deter
me from a hasty generalization of the theory of
wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a patient,
but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. "I
dream'' my informant tells me, "that I am walking
in front of my house with a lady on my arm. Here
a closed wagon is waiting, a gentleman steps up to
me, gives his authority as an agent of the police,
and demands that I should follow him. I only ask
for time in which to arrange my affairs. Can you
possibly suppose this is a wish of mine to be arrested?" "Of course not," I must admit. "Do
you happen to know upon what charge you were
arrested?" "Yes; I believe for infanticide." "Infanticide? But you know that only a mother can
commit this crime upon her newly born child?"
"That is true." * "And under what circumstances
i It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a
recollection of the omitted portions appear only in the course of the

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95

did you dream; what happened on the evening before?" " I would rather not tell you that; it is a
delicate matter." "But I must have it, otherwise
we must forgo the interpretation of the dream."
"Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the night, not
at home, but at the house of a lady who means very
much to me. When we awoke in the morning,
something again passed between us. Then I went
to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you."
"The woman is married?" "Yes." "And you do
not wish her to conceive a child?" "No; that might
betray us." "Then you do not practice normal
coitus?' " I take the precaution to withdraw before
ejaculation." "Am I permitted to assume that you
did this trick several times during the night, and
that in the morning you were not quite sure whether
you had succeeded?" "That might be the case."
"Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By
means of it you secure the assurance that you have
not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same
thing, that you have killed a child. I can easily
demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long
analysis. These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish
the key to the interpretation. 0/. below^ about forgetting in dreams,

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

as no impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and the semen meet and
a foetus is formed is punished as a crime? In connection with this, we also recalled the mediaeval controversy about the moment of time at which the soul
is really lodged in the foetus, since the concept of
murder becomes admissible only from that point
on. Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem
by Lenau, which puts infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane." "Strangely
enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during
the afternoon." "Another echo of your dream.
And now I shall demonstrate to you another subordinate wish-fulfillment in your dream. You
walk in front of your house with the lady on your
arm. So you take her home, instead of spending
the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The
fact that the wish-fulfillment, which is the essence
of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant
form, has perhaps more than one reason. From
my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you
will see that I note interrupted coitus as one of the
factors which cause the development of neurotic
fear. It would be consistent with this that if after
repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you
should be left in an uncomfortable mood, which now
becomes an element in the composition of your

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97

dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state
of mind to conceal the wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide has not yet been
explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar
to females, occur to you?" " I shall confess to you
that I was involved in such an affair years ago.
Through my fault a girl tried to protect herself
from the consequences of a liaison with me by securing an abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but I was naturally for a long
time worried lest the affair might be discovered."
" I understand; this recollection furnished a second
reason why the supposition that you had done your
trick badly must have been painful to you."
A young physician, who had heard this dream of
my colleague when it was told, must have felt implicated by it, for he hastened to imitate it in a
dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to
another subject. The day before he had handed
in a declaration of his income, which was perfectly
honest, because he had little to declare. H e dreamt
that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting
of the tax commission and informed him that all
the other declarations of income had passed uncontested, but that his own had awakened general suspicion, and that he would be punished with a heavy
fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed fulfillment

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

of the wish to be known as a physician with a large
income. I t likewise recalls the story of the young
girl who was advised against accepting her suitor
because he was a man of quick temper who would
surely treat her to blows after they were married.
The answer of the girl was: " I wish he would
strike me!" Her wish to be married is so strong
that she takes into the bargain the discomfort which
is said to be connected with matrimony, and which
is predicted for her, and even raises it to a wish.
If I group the very frequently occurring dreams
of this sort, which seem flatly to contradict my
theory, in that they contain the denial of a wish or
some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the
head of "counter wish-dreams/' I observe that they
may all be referred to two principles, of which one
has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a
large part in the dreams of human beings. One of
the motives inspiring these dreams is the wish that
I should appear in the wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course of my treatment if the patient shows a resistance against me, and I can count
with a large degree of certainty upon causing such
a dream after I have once explained to the patient
my theory that the dream is a wish-fulfillment.1 I
i Similar "counter wish-dreams" have been repeatedly reported to
me within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their
£r,st encounter with the "wish theory of the dream."

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99

may even expect this to be the case in a dream
merely in order to fulfill the wish that I may appear
in the wrong, The last dream which I shall tell
from those occurring in the course of treatment
again shows this very thing. A young girl who
has struggled hard to continue my treatment,
against the will of her relatives and the authorities
whom she had consulted, dreams as follows: She
is forbidden at home to come to me any more. She
then reminds me of the promise I made her to treat
her for nothing if necessary, and I say to her: "I
can show no consideration in money matters/'
I t is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate
the fulfillment of a wish, but in all cases of this kind
there is a second problem, the solution of which
helps also to solve the first. Where does she get
the words which she puts into my mouth? Of
course I have never told her anything like that, but
one of her brothers, the very one who has the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make
this remark about me. I t is then the purpose of
the dream that this brother should remain in the
right; and she does not try to justify this brother
merely in the dream; it is her purpose in life and
the motive for her being ill.
The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so

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clear that there is danger of overlooking it, as for
some time happened in my own case. In the sexual
make-up of many people there is a masochistic component, which has arisen through the conversion of
the aggressive, sadistic component into its opposite.
Such people are called "ideal" masochists, if they
seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be
inflicted upon them, but in humiliation and in
chastisement of the soul. I t is obvious that such
persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing
but wish-fulfillment, affording satisfaction for their
masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream.
A young man, who has in earlier years tormented
his elder brother, towards whom he was homosexually inclined, but who had undergone a complete
change of character, has the following dream, which
consists of three parts: (l) He is "insulted33 by
his brother. (2) Two adults are caressing each
other with homoseocual intentions. (3) His
brother has sold the enterprise whose management
the young man reserved for his own future. H e
awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the
most unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated: I t
would serve me quite right if my brother were to
make that sale against my interest, as a punishment

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101

for all the torments which he has suffered at my;
hands.
I hope that the above discussion and examples
will suffice—until further objection can be raised—
to make it seem credible that even dreams with a
painful content are to be analyzed as the fulfillments of wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of
chance that in the course of interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which one does not
like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation
which such dreams arouse is simply identical with
the antipathy which endeavors—usually with success—to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such subjects, and which must be overcome
by all of us, if, in spite of its unpleasantness, we
find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But
this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in
dreams, does not preclude the existence of a wish;
every one has wishes which he would not like to tell
to others, which he does not want to admit even to
himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in
connecting the disagreeable character of all these
dreams with the fact of dream disfigurement, and
in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and
that the wish-fulfillment in them is disguised until
recognition is impossible for no other reason than
that a repugnance, a will to suppress, exists in rela-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

tion to the subject-matter of the dream or in relation to the wish which the dream creates. Dream
disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act
of the censor. We shall take into consideration
everything which the analysis of disagreeable
dreams has brought to light if we reword our
formula as follows: The dream is the (disguised)
fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish.
Now there still remain as a particular species of
dreams with painful content, dreams of anxiety,
the inclusion of which under dreams of wishing will
find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I
can settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very
short order; for what they may reveal is not a new
aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in
their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which we experience in the dream
is only seemingly explained by the dream content.
If we subject the content of the dream to analysis,
we become aware that the dream fear is no more
justified by the dream content than the fear in a
phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia
depends. For example, it is true that it is possible
to fall out of a window, and that some care must be
exercised when one is near a window, but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding
phobia is so great, and why it follows its victims to

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103

an extent so much greater than is warranted by its
origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to the phobia applies also to the dream of
anxiety. In both cases the anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it
and comes from another source.
On account of, the intimate relation of dream fear
to neurotic fear, discussion of the former obliges
me to refer to the latter. I n a little essay on "The
Anxiety Neurosis," 1 I maintained that neurotic
fear has its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds
to a libido which has been turned away from its
object and has not succeeded in being applied.
From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams is of a
sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content
has been transformed into fear.
* See Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, p. 133,
translated by A. A. Brill, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases,
Monograph Series.

V
SEX I N DREAMS

T H E more one is occupied with the solution of
dreams, the more willing one must become to acknowledge that the majority of the dreams of adults
treat of sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only one who really analyzes dreams,
that is to say, who pushes forward from their manifest content to the latent dream thoughts, can form
an opinion on this subject—never the person who is
satisfied with registering the manifest content (as,
for example, Nacke in his works on sexual dreams).
Let us recognize at once that this fact is not to be
wondered at, but that it is in complete harmony
with the fundamental assumptions of dream explanation. No other impulse has had to undergo so
much suppression from the time of childhood as the
sex impulse in its numerous components, from no
other impulse have survived so many and such intense unconscious wishes, which now act in the
sleeping state in such a manner as to produce
dreams. In dream interpretation, this significance
of sexual complexes must never be forgotten, nor
104

SEX IN DREAMS

105

must they, of course, be exaggerated to the point
of being considered exclusive.
Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that they are even to be taken
bisexually, inasmuch as they result in an irrefutable
secondary interpretation in which they realize homosexual feelings—that is, feelings that are common
to the normal sexual activity of the dreaming person. But that all dreams are to be interpreted
bisexually, seems to me to be a generalization as indemonstrable as it is improbable, which I should
not like to support. Above all I should not know
how to dispose of the apparent fact that there are
many dreams satisfying other than—in the widest
sense—erotic needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst,
convenience, &c. Likewise the similar assertions
"that behind every dream one finds the death sentence" (Stekel), and that every dream shows "a
continuation from the feminine to the masculine
line" (Adler), seem to me to proceed far beyond
what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.
W e have already asserted elsewhere that dreams
which are conspicuously innocent invariably embody coarse erotic wishes, and we might confirm
this by means of numerous fresh examples. But
many dreams which appear indifferent, and which
would never be suspected of any particular signifi-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

cance, can be traced back, after analysis, to unmistakably sexual wish-feelings, which are often of an
unexpected nature. For example, who would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the
interpretation had been worked out? The dreamer
relates: Between two stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors are
closed. My wife leads me a little way along the
street up to tlie little house, and pushes in the door,
and then I slip quickly and easily into the interior
of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards.
Any one who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of course, immediately perceive
that penetrating into narrow spaces, and opening
locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and will easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from behind (between
the two stately buttocks of the female body). The
narrow slasiting passage is of course the vagina; the
assistance attributed to the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it is only
consideration for the wife which is responsible for
the detention from such an attempt. Moreover,
inquiry shows that on the previous day a young girl
had entered the household of the dreamer who had
pleased him, and who had given him the impression
that she would not be altogether opposed to an ap-

SEX IN DREAMS

107

proach of this sort. The little house between the
two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the
Hradschin in Prague, and thus points again to the
girl who is a native of that city.
If with my patients I emphasize the frequency
of the Oedipus dream—of having sexual intercourse
with one's mother—I get the answer: " I cannot
remember such a dream." Immediately afterwards, however, there arises the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has
been dreamed repeatedly by the patient, and the analysis shows it to be a dream of this same c o n t e n t that is, another Oedipus dream. I can assure the
reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with
the mother are a great deal more frequent than open
ones to the same effect.
There are dreams about landscapes and localities
in which emphasis is always laid upon the assurance:
" I have been there before." I n this case the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can
indeed be asserted with such certainty of no other
locality that one "has been there before."
A large number of dreams, often full of fear,
which are concerned with passing through narrow
spaces or with staying in the water, are based upon
fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn
in the mother's womb, and about the act of birth.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

The following is the dream of a young man who in
his fancy has already while in embryo taken advantage of his opportunity to spy upon an act of
coition between his parents.
"He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window,
as in the Semmering Tunnel. At first he sees an
empty landscape through this window, and then he
composes a picture into it, which is immediately at
hand and which fills out the empty space. The
picture represents a field which is being thoroughly
harrowed by an implement, and the delightful air,
the accompanying idea of hard work, and the bluishblack clods of earth make a pleasant impression.
He then goes on and sees a primary school opened
. . . and he is surprised that so much attention is
devoted in it to the sexual feelings of the child,
which makes him think of me!3
Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient,
which was turned to extraordinary account in the
course of treatment.
At her summer resort at the . . . Lake, she hurls
herself into the dark water at a place where the pale
moon is reflected in the water.
Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their
interpretation is accomplished by reversing the fact
reported in the manifest dream content; thus, instead of "throwing one's self into the water," read

SEX IN DREAMS

109

5

"coming out of the water/ that is, "being born."
The place from which one is born is recognized if
one thinks of the bad sense of the French "la lune."
The pale moon thus becomes the white "bottom"
(Popo), which the child soon recognizes as the place
from which it came. Now what can be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born at her summer resort? I asked the dreamer this, and she answered without hesitation: "Hasn't the treatment
made me as though I were born again?" Thus the
dream becomes an invitation to continue the cure
at this summer resort, that is, to visit her there;
perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion to
the wish to become a mother herself.1
Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from the work of E . Jones. "She
stood at the seashore watching a small hoy, who
seemed to he hers, wading into the water. This he
did till the water covered him, and she could only
see his head hohbing up and down near the surface.
The scene then changed to the crowded hall of a
i I t is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of
fancies and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They
contain the explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people
of being buried alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason
for the belief in a life after death which represents nothing but a
projection into the future of this mysterious life before birth. The
act of birth, moreover, is the first experience with fear, and is thus
the source and model of the emotion of fear.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

hotel. Her husband left her, and she 'entered into
conversation with' a stranger." The second half
of the dream was discovered in the analysis to represent a flight from her husband, and the entering
into intimate relations with a third person, behind
whom was plainly indicated Mr. X.'s brother mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the
dream was a fairly evident birth phantasy. I n
dreams as in mythology, the delivery of a child from
the uterine waters is commonly presented by distortion as the entry of the child into water; among
many others, the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses,
and Bacchus are well-known illustrations of this.
The bobbing up and down of the head in the water
at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening she had experienced in her only pregnancy.
Thinking of the boy going into the water induced
a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of
the water, carrying him into the nursery, washing
him and dressing him, and installing him in her
household.
The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning the elopement, which belonged to the first half of the underlying latent content; the first half of the dream corresponded with
the second half of the latent content, the birth
phantasy. Besides this inversion in order, further

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111

inversions took place in each half of the dream.
In the first half the child entered the water, and
then his head bobbed; in the underlying dream
thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then the
child left the water (a double inversion). I n the
second half her husband left her; in the dream
thoughts she left her husband.
Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking forward to her
first confinement. From a place in the floor
of the house a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path, amniotic
liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there
immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the
dreamer, to whom she has always stood in maternal
relationship.
Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save, especially to save from the
water, is equivalent to giving birth when dreamed
by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when
the dreamer is a man.
Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which
we are afraid before going to bed, and which occasionally even disturb our sleep, originate in one
and the same childish reminiscence. They are the

112

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

nightly visitors who have awakened the child to set
it on the chamber so that it may not wet the bed, or
have lifted the cover in order to see clearly how the
child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have
been able to induce an exact recollection of the
nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of these
anxiety dreams. The robbers were always the father, the ghosts more probably corresponded to
feminine persons with white night-gowns.
When one has become familiar with the abundant use of symbolism for the representation of
sexual material in dreams, one naturally raises the
question whether there are not many of these symbols which appear once and for all with a firmly established significance like the signs in stenography;
and one is tempted to compile a new dream-book
according to the cipher method. I n this connection
it may be remarked that this symbolism does not
belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses,
and it is to be found in greater perfection in
the folklore, in the myths, legends, and manners of speech, in the proverbial sayings, and in
the current witticisms of a nation than in its
dreams.
The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in
order to give a disguised representation to its latent

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118

thoughts. Among the symbols which are used in
this manner there are of course many which regularly, or almost regularly, mean the same thing.
Only it is necessary to keep in mind the curious
plasticity of psychic material. Now and then a
symbol in the dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according to its real
meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a
peculiar set of recollections, may create for himself
the right to use anything whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that way.
Nor are the most frequently used sexual symbols
unambiguous every time.
After these limitations and reservations I may
call attention to the following: •Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) in most cases really represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is the prince or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and umbrellas
(on account of the stretching-up which might be
compared to an erection! all elongated and sharp
weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, are intended
to represent the male member. A frequent, not
very intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file
(on account of the rubbing and scraping?). Little
cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and stoves correspond
to the female part. The symbolism of lock and

114

DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

key has been very gracefully employed by Uhland
iii his song about the "Grafen Eberstein," to make
a common smutty joke. The dream of walking
through a row of rooms is a brothel or harem dream.
Staircases, ladders, and flights of stairs, or climbing
on these, either upwards or downwards, are symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth
walls over which one is climbing, facades of houses
upon which one is letting oneself down, frequently
under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human body, and probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward climbing of little children
on their parents or foster parents. "Smooth"
walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one
is holding on firmly to some projection from a
house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women,
perhaps on account of the opposition which does
away with the bodily contours. Since "bed and
board" (mensa et thorns) constitute marriage, the
former are often put for the latter in the dream,
and as far as practicable the sexual presentation
complex is transposed to the eating complex. Of
articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be
definitely interpreted as the male genital. In
dreams of men one often finds the cravat a s a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only because
cravats hang down long and are characteristic of

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115

the men, but also because one can select them at
pleasure, a freedom which is prohibited by nature
in the original of the symbol. Persons who make
use of this symbol in the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and possess regular collections
of them. All complicated machines and apparatus
in dream are very probably genitals, in the description of which dream symbolism shows itself to be as
tireless as the activity of wit. Likewise many landscapes in dreams, especially with bridges or with
wooded mountains, can be readily recognized as
descriptions of the genitals. Finally where one
finds incomprehensible neologisms one may think
of combinations made up of components having a
sexual significance. Children also in the dream
often signify the genitals, as men and women are
in the habit of fondly referring to their genital
organ as their "little one." As a very recent symbol of the male genital may be mentioned the flying
machine, utilization of which is justified by its relation to flying as well as occasionally by its form.
To play with a little child or to beat a little one is
often the dream's representation of onanism. A
number of other symbols, in part not sufficiently
verified are given by Stekel, who illustrates them
with examples. Right and left, according to him,
are to be conceived in the dream in an ethical sense.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

"The right way always signifies the road to righteousness, the left the one to crime. Thus the left
may signify homosexuality, incest, and perversion,
while the right signifies marriage, relations with a
prostitute, &c. The meaning is always determined
by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer."
Relatives in the dream generally play the role of
genitals. Not to be able to catch up with a wagon
is interpreted by Stekel as regret not to be able to
come up to a difference in age. Baggage with
which one travels is the burden of sin by which one
is oppressed. Also numbers, which frequently
occur in the dream, are assigned by Stekel a fixed
symbolical meaning, but these interpretations seem
neither sufficiently verified nor of general validity,
although the interpretation in individual cases can
generally be recognized as probable. In a recently
published book by W . Stekel, Die Sprache des
Traumes, which I was unable to utilize, there is a list
of the most common sexual symbols, the object of
which is to prove that all sexual symbols can be
bisexually used. H e states: "Is there a symbol
which (if in any way permitted by the phantasy)
may not be used simultaneously in the masculine
and the feminine sense!" To be sure the clause in
parentheses takes away much of the absoluteness
of this assertion, for this is not at all permitted by

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the phantasy. I do not, however, think it superfluous to state that in my experience Stekel's general statement has to give way to the recognition of
a greater manifoldness. Besides those symbols,
which are just as frequent for the male as for the
female genitals, there are others which preponderately, or almost exclusively, designate one of the
sexes, and there are still others of which only the
male or only the female signification is known. To
use long, firm objects and weapons as symbols of
the female genitals, or hollow objects (chests,
pouches, &c.), as symbols of the male genitals, is
indeed not allowed by the fancy.
I t is true that the tendency of the dream and the
unconscious fancy to utilize the sexual symbol
bisexually betrays an archaic trend, for in childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and
the same genitals are attributed to both sexes.
These very incomplete suggestions may suffice
to stimulate others to make a more careful collection.
I shall now add a few examples of the application
of such symbolisms in dreams, which will serve to
show how impossible it becomes to interpret a
dream without taking into account the symbolism
of dreams, and how imperatively it obtrudes itself
in many cases.

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I. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male
genital): (a fragment from the dream of a young
woman who suffered from agoraphobia on account
of a fear of temptation).
" I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a
straw hat of peculiar shape, the middle piece of
which is bent upwards and the side pieces of which
hang downwards (the description became here obstructed), and in such a fashion that one is lower
than the other. I am cheerful and in a confidential
mood, and as I pass a troop of young officers I
think to myself: None of you can have any designs upon me."
As she could produce no associations to the hat,
I said to her: "The hat is really a male genital,
with its raised middle piece and the two downward
hanging side pieces." I intentionally refrained
from interpreting those details concerning the unequal downward hanging of the two side pieces, although just such individualities in the determinations lead the way to the interpretation. I
continued by saying that if she only had a man with
such a virile genital she would not have to fear the
officers—that is, she would have nothing to wish
from them, for she is mainly kept from going without protection and company by her fancies of temptation. This last explanation of her fear I had al-

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ready been able to give her repeatedly on the basis
of other material.
I t is quite remarkable how the dreamer behaved
after this interpretation. She withdrew her description of the hat, and claimed not to have said
that the two side pieces were hanging downwards.
I was, however, too sure of what I had heard to
allow myself to be misled, and I persisted in it.
She was quiet for a while, and then found the courage to ask why it was that one of her husband's
testicles was lower than the other, and whether it
was the same in all men. With this the peculiar
detail of the hat was explained, and the whole interpretation was accepted by her. The hat symbol
was familiar to me long before the patient related
this dream. From other but less transparent cases
I believe that the hat may also be taken as a female
genital.
2. The little one as the genital—to be run over
ds a symbol of sexual intercourse (another dream
of the same agoraphobic patient).
"Her mother sends away her little daughter so
that she must go alone. She rides with her mother
to the railroad and sees her little one walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid
being run over. She hears the bones crackle.
(From this she experiences a feeling of discomfort

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but no real horror.) She then looks out through
the car window to see whether the parts cannot be
seen behind. She then reproaches her mother for
allowing the little one to go out alone." Analysis.
It is not an easy matter to give here a complete interpretation of the dream. It forms part of a cycle
of dreams, and can be fully understood only in connection with the others. For it is not easy to get
the necessary material sufficiently isolated to prove
the symbolism. The patient at first finds that the
railroad journey is to be interpreted historically as
an allusion to a departure from a sanatorium for
nervous diseases, with the superintendent of which
she naturally was in love. Her mother took her
away from this place, and the physician came to the
railroad station and handed her a bouquet of flowers on leaving; she felt uncomfortable because her
mother witnessed this homage. Here the mother,
therefore, appears as- a disturber of her love affairs,
which is the role actually played by this strict
woman during her daughter's girlhood. The next
thought referred to the sentence: "She then looks
to see whether the parts can be seen behind." In
the dream facade one would naturally be compelled
to think of the parts of the little daughter run over
and ground up. The thought, however, turns in
quite a different direction. She recalls that she

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once saw her father in the bath-room naked from
behind; she then begins to talk about the sex differentiation, and asserts that in the man the genitals
can be seen from behind, but in the woman they cannot. In this connection she now herself offers the
interpretation that the little one is the genital, her
little one (she has a four-year-old daughter) her
own genital. She reproaches her mother for wanting her to live as though she had no genital, and
recognizes this reproach in the introductory sentence of the dream; the mother sends away her little one so that she must go alone. I n her phantasy
going alone on the street signifies to have no man
and no sexual relations (coire = to go together),
and this she does not like. According to all her
statements she really suffered as a girl on account
of the jealousy of her mother, because she showed
a preference for her father.
The "little one" has been noted as a symbol for
the male or the female genitals by Stekel, who can
refer in this connection to a very widespread usage
of language.
The deeper interpretation of this dream depends
upon another dream of the same night in which the
dreamer identifies herself with her brother. She
was a "tomboy," and was always being told that she
should have been born a boy. This identification

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with the brother shows with special clearness that
"the little one" signifies the genital. The mother
threatened him (her) with castration, which could
only be understood as a punishment for playing
with the parts, and the identification, therefore,
shows that she herself had masturbated as a child,
though this fact she now retained only in memory
concerning her brother. An early knowledge of
the male genital which she later lost she must have
acquired at that time according to the assertions
of this second dream. Moreover the second dream
points to the infantile sexual theory that girls originate from boys through castration. After I had
told her of this childish belief, she at once confirmed
it with an anecdote in which the boy asks the girl:
"Was it cut off?" to which the girl replied, "No, it's
always been so."
The sending away of the little one, of the genital,
in the first dream therefore also refers to the threatened castration. Finally she blames her mother
for not having been born a boy.
That "being run over" symbolizes sexual intercourse would not be evident from this dream if we
were not sure of it from many other sources.
3. Representation of the genital by structures,
stairways, and shafts. (Dream of a young man inhibited by a father complex.)

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128

" H e is taking a walk with his father in a place
which is surely the Prater, for the Eotunda may
be seen in front of which there is a small front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the
balloon, however, seems quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all for; he is surprised at
it, but he explains it to his father. They come into
a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to pull off a big piece of this, but first
looks around to see if any one is watching. H e
tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak
to the watchman, and then he can take without any
further difficulty as much as he wants to. From
this court a stairway leads down into a shaft, the
walls of which are softly upholstered something like
a leather pocketbook. A t the end of this shaft
there is a longer platform, and then a new shaft begins. . . ."
Analysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable from a therapeutic
point of view. They follow in the analysis without offering any resistances whatever up to a certain
point, but from that point on they reman almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my genital, the
captive balloon in front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried. We must, however,

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interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which is regularly associated by the child with
the genital, the smaller front structure is the
scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what
this is all for—that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the genitals. I t is quite
evident that this state of affairs should be turned
around, and that he should be the questioner. As
such a questioning on the side of the father has
never taken place in reality, we must conceive the
dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally,
as follows: "If I had only asked my father for
sexual enlightenment." The continuation of this
thought we shall soon find in another place.
The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is
not to be conceived symbolically in the first instance,
but originates from his father's place of business.
For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin
for another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered
his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike
to the questionable practices upon which profit
mainly depends. Hence the continuation of the
above dream thought ("if I had only asked him")
would be: "He would have deceived me just as
he does his customers." For the pulling off, which

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125

serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the
dreamer himself gives a second explanation—
namely, onanism. This is not only entirely far
miliar to us, but agrees very well with the fact
that the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its
opposite ("Why one can do it quite openly"). It,
moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that
the onanistic activity is again put off on the father,
just as was the questioning in the first scene of
the dream. The shaft he at once interprets as the
vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the
walls. That the act of coition in the vagina is described as a going down instead of in the usual way
as a going up, I have also found true in other instances.1
The details that at the end of the first shaft there
is a longer platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. H e had for some
time consorted with women sexually, but had then
given it up because of inhibitions and now hopes
to be able to take it up again with the aid of the
treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident that in the second scene
of the dream the influence of another subject has
begun to assert itself; in this his father's business
i Cf. Zentralblatt

fur psychoanalyse,

I.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

and his dishonest practices signify the first vagina
represented as a shaft so that one might think of
a reference to the mother.
4. The male genital symbolized by persons and
the female by a landscape.
(Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose
, husband is a policeman, reported by B. Dattner.)
. . . Then some one broke into the house and
anxiously called for a policeman. But he went
with two tramps by mutual consent into a church/
to which led a great many stairs; 2 behind the
church there was a mountain,3 on top of which a
dense forest.4 The policeman was furnished with
a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.5 The two vagrants, who went along with the policeman quite
peaceably, had tied to their loins sack-like aprons.6
A road led from the church to the mountain. This
road was overgrown on each side with grass and
brushwood, which became thicker and thicker as it
reached the height of the mountain, where it spread
out into quite a forest.
5. A stairway dream.
(Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.)
i Or chapel—vagina,.
4
2 Symbol of coitus.
3 Mons veneris.
Crines pubis.
s Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation
of a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature.
6
The two halves of the scrotum.

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127

F o r the following transparent pollution dream,
I am indebted to the same colleague who furnished
us with the dental-irritation dream.
" I am running down the stairway in the stairhouse after a little girl, whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me.
(A grown-up woman?) I grasp it, but do not
know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find
myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the child (in the air as it were). I t
is really no coitus, I only rub my genital on her
external genital, and in doing this I see it very distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying
sideways. During the sexual act I see hanging
to the left and above me (also as if in the air) two
small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on
a green. On the smaller one my surname stood in
the place where the painter's signature should be;
it seemed to be intended for my birthday present.
A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the
effect that cheaper pictures could also be obtained.
I then see myself very indistinctly lying in bed, just
as I had seen myself at the foot of the stairs, and
I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which
came from the pollution."
Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

book-store on the evening of the day of the dream,
where, while he was waiting, he examined some pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the dream pictures. H e stepped
nearer to a small picture which particularly took
his fancy in order to see the name of the artist,
which, however, was quite unknown to him.
Later in the same evening, in company, he heard
about a Bohemian servant-girl who boasted that
her illegitimate child "was made on the stairs."
The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl
went with her lover to the home of her parents,
where there was no opportunity for sexual relations, and that the excited man performed the act
on the stairs. I n witty allusion to the mischievous
expression used about wine-adulterers, the dreamer
remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar
steps."
These experiences of the day, which are quite
prominent in the dream content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily
reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection
which was also utilized by the dream. The stairhouse was the house in which he had spent the
greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had
first become acquainted with sexual problems. In

SEX IN DREAMS

129

this house he used, among other things, to slide
down the banister astride which caused him to become sexually excited. I n the dream he also comes
down the stairs very rapidly—so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he hardly
touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or
"slid down," as we used to say. Upon reference to
this infantile experience, the beginning of the dream
seems to represent the factor of sexual excitement.
I n the same house and in the adjacent residence
the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with
the neighboring children, in which he satisfied himself just as he did in the dream.
If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism* that in the dream stairs or climbing
stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus, the dream
becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is shown by the pollution, is of a purely
libidinous nature. Sexual excitement became
aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream
this is represented by the rapid running or sliding
down the stairs) and the sadistic thread in this is,
on the basis of the pugnacious playing, indicated in
the pursuing and over-coming of the child. The
libidinous excitement becomes enhanced and urges
to sexual action (represented in the dream .by the
i See Zentralblatt fiw Psychoanalyse, vol. i., p. 2.

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the
middle of the stairway). Up to this point the
dream would be one of pure, sexual symbolism, and
obscure for the unpracticed dream interpreter.
But this symbolic gratification, which would have
insured undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for
the powerful libidinous excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for
coitus. Freud lays stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one* of the reasons for the
sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and
this dream especially seems to corroborate this, for,
according to j;he express assertion of the dreamer,
the rhythm of a sexual act was the most pronounced
feature in the whole dream.
Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from their* real significance, also
have the value of "Weibsbilder" (literally womanpictures, but idiomatically women). This is at
once shown by the fact that the dream deals with
a big and a little picture, just as the dream content
presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That
cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the
prostitution complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the thought that it
was intended for his birthday, point to the parent

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131

complex (to be born on the stairway—to be conceived in coitus).
The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer
sees himself on the staircase landing lying in bed
and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood
even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly
has its prototype in similarly pleasurable' scenes of
bed-wetting.
6. A modified stair-dream.
To one of my very nervous patients, who was an
abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother,
and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that
moderate masturbation would be less harmful to
him than enforced abstinence. This influence provoked the following dream:
"His- piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and for not practicing the
Etudes of Moscheles and Clementi's Gradus ad
Parnasswmf* I n .relation to this he remarked that
the Gradus is only a stairway, and that the piano
itself is only a stairway as it has a scale.
I t is correct to say that there is no series of associations which cannot be adapted to the representation of sexual facts. I conclude with the
dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

trying to give up his habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women.
Preliminary statement.—On the day before the
dream he had given a student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium is to
be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic influence of iodine. Two days before, there
had been an explosion in the course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his
hand.
Dream I. He is to make phenylmagnesiumbromid; he sees the apparatus with particular clearness, but he has substituted himself for the magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude.
He keeps repeating to himself, "This is the right
thing, it is working, my feet are beginning to dissolve cmd my knees are getting soft. Then he
reaches down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile
{he does not know how) he takes his legs out of the
crucible, and then again he says to himself, "That
cannot be. . . . Yes, it must be so, it has been done
correctly." Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he wants to tell
it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the analysis
of the dream. He is much earcited during this
semi-sleeping state, and repeats
continually,
"Phenyl, phenyl."

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133

I I . He' is in . . . ing with his whole family; at
half-past eleven. He is to he at the Schottenthor
for a rendezvous with a certain lady, hut he does not
wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too late now; when you* get there it will
be half-past twelve." The next instant he sees the
whole family gathered about the table—his mother
and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness. Then he says to himself, "Well,
if we are eating already, I certainly can't get
away."
Analysis: H e feels sure that even the first
dream contains a reference to the lady whom he is
to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed
during the night before the expected meeting).
The student to whom he gave the instruction is a
particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to the
chemist: "That isn't right/' because the magnesium was still unaffected, and the latter answered as
though he did not €are anything about it: "It certainly isn't right." H e himself must be this student; he is as indifferent towards his analysis as
the student is towards his synthesis; the He in the
dream, however, who accomplishes the operation,
is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me
with his indifference towards the success achieved!
Moreover, he is the material with which the an-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

alysis (synthesis) is made. For it is a question of
the success of the treatment. The legs in the
dream recall an impression of the previous evening.
H e met a lady at a dancing lesson whom he wished
to conquer; he pressed her to him so closely that
she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing
against her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs as far as just above
his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In
this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in
the retort, which is at last working. H e is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards the
woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work. Feeling and becoming aware
of himself in the region of his knees refers to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the
previous day. . . . The rendezvous had actually
been set for half-past eleven. His wish to oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects
(that is, with masturbation) corresponds with his
resistance.

VI
T H E WISH I N DREAMS

the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment surely -seemed strange to us all—and that
not alone because of the contradictions offered by
the anxiety dream.
After learning from the first analytical explanations that the dream conceals sense and psychic
validity, we could hardly -expect so simple a determination of this sense. * According to the correct
but concise definition of Aristotle, the dream is a
continuation of thinldng in sleep (in so far as one
sleeps). Considering that during the day our
thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts
•—judgments, conclusions, contradictions, expectations, intentions, &c.—why should our sleeping
thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the production of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary,
many dreams that present a different psychic act
in dream form, e.g.,, a solicitude, and is not the very
transparent father's dream mentioned above of
just such a nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the father draws the
THAT

135

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

solicitous conclusion that a candle has been upset
and may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms
this conclusion into a dream by investing it with a
senseful situation enacted in the present tense.
What part is played in this dream by the wishfulfillment, and which are we to suspect—the predominance of the thought continued from, the waking state or of the thought incited by the new sensory impression?
All these considerations are just, and force us to
enter more deeply into the part played by the wishfulfillment, in the dream, and into the significance
of the waking thoughts continued in sleep.
I t is in fact the wish-fulfillment that has already
induced us to separate dreams into two groups.
We have found some dreams that were plainly
wish-fulfillments; and others in which wish-fulfillment could not be recognised, and was frequently
concealed by every available means. I n this latter
class of dreams we recognized the influence of the
dream censor. The undisguised wish dreams were
chiefly found in children, yet fleeting open-hearted
wish dreams seemed (I purposely emphasize this
word) to occur also in adults.
W e may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the
dream originates. But to what opposition o r to
what diversity do we refer this "whence"? I think

T H E W I S H IN DREAMS

137

it is to the opposition between conscious daily life
and a psychic activity remaining unconscious which
can only make itself noticeable during the night.
I thus find a threefold possibility for the origin of
a wish. Firstly, it may have been incited during
the day, and owing to external circumstances failed
to find gratification, there is thus left for the night
an acknowledged but unfulfilled wish. Secondly,
it may come to the surface during the day but be
rejected, leaving an unfulfilled but suppressed
wish. Or, thirdly, it may have no relation to daily
life, and belong to those wishes that originate during the night from the suppression. If we now
follow our scheme of the psychic apparatus, we can
localize a wish of the first order in the system Forec.
W e may assume that a wish of the second order
has been forced back from the Forec. system into
the Unc. system, where alone, if anywhere, it can
maintain itself; while a wish-feeling of the third
order we consider altogether incapable of leaving
the Unc. system. This brings up the question
whether wishes arising from these different sources
possess the same value for the dream, and whether
they have the same power to incite a dream.
On reviewing the dreams which we have at our
disposal for answering this question, we are at once
moved to add as a fourth source of the dream-wish

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

the actual wish incitements arising during the night,
such as thirst and sexual desire. I t then becomes
evident that the source of the dream-wish does not
affect its capacity to incite a dream. That a wish
suppressed during the day asserts itself in the
dream can be shown by a great many examples, I
shall mention a very simple example of this class.
A somewhat sarcastic young lady, whose younger
friend has become engaged to be married, is asked
throughout the day by her acquaintances whether
she knows and what she thinks of the fiance. She
answers with unqualified praise, thereby silencing
her own judgment, as she would prefer to tell the
truth, namely, that he is an ordinary person. The
following night she dreams that the same question
is put to her, and that she replies with the formula:
"In case of subsequent orders it will suffice to mention the number." Finally, we have learned from
numerous analyses that the wish in all dreams that
have been subject to distortion has been derived
from the unconscious, and has been unable to come
to perception in the waking state. Thus it would
appear that all wishes are of the same value and
force for the dream formation.
I am at present unable to prove that the state
of affairs is really different, but I am strongly inclined to assume a more stringent determination of

T H E W I S H IN DREAMS

139

the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave no doubt
that an unfulfilled wish of the day may be the instigator of the dream. But we must not forget
that it is, after all, the wish of a child, that it is a
wish-feeling of infantile strength only. I have a
strong doubt whether an unfulfilled wish from the
day would suffice to create a dream in an adult.
It would rather seem that as we learn to control our
impulses by intellectual activity, we more and more
reject as vain the formation or retention of such
intense wishes as are natural to childhood. I n this,
indeed, there may be individual variations; some retain the infantile type of psychic processes longer
than others. The differences are here the same as
those found in the gradual decline of the originally
distinct visual imagination.
I n general, however, I am of the opinion that
unfulfilled wishes of the day are insufficient to produce a dream in adults. I readily admit that the
wish instigators originating in conscious like contribute towards the incitement of dreams, but that
is probably all. The dream would not originate
if the foreconscious wish were not reinforced from
another source.
That source is the unconscious. I believe that
the conscious wish is a dream inciter only if it succeeds in arousing a similar unconscious wish which

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

reinforces it. Following the suggestions obtained
through the psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes are always active and ready for expression whenever they find
an opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life, and that they transfer their
greater intensity to the lesser intensity of the latter, 1 I t may therefore seem that the conscious
wish alone has been realized in a dream; but a slight
peculiarity in the formation of this dream will put
us on the track of the powerful helper from the unconscious. These ever active and, as it were, immortal wishes from the unconscious recall the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have borne
the ponderous mountains which were once rolled
upon them by the victorious gods, and which even
now quiver from time to time from the convulsions
of their mighty limbs; I say that these wishes found
in the repression are of themselves of an infantile
origin, as we have learned from the psychological
i They share this character of indestructibility with all psychic acts
that are really unconscious—that is, with psychic acts belonging to the
system of the unconscious only. These patjis are constantly open and
never fall into disuse; they conduct the discharge of the exciting process as often as it becomes endowed with unconscious excitement. To
speak metaphorically they suffer the same form of annihilation as the
shades of the lower region in the Odyssey^ who awoke to new life the
moment they drank blood. The processes depending on the foreconscious system are destructible in a different way. The psychotherapy
of the neuroses js based on this difference.

T H E WISH- IN DREAMS

141

investigation of the neuroses. I should like, therefore, to withdraw the opinion previously expressed
that it is unimportant whence the dream-wish originates, and replace it by another, as follows: The
wish manifested in the dream must be an infantile
one. I n the adult it originates in the U n c , while
in the child, where no separation and cesor as yet
exist between Forec. and U n c , or where these are
only in the 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 nevertheless that it
can be frequently demonstrated, even when it was
not suspected, and that it cannot be generally refuted.
The wish-feelings which remain from the conscious waking state are, therefore, relegated to the
background in the dream formation. In the dream
content I shall attribute to them only the part -attributed to the material of actual sensations 'during
sleep. If I now take into account those other
psychic instigations remaining from the waking
state which are not wishes, I shall only adhere to the line mapped out for me by this train of
thought. We may succeed in provisionally terminating the sum of energy of our waking thoughts
by deciding to go to sleep. H e is a good sleeper

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who can do this; Napoleon I. is reputed to have
been a model of this sort. But we do not always
succeed in accomplishing it, or in accomplishing it
perfectly. Unsolved problems, harassing cares,
overwhelming impressions continue the thinking activity even during sleep, maintaining psychic processes in the system which we have termed the foreconscious. These mental processes continuing into
sleep may be divided into the following groups:
1, That which has not been terminated during the
day owing to casual prevention; 2, that which has
been left unfinished by temporary paralysis of our
mental power, i.e. the unsolved; 3, that which has
been rejected and suppressed during the day. This
unites with a powerful group (4) formed by that
which has been excited in our Unc. during the day
by the work of the foreconscious. Finally, wTe may
add group (5) consisting of the indifferent and
hence unsettled impressions of the day.
We should not underrate the psychic intensities
introduced into sleep by these remnants of waking
life, especially those emanating from the group of
the unsolved. These excitations surely continue
to strive for expression during the night, and we
may assume with equal certainty that the sleeping
state renders impossible the usual continuation of
the excitement in the f oreconscious and the termina-

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143

t?on of the excitement by its becoming conscious.
As far as we can normally become conscious of our
mental processes, even during the night, in so far
we are not asleep. I shall not venture to state
what change is produced in the Forec. system by
the sleeping state, but there is no doubt that the
psychological character of sleep is essentially due
to the change of energy in this very system, which
also dominates the approach to motility, which is
paralyzed during sleep. In contradistinction to
this, there seems to be nothing in the psychology of
the -dream to warrant the assumption that 'sleep
produces any but secondary changes in the conditions of the Unc. system. Hence, for the nocturnal excitation in the Forec. there remains no other
path than that followed by the wish excitements
from the Unc. This excitation must seek reinforcement from the Unc., and follow the detours
of the unconscious excitations. But what is the
relation of the foreoonscious day remnants 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 occasionally even dominate the dream content, and
impel it to continue the work of the day; it is also
certain that the day remnants may just as well

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have any other character as that of wishes; but it is
highly instructive and even decisive for the theory
of wish-fulfillment to see what conditions they must
comply with in order to be received into the dream.
Let us pick out one of the dreams cited above as
examples, e.g., the dream in which my friend Otto
seems to show, the symptoms of Basedow's disease.
My friend Otto's appearance occasioned me some
concern during the day, and this worry, like
everything else referring to this person, affected
me. I may also assume that these feelings followed me into sleep. I was probably bent on
finding out what was the matter with him.
In the night my worry found expression in the
dream which I have reported, the content of which
was not .only senseless, but failed to show any wishfulfillment. But I began to investigate for the
source of this incongruous expression of the solicitude felt during the day, and analysis revealed the
connection. I identified my friend Otto with a certain Baron L. and myself with a Professor R.
There was only one explanation for my being impelled to select just this substitution for the day
thought. I must have always been prepared in the
U n a to identify myself with Professor R., as it
meant the realization of one of the immortal infantile wishes, viz. that of becoming great. Re-

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145

pulsive ideas respecting my friend, 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 likewise found
some form of expression through a substitution in
the dream content. The day thought, which was
no wish in itself but rather a worry, had in some
way to find a connection with the infantile now unconscious and suppressed wish, which then allowed
it, though already properly prepared, to "originate" for consciousness. The more dominating
this worry, the stronger must be the connection to
be established; between the contents of the wish and
that of the worry there need be no connection, nor
was there one in any of our examples.
W e can now sharply define the significance of
the unconscious wish for the dream. I t may be
admitted that there is a whole class of dreams in
which the incitement originates preponderatingly
or even exclusively from the remnants of daily life;
and I believe that even my cherished desire to become at some future time a "professor extraordinarius" would have allowed me to slumber undisturbed that night had not my worry about my
friend's health been still active. But this worry
alone would not have produced a dream; the motive
power needed by the dream had .to be contributed

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

by a wish, and it was the affair of the Merriment tc
procure for itself such wish as a motive power oJ
the dream. To speak figuratively, it is quite possible that a day thought plays the part of the contractor (entrepreneur) in the dream. But it is
known that no matter what idea the contractor may
have in mind, and how desirous he may be of putting it into operation, he can do nothing without
capital; he must depend upon a capitalist to defray
the necessary expenses, and this capitalist, who supplies the psychic expenditure for the dream is invariably and indisputably a wish from the unconscious, no matter what the nature of the waking
thought may be.
In other cases the capitalist himself is the contractor for the dream; this, indeed, seems to be the
more usual case. An unconscious wish is produced
by the day's work, which in turn creates the dream.
The dream processes, moreover, run parallel with
all the other possibilities of the economic relationship used here as an illustration. Thus, the entrepreneur may contribute some capital himself, or
several entrepreneurs may seek the aid of the same
capitalist, or several capitalists may jointly supply
the capital required by the entrepreneur. Thus
there are dreams produced by more than one dreamwish, and many similar variations which may

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147

readily be passed over and are of no further interest
to us. What we have left unfinished in this discussion of the dream-wish we shall be able to develop
later.
The "tertium comparationis" in the comparisons
just employed—i.e. the sum placed at our free disposal in proper allotment—admits of still finer application for the illustration of the dream structure.
W e can recognize in most dreams a center especially
supplied with perceptible intensity. This is regularly the direct representation of the wish-fulfillment; for, if we undo the displacements of the
dream-work by a process of retrogression, we find
that the psychic intensity of the elements in the
dream thoughts is replaced by the perceptible intensity of the elements in the dream content.
The elements adjoining the wish-fulfillment have
frequently nothing to do with its sense, but prove
to be descendants of painful thoughts which oppose the wish. But, owing to their frequently
artificial connection with the central element,
they have acquired sufficient intensity to enable
them to come to expression. Thus, the force
of expression of the wish-fulfillment is diffused over a certain sphere of association, within
which it raises to expression all elements, including
those that are in themselves impotent. In dreams

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having several strong wishes we can readily separate from one another the spheres of the individual
wish-fulfiilments; the gaps in the dream likewise
can often be explained as boundary zones.
Although the foregoing remarks have considerably limited the significance of the day remnants
for the dream, it will nevertheless be worth our
while to give them some attention. For they must
be a necessary ingredient in the formation of the
dream, inasmuch as experience reveals the surprising fact that every dream shows in its content a
connection with some impression of a recent day,
often of the most indifferent kind. So far we have
failed to see any necessity for this addition to the
dream mixture. This necessity appears only when
we follow closely the part played by the unconscious wish, and then seek information in the
psychology of the neuroses. We thus learn that
the unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable of entering into the foreconscious, and that it
can exert an influence there only by uniting with a
harmless idea already belonging to the foreconscious, to which it transfers its intensity and under
which it allows itself to be concealed. This is the
fact of transference which furnishes an explanation for so many surprising occurrences in the
psychic life of neurotics.

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149

The idea from the foreconscious which thus obtains an unmerited abundance of intensity may be
left unchanged by the transference, or it may have
forced upon it a modification from the content of
the transferring idea. I trust the reader will pardon my fondness for comparisons from daily life,
but I feel tempted to say that the relations existing
for the repressed idea are similar to the situations
existing in Austria for the American dentist, who
is forbidden to practise unless he gets permission
from a regular physician to use his name on the
public signboard and thus cover the legal requirements. Moreover, just as it is naturally not the
busiest physicians who form such alliances with
dental practitioners, so in the psychic life only such
foreconscious or conscious ideas are chosen to cover
a repressed idea as have not themselves attracted
much of the attention which is operative in the foreconscious. The unconscious entangles with its connections preferentially either those impressions and
ideas of the foreconscious which have been left unnoticed as indifferent, or those that have soon been
deprived of this attention through rejection. I t is
a familiar fact from the association studies confirmed by every experience, that ideas which have
formed intimate connections in one direction assume an almost negative attitude to whole groups

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

of new connections. I once tried from this principle to develop a theory for hysterical paralysis.
If we assume that the same need for the transference of the repressed ideas which we have learned
to know from the analysis of the neuroses makes
its influence felt in the dream as well, we can at once
explain two riddles of the dream, viz. that every
dream analysis shows an interweaving of a recent
impression, and that this recent element is frequently of the most indifferent character. W e
may add what we have already learned elsewhere,
that these recent and indifferent elements come so
frequently into the dream content as a substitute
for the most deep-lying of the dream thoughts, for
the further reason that they have least to fear from
the resisting censor. But while this freedom from
censorship explains only the preference for trivial
elements, the constant presence of recent elements
points to the fact that there is a need for transference. Both groups of impressions satisfy the demand of the repression for material still free from
associations, the indifferent ones because they have
offered no inducement for extensive associations,
and the recent ones because they have had insufficient time to form such associations.
W e thus see that the day remnants, among which
we may now include the indifferent impressions

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151

when they participate in the dream formation, not
only borrow from the Unc. the motive power at the
disposal of the repressed wish, but also offer to the
unconscious something indispensable, namely, the
attachment necessary to the transference. If we
here attempted to penetrate more deeply into the
psychic processes, we should first have to throw
more light on the play of emotions between the
foreconscious and the unconscious, to which, indeed, we are urged by the study of the psychoneuroses, whereas the dream itself offers no assistance in this respect.
Just one further remark about the day remnants.
There is no doubt that they are the actual disturbers
of sleep, and not the dream, which, on the contrary,
strives to guard sleep. But we shall return to this
point later.
W e have so far discussed the dream-wisH, we
have traced it to the sphere of the U n c , and analyzed its relations to the day remnants, which in
turn may be either wishes, psychic emotions of any
other kind, or simply recent impressions. We have
thus made room for any claims that may be made
for the importance of conscious thought activity in
dream formations in all its variations. Relying
upon our thought series, it would not be at all impossible for us to explain even those extreme cases

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

in which the dream as a continuer of the day work
brings to a happy conclusion and unsolved problem of the waking state. We do not, however,
possess an example, the analysis of which might reveal the infantile or repressed wish source furnishing such alliance and successful strengthening of
the efforts of the foreconscious activity. But we
have not come one step nearer a solution of the
riddle: Why can the unconscious furnish the motive power for the wish-fulfillment only during
sleep? The answer to this question must throw
light on the psychic nature of wishes; and it will
be given with the aid of the diagram of the psychic
apparatus.
W e do not doubt that even this apparatus attained its present perfection through a long course
of development. Let us attempt to restore it as
it existed in an early phase of its activity. From
assumptions, to be confirmed elsewhere, we know
that at first the apparatus strove to keep as free
from excitement as possible, and in its first formation, therefore, the scheme took the form of a reflex apparatus, which enabled it promptly to discharge through the motor tracts any sensible
stimulus reaching it from without. But this simple
function was disturbed by the wants of life, which
likewise furnish the impulse for the further de-

T H E W I S H IN DREAMS

153

velopment of the apparatus. The wants of life
first manifested themselves to it in the form of the
great physical needs. The excitement aroused by
the inner want seeks an outlet in motility, which
may be designated as "inner changes" or as an "expression of the emotions." The hungry child cries
or fidgets helplessly, but its situation remains unchanged ; for the excitation proceeding from an inner want requires, not a momentary outbreak, but
a force working continuously. A change can occur only if in some way a feeling of gratification
is experienced—which in the case of the child must
be through outside help—in order to remove the
inner excitement. An essential constituent of this
experience is the appearance of a certain perception
(of food in our example), the memory picture of
which thereafter remains associated with the memory trace of the excitation of want.
Thanks to the established connection, there results at the next appearance of this want a psychic
feeling which revives the memory picture of the
former perception, and thus recalls the former perception itself, Le. it actually re-establishes the situation of the first gratification. W e call such a feeling a wish; the reappearance of the perception
constitutes the wish-fulfillment, and the full revival
of the perception by the want excitement consti-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

tutes the shortest road to the wish-fulfillment. We
may assume a primitive condition of the psychic
apparatus in which this road is really followed, i.e.
where the wishing merges into an hallucination.
This first psychic activity therefore aims at an
identity of perception, i.e. it aims at a repetition of
that perception which is connected with the fulfillment of the want.
This primitive mental activity must have been
modified by bitter practical experience into a more
expedient secondary activity. The establishment
of the identity perception on the short regressive
road within the apparatus does not in another respect carry with it the result which inevitably follows the revival of the same perception from without. The gratification does not take place, and the
want continues. I n order to equalize the internal
with the external sum of energy, the former must
be continually maintained, just as actually happens in the hallucinatory psychoses and in the deliriums of hunger which exhaust their psychic capacity in clinging to the object desired. In order
to make more appropriate use of the psychic force,
it becomes necessary to inhibit the full regression
so as to prevent it from extending beyond the image of memory, whence it can select other paths
leading ultimately to the establishment of the de-

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155

sired identity from the outer world. This inhibition and consequent deviation from the excitation
becomes the task of a second system which dominates the voluntary motility, i.e. through whose activity the expenditure of motility is now devoted
to previously recalled purposes. But this entire
complicated mental activity which works its way
from the memory picture to the establishment of
the perception identity from the outer world merely
represents a detour which has been forced upon the
wish-fulfillment by experience.1 Thinking is indeed nothing but the equivalent of the hallucinatory
wish; and if the dream be called a wish-fulfillment
this becomes self-evident, as nothing but a wish can
impel our psychic apparatus to activity. The
dream, which in fulfilling its wishes follows the
short regressive path, thereby preserves for us only
an example of the primary form of the psychic
apparatus which has been abandoned as inexpedient. What once ruled in the waking state when
the psychic life was still young and unfit seems to
have been banished into the sleeping state, just as
we see again in the nursery the bow and arrow, the
discarded primitive weapons of grown-up humanity. The dream is a fragment of the abandoned
i L e Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfilment of the dream: "Sans
fatigue serieuse, sans etre oblige de recourir a cette lutte opinatre et
lohgue qui use et corrode les jouissances poursuivies."

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

psychic life of the child. In the psychoses these
modes of operation of the psychic apparatus, which
are normally suppressed in the waking state, reassert themselves, and then betray their inability to
satisfy our wants in the outer world.
The unconscious wish-feelings evidently strive to
assert themselves during the day also, and the fact
of transference and the psychoses teach us that they
endeavor to penetrate to consciousness and dominate motility by the road leading through the system of the foreconscious. I t is, therefore, the
censor lying between the Unc. and the Forec, the
assumption of which is forced upon us by the
dream, that we have to recognize and honor as the
guardian of our psychic health. But is it not carelessness on the part of this guardian to diminish its
vigilance during the night and to allow the suppressed emotions of the Unc, to come to expression,
thus again making possible the 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 feelings from the otherwise inhibited Unc. may roam about on the scene,
they need not be interfered with; they remain harmless because they are unable to put in motion the
motor apparatus which alone can exert a modifying

T H E WISH IN DREAMS

157

influence upon the outer world. Sleep guarantees
the security of the fortress which is under guard.
Conditions are less harmless when a displacement
of forces is produced, not through a nocturnal
diminution in the operation of the critical censor,
but through pathological enfeeblement of the latter or through pathological reinforcement of the
unconscious excitations, and this while the foreconscious is charged with energy and the avenues to
motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered, the unconscious excitations subdue the Forec.;
through it they dominate our speech and actions,
or they enforce the hallucinatory degression, thus
governing an apparatus not designed for them by
virtue of the attraction exerted by the perceptions
on the distribution of our psychic energy. W e call
this condition a psychosis.
W e are now in the best position to complete our
psychological construction, which has been interrupted by the introduction of the two systems, Unc.
and Forec. W e have still, however, ample reason
for giving further consideration to the wish as the
sole psychic motive power in the dream. We have
explained that the reason why the dream is in every
case a wish realization is because it is a product of
the U n c , which knows no other aim in its activity
but the fulfillment of wishes, and which has no other

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

forces at its disposal but wish-feelings. If we avail
ourselves for a moment longer of the right to elaborate from the dream interpretation such far-reaching psychological speculations, we are in duty
bound to demonstrate that we are thereby bringing
the dream into a relationship which may also comprise other psychic structures. If there exists a
system of the Una—or something sufficiently analogous to it for the purpose 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 beside this of dreams. Indeed, the theory of all
psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the proposition that they too must he taken as wish-fulfillments of the unconscious. Our explanation makes
the dream only the first member of a group most
important for the psychiatrist, an understanding
of which means the solution of the purely psychological part of the psychiatric problem. But other
members of this group of wish-fulfillments, e.g.,
the hysterical symptoms, evince one essential quality which I have so far failed to find in the dream.
Thus, from the investigations frequently referred
to in this treatise, I know that the formation of an
hysterical symptom necessitates the combination of
both streams of our psychic life. The symptom is

T H E W I S H IN DREAMS

159

not merely the expression of a realized unconscious
wish, but it must be joined by another wish from
the foreconscious which is fulfilled by the same
symptom; so that the symptom is at least doubly
determined, once by each one of the conflicting systems. Just as in the dream, there is no limit to
further over-determination. The determination
not derived from the Unc. is, as far as I can
see, invariably a stream of thought in reaction
against the unconscious wish, e.g., a self-punishment. Hence I may say, in general, that an hysterical symptom originates only where two contrasting wish-fulfillments, having their source in
different psychic systems, are able to combine in
one expression. (Compare my latest formulation
of the origin of the hysterical symptoms in a treatise
published by the Zeitschrift fur Seccualwissenschaft, by Hirschfeld and others, 1908). Examples on this point would prove of little value, as
nothing but a complete unveiling of the complication in question would carry conviction. I therefore content myself with the mere assertion, and
will cite an example, not for conviction but for explication. The hysterical vomiting of a female
patient proved, on the one hand, to be the realization of an unconscious fancy from the time of puberty, that she might be continuously pregnant and

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D R E A M PSYCHOLOGY,

have a multitude of children, and this was subsequently united with the wish that she might have
them from as many men as possible. Against this
immoderate wish there arose a powerful defensive
impulse. But as the vomiting might spoil the patient's figure and beauty, so that she would not find
favor in the eyes of mankind, the symptom was
therefore in keeping with her punitive trend of
thought, and, being thus admissible from both
sides, it was allowed to become a reality. This is
the same manner of consenting to a wish-fulfillment
which the queen of the Parthians chose for the
triumvir Crassus. Believing that he had undertaken the campaign out of greed for gold, she
caused molten gold to be poured into the throat of
the corpse. "Now hast thou what thou hast longed
for." As yet we know of the dream only that it
expresses a wish-fulfillment of the unconscious; and
apparently the dominating foreconscious permits
this only after it has subjected the wish to some
distortions. W e are really in no position to
demonstrate regularly a stream of thought antagonistic to the dream-wish which is realized in the
dream as in its counterpart. Only now and then
have we found in the dream traces of reaction formations, as, for instance, the tenderness toward
friend R. in the "uncle dream," But the contribu-

T H E W I S H IN DREAMS

161

tion from the foreconscious, which is missing here,
may be found in another place. While the dominating system has withdrawn on the wish to sleep,
the dream may bring to expression with manifold
distortions a wish from the U n c , and realize this
wish by producing the necessary changes of energy
in the psychic apparatus, and may finally retain
it through the entire duration of sleep.1
This persistent wish to sleep on the part of the
foreconscious in general facilitates the formation
of the dream. Let us refer to the dream of the father who, by the gleam of light from the death
chamber, was brought to the conclusion that the
body has been set on fire. W e have shown that
one of the psychic forces decisive in causing the father to form this conclusion, instead of being 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 proceeding from the repression probably escape us, because we are unable to
analyze this dream. But as a second motive power
of the dream we may mention the father's desire to
sleep, for, like the life of the child, the sleep of the
father is prolonged for a moment by the dream.
The underlying motive is: "Let the dream go on,
i This idea has been borrowed from The Theory of Sleep by
Li6bault, who revived hypnotic investigation in our days. (Dif Sommeil <provoques etc.; Paris, 1889.)

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

otherwise I must wake up." As in this dream so
also in all other dreams, the wish to sleep lends its
support to the unconscious wish. We reported
dreams which were apparently dreams of convenience. But, properly speaking, all dreams
may claim this designation. The efficacy of the
wish to continue to sleep is the most easily recognized in the waking dreams, which so transform
the objective sensory stimulus as to render it compatible with the continuance of sleep; they interweave this stimulus with the dream in order to rob it
of any claims it might make as a warning to the
outer world. But this wish to continue to sleep
must also participate in the formation of all other
dreams which may disturb the sleeping state from
within only. "Now, then, sleep on; why, it's but
a dream"; this is in many cases the suggestion of
the Forec. to consciousness when the dream goes
too far; and this also describes in a general way the
attitude of our dominating psychic activity toward
dreaming, though the thought remains tacit. I
must draw the conclusion that throughout our entire sleeping state we are just as certain that we are
dreaming as we are certain that we are sleeping.
W e are compelled to disregard the objection urged
against this conclusion that our consciousness is
never directed to a knowledge of the former, and

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163

that it is directed to a knowledge of the latter only
on special occasions when the censor is unexpectedly
surprised. Against this objection we may say that
there are persons who are entirely conscious of their
sleeping and dreaming, and who are apparently
endowed with the conscious faculty of guiding their
dream life. Such a dreamer, when dissatisfied with
the course taken by the dream, breaks it off without
awakening, and begins it anew in order to continue it with a different turn, like the popular
author who, on request, gives a happier ending to
his play. Or, at another time, if placed by the
dream in a sexually exciting situation, he thinks in
his sleep: " I do not care to continue this dream
and exhaust myself by a pollution; I prefer to defer it in favor of a real situation."

VII
THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM

we know that the foreconscious is suspended
during the night by the wish to sleep, we can proceed to an intelligent investigation of the dream
process. But let us first sum up the knowledge
of this process already gained. We have shown
that the waking activity leaves day remnants from
which the sum of energy cannot be entirely removed; or the waking activity revives during the
day one of the unconscious wishes; or both conditions occur simultaneously; we have already discovered the many variations that may take place.
The unconscious wish has already made its way to
the day remnants, either during the day or at any
rate with the beginning of sleep, and has effected a
transference to it. This produces a wish transferred to the recent material, or the suppressed recent wish comes to life again through a reinforcement from the unconscious. This wish now
endeavors to make its way to consciousness on the
normal path of the mental processes through the
foreconscious, to which indeed it belongs through
SINCE

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FUNCTION OF T H E DREAM

165

one of its constituent elements. I t is confronted,
however, by the censor, which is still active, and to
the influence of which it now succumbs. I t now
takes on the distortion for which the way has already been paved by its transference to the recent
material. Thus far it is in the way of becoming
something resembling an obsession, delusion, or the
like, i.e. a thought reinforced by a transference and
distorted in expression by the censor. But its further progress is now checked through the dormant
state of the foreconscious; this system has apparently protected itself against invasion by diminishing its excitements. The dream process, therefore,
takes the regressive course, which has just been
opened by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and
thereby follows the attraction exerted on it by the
memory groups, which themselves exist in part only
as visual energy not yet translated into terms of
the later systems. On its way to regression the
dream takes on the form of dramatization. The
subject of compression will be discussed later.
The dream process has now terminated the second
part of its repeatedly impeded course. The first
part expended itself progressively from the unconscious scenes or phantasies to the foreconscious,
while the second part gravitates from the advent of
the censor back to the perceptions. But when the

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

dream process becomes a content of perception it
has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the
Forec. by the censor and by the sleeping state. I t
succeeds in drawing attention to itself and in being
noticed by consciousness. For consciousness, which
means to us a sensory organ for the reception of
psychic qualities, may receive stimuli from two
sources—first, from the periphery of the entire apparatus, viz. from the perception system, and, secondly, from the pleasure and pain stimuli, which
constitute the sole psychic quality produced in the
transformation of energy within the apparatus.
All other processes in the system, even those in
the foreconscious, are devoid of any psychic quality,
and are therefore not objects of consciousness inasmuch as they do not furnish pleasure or pain for
perception. We shall have to assume that those
liberations of pleasure and pain automatically regulate the outlet of the occupation processes. But in
order to make possible more delicate functions, ifc
was later found necessary to render the course of
the presentations more independent of the manifestations of pain. To accomplish this the Forec.
system needed some qualities of its own which
could attract consciousness, and most probably received them through the connection of the foreconscious processes with the memory system of the

FUNCTION OF T H E DREAM

167

signs of speech, which is not devoid of qualities.
Through the qualities of this system, consciousness,
which had hitherto been a sensory organ only for
the perceptions, now becomes also a sensory organ
for a part of our mental processes. Thus we have
now, as it were, two sensory surfaces, one directed
to perceptions and the other to the foreeonscious
mental processes.
I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness devoted to the Forec. is rendered less excitable by sleep than that directed to the P-systems.
The giving up of interest for the nocturnal mental
processes is indeed purposeful. Nothing is to disturb the mind; the Forec. wants to sleep* But
once the dream becomes a perception, it is then capable of exciting consciousness through the qualities
thus gained. The sensory stimulus accomplishes
what it was really destined for, namely, it directs a
part of the energy at the disposal of the Forec. in
the form of attention upon the stimulant. W e
must, therefore, admit that the dream invariably
awakens us, that is, it puts into activity a part of
the dormant force of the Forec. This force imparts to the dream that influence which we have
designated as secondary elaboration for the sake
of connection and comprehensibility. This means
that the dream is treated by it like any other con-

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tent of perception; it is subjected to the same ideas
of expectation, as far at least as the material admits.
As far as the direction is concerned in this third
part of the dream, it may be said that here again
the movement is progressive.
To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss
to say a few words about the temporal peculiarities
of these dream processes. I n a very interesting
discussion, apparently suggested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream, Goblet tries to demonstrate
that the dream requires no other time than the
transition period between sleeping and awakening.
The awakening requires time, as the dream takes
place during that period. One is inclined to believe that the final picture of the dream is so strong
that it forces the dreamer to awaken; but, as a matter of fact, this picture is strong only because the
dreamer is already very near awakening when it
appears. "Un reve c'est un reveil qui commence."
I t has already been emphasized by Dugas that
Goblet was forced to repudiate many facts in order
to generalize his theory. There are, moreover,
dreams from which we do not awaken, e.g., some
dreams in which we dream that we dream. From
our knowledge of the dream-work, we can by no
means admit that it extends only over the period of
awakening. On the contrary, we must consider it

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probable that the first part of the dream-work begins during the day when we are still under the
domination of the foreconscious. The second
phase of the dream-work, viz. the modification
through the censor, the attraction by the unconscious scenes, and the penetration to perception
must continue throughout the night. And we are
probably always right when we assert that we feel
as though we had been dreaming the whole night,
although we cannot say what. I do not, however,
think it necessary to assume that, up to the time of
becoming conscious, the dream processes really follow the temporal sequence which we have described,
viz. that there is first the transferred dream-wish,
then the distortion of the censor, and consequently
the change of direction to regression, and so on.
We were forced to form such a succession for the
sake of description; in reality, however, it is much
rather a matter of simultaneously trying this path
and that, and of emotions fluctuating to and fro,
until finally, owing to the most expedient distribution, one particular grouping is secured which remains. From certain personal experiences, I am
myself inclined to believe that the dream-work often
requires more than one day and one night to produce its result; if this be true, the extraordinary art
manifested in the construction of the dream loses

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all its marvels. In my opinion, even the regard for
comprehensibility as an occurrence of perception
may take effect before the dream attracts consciousness to itself. To be sure, from now on the process
is accelerated, as the dream is henceforth subjected
to the same treatment as any other perception. I t
is like fireworks, which require hours of preparation
and only a moment for ignition.
Through the dream-work the dream process now
gains either sufficient intensity to attract consciousness to itself and arouse the foreconscious, which is
quite independent of the time or profundity of
sleep, or, its intensity being insufficient it must wait
until it meets the attention which is set in motion
immediately before awakening. Most dreams
seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the awakening. This,
however, explains the fact that we regularly perceive something dreamt on being suddenly aroused
from a sound sleep. Here, as well as in spontaneous awakening, the first glance strikes the preception content created by the dream-work, while the
next strikes the one produced from without.
But of greater theoretical interest are those
dreams which are capable of waking us in the midst
of sleep. W e must bear in mind the expediency
elsewhere universally demonstrated, and ask our-

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171

selves why the dream or the unconscious wish has
the power to disturb sleep, i.e. the fulfillment of
the foreconscious wish. This is probably due to
certain relations of energy into which we have no insight. If we possessed such insight we should
probably find that the freedom given to the dream
and the expenditure of a certain amount of detached attention represent for the dream an economy in energy, keeping in view the fact that the
unconscious must be held in check at night just as
during the day. We know from experience that
the dream, even if it interrupts sleep, repeatedly
during the same night, still remains compatible with
sleep. We wake up for an instant, and immediately resume our sleep. It is like driving off a fly
during sleep, we awake ad hoc, and when we resume our sleep we have removed the disturbance.
As demonstrated by familiar examples from the
sleep of wet nurses, &c, the fulfillment of the wish
to sleep is quite compatible with the retention of a
certain amount of attention in a given direction.
But we must here take cognizance of an objection
that is based on a better knowledge of the unconscious processes. Although we have ourselves described the unconscious wishes as always active, we
have, nevertheless, asserted that they are not sufficiently strong during the day to make themselves

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perceptible. But when we sleep, and the unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream,
and with it to awaken the foreconscious, why, then,
does this power become exhausted after the dream
has been taken cognizance of? Would it not seem
more probable that the dream should continually
renew itself, like the troublesome fly which, when
driven away, takes pleasure in returning again and
again? What justifies our assertion that the dream
removes the disturbance of sleep ?
That the unconscious wishes always remain active is quite true. They represent paths which are
passable whenever a sum of excitement makes use
of them. Moreover, a remarkable peculiarity of
the unconscious processes is the fact that they remain indestructible. Nothing can be brought to
an end in the unconscious; nothing can cease or be
forgotten, This impression is most strongly gained
in the study of the neuroses, especially of hysteria.
The unconscious stream of thought which leads to
the discharge through an attack becomes passable
again as soon as there is an accumulation of a sufficient amount of excitement. The mortification
brought on thirty years ago, after having gained access to the unconscious affective source, operates
during all these thirty years like a recent one.
Whenever its memory is touched, it is revived and

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shows itself to be supplied with the excitement
which is discharged in a motor attack. I t is just
here that the office of psychotherapy begins, its task
being to bring about adjustment and forgetfulness
for the unconscious processes. Indeed, the fading
of memories and the flagging of affects, which we
are apt to take as self-evident and to explain as a
primary influence of time on the psychic memories,
are in reality secondary changes brought about by
painstaking work. I t is the foreconscious that accomplishes this work; and the only course to be
pursued by psychotherapy is «the subjugate the
Unc, to the domination of the Forec.
There are, therefore, two exits for the individual
unconscious emotional process. I t is either left to
itself, in which case it ultimately breaks through
somewhere and secures for once a discharge for its
excitation into motility; or it succumbs to the influence of the foreconscious, and its excitation becomes confined through this influence instead of
being discharged. I t is the latter process that occurs in the dream. Owing to the fact that it is
directed by the conscious excitement, the energjr
from the Forec, which confronts the dream when
grown to perception, restricts the unconscious excitement of the dream and renders it harmless as a
disturbing factor. When the dreamer wakes up

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for a moment, he has actually chased away the fly
that has threatened to disturb his sleep. We can
now understand that it is really more expedient and
economical to give full sway to the unconscious
wish, and clear its way to regression so that it may
form a dream, and then restrict and adjust this
dream by means of a small expenditure of foreconscious labor, than to curb the unconscious throughout the entire period of sleep. W e should, indeed,
expect that the dream, even if it was not originally
an expedient process, would have acquired some
function in the play of forces of the psychic life.
We now see what this function is. The dream has
taken it upon itself to bring the liberated excitement
of the Unc. back under the domination of the foreconscious; it thus affords relief for the excitement
of the Unc. and acts as a safety-valve for the latter,
and at the same time it insures the sleep of the
foreconscious at a slight expenditure of the waking
state. Like the other psychic formations of its
group, the dream offers itself as a compromise serving simultaneously both systems by fulfilling both
wishes in so far as they are compatible with each
other. A glance at Robert's "elimination theory,"
will show that we must agree with this author in
his main point, viz. in the determination of the function of the dream, though we differ from him in

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175

our hypotheses and in our treatment of the dream
process.
The above qualification—in so far as the two
wishes are compatible with each other—contains a
suggestion that there may be cases in which the
function of the dream suffers shipwreck. The
dream process is in the first instance admitted as a
wish-fulfillment of the unconscious, but if this tentative wish-fulfillment disturbs the foreconscious to
such an extent that the latter can no longer maintain its rest, the dream then breaks the compromise
and fails to perform the second part of its task.
I t is then at once broken off, and replaced by complete wakefulness. Here, too, it is not really the
fault of the dream, if, while ordinarily the guardian
of sleep, it is here compelled to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor should this cause us to entertain
any doubts as to its efficacy. This is not the only
case in the organism in which an otherwise efficacious arrangement became inefficacious and disturbing as soon as some element is changed in the conditions of its origin; the disturbance then serves at
least the new purpose of announcing the change,
and calling into play against it the means of adjustment of the organism. In this connection, I
naturally bear in mind the case of the anxiety
dream, and in order not to have the appearance of

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trying to exclude this testimony against the theory
of wish-fulfillment wherever I encounter it, I will
attempt an explanation of the anxiety dream, at
least offering some suggestions.
That a psychic process developing anxiety may
still be a wish-fulfillment has long ceased to impress
us as a contradiction. W e may explain this occurrence by the fact that the wish belongs to one
system (the U n c ) , while by the other system (the
Forec.), this wish has been rejected and suppressed.
The subjection of the Unc. by the Forec. is not
complete even in perfect psychic health; the amount
of this suppression shows the degree of our psychic
normality. Neurotic symptoms show that there is
a conflict between the two systems; the symptoms
are the results of a compromise of this conflict, and
they temporarily put an end to it. On the one
hand, they afford the Unc. an outlet for the discharge of its excitement, and serve it as a sally
port, while, on the other hand, they give the Forec.
the capability of dominating the Unc. to some extent. I t is highly instructive to consider, e.g., the
significance of any hysterical phobia or of an agoraphobia. Suppose a neurotic incapable of crossing the street alone, which we would justly call a
"symptom." W e attempt to remove this symptom by urging him to the action which he deems

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177

himself incapable of. The result will be an attack
of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street
has often been the cause of establishing an agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has
been constituted in order to guard against the outbreak of the anxiety. The phobia is thrown before
the anxiety like a fortress on the frontier.
Unless we enter into the part played by the affects in these processes, which can be done here only
imperfectly, we cannot continue our discussion.
Let us therefore advance the proposition that the
reason why the suppression of the unconscious becomes absolutely necessary is because, if the discharge of presentation should be left to itself, it
would develop an affect in the Unc. which originally
bore the character of pleasure, but which, since the
appearance of the repression, bears the character
of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of the suppression is to stop the development of this pain.
The suppression extends over the unconscious ideation, because the liberation of pain might emanate
from the ideation. The foundation is here laid for
a very definite assumption concerning the nature
of the affective development. I t is regarded as a
motor or secondary activity, the key to the innervation of which is located in the presentations of the
Unc. Through the domination of the Forec.

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these presentations become, as it were, throttled
and inhibited at the exit of the emotion-developing
impulses. The danger, which is due to the fact
that the Forec. ceases to occupy the energy, therefore consists in the fact that the unconscious excitations liberate such an affect as—in consequence of
the repression that has previously taken place—can
only be perceived as pain or anxiety.
This danger is released through the full sway of
the dream process. The determinations for its realization consist in the fact that repressions have
taken place, and that the suppressed emotional
wishes shall become sufficiently strong. They thus
stand entirely without the psychological realm of
the dream structure. Were it not for the fact that
our subject is connected through just one factor,
namely, the freeing of the Unc. during sleep, with
the subject of the development of anxiety, I could
dispense with discussion of the anxiety dream, and
thus avoid all obscurities connected with it.
As I have often repeated, the theory of the anxiety belongs to the psychology of the neuroses. I
would say that the anxiety in the dream is an anxiety problem and not a dream problem. We have
nothing further to do with it after having once
demonstrated its point of contact with the subject
of the dream process. There is only one thing left

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179

for me to do. As I have asserted that the neurotic
anxiety originates from sexual sources, I can subject anxiety dreams to analysis in order to demonstrate the sexual material in their dream thoughts.
For good reasons I refrain from citing here any
of the numerous examples placed at my disposal by
neurotic patients, but prefer to give anxiety dreams
from young persons.
Personally, I have had no real anxiety dream for
decades, but I recall one from my seventh or eighth
year which I subjected to interpretation about
thirty years later. The dream was very vivid, and
showed me my beloved mother, with peculiarly calm
sleeping countenance, carried into the room and
laid on the bed by two (or three ) persons with
birds' beaks. I awoke crying and screaming, and
disturbed my parents. The very tall figures—
draped in a peculiar manner—with beaks, I had
taken from the illustrations of Philippson's bible;
I believe they represented deities with heads of
sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb relief. The
analysis also introduced the reminiscence of a
naughty janitor's boy, who used to play with us
children on the meadow in front of the house; I
would add that his name was Philip. I feel that I
first heard from this boy the vulgar word signifying
sexual intercourse, which is replaced among the ed-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

ucated by the Latin "coitus/' but to which the
dream distinctly alludes by the selection of the
birds' heads, I must have suspected the sexual
significance of the word from the facial expression
of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's features in the dream were copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few
days before his death snoring in the state of coma.
The interpretation of the secondary elaboration in
the dream must therefore have been that my mother
was dying; the tomb relief, too, agrees with this.
In this anxiety I awoke, and could not calm myself
until I had awakened my parents. I remember
that I suddenly became calm on coming face to
face with my mother, as if I needed the assurance
that my mother was not dead. But this secondary
interpretation of the dream had been effected only
under the influence of the developed anxiety. I
was not frightened because I dreamed that my
mother was dying, but I interpreted the dream-in
this manner in the foreconscious elaboration because
I was already under the domination of the anxiety.
The latter, however, could be traced by means of
the repression to an obscure obviously sexual desire, which had found its satisfying expression in
the visual content of the dream.
A man twenty-seven years old who had been se-

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181

verely ill for a year had had many terrifying dreams
between the ages of eleven and thirteen. H e
thought that a man with an ax was running after
him; he wished to run, but felt paralyzed and could
not move from the spot. This may be taken as a
good example of a very common, and apparently
sexually indifferent, anxiety dream. In the analysis the dreamer first thought of a story told him
by his uncle, which chronologically was later than
the dream, viz. that he was attacked at night by a
suspicious-looking individual. This occurrence
led him to believe that he himself might have already heard of a similar episode at the time of the
dream. I n connection with the ax he recalled that
during that period of his life he once hurt his hand
with an ax while chopping wood. This immediately led to his relations with his younger brother,
whom he used to maltreat and knock down. In
particular, he recalled an occasion when he struck
his brother on the head with his boot until he bled,
whereupon his mother remarked: " I fear he will
kill him some day." While he was seemingly
thinking of the subject of violence, a reminiscence
from his ninth year suddenly occurred to him. His
parents came home late and went to bed while he
was feigning sleep. H e soon heard panting and
other noises that appeared strange to him, and he

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could also make out the position of his parents in
bed. His further associations showed that he had
established an analogy between this relation between his parents and his own relation toward his
younger brother. H e subsumed what occurred between his parents under the conception "violence
and wrestling," and thus reached a sadistic conception of the coitus act, as often happens among children. The fact that he often noticed blood on his
mother's bed corroborated his conception.
That the sexual intercourse of adults appears
strange to children who observe it, and arouses fear
in them, I dare say is a fact of daily experience. I
have explained this fear by the fact that sexual excitement is not mastered by their understanding,
and is probably also inacceptable to them because
their parents are involved in it. For the same reason this excitement is converted into fear. At a
still earlier period of life sexual emotion directed
toward the parent of opposite sex does not meet
with repression but finds free expression, as we
have seen before.
For the night terrors with hallucinations (pavor
noctumus) frequently found in children, I would
unhesitatingly give the same explanation. Here,
too, we are certainly dealing with the incomprehensible and rejected sexual feelings, which, if noted,

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183

would probably show a temporal periodicity, for an
enhancement of the sexual libido may just as well
be produced accidentally through emotional impressions as through the spontaneous and gradual
processes of development.
I lack the necessary material to sustain these explanations from observation. On the other hand,
the pediatrists seem to lack the point of view which
alone makes comprehensible the whole series of
phenomena, on the somatic as well as on the psychic
side. To illustrate by a comical example how one
wearing the blinders of medical mythology may
miss the understanding of such cases I will relate a
case which I found in a thesis on pavor nocturnus
by Debacker, 1881. A thirteen-year-old boy of
delicate health began to become anxious and
dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once
a week it was interrupted by an acute attack of
anxiety with hallucinations. The memory of these
dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related that the devil shouted at him: "Now we
have you, now we have you," and this was followed
by an odor of sulphur; the fire burned his skin.
This dream aroused him, terror-stricken. H e was
unable to scream at first; then his voice returned,
and he was heard to say distinctly: "No, no, not
me; why, I have done nothing," or, "Please don't,

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

I shall never do it again." Occasionally, also, he
said: "Albert has not done that." Later he
avoided undressing, because, as he said, the fire attacked him only when he was undressed. From
amid these evil dreams, which menaced his health,
he was sent into the country, where he recovered
within a year and a half, but at the age of fifteen
he once confessed: "Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais
j'eprouvais continuellement des picotements et des
surexcitations aux parties; a la fin, cela m'enervait
tant que plusieurs fois, j ' a i pense me jeter par la
fenetre au dortoir."
I t is certainly not difficult to suspect: 1, that
the boy had practiced masturbation in former
years, that he probably denied it, and was threatened with severe punishment for his wrongdoing
(his confession: J e ne le ferai plus; his denial: Albert n'a jamais fait 9a). 2, That under the pressure of puberty the temptation to self-abuse
through the tickling of the genitals was reawakened. 3, That now, however, a struggle of repression arose in him, suppressing the libido and changing it into fear, which subsequently took the form
of the punishments with which he was then threatened.
Let us, however, quote the conclusions drawn by
our author. This observation shows: 1, That

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185

the influence of puberty may produce in a boy
of delicate health a condition of extreme weakness,
and that it may lead to a very marked cerebral
ancemia.
2. This cerebral anaemia produces a transformation of character, demonomaniacal hallucinations,
and very violent nocturnal, perhaps also diurnal,
states of anxiety.
3. Demonomania and the self-reproaches of the
day can be traced to the influences of religious education which the subject underwent as a child.
4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of
a lengthy sojourn in the country, bodily exercise,
and the return of physical strength after the termination of the period of puberty.
5. A predisposing influence for the origin of the
cerebral condition of the boy may be attributed to
heredity and to the father's chronic syphilitic state.
The concluding remarks of the author read:
"Nous avons fait entrer cette observation dans le
cadre des delires apyretiques d'inanition, car c'est
a Tischemie cerebrale que nous rattachons cet etat
particulier."

VIII
T H E PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PROCESS—REGRESSION

I N venturing to attempt to penetrate more deeply
into the psychology of the dream processes, I have
undertaken a difficult task, to which, indeed, my
power of description is hardly equal. To reproduce in description by a succession of words the
simultaneousness of so complex a chain of events,
and in doing so to appear unbiassed throughout the
exposition, goes fairly beyond my powers. I have
now to atone for the fact that I have been unable
in my description of the dream psychology to follow the historic development of my views. The
view-points for my conception of the dream were
reached through earlier investigations in the psychology of the neuroses, to which I am not supposed
to refer here, but to which I am repeatedly forced
to refer, whereas I should prefer to proceed in the
opposite direction, and, starting from the dream, to
establish a connection with the psychology of the
neuroses. I am well aware of all the inconveniences arising for the reader from this difficulty,
but I know of no way to avoid them.
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187

As I am dissatisfied with this state of affairs, I
am glad to dwell upon another view-point which
seems to raise the value of my efforts. As has
been shown in the introduction to the first chaper,
I found myself confronted with a theme which had
been marked by the sharpest contradictions on the
part of the authorities. After our elaboration of
the dream problems we found room for most of
these contradictions. We have been forced, however, to take decided exception to two of the views
pronounced, viz. that the dream is a senseless and
that it is a somatic process; apart from these cases
we have had to accept all the contradictory views
in one place or another of the complicated argument, and we have been able to demonstrate that
they had discovered something that was correct.
Thsl the dream continues the impulses and interests of the waking state has been quite generally
confirmed through the discovery of the latent
thoughts of the dream. These thoughts concern
themselves only with things that seem important
and of momentous interest to us. The dream never
occupies itself with trifles. Rut we have also concurred with the contrary view, viz., that the dream
gathers up the indifferent remnants from the day,
and that not until it has in some measure withdrawn
itself from the waking activity can an important

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

event of the day be taken up by the dream. W e
found this holding true for the dream content,
which gives the dream thought its changed expression by means of disfigurement. W e have said
that from the nature of the association mechanism
the dream process more easily takes possession of
recent or indifferent material which has not yet
been seized by the waking mental activity; and by
reason of the censor it transfers the psychic intensity from the important but also disagreeable to the
indifferent material. The hypermnesia of the
dream and the resort to infantile material have become main supports in our theory. I n our theory
of the dream we have attributed to the wish originating from the infantile the part of an indispensable motor for the formation of the dream. W e
naturally could not think of doubting the experimentally demonstrated significance of the objective
sensory stimuli during sleep; but we have brought
this material into the same relation to the dreamwish as the thought remnants from the waking activity. There was no need of disputing the fact
that the dream interprets the objective sensory
stimuli after the manner of an illusion; but we have
supplied the motive for this interpretation which
has been left undecided by the authorities. The
interpretation follows in such a manner that the

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189

perceived object is rendered harmless as a sleep disturber and becomes available for the wish-fulfillment. Though we do not admit as special sources
of the dream the subjective state of excitement of
the sensory organs during sleep, which seems to
have been demonstrated by Trumbull Ladd, we
are nevertheless able to explain this excitement
through the regressive revival of active memories
behind the dream. A modest part in our conception has also been assigned to the inner organic
sensations which are wont to be taken as the cardinal point in the explanation of the dream. These
—the sensation of falling, flying, or inhibition—
stand as an ever ready material to be used by the
dream-work to express the dream thought as often
as need arises.
That the dream process is a rapid and momentary
one seems to be true for the perception through consciousness of the already prepared dream content;
the preceding parts of the dream process probably
take a slow, fluctuating course. W e have solved
the riddle of the superabundant dream content compressed within the briefest moment by explaining
that this is due to the appropriation of almost fully
formed structures from the psychic life. That the
dream is disfigured and distorted by memory we
found to be correct, but not troublesome, as this is

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

only the last manifest operation in the work of disfigurement which has been active from the beginning of the dream-work. I n the bitter and seemingly irreconcilable controversy as to whether the
psychic life sleeps at night or can make the same
use of all its capabilities as during the day, we have
been able to agree with both sides, though not fully
with either. W e have found proof that the dream
thoughts represent a most complicated intellectual
activitjr, employing almost every means furnished
by the psychic apparatus; still it cannot be denied
that these dream thoughts have originated during
the day, and it is indispensable to assume that there
is a sleeping state of the psychic life. Thus, even
the theory of partial sleep has come into play; but
the characteristics of the sleeping state have been
found not in the dilapidation of the psychic connections but in the cessation of the psychic system
dominating the day, arising from its desire to sleep.
The withdrawal from the outer world retains its
significance also for our conception; though not the
only factor, it nevertheless helps the regression to
make possible the representation of the dream.
That we should reject the voluntary guidance of the
presentation course is uncontestable; but the psychic life does not thereby become aimless, for we
have seen that after the abandonment of the desired

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191

end-presentation undesired ones gain the mastery.
The loose associative connection in the dream we
have not only recognized, but we have placed under
its control a far greater territory than could have
been supposed; we have, however, found it merely
the feigned substitute for another correct and senseful one. To be sure we, too, have called the dream
absurd; but we have been able to learn from examples how wise the dream really is when it simulates absurdity. W e do not deny any of the functions that have been attributed to the dream. That
the dream relieves the mind like a valve, and that,
according to Robert's assertion, all kinds of harmful material are rendered harmless through representation in the dream, not only exactly coincides
with our theory of the twofold wish-fulfillment in
the dream, but, in his own wording, becomes even
more comprehensible for us than for Robert himself.
The free indulgence of the psychic in the play of
its faculties finds expression with us in the noninterference with the dreafn on the part of the foreconscious activity. The "return to the embryonal
state of psychic life in the dream" and the observation of Havelock Ellis, "an archaic world of vast
emotions and imperfect thoughts," appear to us as
happy anticipations of our deductions to the effect
that primitive modes of work suppressed during

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the day participate in the formation of the dream;
and with us, as with Delage, the suppressed material becomes the mainspring of the dreaming.
We have fully recognized the role which Schemer
ascribes to the dream phantasy, and even his interpretation ; but we have been obliged, so to speak, to
conduct them to another department in the problem. It is not the dream that produces the phantasy but the unconscious phantasy that takes the
greatest part in the formation of the dream
thoughts. W e are indebted to Schemer for his
clew to the source of the dream thoughts, but almost
everything that he ascribes to the dream-work is
attributable to the activity of the unconscious,
which is at work during the day, and which supplies incitements not only for dreams but for neurotic symptoms as well. We have had to separate
the dream-work from this activity as being something entirely different and far more restricted.
Finally, we have by no means abandoned the relation of the dream to mental disturbances, but, on
the contrary, we have given it a more solid foundation on new ground.
Thus held together by the new material of our
theory as by a superior unity, we find the most
varied and most contradictory conclusions of the
authorities fitting into our structure; some of them

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are differently disposed, only a few of them are
entirely rejected. But our own structure is still
unfinished. For, disregarding the many obscurities which we have necessarily encountered in our
advance into the darkness of psychology, we are
now apparently embarrassed by a new contradiction. On the one hand, we have allowed the dream
thoughts to proceed from perfectly normal mental
operations, while, on the other hand, we have found
among the dream thoughts a number of entirely
abnormal mental processes which extend likewise
to the dream contents. These, consequently, we
have repeated in the interpretation of the dream.
All that we have termed the "dream-work" seems
so remote from the psychic processes recognized by
us as correct, that the severest judgments of the
authors as to the low psychic activity of dreaming
seem to us well founded.
Perhaps only through still further advance can
enlightenment and improvement be brought about.
I shall pick out one of the constellations leading to
the formation of dreams.
We have learned that the dream replaces a number of thoughts derived from daily life which are
perfectly formed logically. W e cannot therefore
doubt that these thoughts originate from our normal mental life. All the qualities which we esteem

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in our mental operations, and which distinguish
these as complicated activities of a high order, we
find repeated in the dream thoughts. There is,
however, no need of assuming that this mental work
is performed during sleep, as this would materially
impair the conception of the psychic state of sleep
we have hitherto adhered to. These thoughts may
just as well have originated from the day, and, unnoticed by our consciousness from their inception,
they may have continued to develop until they stood
complete at the onset of sleep. If we are to conclude anything from this state of affairs, it will at
most prove that the most complex mental operations are possible without the cooperation of consciousness, which we have already learned independently from every psychoanalysis of persons suffering from hysteria or obsessions. These dream
thoughts are in themselves surely not incapable of
consciousness; if they have not become conscious to
us during the day, this may have various reasons.
The state of becoming conscious depends on the exercise of a certain psychic function, viz. attention,
which seems to be extended only in a definite quantity, and which may have been withdrawn from the
stream of thought in question by other aims. Another way in which such mental streams are kept
from consciousness is the following:—Our conscious

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195

reflection teaches us that when exercising attention
we pursue a definite course. But if that course
leads us to an idea which does not hold its own with
the critic, we discontinue and cease to apply our
attention. Now, apparently, the stream of thought
thus started and abandoned may spin on without
regaining attention unless it reaches a spot of especially marked intensity which forces the return
of attention. An initial rejection, perhaps consciously brought about by the judgment on the
ground of incorrectness or unfitness for the actual
purpose of the mental act, may therefore account
for the fact that a mental process continues until
the onset of sleep unnoticed by consciousness.
Let us recapitulate by saying that we call such
a stream of thought a foreconscious one, that we believe it to be perfectly correct, and that it may just
as well be a more neglected one or an interrupted
and suppressed one. Let us also state frankly in
what manner we conceive this presentation course.
W e believe that a certain sum of excitement, which
we call occupation energy, is displaced from an endpresentation along the association paths selected by
that end-presentation. A "neglected" stream of
thought has received no such occupation, and from
a "suppressed" or "rejected" one this occupation
has been withdrawn; both have thus been left to

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their own emotions. The end-stream of thought
stocked with energy is under certain conditions able
to draw to itself the attention of consciousness,
through which means it then receives a "surplus of
energy." We shall be obliged somewhat later to
elucidate our assumption concerning the nature and
activity of consciousness.
A train of thought thus incited in the Forec. may
either disappear spontaneously or continue. The
former issue we conceive as follows: I t diffuses
its energy through all the association paths emanating from it, and throws the entire chain of ideas into
a state of excitement which, after lasting for a
while, subsides through the transformation of the
excitement requiring an outlet into dormant energy. 1 If this first issue is brought about the process has no further significance for the dream formation. But other end-presentations are lurking in
our foreconscious that originate from the sources
of our unconscious and from the ever active wishes.
These may take possession of the excitations in the
circle of thought thus left to itself, establish a connection between it and the unconscious wish, and
transfer to it the energy inherent in the unconscious
wish. Henceforth the neglected or suppressed
* Cf. the significant observations by J. Bueuer in our Studies on
Hysteria, 1895, and 2nd ed. 1909,

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197

train of thought is in a position to maintain itself,
although this reinforcement does not help it to gain
access to consciousness. We may say that the
hitherto foreconscious train of thought has been
drawn into the unconscious.
Other constellations for the dream formation
would result if the foreconscious train of thought
had from the beginning been connected with the
unconscious wish, and for that reason met with rejection by the dominating end-occupation; or if an
unconscious wish were made active for other—possibly somatic—reasons and of its own accord sought
a transference to the psychic remnants not occupied
by the Forec. All three cases finally combine in
one issue, so that there is established in the foreconscious a stream of thought which, having been abandoned by the foreconscious occupation, receives occupation from, the unconscious wish.
The stream of thought is henceforth subjected
to a series of transformations which we no longer
recognize as normal psychic processes and which
give us a surprising result, viz. a psychopathological
formation. Let us emphasize and group the same.
1. The intensities of the individual ideas become
capable of discharge in their entirety, and, proceeding from one conception to the other, they thus
form single presentations endowed with marked in-

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tensity. Through the repeated recurrence of this
process the intensity of an e.ntire train of ideas may
ultimately be gathered in a single presentation element. This is the principle of compression or condensation. I t is condensation that is mainly responsible for the strange impression of the dream,
for we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic life accessible to consciousness. We
find here, also, presentations which possess great
psychic significance as junctions or as end-results
of whole chains of thought; but this validity does
not manifest itself in any character conspicuous
enough for internal perception; hence, what has
been presented in it does not become in any way
more intensive. In the process of condensation the
entire psychic connection becomes transformed into
the intensity of the presentation content. I t is the
same as in a book where we space or print in heavy
type any word upon which particular stress is laid
for the understanding of the text. I n speech the
same word would be pronounced loudly and deliberately and with emphasis. The first comparison leads us at once to an example taken from the
chapter on "The Dream-Work" (trimethylamine
in the dream of Irma's injection). Historians of
art call our attention to the fact that the most ancient historical sculptures follow a similar principle

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in expressing the rank of the persons represented
by the size of the statue. The king is made two or
three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished
enemy. A piece of art, however, from the Roman
period makes use of more subtle means to accomplish the same purpose. The figure of the emperor
is placed in the center in a firmly erect posture;
special care is bestowed on the proper modelling of
his figure; his enemies are seen cowering at his feet;
but he is no longer represented a giant among
dwarfs. However, the bowing of the subordinate
to his superior in our own days is only an echo of
that ancient principle of representation.
The direction taken by the condensations of the
dream is prescribed on the one hand by the true
foreconscious relations of the dream thoughts, on
the other hand by the attraction of the visual reminiscences in the unconscious. The success of the
condensation work produces those intensities which
are required for penetration into the perception
systems.
2. Through this free transferability of the intensities, moreover, and in the service of condensation, intermediary presentations—compromises, as
it were-—are formed (cf. the numerous examples).
This, likewise, is something unheard of in the normal presentation course, where it is above all a

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

question of selection and retention of the "proper'*
presentation element. On the other hand, composite and compromise formations occur with extraordinary frequency when we are trying to find
the linguistic expression for foreconscious thoughts;
these are considered "slips of the tongue."
3. The presentations which transfer their intensities to one another are very loosely connected, and
are joined together by such forms of association as
are spurned in our serious thought and are utilized
in the production of the effect of wit only. Among
these we particularly find associations of the sound
and consonance types.
4. Contradictory thoughts do not strive to eliminate one another, but remain side by side. They
often unite to produce condensation as if no contradiction existed, or they form compromises for
which we should never forgive our thoughts, but
which we frequently approve of in our actions.
These are some of the most conspicuous abnormal processes to which the thoughts which have
previously been rationally formed are subjected in
the course of the dream-work. As the main feature
of these processes we recognize the high importance
attached to the fact of rendering the occupation
energy mobile and capable of discharge; the content
and the actual significance of the psychic elements,

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201

to which these energies adhere, become a matter of
secondary importance. One might possibly think
that the condensation and compromise formation is
effected only in the service of regression, when occasion arises for changing thoughts into pictures.
But the analysis and—still more distinctly—the
synthesis of dreams which lack regression toward
pictures, e.g. the dream "Autodidasker—Conversation with Court-Councilor N.," present the same
processes of displacement and condensation as the
others.
Hence we cannot refuse to acknowledge that the
two kinds of essentially different psychic processes
participate in the formation of the dream; one
forms perfectly correct dream thoughts which are
equivalent to normal thoughts, while the other
treats these ideas in a highly surprising and incorrect manner. The latter process we have already
set apart as the dream-work proper. What have
we now to advance concerning this latter psychic
process?
W e should be unable to answer this question here
if we had not penetrated considerably into the psychology of the neuroses and especially of hysteria.
From this we learn that the same incorrect psychic
processes—as well as others that have not been
enumerated—control the formation of hysterical

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

symptoms. In hysteria, too, we at once find a
series of perfectly correct thoughts equivalent to
our conscious thoughts, of whose existence, however, in this form we can learn nothing and which
we can only subsequently reconstruct. If they
have forced their way anywhere to our perception,
we discover from the analysis of the symptom
formed that these normal thoughts have been subjected to abnormal treatment and have been transformed into the symptom by means of condensation and compromise formation, through superficial
associations, under cover of contradictions, and
eventually over the road of regression. I n view of
the complete identity found between the peculiarities of the dream-work and of the psychic activity
forming the psychoneurotic symptoms, we shall
feel justified in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by hysteria.
From the theory of hysteria we borrow the proposition that such an abnormal psychic elaboration
of a normal train of thought takes place only when
the latter has been used for the transference of an
unconscious wish which dates from the infantile life
and is in a state of repression. I n accordance with
this proposition we have construed the theory of
the dream on the assumption that the actuating
dream-wish invariably originates in the unconscious,

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208

which, as we ourselves have admitted, cannot be
universally demonstrated though it cannot be refuted. Rut in order to explain the real meaning of
the term repression, which we have employed so
freely, we shall be obliged to make some further
addition to our psychological construction.
We have above elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus, whose work is regulated by
the efforts to avoid accumulation of excitement and
as far as possible to maintain itself free from excitement. For this reason it was constructed after
the plan of a reflex apparatus; the motility, originally the path for the inner bodily change, formed a
discharging path standing at its disposal. We
subsequently discussed the psychic results of a feeling of gratification, and we might at the same time
have introduced the second assumption, viz. that
accumulation of excitement—following certain
modalities that do not concern us—is perceived as
pain and sets the apparatus in motion in order to
reproduce a feeling of gratification in which the
diminution of the excitement is perceived as pleasure. Such a current in the apparatus which emanates from pain and strives for pleasure we call a
wish. W e have said that nothing but a wish is
capable of setting the apparatus in motion, and
that the discharge of excitement in the apparatus

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is regulated automatically by the perception of
pleasure and pain. The first wish must have been
an hallucinatory occupation of the memory for
gratification. But this hallucination, unless it were
maintained to the point of exhaustion, proved incapable of bringing about a cessation of the desire
and consequently of securing the pleasure connected
with gratification.
Thus there was required a second activity—in
our terminology the activity of a second system—
which should not permit the memory occupation to
advance to perception and therefrom to restrict the
psychic forces, but should lead the excitement
emanating from the craving stimulus by a devious
path over the spontaneous motility which ultimately
should so change the outer world as to allow the
real perception of the object of gratification to
take place. Thus far we have elaborated the plan
of the psychic apparatus; these two systems are the
germ of the Unc. and Forec. which we include in
the fully developed apparatus.
In order to be in a position successfully to change
the outer world through the motility, there is required the accumulation of a large sum of experiences in the memory systems as well as a manifold
fixation of the relations which are evoked in this
memory material by different end-presentations.

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205

We now proceed further with our assumption.
The manifold activity of the second system, tentatively sending forth and retracting energy, must
on the one hand have full command over all memory material, but on the other hand it would be a
superfluous expenditure for it to send to the individual mental paths large quantities of energy
which would thus flow off to no purpose, diminishing the quantity available for the transformation
of the outer world. In the interests of expediency
I therefore postulate that the second system succeeds in maintaining the greater part of the occupation energy in a dormant state and in using but a
small portion for the purposes of displacement.
The mechanism of these processes is entirely unknown to me; any one who wishes to follow up
these ideas must try to find the physical analogies
and prepare the way for a demonstration of the
process of motion in the stimulation of the neuron.
I merely hold to the idea that the activity of the
first ^-system is directed to the free outflow of the
quantities of excitement, and that the second system brings about an inhibition of this outflow
through the energies emanating from it, i.e. it produces a transformation into dormant energy, probably by raising the level. I therefore assume that
under the control of the second system as compared

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with the first, the course of the excitement is bound
to entirely different mechanical conditions. After
the second system has finished its tentative mental
work, it removes the inhibition and congestion of
the excitements and allows these excitements to flow
off to the motility.
An interesting train of thought now presents
itself if we consider the relations of this inhibition
of discharge by the second system to the regulation
through the principle of pain. Let us now seek
the counterpart of the primary feeling of gratification, namely, the objective feeling of fear. A perceptive stimulus acts on the primitive apparatus,
becoming the source of a painful emotion. This
will then be followed by irregular motor manifestations until one of these withdraws the apparatus
from perception and at the same time from pain,
but on the reappearance of the perception this manifestation will immediately repeat itself (perhaps
as a movement of flight) until the perception has
again disappeared. But there will here remain no
tendency again to occupy the perception of the
source of pain in the form of an hallucination or in
any other form. On the contrary, there will be a
tendency in the primary apparatus to abandon the
painful memory picture as soon as it is in any way
awakened, as the overflow of its excitement would

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207

surely produce (more precisely, begin to produce)
pain. The deviation from memory, which is but
a repetition of the former flight from perception,
is facilitated also by the fact that, unlike perception,
memory does not possess sufficient quality to excite
consciousness and thereby to attract to itself new
energy. This easy and regularly occurring deviation of the psychic process from the former painful
memory presents to us the model and the first example of psychic repression. As is generally
known, much of this deviation from the painful,
much of the behavior of the ostrich, can be readily
demonstrated even in the normal psychic life of
adults.
By virtue of the principle of pain the first system
is therefore altogether incapable of introducing
anything unpleasant into the mental associations.
The system cannot do anything but wish. If this
remained so the mental activity of the second system, which should have at its disposal all the memories stored up by experiences, would be hindered.
But two ways are now opened: the work of the second system either frees itself completely from the
principle of pain and continues its course, paying
no heed to the painful reminiscence, or it contrives
to occupy the painful memory in such a manner as
to preclude the liberation of pain. We may reject

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

the first possibility, as the principle of pain also
manifests itself as a regulator for the emotional discharge of the second system; we are, therefore, directed to the second possibility, namely, that this
system occupies a reminiscence in such a manner as
to inhibit its discharge and hence, also, to inhibit
the discharge comparable to a motor innervation
for the development of pain. Thus from two starting points we are led to the hypothesis that occupation through the second system is at the same time
an inhibition for the emotional discharge, viz. from
a consideration of the principle of pain and from
the principle of the smallest expenditure of innervation. Let us, however, keep to the fact—this is
the key to the theory of repression—that the second
system is capable of occupying an idea only when
it. is in position to dheck the development of pain
emanating from it. Whatever withdraws itself
from this inhibition also remains inaccessible for the
second system and would soon be abandoned by
virtue of the principle of pain. The inhibition of
pain, however, need not be complete; it must be
permitted to begin, as it indicates to the second
system the nature of the memory and possibly its
defective adaptation for the purpose sought by the
mind.
The psychic process which is admitted by the

T H E PROCESS—REGRESSION

209

first system only I shall now call the primary process; and the one resulting from the inhibition of
the second system I shall call the secondary process. I show by another point for what purpose
the second system is obliged to correct the primary
process. The primary process strives for a discharge of the excitement in order to establish a
perception identity with the sum of excitement thus
gathered; the secondary process has abandoned this
intention and undertaken instead the task of bringing about a thought identity. All thinking is only
a circuitous path from the memory of gratification
taken as an end-presentation to the identical occupation of the same memory, which is again to be
attained on the track of the motor experiences.
The state of thinking must take an interest in the
connecting paths between the presentations without
allowing itself to be misled by their intensities.
But it is obvious that condensations and intermediate or compromise formations occurring in the
presentations impede the attainment of this endidentity ; by substituting one idea for the other they
deviate from the path which otherwise would have
been continued from the original idea. Such processes are therefore carefully avoided in the secondary thinking. Nor is it difficult to understand that
the principle of pain also impedes the progress of

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

the mental stream in its pursuit of the thought
identity, though, indeed, it offers to the mental
stream the most important points of departure.
Hence the tendency of the thinking process must
be to free itself more and more from exclusive adjustment by the principle of pain, and through the
working of the mind to restrict the affective development to that minimum which is necessary as
a signal. This refinement of the activity must have
been attained through a recent over-occupation of
energy brought about by consciousness. But we
are aware that this refinement is seldom completely
successful even in the most normal psychic life and
that our thoughts ever remain accessible to falsification through the interference of the principle of
pain.
This, however, is not the breach in the functional
efficiency of our psychic apparatus through which
the thoughts forming the material of the secondary
mental work are enabled to make their way into
the primary psychic process—with which formula
we may now describe the work leading to the dream
and to the hysterical symptoms. This case of insufficiency results from the union of the two factors
from the history of our evolution; one of which belongs solely to the psychic apparatus and has exerted a determining influence on the relation of the

T H E PROCESS—REGRESSION

211

two systems, while the other operates fluctuatingly
and introduces motive forces of organic origin into
the psychic life. Both originate in the infantile life
and result from the transformation which our psychic and somatic organism has undergone since the
infantile period.
When I termed one of the psychic processes in
the psychic apparatus the primary process, I did so
not only in consideration of the order of precedence
and capability, but also as admitting the temporal
relations to a share in the nomenclature. As far as
our knowledge goes there is no psychic apparatus
possessing only the primary process, and in so far
it is a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact
that the primary processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary
processes develop gradually in the course of life,
inhibiting and covering the primary ones, and gaining complete mastery over them perhaps only at the
height of life. Owing to this retarded appearance
of the secondary processes, the essence of our being, consisting in unconscious wish feelings, can
neither be seized nor inhibited by the foreconscious,
whose part is once for all restricted to the indication
of the most suitable paths for the wish feelings originating in the unconscious. These unconscious
wishes establish for all subsequent psychic efforts

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

a compulsion to which they have to submit and
which they must strive if possible to divert from its
course and direct to higher aims. I n consequence
of this retardation of the foreconscious occupation
a large sphere of the memory material remains inaccessible.
Among these indestructible and unincumbered
wish feelings originating from the infantile life,
there are also some, the fulfillments of which have
entered into a relation of contradiction to the endpresentation of the secondary thinking. The fulfillment of these wishes would no longer produce an
affect of pleasure but one of pain; and it is just this
transformation of affect that constitutes the nature
of what we designate as "repression" in which we
recognize the infantile first step of passing adverse
sentence or of rejecting through reason. To investigate in what way and through what motive
forces 'such a transformation can be produced constitutes the problem of repression, which we need
here only skim over. I t will suffice to remark that
such a transformation of affect occurs in the course
of development (one may think of the appearance
in infantile life of disgust which was originally absent), and that it is connected with the activity of
the secondary system. The memories from which
the unconscious wish brings about the emotional dis-

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213

charge have never been accessible to the Forec, and
for that reason their emotional discharge cannot be
inhibited. I t is just on account of this affective
development that these ideas are not even now accessible to the foreconscious thoughts to which they
have transferred their wishing power. On the contrary, the principle of pain comes into play, and
causes the Forec. to deviate from these thoughts of
transference. The latter, left to themselves, are
"repressed," and thus the existence of a store of infantile memories, from the very beginning withdrawn from the Forec, becomes the preliminary
condition of repression.
I n the most favorable case the development of
pain terminates as soon as the energy has been withdrawn from the thoughts of transference in the
Forec, and this effect characterizes the intervention
of the principle of pain as expedient. I t is different, however, if the repressed unconscious wish receives an organic enforcement which it can lend to
its thoughts of transference and through which it
can enable them to make an effort towards penetration with their excitement, even after they have
been abandoned by the occupation of the Forec
A defensive struggle then ensues, inasmuch as the
Forec. reinforces the antagonism against the repressed ideas, and subsequently this leads to a pen-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

etration by the thoughts of transference (the carriers of the unconscious wish) in some form of compromise through symptom formation. But from
the moment that the suppressed thoughts are powerfully occupied by the unconscious wish-feeling
and abandoned by the foreconscious occupation,
they succumb to the primary psychic process and
strive only for motor discharge; or, if the path be
free, for hallucinatory revival of the desired perception identity. W e have previously found, empirically, that the incorrect processes described are enacted only with thoughts that exist in the repression. We now grasp another part of the connection. These incorrect processes are those that are
primary in the psychic apparatus; they appear
wherever thoughts abandoned by the foreconscious
occupation are left to themselves, and can fill themr
selves with the uninhibited energy', striving for discharge from the unconscious. W e may add a few
further observations to support the view that these
processes designated "incorrect" are really not
falsifications of the normal defective thinking, but
the modes of activity of the psychic apparatus when
freed from inhibition. Thus we see that the transference of the foreconscious excitement to the motility takes place according to the same processes, and
that the connection of the foreconscious presenta-

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215

tions with words readily manifest the same displacements and mixtures which are ascribed to inattention. Finally, I should like to adduce proof thai;
an increase of work necessarily results from the inhibition of these primary courses from the fact that
we gain a comical effect, a surplus to be discharged
through laughter, if we allow these streams of
thought to come to consciousness.
The theory of the psychoneuroses asserts with
complete certainty that only sexual wish-feelings
from the infantile life experience repression (emotional transformation) during the developmental
period of childhood. These are capable of returning to activity at a later period of development, and
then have the faculty of being revived, either as a
consequence of the sexual constitution, which is
really formed from the original bisexuality, or in
consequence of unfavorable influences of the sexual
life; and they thus supply the motive power for all
psychoneurotic symptom formations. I t is only
by the introduction of these sexual forces that the
gaps still demonstrable in the theory of repression
can be filled. I will leave it undecided whether the
postulate of the sexual and infantile may also be
asserted for the theory of the dream; I leave this
here unfinished because I have already passed a
step beyond the demonstrable in assuming that the

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

dream-wish invariably originates from the unconscious.1 Nor will I further investigate the difference in the play of the psychic forces in the dream
formation and in the formation of the hysterical
symptoms, for to do this we ought to possess a more
explicit knowledge of one of the members to be
compared. But I regard another point as important, and will here confess that it was on account
i Here, as in other places, there are gaps in the treatment of the
subject, which I have left intentionally, because to fill them up would
require on the one hand too great effort, and on the other hand an
extensive reference to material that is foreign to the dream. Thus I
have avoided stating whether I connect with the word "suppressed"
another sense than with the word "repressed." I t has been made
clear only that the latter emphasizes more than the former the relation
to the unconscious. I have not entered into the cognate problem why
the dream thoughts also experience distortion by the censor when
they abandon the progressive continuation to consciousness and choose
the path of regression. I have been above all anxious to awaken an
interest in the problems to which the further analysis of the dreamwork leads and to indicate the other themes whch meet these on the
way. I t was not always easy to decide just where the pursuit should
be discontinued. That I have not treated exhaustively the part
played in the dream by the psychosexual life and have avoided the
interpretation of dreams of an obvious sexual content is due to a
special reason which may not come up to the reader's expectation.
To be sure, it is very far from my ideas and the principles expressed
by me in neuropathology to regard the sexual life as a "pudendum"
which should be left unconsidered by the physician and the scientific
investigator. I also consider ludicrous the moral indignation which
prompted the translator of Artemidoros of Daldis to keep from the
reader's knowledge the chapter on sexual dreams contained in the
Symbolism of the Dreams. As for myself, I have been actuated
solely by the conviction that in the explanation of sexual dreams
I should be bound to entangle myself deeply in the still unexplained
problems of perversion and bisexuality; and for that reason I hava
reserved this material for another connection.

T H E PROCESS—REGRESSION

217

of this very point that I have just undertaken this
entire discussion concerning the two .psychic systems, their modes of operation, and the repression.
For it is now immaterial whether I have conceived
the psychological relations in question with approximate correctness, or, as is easily possible in
such a difficult matter, in an erroneous and fragmentary manner. Whatever changes may be made
in the interpretation of the psychic censor and of
the correct and of the abnormal elaboration of the
dream content, the fact nevertheless remains that
such processes are active in dream formation, and
that essentially they show the closest analogy to
the processes observed in the formation of the
hysterical symptoms. The dream is not a pathological phenomenon, and it does not leave behind
an enfeeblement of the mental faculties. The objection that no deduction can be drawn regarding
the dreams of healthy persons from my own dreams
and from those of neurotic patients may be rejected
without comment. Hence, when we draw conclusions from the phenomena as to their motive forces,
we recognize that the psychic mechanism made use
of by the neuroses is not created by a morbid disturbance of the psychic life, but is found ready in
the normal structure of the psychic apparatus.
The two psychic systems, the censor crossing be-

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

tween them, the inhibition and the covering of the
one activity by the other, the relations of both to
consciousness—or whatever may offer a more correct interpretation of the actual conditions in their
stead—all these belong to the normal structure of
our psychic instrument, and the dream points out
for us one of the roads leading to a knowledge of
this structure. If, in addition to our knowledge,
we wish to be contented with a minimum perfectly
established, we shall say that the dream gives us
proof that the suppressed material continues to
exist even in the normal person and remains capable
of psychic activity. The dream itself is one of the
manifestations of this suppressed material; theoretically, this is true in all cases; according to substantial experience it is true in at least a great number of such as most conspicuously display the
prominent characteristics of dream life. The suppressed psychic material, which in the waking state
has been prevented from expression and cut off
from internal perception by the antagonistic adjustment of the contradictions, finds ways and
means of obtruding itself on consciousness during
the night under the domination of the compromise
formations.
"Fleetere si nequeo super os, Acheronta movebo."

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219

At any rate the interpretation of dreams is the
via regia to a knowledge of the unconscious in the
psychic life.
In following the analysis of the dream we have
made some progress toward an understanding of
the composition of this most marvelous and most
mysterious of instruments; to be sure, we have not
gone very -f ar, but enough of a beginning has been
made to allow us to advance from other so-called
pathological formations further into the analysis
of the unconscious. Disease—at least that which
is justly termed functional—is not due to the destruction of this apparatus, and the establishment
of new splittings in its interior; it is rather to be explained dynamically through the strengthening and
weakening of the components in the play of forces
by which so many activities are concealed during
the normal function. W e have been able to show
in another place how the composition of the apparatus from the two systems permits a subtilization even of the normal activity which would be impossible for a single system.

IX
T H E UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS—REALITY

O N closer inspection we find that it is not the existence of two systems near the motor end of the
apparatus but of two kinds of processes or modes
of emotional discharge, the assumption of which
was explained in the psychological discussions of
the previous chapter. This can make no difference
for us, for we must always be ready to drop our
auxiliary ideas whenever we deem ourselves in position to replace them by something else approaching
more closely to the unknown reality. Let us now
try to correct some views which might be erroneously formed as long as we regarded the two systems in the crudest and most obvious sense as two
localities within the psychic apparatus, views which
have left their traces in the terms "repression" and
"penetration." Thus, when we say that an unconscious idea strives for transference into the foreconscious in order later to penetrate consciousness,
we do not mean that a second idea is to be formed
situated in a new locality like an interlineation near
220

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221

which the original continues to remain; also, when
we speak of penetration into consciousness, we wish
carefully to avoid any idea of change of locality.
When we say that a f oreconscious idea is repressed
and subsequently taken up by the unconscious, we
might be tempted by these figures, borrowed from
the idea of a struggle over a territory, to assume
that an arrangement is really broken up in one
psychic locality and replaced by a new one in the
other locality. For these comparisons we substitute what would seem to correspond better with the
real state of affairs by saying that an energy occupation is displaced to or withdrawn from a certain
arrangement so that the psychic formation falls
under the domination of a system or is withdrawn
from the same. Here again we replace a topical
mode of presentation by a dynamic; it is not the
psychic formation that appears to us as the moving
factor but the innervation of the same.
I deem it appropriate and justifiable, however, to
apply ourselves still further to the illustrative conception of the two systems. W e shall avoid any
misapplication of this manner of representation if
we remember that presentations, thoughts, and psychic formations should generally not be localized
in the organic elements of the nervous system, but,
so to speak, between them, where resistances and

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paths form the correlate corresponding to them.
Everything that can become an object of our internal perception is virtual, like the image in the
telescope produced by the passage of the rays of
light. But we are justified in assuming the existence of the systems, which have nothing psychic
in themselves and which never become accessible to
our psychic perception, corresponding to the lenses
of the telescope which design the image. If we
continue this comparison, we may say that the censor between two systems corresponds to the refraction of rays during their passage into a new medium.
Thus far we have made psychology on our own
responsibility; it is now time to examine the theoretical opinions governing present-day psychology
and to test their relation to our theories. The question of the unconscious in psychology is, according
to the authoritative words of Lipps, less a psychological question than the question of psychology.
As long as psychology settled this question with the
verbal explanation that the "psychic" is the "conscious" and that "unconscious psychic occurrences"
are an obvious contradiction, a psychological estimate of the observations gained by the physician
from abnormal mental states was precluded. The
physician and the philosopher agree only when both

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223

acknowledge that unconscious psychic processes are
"the appropriate and well-justified expression for
an established fact." The physician cannot but reject with a shrug of his shoulders the assertion that
"consciousness is the indispensable quality of the
psychic"; he may assume, if his respect for the utterings of the philosophers still be strong enough,
that he and they do not treat the same subject and
do not pursue the same science. For a single intelligent observation of the psychic life of a neurotic,
a single analysis of a dream must force upon him
the unalterable conviction that the most complicated
and correct mental operations, to which no one will
refuse the name of psychic occurrences, may take
place without exciting the consciousness of the person. I t is true that the physician does not learn of
these unconscious processes until they have exerted
such an effect on consciousness as to admit communication or observation. But this effect of consciousness may show a psychic character widely differing from the unconscious process, so that the
internal perception cannot possibly recognize the
one as a substitute for the other. The physician
must reserve for himself the right to penetrate, by
a process of deduction, from the effect on consciousness to the unconscious psychic process; he learns
in this way that the effect on consciousness is only

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a remote psychic product of the unconscious process
and that the latter has not become conscious as such;
that it has been in existence and operative without
betraying itself in any way to consciousness.
A reaction from the over-estimation of the quality of consciousness becomes the indispensable preliminary condition for any correct insight into the
behavior of the psychic. I n the words of Lipps,
the unconscious must be accepted as the general
basis of the psychic life. The unconscious is the
larger circle which includes within itself the smaller
circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its
preliminary step in the unconscious, whereas the
unconscious may stop with this step and still claim
full value as a psychic activity. Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner
nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the
external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is
the external world through the indications of our
sensory organs.
A series of dream problems which have intensely
occupied older authors will be laid aside when the
old opposition between conscious life and dream life
is abandoned and the unconscious psychic assigned
to its proper place. Thus many of the activities
^vhose performances in the dream have excited our

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225

admiration are now no longer to be attributed to the
dream but to unconscious thinking, which is also
active during the day. If, according to Schemer,
the dream seems to play with a symboling representation of the body, we know that this is the work of
certain unconscious phantasies which have probably
given in to sexual emotions, and that these phantasies come to expression not only in dreams but
also in hysterical phobias and in other symptoms.
If the dream continues and settles activities of the
day and even brings to light valuable inspirations,
we have only to subtract from it the dream disguise
as a feat of dream-work and a mark of assistance
from obscure forces in the depth of the mind (cf.
the devil in Tartini's sonata dream). The intellectual task as such must be attributed to the same
psychic forces which perform all such tasks during
the day. We are probably far too much inclined
to over-estimate the conscious character even of intellectual and artistic productions. From the communications of some of the most highly productive
persons, such as Goethe and Helmholtz, we learn,
indeed, that the most essential and original parts
in their creations came to them in the form of inspirations and reached their perceptions almost finished. There is nothing strange about the assistance of the conscious activity in other cases where

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there was a concerted effort of all the psychic forces.
But it is a much abused privilege of the conscious
activity that it is allowed to hide from us all other
activities wherever it participates.
I t will hardly be worth while to take up the historical significance of dreams as a special subject.
Where, for instance, a chieftain has been urged
through a dream to engage in a bold undertaking
the success of which has had the effect of changing
history, a new problem results only so long as the
dream, regarded as a strange power, is contrasted
with other more familiar psychic forces; the problem, however, disappears when we regard the dream
as a form of expression for feelings which are burdened with resistance during the day and which can
receive reinforcements at night from deep emotional
sources. But the great respect shown by the ancients for the dream is based on a correct psychological surmise. It is a homage paid to the unsubdued and indestructible in the human mind, and
to the demoniacal which furnishes the dream-wish
and which we find again in our unconscious.
Not inadvisedly do I use the expression "in our
unconscious," for what we so designate does not
coincide with the unconscious of the philosophers,
nor with the unconscious of Lipps. In the latter
uses it is intended to designate only the opposite of

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227

conscious. That there are also unconscious psychic processes beside the conscious ones is the hotly
contested and energetically defended issue. Lipps
gives us the more far-reaching theory that everything psychic exists as unconscious, but that some
of it may exist also as conscious. But it was not
to prove this theory that we have adduced the
phenomena of the dream and of the hysterical
symptom formation; the observation of normal life
alone suffices to establish its correctness beyond any
doubt. The new fact that we have learned from
the analysis of the psychopathological formations,
and indeed from their first member, viz. dreams, is
that the unconscious—hence the psychic—occurs as
a function of two separate systems and that it occurs as such even in normal psychic life. Consequently there are two kinds of unconscious, which
we do not as yet find distinguished by the psychologists. Both are unconscious in the psychological
sense; but in our sense the first, which we call U n c ,
is likewise incapable of consciousness, whereas the
second we term "Forec." because its emotions, after
the observance of certain rules, can reach consciousness, perhaps not before they have again undergone
censorship, but still regardless of the Unc. system.
The fact that in order to attain consciousness the
emotions must traverse an unalterable series of

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events or succession of instances, as is betrayed
through their alteration by the censor, has helped
us to draw a comparison from spatiality. W e described the relations of the two systems to each
other and to consciousness by saying that the system Forec. is like a screen between the system Unc.
and consciousness. The system Forec. not only
bars access to consciousness, but also controls the
entrance to voluntary motility and is capable of
sending out a sum of mobile energy, a portion of
which is familiar to us as attention.
We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so
much favor in the more recent literature on the
psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to
emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the
conscious.
What part now remains in our description of the
once all-powerful and all-overshadowing consciousness? None other than that of a sensory organ for
the perception of psychic qualities. According to
the fundamental idea of schematic undertaking we
can conceive the conscious perception only as the
particular activity of an independent system for
which the abbreviated designation "Cons." commends itself. This system we conceive to be similar
in its mechanical characteristics to the perception

T H E UNCONSCIOUS—REALITY

229

system P , hence excitable by qualities and incapable of retaining the trace of changes, i.e. it is devoid
of memory. The psychic apparatus. which, with
the sensory organs of the P-system, is turned to
the outer world, is itself the outer world for the
sensory organ of Cons.; the teleological justification of which rests on this relationship. W e are
here once more confronted with the principle of the
succession of instances which seerm to dominate the
structure of the apparatus. The material under
excitement flows to the Cons, sensory organ from
two sides, firstly from the P-system whose excitement, qualitatively determined, probably experiences a new elaboration until it comes to conscious
perception; and, secondly, from the interior of the
apparatus itself, the quantitative processes of which
are perceived as a qualitative series of pleasure and
pain as soon as they have undergone certain
changes.
The philosophers, who have learned that correct
and highly complicated thought structures are possible even without the cooperation of consciousness,
have found it difficult to attribute any function to
consciousness; it has appeared to them a superfluous
mirroring of the perfected psychic process. The
analogy of our Cons, system with the systems of
perception relieves us of this embarrassment. W e

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see that perception through our sensory organs results in directing the occupation of attention to
those paths on which the incoming sensory excitement is diffused; the qualitative excitement of the
P-system serves the mobile quantity of the psychic
apparatus as a regulator for its discharge. W e
may claim the same function for the overlying
sensory organ of the Cons, system. By assuming
new qualities, it furnishes a new contribution toward the guidance and suitable distribution of the
mobile occupation quantities. By means of the
perceptions of pleasure and pain, it influences the
course of the occupations within the psychic apparatus, which normally operates unconsciously
and through the displacement of quantities. I t is
probable that the principle of pain first regulates
the displacements of occupation automatically, but
it is quite possible that the consciousness of these
qualities adds a second and more subtle regulation
which may even oppose the first and perfect the
working capacity of the apparatus by placing it in
a position contrary to its original design for occupying and developing even that which is connected with the liberation of pain. We learn from
neuropsychology that an important part in the
functional activity of the apparatus is attributed to
such regulations through the qualitative excitation

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231

of the sensory organs. The automatic control of
the primary principle of pain and the restriction of
mental capacity connected with it are broken by the
sensible regulations, which in their turn are again
automatisms. W e learn that the repression which,
though originally expedient, terminates nevertheless in a harmful rejection of inhibition and of psychic domination, is so much more easily accomplished with reminiscences than with perceptions,
because in the former there is no increase in occupation through the excitement of the psychic sensory
organs. When an idea to be rejected has once
failed to become conscious because it has succumbed
to repression, it can be repressed on other occasions
only because it has been withdrawn from conscious
perception on other grounds. These are hints employed by therapy in order to bring about a retrogression of accomplished repressions.
The value of the over-occupation which is produced by the regulating influence of the Cons, sensory organ on the mobile quantity, is demonstrated
in the teleological connection by nothing more
clearly than by the creation of a new series of qualities and consequently a new regulation which constitutes the precedence of man over the animals.
For the mental processes are in themselves devoid
of quality except for the excitements of pleasure

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and pain accompanying them, which, as we know,
are to be held in check as possible disturbances of
thought. In order to endow them with a quality,
they are associated in man with verbal memories,
the qualitative remnants of which suffice to draw
upon them the attention of consciousness which in
turn endows thought with a new mobile energy.
The manifold problems of consciousness in their
entirety can be examined only through an analysis
of the hysterical mental process. From this analysis we receive the impression that the transition
from the foreconscious to the occupation of consciousness is also connected with a censorship similar
to the one between the Unc. and the Forec. This
censorship, too, begins to act only with the reaching
of a certain quantitative degree, so that few intense
thought formations escape it. Every possible case
of detention from consciousness, as well as of penetration to consciousness, under restriction is found
included within the picture of the psychoneurotic
phenomena; every case points to the intimate and
twofold connection between the censor and consciousness. I shall conclude these psychological
discussions with the report of two such occurrences.
On the occasion of a consultation a few years ago
the subject was an intelligent and innocent-looking
girl. Her attire was strange; whereas a woman's

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233

garb is usually groomed to the last fold, she had one
of her stockings hanging down and two of her waist
buttons opened. She complained of pains in one
of her legs, and exposed her leg unrequested. H e r
chief complaint, however, was in her own words as
follows: She had a feeling in her body as if something was stuck into it which moved to and fro and
made her tremble through and through. This
sometimes made her whole body stiff. On hearing
this, my colleague in consultation looked at me; the
complaint was quite plain to him. To both of us
it seemed peculiar that the patient's mother thought
nothing of the matter; of course she herself must
have been repeatedly in the situation described by
her child. As for the girl, she had no idea of the
import of her words or she would never have allowed them to pass her lips. Here the censor had
been deceived so successfully that under the mask
of an innocent complaint a phantasy was admitted
to consciousness which otherwise would have remained in the foreconscious.
Another example: I began the psychoanalytic
treatment of a boy of fourteen years who was suffering from tic convulsif, hysterical vomiting, headache, &c, by assuring him that, after closing his
eyes, he would see pictures or have ideas, which I
requested him to communicate to me. H e an-

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swered by describing pictures. The last impression he had received before coming to meTOas visually revived in his memory. H e had played a game
of checkers with his uncle, and now saw the checkerboard before him. H e commented on various positions that were favorable or unfavorable, on moves
that were not safe to make. H e then saw a dagger
lying on the checker-board, an object belonging to
his father, but transferred to the checker-board by
his phantasy. Then a sickle was lying on the
board; next a scythe was added; and, finally, he beheld the likeness of an old peasant mowing the
grass in front of the boy's distant parental home.
A few days later I discovered the meaning of this
series of pictures. Disagreeable family relations
had made the boy nervous. It was the case of a
strict and crabbed father who lived unhappily with
his mother, and whose educational methods consisted in threats; of the separation of his father
from his tender and delicate mother, and the remarrying of his father, who one day brought home
a young woman as his new mamma. The illness
of the fourteen-year-old boy broke out a few days
later. I t was the suppressed anger against his father that had composed these pictures into intelligible allusions. The material was furnished by a
reminiscence from mythology. The sickle was the

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235

one with which Zeus castrated his father; the scythe
and the likeness of the peasant represented Kronos,
the violent old man who eats his children and upon
whom Zeus wreaks vengeance in so unfilial a manner. The marriage of the father gave the boy an
opportunity to return the reproaches and threats
of his father— which had previously been made because the child played with his genitals (the checkerboard; the prohibitive moves; the dagger with
which a person may be killed). We have here long
repressed memories and their unconscious remnants
which, under the guise of senseless pictures have
slipped into consciousness by devious paths left
open to them.
I should then expect to find the theoretical value
of the study of dreams in its contribution to psychological knowledge and in its preparation for an
understanding of neuroses. Who can foresee the
importance of a thorough knowledge of the structure and activities of the psychic apparatus when
even our present state of knowledge produces a
happy therapeutic influence in the curable forms of
the psychoneuroses? What about the practical
value of such study some one may ask, for psychic
knowledge and for the discovering of the secret
peculiarities of individual character? Have not the
unconscious feelings revealed by the dream the

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DREAM PSYCHOLOGY

value of real forces in the psychic life? Should we
take lightly the ethical significance of the suppressed wishes which, as they now create dreams,
may some day create other things?
I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not thought further upon this side of
the dream problem. I believe, however, that at all
events the Roman Emperor was in the wrong who
ordered one of his subjects executed because the
latter dreamt that he had killed the Emperor. H e
should first have endeavored to discover the significance of the dream; most probably it was not what
it seemed to be. And even if a dream of different
content had the significance of this offense against
majesty, it would still have been in place to remember the words of Plato, that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked
man does in actual life. I am therefore of the
opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams.
Whether any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be
denied to all transition—and intermediate thoughts.
If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought
to their last and truest expression, we should still
do well to remember that more than one single form
of existence must be ascribed to the psychic reality.

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287

Action and the conscious expression of thought
mostly suffice for the practical need of judging a
man's character. Action, above all, merits to be
placed in the first rank; for many of the impulses
penetrating consciousness are neutralized by real
forces of the psychic life before they are converted
into action; indeed, the reason why they frequently
do not .encounter any psychic obstacle on their way
is because the unconscious is certain of their meeting with resistances later. In any case it is instructive to become familiar with the much raked-up soil
from which our virtues proudly arise. For the
complication of human character moving dynamically in all directions very rarely accommodates
itself to adjustment through a simple alternative, as
our antiquated moral philosophy would have it.
And how about the value of the dream for a
knowledge of the future? That, of course, we cannot consider. One feels inclined to substitute:
"for a knowledge of the past." For the dream originates from the past in every sense. To be sure
the ancient belief that the dream reveals the future
is not entirely devoid of truth. By representing to
us a wish as fulfilled the dream certainly leads us
into the future; but this future, taken by the
dreamer as present, has been formed into the likeness of that past by the indestructible wish.